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            1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <rss version="2.0" xml:base="https://nationalinterest.org/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"> <channel> <title>The National Interest</title>
            2  <description>The National Interest online seeks to provide a space for vigorous debate and exchange not only among Americans but between U.S. and overseas interlocutors. This is the new home for informed analysis and frank but reasoned exchanges on foreign policy and international affairs.</description>
            3  <link>https://nationalinterest.org/</link>
            4  <atom:link rel="self" href="https://nationalinterest.org/rssfeed" />
            5  <language>en</language>
            6  <category>Foreign Affairs</category>
            7  <category>International Relations</category>
            8  <category>Foreign Policy</category>
            9  <image> <url>https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/The-National-Interest-Logo-144.png</url>
           10  <title>The National Interest</title>
           11  <link>https://nationalinterest.org/</link>
           12  <width>144</width>
           13  <height>69</height>
           14 </image>
           15  <copyright>Copyright 1991-2021 The National interest</copyright>
           16  <managingEditor>editor@nationalinterest.org</managingEditor>
           17  <ttl>3</ttl>
           18  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2021 04:11:01 -0400</pubDate>
           19  <lastBuildDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2021 04:20:01 -0400</lastBuildDate>
           20  <item> <title>Information Operations are Critical to Defending Western Civilization</title>
           21  <link>http://nationalinterest.org/node/190714</link>
           22  <description>The truth is that dictators are beating the West when it comes to sophisticated information operations.</description>
           23  <author>Joel Zamel</author>
           24  <category>Information Warfare</category>
           25  <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nationalinterest.org/node/190714</guid>
           26  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2021 04:11 EDT</pubDate>
           27  <source url="https://nationalinterest.org/rssfeed">The National Interest</source>
           28  <content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Joel Zamel&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           29 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;category&gt;Information Warfare, World&lt;/category&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           30 &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/206770&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/buzz/information-operations-are-critical-defending-western-civilization-190714&quot;&gt;&lt;img typeof=&quot;foaf:Image&quot; class=&quot;resize-1440&quot; src=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/styles/resize-1440/public/main_images/newspaper.jpg?itok=rh4HzqYg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
           31 &lt;h3&gt;The truth is that dictators are beating the West when it comes to sophisticated information operations.&lt;/h3&gt;
           32 &lt;title&gt;Information Operations are Critical to Defending Western Civilization&lt;/title&gt;
           33 &lt;p&gt;What are tyrants most afraid of? To answer that question, one must look at where they allocate their resources. Dictators like Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un spend billions to keep their citizens in the dark. They spare no expense to ban social media and suppress the Internet. They jail journalists and bloggers. They fund massive security agencies to silence their people.&lt;/p&gt;
           34 &lt;p&gt;What dictators fear most isn’t foreign militaries. What they fear most are their own citizens. Why? Because an informed citizenry is capable of vanquishing every myth tyrants desperately seek to preserve.&lt;/p&gt;
           35 &lt;p&gt;Yet many Western nations fail to understand this elementary truth. That is why we spend billions on military hardware yet a fraction of that on the tactics that can actually defeat extremist ideologies and tyrannical regimes: political warfare and information operations.&lt;/p&gt;
           36 &lt;p&gt;Though these tactics don’t line the pockets of the military-industrial complex, they are devastatingly effective.&lt;/p&gt;
           37 &lt;p&gt;The truth is that dictators are beating the West when it comes to sophisticated information operations. Authoritarian regimes are buying up media publications in order to distort global media coverage, divert attention from their crimes, and pressure their adversaries. They are hacking and leaking, producing deep fakes, and spying on journalists.&lt;/p&gt;
           38 &lt;p&gt;Put simply, terrorists and extremist regimes are running rings around liberal democracies. If we don’t reverse the tide, this imbalance could ultimately be our downfall. Perhaps this sounds alarmist, but from my deep knowledge of information operations, few people can imagine the scope and power of today’s disinformation campaigns by hostile actors.&lt;/p&gt;
           39 &lt;p&gt;In a Congressional testimony of tech CEOs, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2007/29/cnr.12.html&quot;&gt;asked&lt;/a&gt; Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg the following: &lt;/p&gt;
           40 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;...can you just address the proliferation of fake accounts? I understand annually you get &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;6.5 billion fake accounts produced there, but in some sense you have a profit motive that’s linked to that because that’s what is reported to your investors, the number of &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;accounts. Are you working zealously to try to ferret out these fake accounts that are &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;used to spread hate and disinformation? &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           41 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
