On October 20, 1942, the Trigger, while submerged at a depth of about 100 feet, fired a torpedo at an unescorted tanker. The weapon’s rudder jammed and it ran in a circle, a failure that should have destroyed the Trigger. But the boat was saved by a second defect in the boomeranging torpedo. The detonator, which should have detected the Trigger’s magnetic field and activated the warhead upon reaching its strongest point, instead exploded at a distance great enough to leave the boat intact. The weapon had suffered two unrelated failures, the second providentially neutralizing the first.
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