Germans Couldn't Believe This Destroyer Rammed Them — Until 36 Fought Hand-To-Hand With Coffee Mugs

Описание: Why Lieutenant Commander Brent Abel rammed a German U-boat during WW2 — and his crew fought hand-to-hand with coffee mugs. This World War 2 story reveals how obsolete tactics became the only option when modern weapons failed.

May 6, 1944. Lieutenant Commander Brent Maxwell Abel, commanding USS Buckley destroyer escort, closed to twenty yards from surfaced U-66 in the Atlantic west of Cape Verde Islands. The submarine was too close for most weapons. Abel ordered hard right rudder. Ram the U-boat. Every training manual said ramming was obsolete — hadn't been used since the age of sail. Naval tacticians called it suicidal against a submarine.

They were all wrong.

What Abel discovered that night wasn't about following doctrine. It was about survival when enemy vessels locked together and Germans climbed onto Buckley's forecastle. His crew grabbed Thompson guns, M1911 pistols, fists, shell casings, and coffee mugs. The seventh most successful U-boat of the war versus a destroyer escort in the most primitive combat imaginable. Sixteen minutes that would rewrite assumptions about modern naval warfare.

The techniques used in this engagement would later influence destroyer escort tactics across Atlantic task groups, spreading crew-to-crew through unofficial channels. One coffee mug from this battle now sits in the Navy Museum — a reminder of what happens when technology fails and survival depends on improvisation.

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