U-38
The U-38 departed Wilhelmshaven on August 1, 1940 for operations west of Ireland. It started dangerously as on August 2 enemy aircraft attacked the U-boat with depth charges but there was no damage. Three days later more enemy aircraft, lurking in low cloud cover, attacked the U-boat, again with no results. On August 7, 1940 at 11:40 p.m. west of Ireland the U-38 torpedoed and sank the British 7,527-ton Mohamed Ali El-Kebir, a troopship on convoy HX-61 bound for Gibraltar; ninety-six men died. On August 11, 1940 at 3:19 p.m. the U-38 sank the British 4,966-ton Llanfair, from convoy SL-41, bringing 7,800 tons of sugar from Freetown, Sierra Leone to Avonmouth, England; three crewmen died when the ship went down in eleven minutes. Enemy aircraft forced the U-38 to crash dive on August 18, August 19 and August 24. Finally, on August 31, 1940 northwest of Bloody Foreland, Ireland the U-38 sank the British 2,508-ton Har Zion, a straggler from convoy OB-205 and carrying fertilizer from Liverpool, England to Savannah, Georgia; thirty-four men died in the attack – only one man survived. After four weeks at sea, the U-38 arrived at her new home port of Lorient, France on September 3, 1940. (Dönitz’s Crews: Germany’s U-Boat Sailors in World War II)
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Hayfield Fight
On August 1, 1867, about 800 Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors attacked a wood-cutting party three miles from Fort C. F. Smith. The party survived the fight, losing two men; warrior dead were probably about eight. The battle, located near present-day Yellowtail, Montana – was termed the Hayfield Fight. (Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gold and Guns: The 1874 Yellowstone Wagon Road and Prospecting Expedition and the Battle of Lodge Grass Creek)