           42 &lt;p&gt;Zuckerberg answered as unflappably as ever: &lt;/p&gt;
           43 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Congressman, absolutely. We work hard on this. We take down billions of fake accounts &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;a year—a lot of that is just people trying to set up accounts to spam people for commercial reasons. A very small percentage of that are nation-states trying to interfere in elections but we’re very focused on trying to find those. Having fake and harmful content on our platform does not help our business, it hurts our business. People do not want to see that stuff—and they use our services less when they do. So we are aligned with people in order to take that down and we invest billions of dollars a year in doing so.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           44 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
           45 &lt;p&gt;Consider for a moment what percentage of these fake accounts are bad actors trying to undermine democracies and what percentage are democracies trying to undermine bad actors. In my informed estimation, 99 percent of the actual propaganda and fake news flows from dictators and extremist organizations towards free societies.&lt;/p&gt;
           46 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to these bad actors, it is hard to believe anything anymore. When the distinction between fact and fiction is blurred, the foundation of democracy is eroded. They are trying to take advantage of our core values to undermine the foundations of our societies.&lt;/p&gt;
           47 &lt;p&gt;What is the solution to this civilizational challenge? It is to fight back. We must use every tool at our disposal to mirror the methods that our enemies use against us. Publicly, we must double down on a political discourse that reaffirms the classical liberal foundations of our civilization—namely an abiding faith in freedom and individual rights. We cannot let political correctness slowly gnaw away at our freedoms and identity.&lt;/p&gt;
           48 &lt;p&gt;Behind the scenes, an army of decentralized cyber defenders must wage relentless offensive campaigns to fight back against the enemies of liberty and peace. Having worked with many such individuals, I can say with confidence that one should never underestimate the creativity and influence of a group of motivated dissidents, former intelligence operators, and human rights activists.&lt;/p&gt;
           49 &lt;p&gt;These cyber activists often remain in the shadows, conducting anonymous online campaigns to counter the propaganda of authoritarian regimes and expose the truth. You don’t know their names, but they are heroes.&lt;/p&gt;
           50 &lt;p&gt;Sadly, in this post-truth era, too many people throw around the term “fake news” and blur the distinction between the sides in this narrative war. In World War II, both the Allies and Axis alliances spread fake news to deceive their enemy. Yet it would have been senseless to condemn “deception” equally regardless of the aim of each side. It was vital that the Allies deceive the Axis and a mortal danger that the Axis deceived the Allies. &lt;/p&gt;
           51 &lt;p&gt;So too it is today in the war between tyrants and terrorists and the cyber-activists who fight them. The former spared no cost to win. They fight dirty and are committed to victory. It’s high time we fought back. &lt;/p&gt;
           52 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Joel Zamel is the founder of Wikistrat, the world’s first crowdsourced intelligence platform for conducting geopolitical studies and foresight monitoring for governments and multinational corporations around the world.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           53 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Image: A supporter holds a copy of Apple Daily newspaper during a court hearing outside West Magistrates’ Courts, after police charge two executives of the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper over the national security law, in Hong Kong, China, June 19, 2021. Reuters/Lam Yik​.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           54 
           55 &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/information-operations-are-critical-defending-western-civilization-190714&quot;&gt;Read full article&lt;/a&gt; </content:encoded>
           56 </item>
           57  <item> <title>85 Years Ago, General George Patton Declared War on a Volcano</title>
           58  <link>http://nationalinterest.org/node/190757</link>
           59  <description>Disaster seemed imminent: day by day, a glowing river of molten lava was creeping steadily towards Hilo, Hawaii.</description>
           60  <author>Sebastien Roblin</author>
           61  <category>History</category>
           62  <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nationalinterest.org/node/190757</guid>
           63  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2021 03:33 EDT</pubDate>
           64  <source url="https://nationalinterest.org/rssfeed">The National Interest</source>
           65  <content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sebastien Roblin&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           66 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;category&gt;History, Americas&lt;/category&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           67 &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/206805&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/reboot/85-years-ago-general-george-patton-declared-war-volcano-190757&quot;&gt;&lt;img typeof=&quot;foaf:Image&quot; class=&quot;resize-1440&quot; src=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/styles/resize-1440/public/main_images/volcano_0.jpg?itok=Y2XPBWUC&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
           68 &lt;h3&gt;Disaster seemed imminent: day by day, a glowing river of molten lava was creeping steadily towards Hilo, Hawaii.&lt;/h3&gt;
