Using my IXD-2 (U-894) this morning I decided to go waaaaaaaaaaaay out on a limb and raid San Francisco, I figured, hey bound to be something juicy there right?
so off I went. Got there (after sinking a victory cargo) and well, SHIP CITY there were several vessels from small split's to victory C's and even a few T3's all sitting in the open. I sank a few of those but I didnt find what I REALLY wanted, big gun warships, flat tops, etc... so (stupid as it was) I got a hairbrained idea into my empty coconut of a skull, I'd go see if I could sneak into Pearl Harbor HI.
I knew itd be almost impossible to get in, but I also knew was the caliber of targets I not could but WOULD find there, so off I go. After a while taking my time to get there (avoiding planes) I get close to Pearl and find a destroyer patrolling near the SE coast near Honolulu, I turned around and hit him with my only "Zaunkonig" from tube 5 and proceeded away from the area and towards Pearl again. Lo and behold here comes in another Destroyer who for some ungodly reason didnt notice me, I turned when I notice he had stopped (possible sonar check) and fired a TI at him at high speed on surface impact setting, just as it almost hits him he goes full throttle and turns away, I'm thinking he is turning to begin a run on me, but as I am looking at my world map to get a better look at his position I see the message "enemy ship destroyed"...he had turned AWAY from me and somehow steered right back into the path of the torpedo he had just evaded moments earlier.
Deciding to try and make my run on the harbor I managed to reach the harbor entrance with no further excitement (though I noticed two VERY fast blue lines whipping back and forth over the area where those two DD's met their very stupid end). As I enter the harbor its like heaven, 4 carriers, light and heavy cruisers and the BB North Carolina. With my first two torpedos I sink the carrier near the entrance to the harbor, she let off a series of explisions and went down w/o further fuss, then I decided to turn and nail the North carolina, and so crawling along at 1 knot (SR) I managed to swing around and I fire off two at her thinking I'll probably need to hit her again....well, I didnt.
As soon as torpedo #1 hit the entire freakin thing exploded, it was like watching the worlds largest firecracker, a wall of flame from bow to stern, maybe I hit a fuel tank or something idk, but she went down. Once I got over my shock and awe, I proceeded into the harbor for one more ship to sink (by this point I had two stern tubes and the external stern reloads which had not yet been brought in due to space) I ended up nailing another carrier and then I made my way at 1 kt out of Pearl and back out to sea, arriving some time later back in Surabaya. after around 2 months at sea I had over 144K tons and I never got hit once.
The reason for my entire long little monologue there is to ask this question...Is it just me or was Pearl WAY too easy to get into, I mean as the one of if not THE most important US base in WWII you'd think thered be no way on gods green earth I as a German would get within a mile of the harbor there.
Have any of you found it this easy or am I just a weirdo with a freakish streak of luck?
