Are Japanese Destroyer Captains Demented Or What?

[Seminole]

Today I put 4 fish into a large troop transport escorted on all sides by DEs. I dropped down to 290 feet, below a thermal, and crept away at 2 kts....undetected ansd unmolested.

The destroyers circled the oil slick of the hapless transport, tossing directly into it, pattern after patern of depth charges. They kept this up until the oil slick dissapated, then continued bombing the beejeebers out of the remaining flotsam. I suppose they stayed at it until they were out of charges to drop. If there were any survivors among the flotsam the DEs most certainly made shark chum out of them.

A couple of days ago I was reconing carriers in a harbor. I was runnung with about 6 inches of water above the scope and 6 inches below the keel. This time 3 destroyers were circling around dropping charges eveywhere but where I was. I was thinking how easy it ought to be to pick one, maybe all 3, off when suddenly there was an explosion on the stern of one of the subhunters. I don't know if he blew his own rear end off, by going too slow, or a depth charge exploded on deck but he went down fast by the stern with his bow sticking up 45 degrees out of the shallow water. He was still there after I took my pictures and left. The other DEs went over to investigate and for a time at least they were off my trail for a while. Again whats up with these guys? Anyone on board the hunters could have looked over the side and counted the crabs crawling along the seafloor. They could hardly have missed my boat bellysliding along though the grass and rocks....but they did!

Which brings up another point...why do so many hate these special ops missions? I find them very exciting and a change of pace. According to Hoyt's Submarines At War they are fairly historical . In fact, while on that subject, Hoyt's book could almost be an explainatory manual for SHIV.