At 01:50 on May 19th, 1944, Lieutenant Commander Walton Pendleton stood in the cramped combat information center of USS England, watching his sonar operator track a contact moving at 6 knots beneath the black waters north of Bugenville. 37 years old, First War patrol as commanding officer, zero submarine kills.

 The Japanese Imperial Navy had stationed seven submarines in a scouting line across the route to the Marianas. England was a Buckley class destroyer escort 77 ft shorter than a fleet destroyer. Half the crew built for one purpose, hunting submarines. But the weapon that made her different sat mounted on her for deck 24 spigot mortars arranged in rows.

 The British called it hedgehog. The projectiles fired 200 yd ahead of the ship in a circular pattern. Contact fuses. They only exploded if they hit something solid. Depth charges had been killing submarines for three decades. Roll them off the stern, set the hydrostatic fuse for estimated depth, hope the submarine was still there when the charges reached detonation depth.

 The statistics told a brutal story. British forces had launched 5,174 depth charge attacks during the war. 85 confirmed kills, one kill for every 60 attacks. By the time the charges sank, submarines had already moved. The explosions disturbed the water so badly that sonar became useless for 15 minutes. Submarines escaped in the chaos. Hedgehog changed everything.

Forward throwing maintain sonar contact throughout the attack. 65lb projectiles with 35 lb of torpex each. Silent misses. No water disturbance. No lost contact. But the numbers were still being proven. 5% success rate in early trials. Crews didn’t trust it. Captains preferred the familiar thunder of death charges. Pendleton trusted numbers.

 One hedgehog kill for every five attacks versus one death charge kill for every 80. The mathematics were simple. Fleet radio unit Pacific had decoded Japanese submarine I-16’s transmission 4 days earlier. Destination booing. Arrival time 2200 hours May 19th. The intelligence was perfect. England and two sister ships had positioned themselves along I-16’s route.

 Now the contact was real. If you want to see if Pendleton’s new weapon actually worked against Japanese submarines, hit that like button right now and subscribe because what happens next is insane. Back to Pendleton. The sonar operator called out the range. 1500 yd. I-16 was diving. Standard Japanese evasion. Radical turns, changing depth.

 The submarine commander knew he was being hunted. Pendleton ordered the first hedgehog attack at 1341. 24 projectiles arked through the afternoon sky, splashed into the Pacific, sank at 23 ft pers. Silence. Miss. I16 had turned. The second attack scored one hit at 130 ft. The explosion lifted England’s bow. Not enough.

 Third attack missed. The fathometer revealed the problem. I-16 had gone deep, 325 ft, deeper than Pendleton had estimated. Fourth attack, I-16 turned inside the pattern. Another miss, 1433. Fifth attack, four detonations. Then six. A massive underwater explosion followed. The blast lifted England’s stern clear out of the water, knocked sailors off their feet.

 20 minutes later, debris began surfacing. Oil, wood, fabric. I-16 was gone, 107 men dead. But Fleet Radio Unit Pacific had decoded another message. Seven more Japanese submarines were stationed in a patrol line north of the Admiral T Islands and England was sailing straight toward them. Commander Hamilton Haynes received the decoded intelligence at Tulagi on May 20th.

 Japanese 7th submarine squadron had deployed seven type KO submarines along a line designated NA. The submarines were positioned at precise intervals from Truck Island to the waters west of Manis. RO 104, RO 105, RO106, RO 108, RO109, RO112, RO116. Each submarine carried 56 crew members. Their mission, detect American carrier task forces moving toward the Marianas or Palao Islands.

 Admiral Soo Toyota needed to know where the Americans would strike next. The submarines were his eyes. Haynes ordered England to join destroyer escorts George and Rabi. Three ships, seven targets. The odds seemed impossible, but Pendleton had proven something in that first engagement with I16. Five hedgehog attacks, one kill.

20% success rate. Four times better than the early trials. The weapon worked. The crew trusted it now. They had heard the explosions, watched the debris surface, counted the oil slicks spreading across the Pacific. The hunting group departed Pervis Bay on May 21st. Standard line of breast formation, 16,000 yd between ships during darkness.

 Radar sweeps every 30 seconds. Sonar pinging continuously. The Japanese submarines were maintaining radio silence now. No more transmissions to decode. No more precise coordinates. The Hunter killer group would have to find them the old way. Electronic detection, patience, mathematics. Pendleton studied the charts in his cabin.

