of 38, and provided them with bandages and provisions. The boat torpedoed the unescorted British merchant ship Empire Gull on 12 December, in the Mozambique Channel, allowing the crew to abandon ship before opening fire with her deck gun, firing 70 incendiary and 100 high-explosive rounds, and scoring about 140 hits, which finally caused the ship to sink. Two crew members were lost in the attack, the master and 43 crewmen were later rescued up by and . On 14 December, the U-boat sank the Dutch merchant ship Sawahloento with her last torpedo, her destruction took seven minutes. The crew of 72 men abandoned ship in four lifeboats, three of which capsized when the boiler exploded, drowning most of the occupants. The 19 survivors in the last lifeboat were questioned, and then set sail towards the coast of South Africa, arriving two days later. U-177 then headed for France, arriving in Bordeaux on 22 January 1943, after a voyage of 128 days. Second patrol U-177 left Bordeaux, 1 April 1943, for her second patrol around the Cape of Good Hope, where she sank six ships totaling . She attacked Convoy CD-20, 27 May, with a salvo of four torpedoes, hitting the United States merchant ship Agwimonte and the Norwegian tanker Storaas. Both ships were abandoned by their crews and were sunk with further torpedoes from U-177. On 6 July the unescorted Canadian merchant ship was hit by two torpedoes from U-177, south southwest of Cap Sainte Marie, the extreme southern point of Madagascar. The U-boat fired another torpedo which either missed or was a dud, so she surfaced to sink the vessel with gunfire, but as she did so her target sank. On 10 July 1943, U-177 struck the unescorted American Liberty ship Alice F. Palmer, with a single torpedo in the stern, blowing off the propeller and rudder, flooding the engine room, and breaking the back of the ship. The crew of 68 abandoned their vessel in four lifeboats, and after questioning them, U-177 shelled the ship, firing 14 incendiary and 85 high-explosive rounds. The burning ship slowly sank. The four lifeboats eventually sailed to Madagascar. The British collier Cornish City was torpedoed and sunk on 29 July, southeast of Madagascar. The ship sank within a minute with the loss of 37 of her crew of 43. The survivors were questioned by the Germans and later picked up by