SHIPS HIT! - PAGE 35

The air was filled with lights from bullets, tracers, and torpedoes. The USS Hamilton exploded sending fire and smoke a hundred feet in the air when the ammunition it was carrying exploded. When the Hamilton sunk it took 580 lives with it. Also sunk were the destroyer Landsdale (a radar destroyer that was the eyes and ears of the convoy) with 47 men and the merchant ship Royal Star that stayed afloat until the following day. Other damaged ships were towed to Algiers.

But the fear level for the Pride was just beginning. A transmission came from another DE, “Pride, there are two torpedoes heading in your direction!”

TO BE CONTINUED