 The NA line stretched across Admiral Hallyy’s previously used routes. The Japanese were predictable. Station submarines where American forces had moved before. Hope the Americans moved there again. But fleet radio unit Pacific had given the Americans an advantage the Japanese didn’t know existed. The Americans knew exactly where the picket line was positioned.

The question was timing. Submarine patrol patterns were predictable. Surface at night to recharge batteries. Dive at dawn. Run submerged during daylight. Surface again after sunset. The window for radar detection was narrow. Submarines were vulnerable on the surface, but they were fast. A submarine commander could dive in 60 seconds, be at 200 ft depth in 3 minutes, disappear into the black water.

England’s crew had drilled for this. Sonar operators could track a diving submarine, calculate depth, estimate speed, predict position. The hedgehog launchers could be loaded and fired in 90 seconds. 24 projectiles, 130 ft circle, 30 ft deep. Every launch was a gamble. Contact fuses meant certainty.

 If the projectiles exploded, they hit something. If they stayed silent, they missed. The mathematics were simple but brutal. Seven submarines, 56 men per submarine, 392 Japanese sailors total. One hedgehog attack could kill them all in 9 seconds. At 0350 on May 22nd, George’s radar detected a surface contact at 15,000 yd. The first submarine, RO 106, was recharging her batteries.

 She never saw the destroyer escorts coming. George’s search light caught row 106 on the surface. The submarine crash dove immediately. Seawater flooded her ballast tanks. Her bow angled down. Within 90 seconds, she was submerged. George fired Hedgehog at 0415. 24 projectiles splashed into the dark water. Silence. Miss.

 England regained sonar contact at 0425. Range 1,400 yd. Row 106 was running deep, making radical turns. The Japanese commander knew the tactics. Turn inside the attack pattern, changed depth constantly. Make the Americans guess. Pendleton didn’t guess. His sonar operator tracked every turn, called out depth changes, range, bearing. The data fed directly to the hedgehog firing solution. First attack missed.

 Row 106 had turned 30° during the projectile sink time. 9 seconds was enough for a submarine to move 150 ft. Second attack at 0501. 24 projectiles formed their circular pattern sank through the darkness. Three detonations, then a massive underwater explosion. The pressure wave rolled across the surface.

 England’s hull shuddered. George and Rabby felt it 4,000 yd away. At sunrise, the oil slick was half a mile wide. Debris floating, metal fragments, wood. No survivors. Kill number two. 24 hours after I-16, the three destroyer escorts reformed their line, 16,000yard spacing, continued northeast along the NA line. The next submarine was out there.

 Row 104 or row 105 or any of the remaining five. Japanese submarine commanders maintained strict radio silence, but they surfaced on predictable schedules. Batteries required recharging. Electric motors needed power. Diesel engines needed air. At 0600 on May 23rd, Rabies radar detected another surface contact. Range 22,000 yd.

 The contact dove before identification. The Japanese commander had learned something from row 106’s death. Stay deep. Make them guess your depth. Rabby fired four hedgehog attacks starting at 0617. All misses. Row 104 was turning inside the patterns. George tried next. First attack missed at 0717. Second, third, fourth attacks all missed between 0730 and 0810.

 The Japanese submarine commander was good. Every time projectiles splashed above him, he turned, changed depth, made the mathematics impossible. Division commander Haynes watched England approach for her turn. Pendleton’s crew had two kills. Ra and George had none. The pattern was becoming clear. England’s sonar operators were better or her hedgehog crews were faster or Pendleton’s firing solutions were more accurate.

 Whatever the reason, England was the killer in this hunting group. Hannes radioed five words that would become Navy legend. Oh hell, go ahead, England. Pendleton’s first hedgehog attack missed. Row 104 turned. But the second attack at 0834 scored 10 detonations, maybe 12. The explosions merged into one continuous roar. Breaking up noises followed.

 Metal tearing, bulkheads collapsing. Then a major underwater explosion 3 minutes later. The submarine’s batteries had ruptured. Oil and debris surfaced at 10:45. Kill number three. 72 hours. Three submarines. 163 Japanese sailors dead. and England still had four more targets ahead. At 0120 on May 24th, George’s radar detected row 116 on the surface.

 Range 15,000 yd. The submarine dove at 0130. England established sonar contact at 0150. The pattern was repeating. Radar detection, crash dive, sonar tracking, hedgehog attack. But Row 116’s commander had changed tactics. He went shallow, 150 ft. Most submarine commanders dove deep, 300 ft, 400 ft.

