Comments by "Ben Wilson" (@benwilson6145) on "The Drydock - Episode 197 (Part 1)" video.

  1. MV Ondina a tanker built in 1939 while in company with the HMIS Bengal was involved in a battle with two Japanese Merchant Raiders in the Indian Ocean. The Aikoku Maru (Captain Oishi Tamotsu) and Hokoku Maru (Captain Imazato Hiroshi) commenced firing at 1200 hours, and soon straddled the Ondina with their cruiser-armament. The first hit on Ondina ripped off a part of the main mast, leaving only a stump standing. The Ondina herself had her answer ready: the third shell fired by Ondina was a direct hit in the superstructure of Hokoku Maru, but apparently it did little to affect her speed or armament. Content with the hit, the gun captain then ordered the gunners to concentrate their fire on the stern. Only a few moments later, a lucky hit on the starboard torpedo mount turned the Hokoku Maru in a ball of red and yellow flames, and as the ship emerged from the smoke, she was listing heavily to starboard, and simultaneously started to settle by the stern. The explosion ripped off the stern and threw her two floatplanes overboard, while massive fires raged in the superstructure. The Ondina and the Bengal continued shooting at the Aikoku , until they ran out of ammunition. The HMIS Bengal sailed away and the Ondina was set on fire by the Aikoku, they abandoned ship in the lifeboats. The lifeboats were machine gunned by the Aikoku who rescued the survivors of the Hokoku and departed. The surviving crew reboarded the Ondina , extinguished the fires and sailed back to Fremantle. So a merchant Tanker sank a Japanese Merchant Cruiser.
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  2. Endurance was recently rediscovered.
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  3. The Suez Canal was owned the Suez Canal Company a joint British French venture. So it was a commercial operation, not a Goverment one, unlike the Panama Canal.
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