Q: Your biggest battle yet?
I would say so.
As midnight struck on the 1st of December, 1941, we were racing to the front of an eastbound convoy that we'd just found, who seemed to be drawing closer to the Norwegian coast for the night. We were about 25km northwest of cape Omgang. The weather was much the same - icy mist, temperatures down in to -20s. All crew were standing by at battle stations.
From the deck, I was observing 3 transports and at least two small escort ships. The leading merchant was not a large ship, but the two convoyed ships behind it seemed a bit bigger, so I decided to focus on them and set aside 3 torpedoes for each. With the moon in the sky and visibility relatively unobstructed, I decided that a submerged attack would be wisest, especially since the convoy’s escorts were small and kept disappearing from view.
Half an hour after midnight, we were in position. I raised the scope and observed the first of the transports in the convoy passing by. I then looked carefully at the 2nd transport, and after consulting the recognition manual determined her to be a European transport with a relatively shallow draft of 4.7m. I adjusted torpedo depth to about 3m and, at 00:40, fired two torpedoes at it from somewhere about 700-800 meters range...
To be continued...