 Put maximum water between them and the surface. Maximum cushion against explosions. Row 116’s commander did the opposite. Stayed shallow, made sharp turns. Bet that the Americans would set their firing solutions for deep targets. He bet wrong. Pendleton sonar operator called out the shallow depth. The hedgehog firing solution adjusted instantly.

First attack at 0214. Three detonations, maybe five. Not the massive explosion of previous kills. No battery rupture, just the sound of 65lb projectiles punching through pressure hull at 723 feet per second, creating 3in holes. At 150 ft depth, seawater enters a submarine at 400 g per minute through a 3-in hole.

Breaking up noises weren’t loud, just the groan of metal under pressure. The submarine settled deeper. More holes meant more water. More water meant more weight. More weight meant deeper. At 300 ft, the pressure increased. More water flooded in. The temperature inside rose 200 degrees, 300°. The crew’s lungs seared.

 Within 6 minutes, everyone aboard was dead. The submarine continued sinking. Oil and debris surfaced at 0702 after sunrise. Small quantity. The oil slick expanded over the next 24 hours. Several square miles. 56 more Japanese sailors gone. Kill number four. 5 days, four submarines. Word reached Admiral Ernest King at the Navy Department in Washington, Chief of Naval Operations, the man who commanded every ship in the United States Navy.

King read the action reports. One destroyer escort, four confirmed kills, 5 days using a weapon most captains didn’t trust. King sent a message to Third Fleet. Simple, direct. There’ll always be an England in the United States Navy. The phrase spread through the Pacific Fleet within hours.

 England was becoming famous, but fame brought attention, and attention brought new orders. On May 25th, Admiral Hollyy wanted England pulled from submarine hunting, reassign her to carrier escort duty. Too valuable to risk. Four kills made her crew experienced. Experienced crews were rare. Protect the asset. Commander Haynes refused.

 Three submarines remained on the NA line. Row 105, row 108, row 109. England had killed four in 5 days. The mathematics said she could kill the remaining three in three more days. Pull her now and the mission stayed incomplete. Japanese submarines would continue reporting American fleet movements. The intelligence advantage would be lost.

 Hollyy agreed to one more patrol. At 2303 on May 26th, Rabby gained radar contact on Row 108 at 15,000 yd, 110 nautical miles northeast of Seadler Harbor. The submarine dove. England gained sonar contact at 1650 yd. The Japanese commander made the same mistake as Row 116, stayed shallow, made radical turns, believed the Americans couldn’t track him.

 Pendleton’s crew had tracked four submarines before this one. They knew every evasion tactic, every depth change, every turn pattern. Rabby vetoed in for the kill, but missed with Hedgehog. Division Commander Haynes gave the order again. Go ahead, England. 2323. England commenced Hedgehog attack on row 108. Four projectiles hit, maybe six.

The explosions came so close together they sounded like one. Row 108 broke apart immediately. No slow flooding, no gradual sinking. The pressure hole ruptured at multiple points simultaneously. The submarine imploded. 56 men died in less than 3 seconds. Faster than they could process what was happening.

 Kill number five. 6 days, five submarines, 279 Japanese sailors dead. At Japanese Imperial Navy headquarters in Tokyo, Admiral Toyota reviewed the patrol reports. Seven submarines deployed to the NA line. Five submarines missing. No distress calls. No emergency transmissions. Just silence. One submarine every 24 hours.

 The pattern was obvious. Something was killing his submarines. Something fast. Something accurate. something the submarine commanders couldn’t evade. Toyota issued new orders to the remaining submarines. Row 105 and row 109 received the transmission on May 27th. New patrol depth 400 ft minimum. New surface protocol.

 No battery recharging unless absolutely necessary. New evasion tactic. Run silent at first detection. No radical maneuvers. Radical maneuvers made noise. Noise gave sonar operators better tracking data. The Japanese were learning, but they were learning from dead men’s mistakes. England, George, and Ra continued northeast.

 The NA line had two submarines left. Somewhere in 3,000 square miles of ocean. The Americans had the advantage. Fleet radio unit Pacific was still intercepting Japanese transmissions. Every radio message gave position data. Every position report revealed patrol patterns, but the tactical situation was changing.

 Five kills had depleted England’s hedgehog ammunition. Each attack fired 24 projectiles. Five attacks meant 120 projectiles expended. England carried 240 rounds total. She had 120 remaining. Five more attacks, maybe six if the crew was careful. And the Japanese submarines were adapting. On May 30th, George detected row 105 on radar at 2145.