           69 &lt;title&gt;85 Years Ago, General George Patton Declared War on a Volcano&lt;/title&gt;
           70 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here&#039;s What You Need to Remember: &lt;/strong&gt;Despite having possibly incurred the wrath of a goddess, the 23&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt; Bomber Squadron continues to sport a&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.afhra.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/1514809/23-bomb-squadron-afgsc/&quot;&gt; unit patch&lt;/a&gt; depicting bombs falling upon a volcano. In 2015 on the eightieth anniversary of the raid, the squadron dispatched two B-52 for a flyby of Mauna Loa to commemorate their shared history in a unique confrontation between man and nature.&lt;/p&gt;
           71 &lt;p&gt;Disaster seemed imminent: day by day, a glowing river of molten lava was creeping steadily towards Hilo, Hawaii. The town of 15,000 lay slightly over 30 miles northeast of Mauna Loa, known as the&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.livescience.com/39681-worlds-biggest-volcanoes.html&quot;&gt; second-largest&lt;/a&gt; volcano on the planet.&lt;/p&gt;
           72 &lt;p&gt;The over 13,000-foot tall behemoth had erupted on Hawaii island on November 21. By December, Dr. Thomas Jaggar, a local volcanologist and founder of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory, estimated that one of the five streams of lava issuing from Mauna Loa was advancing at a mile per minute towards Hilo, threatening to first flood the Wailuku River feeding into it.&lt;/p&gt;
           73 &lt;p&gt;At first, Jaggar considered dispatching mule teams laden with explosive to Mauna Loa to collapse the lava tubes feeding the lava streams—but such a project seemed likely to take far too long to avert catastrophe.&lt;/p&gt;
           74 &lt;p&gt;Then his colleague Guido Giacometti proposed a faster solution: why not ask the Army Air Corps if it could blast the streams from the air with a little precision bombing?&lt;/p&gt;
           75 &lt;p&gt;On December 23, Jaggar contacted the G-2 intelligence staff officer of the Army Hawaiian Division, a young lieutenant colonel by the name of George S. Patton. He signed off on the idea and tapped the 23&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt; and 72&lt;sup&gt;nd&lt;/sup&gt; Bomber Squadron for the job, both based at Luke Field on Ford/Oahu island.&lt;/p&gt;
           76 &lt;p&gt;At the time these units flew large, fabric-covered Keystone B-3A and LB-6 twin-engine biplane bombers. The obsolete aircraft had five-man crews armed with defensive machineguns, and Wright Cyclone engines nestled in the spars between their two sets of wings. Though highly similar, the older LB-6 was distinguished by its twin vertical tail fins compared to the single fin on the B-3A.&lt;/p&gt;
           77 &lt;p&gt;Jaggar briefed the pilots on the geological theory behind the raid, and on December 26 the Army Air Force bombers flew the 220-mile long journey from Luke Field in Pearl Harbor to a field in Hilo.&lt;/p&gt;
           78 &lt;p&gt;The following morning the aviators were visited by a native Hawaiian named Harry Keliihoomalu who warned them not to attack, lest they displease the Madam Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, and thus by implication the creator of the volcanic Hawaiian archipelago itself.&lt;/p&gt;
           79 &lt;p&gt;“Why don’t they leave Pele alone?” Keliihoomlu later told Hilo’s local newspaper. “They shouldn&#039;t interfere with the flow. If Pele decides to flow to Hilo, there&#039;s nothing that they can do to stop her.”&lt;/p&gt;
           80 &lt;p&gt;Pele, also known as She Who Devours the Earth, remains a&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/us/pele-hawaii-volcano.html&quot;&gt; popular local deity&lt;/a&gt;, and many Hawaiian natives believed it wrong to obstruct volcanos, seen as manifestations of her power.&lt;/p&gt;
           81 &lt;p&gt;Another citizen quoted in the paper said: “Pele should not be disturbed. This bombing is a folly. It will do more harm than good. If Pele makes up her mind to come to Hilo it is not for man to dissuade her by artificial methods. She cannot be stopped that way.”&lt;/p&gt;
           82 &lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, the Army pilots carried out their mission in two waves of five, the rickety open-cockpit aircraft approaching the volcano at an only 4,000 feet high due to their bombloads, and likely below their pokey maximum speed of 115 miles per hour. Jaggar observed the attack through his telescope from a perch neighboring on Mauna Kea, while a geologist named Harold Stearns accompanied the bomber crew for a first-hand view of the operation.&lt;/p&gt;
           83 &lt;p&gt;The first wave—two LB-6s and three B-3As—each carried two 300-pound practice bomb with black powder charges to test different approaches. In the following five-ship wave at noon, each aircraft carried two 600-pound Mark 1 bombs with fuses set to detonate a tenth of a second after impact.&lt;/p&gt;
           84 &lt;p&gt;You can see the eruption and the unusual bombing raid in archival footage&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069574_bomb-Mauna-Loa_divert-lava_Keystone-B-3A_Keystone-LB-6A_United-States-fliers&quot;&gt; here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/SKnyrCCLixo?t=102&quot;&gt; and here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
           85 &lt;p&gt;Most of the bombs exploded ineffectually to either side of the stream—but five landed on target, their explosions creating craters that rapidly flooded with molten rock and causing lava to fountain hundreds of feet into the air. According to one&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wired.com/story/the-implacable-power-of-volcanic-lava/&quot;&gt; article&lt;/a&gt;, flying volcanic sediment even burned holes in one of the bomber’s fabric-covered wings.&lt;/p&gt;
