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USS Bluegill (SS-242) WW2

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**Fifth War Patrol: Honan Maru Sunk**

"Here was work for the boys in the back room, Anderson and Owens. All they had to do was launch a rubber boat from a submarine, paddle about three quarters of a mile in a fairly tough sea, black as indigo, board an enemy vessel, - possibly manned and waiting to capture or kill, - inspect the vessel if abandoned, set explosive charges to complete the destruction and, not the least difficult, paddle back to the submarine somewhere out there in the blackness. Their report is, from its laconic tone, almost funny:

'Wreck reached at 2245.
No one aboard.
Papers collected.
Set incendiaries and limpets.
Returned.'
"The vessel was identified as the Honan Maru, a converted tanker of 5,700 gross tons. The delayed action explosives placed by the boarding party blew the vessel into bits. A machine-gun found in the chart house was a Colt-Browning manufactured in Hartford, Connecticut. And, ladies, a box of Kayser silk stockings made in the U.S.A. was in the captain's cabin." Admiral Christie

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