 The submarine dove immediately, but this time the Japanese commander did something different. He went deep, 400 ft, then stopped all engines, complete silence, no propeller noise, no machinery vibration, nothing for sonar to detect. England established contact at 2200 yd. weak signal, intermittent. The submarine was barely moving.

 Sonar operators called it a knuckle, a patch of disturbed water that created false returns. The submarine could be anywhere within 200 yd of the signal. Pendleton faced a choice. Fire Hedgehog at a weak contact and probably miss. Waste 24 precious projectiles or wait for the submarine to move. Give up tactical advantage.

 let the Japanese commander choose when to run. He chose to wait. 4 hours passed. The submarine stayed silent. Then at 0230 on May 31st, the signal strengthened. Row 105 was moving. Battery power was running out. The electric motors needed recharging. The commander had no choice. He had to surface soon or die anyway.

 But he had one more tactic. One final desperate gamble that might work. Row 105’s commander surfaced at 0315 on May 31st, but not where England expected. The submarine had drifted with the current during those four silent hours, moved 3 mi from her last known position. George’s radar caught her at 13,000 yd. Wrong direction, wrong [music] bearing.

The hunting group had been searching the wrong grid square. By the time England turned toward the new contact, row 105 had already crashed dove. The Japanese commander had bought himself 90 seconds of battery charging, 90 seconds of diesel engine time, enough to add 10% power to his depleted batteries, enough to run.

 England established sonar contact at 0345. Row 105 was running deep and fast, 6 knots, heading northeast away from the hunting group. The Japanese commander was good, maybe the best they had faced. He had studied the previous attacks, learned from five dead submarines, knew that staying deep and running fast made hedgehog attacks difficult.

 The problem was mathematics. Hedgehog projectiles sank at 23 ft per second. At 400 ft depth, projectiles took 17 seconds to reach target depth. In 17 seconds, a submarine moving at 6 knots traveled 170 ft. The firing solution required predicting where the submarine would be in 17 seconds. Predict wrong and the circular pattern missed completely.

 Pendleton’s first hedgehog attack at 04005 missed by 200 ft. Row 105 had turned during the projectiles descent. Second attack at 0423 missed by 100 ft. Better prediction, but still wrong. The submarine was varying her speed, 6 knots, then four knots, then 6 knots again, making the mathematics impossible. England had fired 48 projectiles.

120US 48 equals 72 projectiles remaining. Three more attacks, maybe three and a half if the crew loaded carefully. Three more chances to kill row 105 before the ammunition ran out. Division Commander Haynes watched from George. This engagement was different. The previous five submarines had died quickly, two attacks, three attacks maximum.

 Row 105 had survived two attacks, was heading toward a third, maybe a fourth. The Japanese commander was winning the mathematics game. At 0447, Pendleton sonar operator detected a pattern. Row 105 turned every 4 minutes. 30° to port, then 30° to starboard, back and forth. The pattern was consistent, predictable. The Japanese commander thought he was being random, but humans aren’t random.

 They fall into patterns. Pendleton adjusted the firing solution, predicted the turn, led the target by 200 ft. Third hedgehog attack at 0508. 24 projectiles splashed into the Pacific, sank into darkness. Four detonations, maybe five. Not the massive explosion of previous kills, RO 105’s pressure hole was breached, but not destroyed.

 The submarine continued moving, flooding, but not sinking. The Japanese commander was executing emergency procedures. Blow ballast tanks, surface, abandoned ship, save the crew. But England’s fourth attack at ‘0532 hit with eight detonations. The submarine broke apart. Emergency blow stopped. The crew never reached the surface. Oil and debris appeared at 0615 after sunrise. Kill number six. 12 days.

 Six submarines. 335 Japanese sailors dead. Admiral Hollyy received the report at third fleet headquarters. Six submarines in 12 days. One destroyer escort. One weapon system that most captains didn’t trust. The record was unprecedented. unmatched. Impossible to believe. But one submarine remained. RO 109.

 Admiral Hollyy issued new orders on June 1st. Pull England from submarine hunting immediately. Six kills was enough. The destroyer escort had proven the hedgehog system, proven it beyond any doubt. Every destroyer escort in the Pacific Fleet would receive updated training, updated tactics, updated firing solutions based on England’s action reports.