           86 &lt;p&gt;Six days after the raid on December 2, the lava stream abruptly ceased its advance. Jaggar was not shy about according to his bombing scheme credit for this fortuitous outcome.&lt;/p&gt;
           87 &lt;p&gt;“The experiment could not have been more successful; the results were exactly as anticipated,” he told the &lt;em&gt;New York Times&lt;/em&gt;. He expounded:&lt;/p&gt;
           88 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This channel was broken up by the bombing and fresh streams poured over the side of the heap…. I have no question that this robbing of the source tunnel slowed down the movement of the front…. The average actual motion of the extreme front … for the five days after the bombing was approximately 1000 feet per day. For the seven days preceding the bombing the rate was one mile per day. How long would the flow have lasted without bombing it?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           89 &lt;p&gt;But Stearns, who witnessed the bombing up close concluded the opposite:&lt;/p&gt;
           90 &lt;p&gt;“The tube walls look 25 to 50 feet high and deep in the flow so that I think there would be no chance of breaking the walls. The lava liquid is low. The damming possibility looks effective but the target is too small.” Regarding the flow’s halt on December 2, he later wrote: “I’m sure it’s a coincidence.”&lt;/p&gt;
           91 &lt;p&gt;Most&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/volcano-watch-did-aerial-bombing-stop-1935-mauna-loa-lava-flow&quot;&gt; geological analysis of the bombing&lt;/a&gt; shared Stearn’s conclusion that the bombs simply weren’t powerful to meaningfully affect the lava flow.&lt;/p&gt;
           92 &lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, seven years later on May 1 or 2, 1942, the wartime Army Air Force again dispatched bombers to strike an active Mauna Loa, this time targeting her vents. The aircraft (most likely B-18 Bolo light bombers) again missed with most of their bombs and left behind several duds. A later study again judged the raid had been ineffectual. But three days later vents collapsed, likely due to natural causes.&lt;/p&gt;
           93 &lt;p&gt;Then from 1975–1976, the Air Force engaged in multiple tests using far more powerful 2,000-pound bombs on volcanic rock, producing 100-foot diameter craters. A&lt;a href=&quot;https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/BF02600367?shared_access_token=gbpO9Q1RsTtwqAmEyx6Xmfe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY57idKTRH6oKY6QVfnC1SjIF6t8_G-od5cQpEUtgmh_Fu-Jj8IgVM0SzkpYtRMwhLIHAbXj8De23PrCQ3YNZOtKayjYH3-B9h107hPTVMI9bsTbFiAWhFexiaRHsFvcez8&quot;&gt; detailed 1980 study&lt;/a&gt; by J.P. Lockwood and F.A. Torgerson judged that the attacks in 1935 and 1942 were unlikely to have had any affect, but estimated that larger weapons employed with greater precision could be effective. The idea continues to be proposed from time to time as possible solution for dealing with modern eruptions.&lt;/p&gt;
           94 &lt;p&gt;However, the idea of using bombers or other technologies to divert lava flows in Hawaii remains&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.npr.org/2014/11/01/360719232/diverting-lava-flow-may-be-possible-but-some-hawaiians-object&quot;&gt; objectionable to many Hawaiians&lt;/a&gt;, who believe that respecting Pele means accepting her unpredictable bouts of fiery destruction—or risk suffering worse consequences. &lt;/p&gt;
           95 &lt;p&gt;Indeed,&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=n2ii6J0C0hYC&amp;pg=PA117&amp;lpg=PA117&amp;dq=bombing+pele&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=w54PHlDxcK&amp;sig=ql3N0uy2KrhsxTPfiXffSzzFw9I&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjkqLvx9IvbAhXImVkKHTsHDWoQ6AEIazAM#v=onepage&amp;q=bombing%20pele&amp;f=false&quot;&gt; some hold Pele responsible&lt;/a&gt; for a fatal crash at Luke Field two months after the 1935 bombing which killed six aircrew who had participated in the raid.&lt;/p&gt;
           96 &lt;p&gt;Despite having possibly incurred the wrath of a goddess, the 23&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt; Bomber Squadron continues to sport a&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.afhra.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/1514809/23-bomb-squadron-afgsc/&quot;&gt; unit patch&lt;/a&gt; depicting bombs falling upon a volcano. In 2015 on the eightieth anniversary of the raid, the squadron dispatched two B-52 for a flyby of Mauna Loa to commemorate their shared history in a unique confrontation between man and nature.&lt;/p&gt;
           97 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This first appeared in 2019.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           98 &lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Image: Reuters&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           99 
          100 &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/85-years-ago-general-george-patton-declared-war-volcano-190757&quot;&gt;Read full article&lt;/a&gt; </content:encoded>
          101 </item>
          102  <item> <title>Shipwrecked: Three Countries Chased This Nazi Uboat to the Death</title>
          103  <link>http://nationalinterest.org/node/190753</link>
          104  <description>U-966 was a Type VIIC U-boat, the most prolific type to serve in Nazi Germany’s undersea campaign to cripple maritime supply lines between the United Kingdom and the United States.</description>
          105  <author>Sebastien Roblin</author>
          106  <category>Submarines</category>
          107  <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nationalinterest.org/node/190753</guid>
          108  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2021 03:00 EDT</pubDate>
          109  <source url="https://nationalinterest.org/rssfeed">The National Interest</source>
