16 Dec 1942. The USS Spearfish, almost a month out of Brisbane, is on her 3rd war patrol in the Solomon Islands/New Britain area. So far the patrol has been fairly successful, the tally standing at 1 DD, 1 tanker and 4 merchants sunk thus far during the patrol. We have 10 torps left; 4 in the bow tubes (with another 4 reserves) and 2 in the stern ones.
Cruising the waters off New Ireland and New Britain, we receive a Flash message from HQ:
Looking at the charts, I determine that we are within range (about 200 nm) and we have sufficient time to make the intercept. The heavy escort (4 DDs) concerns me, but it's too good a target to pass up. We set course accordingly for Madang Roads.
In the pre-dawn hours of 18 Dec we make radar contact with the TF, which is NNE of our position.
Altering course, the radar blips soon reveal a small TF of 7 ships. Given the intel given earlier, I judge that the outer 4 ships are the escorts, and the 3 ships in the centre column are the high-value targets.
The TF soon comes into visual range:
The TF is steaming SW whilst the Spearfish is approaching from its port. We are ahead along its course and I dive before the lead escort gets too close.
I come to a complete stop about 1200 yds from the TF's projected base course and order silent running. It's a matter of time before the high value targets come into view; the lead DD passes ahead without any idea we are there.
The high value targets comprise a Kuma-class CL
And two Auxilliary Cruisers
Since the 2 AuxCrus are worth about 14,000 tons each almost 3 times that of the CL, I decide to forego the CL and launch 2 torps at each of the Aux Cruisers.
