Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
“A heavy cruiser sighted on the 7th leaving Batavia has been sunk by TRENCHANT British submarine...”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_8_June_1945
The Action of 8 June 1945, sometimes called the Sinking of the Ashigara was a naval action that resulted in the sinking of the heavy cruiser Ashigara of the Imperial Japanese Navy by the British Royal Navy submarine HMS Trenchant. Ashigara—which was being escorted by the destroyer Kamikaze—was being used to transport troops from Indonesia for the defence of Singapore and the sinking resulted in a huge loss of life.
Kamikaze was patrolling the area and soon a cautious Hezlet spotted the masts of Ashigara nearly 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) away through the periscope at around 11:48. It soon became clear to Hezlet that he could not reach a firing position closer to Ashigara than 4,000 yd (3,700 m), the limit of his torpedoes’ range.
At such a distance, Hezlet had to make precise estimable calculations before his chance of an attack disappeared. After 21 minutes, Trenchant fired a full bow salvo of eight torpedoes at about 12:12 at a range of 4,000 yd (3,700 m) aimed individually from a quarter of length ahead to a quarter of a length astern. Because of the shoreline to port Ashigara could only alter toward Trenchant and that meant running into the torpedoes. After three minutes five torpedoes struck the Ashigara.
The sinking of Ashigara earned Hezlet a bar to his DSO and the U.S. Legion of Merit. HMS Trenchant flew the Jolly Roger as a tribute to her success when she reached her base at Trincomalee. Tactically it was one of the most brilliant submarine attacks of the war in terms of range.