          110  <content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sebastien Roblin&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          111 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;category&gt;Submarines, Europe&lt;/category&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          112 &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/206801&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/reboot/shipwrecked-three-countries-chased-nazi-uboat-death-190753&quot;&gt;&lt;img typeof=&quot;foaf:Image&quot; class=&quot;resize-1440&quot; src=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/styles/resize-1440/public/main_images/Maxwell_B-24%20%281%29_1.jpg?itok=A0i_zl3f&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
          113 &lt;h3&gt;U-966 was a Type VIIC U-boat, the most prolific type to serve in Nazi Germany’s undersea campaign to cripple maritime supply lines between the United Kingdom and the United States.&lt;/h3&gt;
          114 &lt;title&gt;Shipwrecked: Three Countries Chased This Nazi Uboat to the Death&lt;/title&gt;
          115 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here&#039;s What You Need to Remember: &lt;/strong&gt;Shipwrecking in Spain was probably the best thing that could have happened to &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;’s crew. Afforded both their regular pay and a 240 peseta monthly stipend form the German consulate, the internees were allowed unsupervised free time in the city of Ferrol, where wine was only two pesetas a bottle and fine cognac was six.&lt;/p&gt;
          116 &lt;p&gt;In June 2018, Spanish media reported that divers Anxi González Roca and Eduardo Losada and naval historian Yago Abilleira had re-discovered the wreck Nazi submarine &lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;off Estaca de Bares in the Galician region on the northwestern tip of Spain. The divers found debris scattered across a wide area at depths ranging from 18 to 26 meters.&lt;/p&gt;
          117 &lt;p&gt;Roca &lt;a href=&quot;https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/07/09/inenglish/1531126146_043564.html&quot;&gt;told&lt;/a&gt; the periodical &lt;i&gt;El Pais&lt;/i&gt; that they had searched for years in the famously rough waters of Estaca de Bares, before being tipped off about a local fisherman who had “a large aluminum sheet covering the chicken coop at his house … part of the airframe of a World War II fighter plane, we think one belonging to the Allied forces.”&lt;/p&gt;
          118 &lt;p&gt;However, the dramatic story of how five Allied bombers from three countries chased &lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;for nine hours until it crashed into craggy Galician rocks is often only retold with errors — particularly relating to the tragic loss of a British seaplane &lt;i&gt;after U-966&lt;/i&gt; met its fate.&lt;/p&gt;
          119 &lt;p&gt;Using a combination of U.S. Navy, Royal Air Force and Czech after-action reports, accounts from the crew of &lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;collected by Lt. Col. Buck Cummings, and the work of Spanish historians José Antonio Tojo Ramallo and Juan Carlos Salgado, it’s possible reconstruct the turbulent events that occurred off the Galician coast in Oct. 10, 1943 — and their peculiar aftermath.&lt;/p&gt;
          120 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rookie crew, doomed mission&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          121 &lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; was a Type VIIC U-boat, the most prolific type to serve in Nazi Germany’s undersea campaign to cripple maritime supply lines between the United Kingdom and the United States. The 67-meter long vessel was built in Hamburg by Blohm &amp; Voss and entered service on March 4, 1943 under command of Lt. Eckehard Wolf.&lt;/p&gt;
          122 &lt;p&gt;Dubbed “Old Man,” Wolf was in fact only 25 years old, but his 50 crew were mostly inexperienced 19-to-21-year-olds. His subordinates remembered Wolf as a fatherly but hard-driving commander during their six months of training. “At this rate you will never be the sailors you can be,” Wolf chided the crew in a speech, “maybe [good] lumber for bowling pins, but not good sailors!”&lt;/p&gt;
          123 &lt;p&gt;Thereafter, the crew named their submarine &lt;i&gt;Gut Holz&lt;/i&gt;—”Good Wood,” and created a coat of arms featuring bowling pins.&lt;/p&gt;
          124 &lt;p&gt;Wolf knew the odds of survival were long, having already served 16 months on two U-boats. Over the course of the war, more than 28,000 U-boat crewmen perished and 5,000 were captured—an 80-percent loss rate.&lt;/p&gt;
          125 &lt;p&gt;By 1943 the Allies were deploying adequate escort ships with effective sonars, and long-range anti-submarine patrol planes equipped with surface-search radars. Worse, British intelligence had broken &lt;i&gt;Enigma &lt;/i&gt;code used by the German navy used to unwisely micro-manage its submarine operations.&lt;/p&gt;
          126 &lt;p&gt;After months of training in the Baltic, the 960-ton submarine transited to Trondheim, Norway on Sept. 17, pausing along the way to surface among Norweigina fishing boats. Though the startled fishermen offered them fresh catch, Wolf decided to submerge, worried that they might betray their presence to the Allies.&lt;/p&gt;
          127 &lt;p&gt;On Oct. 5, &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; departed Trondheim headed for the East Coast of the Untied States on its first — and only — combat patrol.&lt;/p&gt;
          128 &lt;p&gt;Under the cover of a sea storm, &lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;managed to slip through the heavily-patrolled gap between Iceland the Faroe Island. However, on Oct. 25 it ran afoul of two British destroyers.&lt;/p&gt;