 But row 109 was never found. The submarine had received Toyota’s warning after row 108 died, abandoned her patrol station, ran deep and silent toward Trroo. She survived the war, surrendered in August 1945. Her crew learned about the NA line massacre months later. Learned that six of their sister submarines had been destroyed in 12 days by one ship using a weapon they had never heard of.

 The presidential unit citation arrived in July, one of only three destroyer escorts to receive the honor during the entire war. The citation read simply, “For extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese submarines.” The words didn’t capture what England’s crew had accomplished. The mathematics did. British forces had launched 5,174 depth charge attacks during the war, 85 confirmed kills, 1.6% success rate.

Hedgehog attacks before England’s patrol showed 5% success rate, 26 attacks for every kill. England made her record with far better numbers. Six submarines, approximately 15 total hedgehog attacks, 40% success rate, 25 times more effective than depth charges, eight times more effective than the hedgehog average.

 The weapon system became standard on every destroyer escort by September 1944. Training protocols changed across the fleet. Sonar operators studied England’s tracking techniques. Hedgehog crews practiced England’s loading procedures. Fire control officers memorized England’s firing solutions. In the Atlantic, Hedgehog sank 47 German hubot by war’s end. 268 attacks, 47 kills, 17.

5% success rate. Still the best anti-ubmarine weapon of the war. But no ship matched England’s 12-day record. Not in the Atlantic, not in the Pacific, not in any theater. Lieutenant Commander Pendleton received the Navy Cross in August. Single decoration for six submarines. The citation mentioned his tactical brilliance, his crew’s discipline, the weapon systems effectiveness.

 But it didn’t mention the thing that mattered most, mathematics. Pendleton had trusted numbers when other captains trusted tradition. He had calculated firing solutions while others relied on experience. He had predicted submarine movements while others guessed. The numbers had been right. England continued escort duty through summer 1944.

 Convoy protection, carrier screening, anti-ubmarine patrols. She never found another submarine. Never fired hedgehog in combat again. On October 31st, 1944, kamicazi aircraft hit England off Lee Gulf. The bomb penetrated the forward engine room, killed 37 crew members, wounded 25 more. The damage was catastrophic. Repairs would take 6 months, cost more than building a new ship.

 The Navy decided England wasn’t worth saving. She was towed to Manis Island, stripped [snorts] of useful equipment, sold for scrap. In November 1946, cut apart in a cut apart in a salvage yard, the ship that had sunk six submarines in 12 days ended her life as razor blades and tin cans. But the record stood still stands today.

 No ship has matched it. 80 years later, England remains the greatest submarine killer in naval history. Walton Pendleton survived the war, promoted to commander, given command of an escort division in Alaska, spent the final year of the war hunting Japanese submarines in the North Pacific. Never found any.

 The war ended in August 1945. Pendleton retired from the Navy in 1961 after 34 years of service. Died in 1973 at age 66, buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His gravestone mentions the Navy Cross, doesn’t mention the six submarines, doesn’t mention the 12 days that changed naval warfare. The Navy kept its promise, sort of.

 In October 1960, guided missile destroyer leader USS England was commissioned. Hall number DLG22, later reclassified as CG22, served from 1962 until 1994. 32 years, longer than the original England lasted. But when CG22 was decommissioned, the name England disappeared from the fleet. Admiral King’s promise broken.

 There hasn’t been a USS England since 1994. The original hedgehog launcher sits in storage at the National Museum of the United States Navy in Washington, DC. Rusted, forgotten. Most visitors walk past without noticing. The placard mentions the weapon success rate. Doesn’t mention England. Doesn’t mention Pendleton. Doesn’t mention the 12 days that proved the system worked.

Japanese records recovered after the war confirmed the six kills. I-16, RO106, RO 104, RO116, RO 108, RO 105. Each submarine’s final position matched England’s attack coordinates exactly. 335 sailors confirmed dead. The Japanese Navy never understood what killed them so fast. Their action reports mentioned explosions above, flooding below, death within minutes.

 But nobody survived to describe the circular pattern of projectiles, the contact fuses, the forwardthrowing mortars that maintain sonar contact throughout the attack. The British developed Hedgehog. The Americans perfected it. England proved it. But history remembers aircraft carriers, battleships, fleet destroyers, the big ships with the big guns.

Destroyer escorts were expendable, cheap to build, easy to replace. 700 built during the war. Most scrapped within 5 years of peace. England lasted 2 years after the war ended. Scrapped at age 2 and a half. The ship that sank six submarines in 12 days wasn’t worth the metal she was made from. If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor, hit that like button.

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