          129 &lt;p&gt;Wolf crash dived &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; 150 meters below the surface while the destroyers circled overhead, dropping 87 depth charges by the terrified crew’s count. The crew survived the bombardment, but &lt;i&gt;U-966’s &lt;/i&gt;radio did not. The boat was unable to transmit messages.&lt;meta charset=&quot;utf-8&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          130 &lt;p dir=&quot;ltr&quot;&gt;&lt;b id=&quot;docs-internal-guid-2d4cde6a-7fff-afb1-4a2b-cbd0197fd410&quot;&gt;Recommended: &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/imagine-us-air-force-never-built-b-52-bomber-26471&quot;&gt;Imagine a U.S. Air Force That Never Built the B-52 Bomber&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          131 &lt;p dir=&quot;ltr&quot;&gt;&lt;b id=&quot;docs-internal-guid-2d4cde6a-7fff-afb1-4a2b-cbd0197fd410&quot;&gt;Recommended: &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-next-big-military-sale-mexico-26371&quot;&gt;Russia&#039;s Next Big Military Sale - To Mexico?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          132 &lt;p dir=&quot;ltr&quot;&gt;&lt;b id=&quot;docs-internal-guid-2d4cde6a-7fff-afb1-4a2b-cbd0197fd410&quot;&gt;Recommended: &lt;a href=&quot;https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/would-china-really-invade-taiwan-26196&quot;&gt;Would China Really Invade Taiwan?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          133 &lt;p&gt;After going three days without communication from &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;, the navy assumed it had been destroyed and stopped sending directions. Deprived of intel, Wolf nonetheless pressed on to the U.S. east coast, dodged a torpedo possibly launched by a fellow U-boat and made an unsuccessful attack on an Allied convoy.&lt;/p&gt;
          134 &lt;p&gt;However, the Type VIIC was relatively short-range submarine — 9,800 miles — and without the radio it twice failed to rendezvous for refueling with Type Xb tanker submarines, one of which had in fact been sunk.&lt;/p&gt;
          135 &lt;p&gt;Realizingly he was flailing around blindly, Wolf decided to return to base in southern France via the Bay of Biscay, waters heavily patrolled by Allied planes.&lt;/p&gt;
          136 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Wellington in the moonlight&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          137 &lt;p&gt;The Type VIIC used two diesel engines to generate electricity. While surfaced, the air-consuming generators could run continuously, propelling the submarine to a top speed of 20 miles per hour.&lt;/p&gt;
          138 &lt;p&gt;Submerged, it couldn’t exceed eight miles per hour, and even that pace would drain the batteries and air supply in a matter of hours. These limitations common to all early World War II submarines meant they had to surface frequently for extended periods of time. Naturally, submarine commanders preferred to recharge batteries at night.&lt;/p&gt;
          139 &lt;p&gt;On Oct. 10, 1943 &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; was doing precisely that when it was detected by a Wellington GR Mark XI bomber of the RAF Coastal Command’s 612 Squadron. The twin-engine medium had a useful maximum range approaching 2,000 miles and mounted a Mark 2 ASV 2 radar that could distinguish a submarine from background clutter produced by waves at ranges of around six to 10 miles in fair weather.&lt;/p&gt;
          140 &lt;p&gt;The pilot, Warrant Officer Ian Gunn, soon spotted the submarine in the moonlight. He could have turned on the 22-million candle power Leigh Light slung under one wing to better illuminate his target, but chose take the sub by surprise.&lt;/p&gt;
          141 &lt;p&gt;The eyes of the watchman were still adjusting to the dark and he could not hear the airplane over sub’s rumbling diesel engines. The Wellington swept down to 100 feet and released six Mark IX 250-pound depth charges full of Torpex explosives, all of which fell short. But depth charges are designed to rupture a submarine’s hull without a direct hit.&lt;/p&gt;
          142 &lt;p&gt;“It was as if an invisible hand grabbed and shook the boat,” crewman Herebert Komer recalled. “Complete darkness came over us and in a moment the emergency lights came on. There was total chaos! Everything not tied down went flying and broken glass was everywhere.”&lt;/p&gt;
          143 &lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;had a twin-barrel 20-millimeter automatic cannon and a heavier 37-millimeter gun for self-defense. These chattered into life, arcing tracers into the night sky. The tail and front gunners on the Wellington raked &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;’s deck in reply with 500 rounds, wounding two crew.&lt;/p&gt;
          144 &lt;p&gt;Three minutes later, the bomber banked around for another strafing run—but the submarine had disappeared. “We flew over the area for nearly two-and-a-half hours afterwards and searched a radius of five or six miles but we saw nothing more,” Gunn later wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
          145 &lt;p&gt;In fact, Wolf had ordered a crash dive to 150 meters. But &lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;was badly damaged, and the submarine continued plummeting beyond its safe test depth, the pressure causing the tortured metal of its damaged hull to creak and moan eerily.&lt;/p&gt;
          146 &lt;p&gt;A Type VIIC submarine’s crushing depth at which its hull begins collapsing from the pressure of the surrounding water lay between 250 to 295 meters. &lt;i&gt;U-966 finally &lt;/i&gt;stabilized at 240 meters.&lt;/p&gt;
          147 &lt;p&gt;Gunn’s attack had inflicted grievous damage, however. One of the main bearings was damaged and water was leaking, likely from cracks in the ballast tanks. Worse, the port side diesel engine had been knocked out, leaving &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; with just one functioning generator.&lt;/p&gt;
          148 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Attack of the Liberators&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          149 &lt;p&gt;Gunn’s sighting caused hulking four-engine Liberator bombers of the U.S. Navy to begin circling the area. The chunky B-24 was the most-produced military aircraft ever by the United States with around 18,500 built. It boasted long range of nearly 3,000 miles and decent speed, though it was little loved for its difficult handling characteristics.&lt;/p&gt;
          150 &lt;p&gt;The U.S. Navy and RAF Coastal Command operated a B-24D variant called the PBY4-1 and Liberator GR III, respectively equipped with a retractable radar dome and modified .50-caliber machine-gun turrets.&lt;/p&gt;
          151 &lt;p&gt;These far-flying Liberators were able to hunt in the “mid-Atlantic gap” previously beyond the reach of patrol planes, closing a window vulnerability U-boats had ruthlessly exploited.&lt;/p&gt;
          152 &lt;p&gt;Wolf kept &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; submerged for as long as possible to avoid detection. But after four hours, his remaining generator was running low on air, so he re-surfaced at 8:30 A.M. Taking up the watch, Wolf ominously ordered his crew to put on life jackets.&lt;/p&gt;
          153 &lt;p&gt;Barely a half hour later at 8:59 A.M., the PB4Y-1 flown by Lt. Leonard Harmon from Navy patrol bomber squadron VB-105 detected U-966 at 44°15 North, 10° West — around 85 miles northwest of Spain.&lt;/p&gt;
          154 &lt;p&gt;This time, helmsman Hein Maslock spotted the attacker approaching from 260 degrees. The U-boat’s flak cannons riddled the B-24’s port tail and stabilizer, jammed its open bomb bay doors and disabled the hydraulic release mechanism for the depth charges.&lt;/p&gt;
          155 &lt;p&gt;Unable to drop the charges, Harmon’s B-24 instead made two strafing runs, shooting 2,000 rounds of .50-caliber into the submarine before limping home trailing smoke.&lt;/p&gt;
          156 &lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;was next picked up at 11:40 A.M. just 18 miles northwest of Spain by a Liberator from VB-103 piloted by Lt. Kenneth Wright. The Navy Reserve pilot had earlier dodged interception by two Junker 88Rs, radar-equipped fighter bombers used by the Luftwaffe to hunt the lumbering Allied patrol planes over the Atlantic.&lt;/p&gt;
          157 &lt;p&gt;Ten minutes later, Wright unleashed a pattern of five Mark 24 depth charges that injured three German sailors. Then he swiveled around and launched an acoustic homing torpedo. This missed, as it wasn’t designed to attack surfaced submarines. The U-boat was now trailing an oil slick behind it.&lt;/p&gt;
          158 &lt;p&gt;Wright harried U-966 for an entire hour until 1:05 P.M., when he was joined by the VB-110 Liberator flown by Lt. W. Parish, who unleashed all six charges 100 feet parallel to the submarine’s starboard side, nearly pitching it over on the port side.&lt;/p&gt;
          159 &lt;p&gt;At some point, one of the depth charges actually struck &lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;and got stuck in its hull vents without exploding.&lt;/p&gt;
          160 &lt;p&gt;Wolf aggressively maneuvered the submarine to frustrate the bomber’s aim. The flak gunners stitched the skies with more than 12,000 20- and 37-millimeter shells, until one of the twin 20-millimeter cannons overheated and exploded, mortally injuring a gunner.&lt;/p&gt;
          161 &lt;p&gt;Wright finally began flying home at 1:30 P.M. The badly-damaged submarine was now just 10 miles away from neutral Spain’s Galician coast. The German crew recalled seeing “the white houses and church tower of Cariño.”&lt;/p&gt;
          162 &lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;U-966 &lt;/i&gt;had closed the distance to just a few hundred meters at 1:45 P.M. when a final Liberator fell upon it as it limped at 10 knots among Spanish fishing boats off the Ria Ortigueira estuary. First Sgt. Ottokar Žanta from 311 Squadron, the only Czech bomber unit in the RAF, decided not to use his six depth charges for fear of hitting the Spanish boats.&lt;/p&gt;
          163 &lt;p&gt;Luckily, he had a back-up armament — braces of four RP-3 armor-piercing 60-pound rockets under each wing.&lt;/p&gt;
          164 &lt;p&gt;While Parrish’s B-24 provided covering fire, Zanta’s Liberator made two rocket runs. Though three of his rockets misfired, four of the 3-inch diameter rockets struck the water and curved upward into the U-boat’s hull, rupturing several compartments and the ballast tanks. &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;’s speed fell to just two knots.&lt;/p&gt;
          165 &lt;p&gt;Zanta made several more strafing runs then headed for home at 3:10 P.M., completing a nearly 12-hour-patrol.&lt;/p&gt;
          166 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Tragedy at Estaca de Bares&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          167 &lt;p&gt;Wolf’s crippled U-boat was on its last legs after nine hours of constant air attack. Suddenly, its crew spotted what they believed was a British corvette in the distance. Wolf had had enough — he ordered that the top secret documents be burned, told the crew to assemble on the deck to abandon ship and instructed his engineer to set a scuttling charge on a five-minute timer.&lt;/p&gt;
          168 &lt;p&gt;In fact, Wolf had spotted the Spanish coast guard vessel &lt;i&gt;Ardia&lt;/i&gt;, which had been monitoring the engagement from afar. The case of mistaken identity almost immediately proved irrelevant as the submarine was suddenly “thrown upwards as if by an invisible fist.” It had run aground on the craggy rocks of the Estaca de Bares peninsula near Punta Maeda.&lt;/p&gt;
          169 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the turbulent waters swept away the inflatable life rafts before they could be secured. The submariners were forced to swim for their lives to the shore up to 300 meters away. Meanwhile, the engineer opened &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;’s flood valves and Wolf and three companions jumped overboard.&lt;/p&gt;
          170 &lt;p&gt;Only a handful made it to shore. Most of the rest, battling against the violent surf and struggling to support wounded comrades, clung on to the razor sharp rocks poking through the surf. Behind them they heard their submarine explode — though whether this was due to the scuttling charge or the pressure-sensitive depth charge lodged in the stern is uncertain.&lt;/p&gt;
          171 &lt;p&gt;There was a tragic final act to the day’s violent events. The struggling submariners spotted a portly white seaplane approaching them from above. This was a four-engine RAF Short Sunderland III piloted by Flight Officer Arthur Franklin of 228 Squadron. The Sunderland was also a capable sub-hunter. But when Franklin spotted the Wolf’s floundering crew, he tossed a life raft to them.&lt;/p&gt;
          172 &lt;p&gt;At that moment, a flight of three Ju-88R-2s from II/ZG.1 based in Bordeaux pounced upon the ungainly seaplane. Led by Lt. Albrecht Bellstedt, the twin-engine fighter-bombers raked the Sunderland with their three nose-mounted 20-millimeter cannons and&lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;machine guns.&lt;/p&gt;
          173 &lt;p&gt;Franklin sent out one final radio message before his flying boat’s port wing caught fire. The Sunderland split in two and smashed into the water, the wreck belching fire and smoke.&lt;/p&gt;
          174 &lt;p&gt;Finally, five local Spanish fishing boats — &lt;i&gt;Virgen de Covadonga&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;San Francisco, La Concha&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;Espasante &lt;/i&gt;and &lt;i&gt;San Pedro &lt;/i&gt;— braved the perilous reef to rescue the shipwrecked submariners and brought them safely to shore.&lt;/p&gt;
          175 &lt;p&gt;All were housed in local hotels, save for three heavily wounded sailors. Out of &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;’s 50 crew, three had perished on board the submarine and five drowned while swimming for shore. All 12 men aboard Franklin’s Sunderland were killed.&lt;/p&gt;
          176 &lt;p&gt;Many sources claim in error that a smaller American-built Catalina float plane was shot down on Oct. 10. In fact, prior to the Sunderland’s arrival, a Catalina IB from the Coastal Command’s 202 squadron was active in the area, photographing the recovery of the German sailors. However, it returned to base. Records do not attest to any Catalinas being shot down in the area.&lt;/p&gt;
          177 &lt;p&gt;The fishermen recovered the bodies of six of the Sunderland’s crew and all five of the drowned submariners. They were first interred locally, then re-buried in German and British military cemeteries in Cáceres and Bilbao, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;
          178 &lt;p&gt;The Spanish authorities were in an awkward position. Though General Franco leaned towards the Fascists who helped him seize power during the Spanish Civil War, it was clear the Allies were winning the war and it was important to maintain the appearance of neutrality.&lt;/p&gt;
          179 &lt;p&gt;Spanish judges determined that the crew counted as combatants, not castaways, leading to their internment at La Graña naval base with the crew of &lt;i&gt;U-760&lt;/i&gt;, which had been interned at Vigo after fleeing Allied patrol planes.&lt;/p&gt;
          180 &lt;p&gt;That December, after a BBC radio broadcast mentioned just 30 of the 42 survivors, 10 of the unnamed men were secretly smuggled to France. Then in November 1944, Eckehard was hospitalized in Madrid, reportedly suffering from a lung condition that proved fatal.&lt;/p&gt;
          181 &lt;p&gt;In reality, he was smuggled back to Germany with false papers bearing the name “Erich Weber.” Eckehard was promoted to captain and assumed command of a company of marine infantry defending Hamburg.&lt;/p&gt;
          182 &lt;p&gt;Shipwrecking in Spain was probably the best thing that could have happened to &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;’s crew. Afforded both their regular pay and a 240 peseta monthly stipend form the German consulate, the internees were allowed unsupervised free time in the city of Ferrol, where wine was only two pesetas a bottle and fine cognac was six.&lt;/p&gt;
          183 &lt;p&gt;By contrast, at least four of the repatriated German submariners again saw action. Only one survived.&lt;/p&gt;
          184 &lt;p&gt;U-966’s conning tower could be seen protruding from the water at low tide for many years, though the wreck was scrapped in 1960s and eventually lost. Meanwhile, the crew of &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt; felt such a connection to the site of their ordeal that they began holding regular reunions there in the 1970s, and Eckehard’s son even married a local girl.&lt;/p&gt;
          185 &lt;p&gt;When the submarine commander passed away in 1978, his ashes were cast into the water of Punta Maeda near the grave of his only command.&lt;/p&gt;
          186 &lt;p&gt;Historian Juan Carlos Salgado &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.u-historia.com/uhistoria/historia/articulos/u966/u966.htm&quot;&gt;documented&lt;/a&gt; an equally important aspect of this tale. The fate of the Allied pilots who hunted down &lt;i&gt;U-966&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
          187 &lt;p&gt;Fewer than two months after the battle on Dec. 28, 1943, Parish’s B-24 crashed into a hill while returning to base. The entire crew died.&lt;/p&gt;
          188 &lt;p&gt;Six weeks later on Feb. 14, 1944, Wright shot down a Ju-88 in a dogfight over the Bay of Biscay, but was then forced to ditch his Liberator due to battle damage. His gunner and radio operator didn’t make it out in time, and another crewman died from his wounds before the survivors were rescued by a RAF seaplane the next day.&lt;/p&gt;
          189 &lt;p&gt;A month later on the evening of March 12, Zanta departed on a mission in his Liberator with seven crew. They were never heard from again.&lt;/p&gt;
          190 &lt;p&gt;Harmon survived the war. His airplane passed to another crew, which disappeared over the Bay of Biscay late in February 1944. Wellington pilot Gunn also survived.&lt;/p&gt;
          191 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This first appeared in WarIsBoring &lt;a href=&quot;https://warisboring.com/the-forgotten-tale-of-how-allied-bombers-chased-a-german-sub-to-its-doom/&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
          192 &lt;p&gt;This first appeared in 2018 and is being reposted due to reader interest.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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