(Story) U-46 puts to sea again

what an engaging read!

I hope you're compiling all of these, I'd like to have a copy.

[Laughing Swordfish]

We're up near Hartlepool when we we first come to action stations

Everybody jumps to it again.

It's a another bloody trawler. The sea is too rough again to engage with the guns. I make the decision that there are bigger fish to fry, with our 14 precious torpedoes.

We actually wave to them as we sail past. In the darkness, I think they must have thought we were Brits...

It's been a couple of days since Muller's first shave. I happen to be on the bridge when he calls out

"Aircraft, two, fore and starboard bearing 20 , Sir!"

The Watch Officer is instinctivley reaching for the crash button before I stop him

"Have a another look, Christian. It's a minor miracle you rarely see. The Luftwaffe have come out to play"

Sure enough it's a couple of Condors, at high altitude.

This is enough excitement to bring the Chief out of the depths of his engine room. I hand him some spare binos, which he blinks into

"That's the life up there" he murmured

"I wish we could see what they can see" I replied

"Or at least hear from them once in a while, we could get a lot more done"

We've heard there's a big aerial punch-up going on over Southern England and London, which seems to be absorbing all Goering's attention, and not going too well by the sound of it.

But a few spare recce planes would make all the difference. A U-boat's low silhouette helps keep it alive, but it's hard to see anything from down here.

"Good eyes, Junge!" I clap Muller on the back. "Keep them peeled!"

The Condors are already out of sight as I go below.

Around the Northern tip of Scotland we get our first proper contact. Everyone shakes out, cursing, from their bunks or hammocks.

Even this is a coastal steamer

The sea is still running high but we manage to put a text-book shot into her, and turn away on standard

"She's still making way, Sir"

I look again to see the fire being fought, and although she is pitching and rolling badly, the little freighter is still making a gallant fight of staying on course.

"You know what we have to do, Number One"

We come around again and the job is finished. Nobody feels terribly heroic on the bridge. In this weather it's hard to imagine many survivors

"Do you think the British will give us a second chance if the time comes for us, Men?" I shout against the wind.

"When they're plastering us with everything at 50m, should we apologise and ask to go home?"

The younger hands studied thir sectors with a new intensity

Coming down the west coast of Ireland. We were bounced by a lone destroyer.

First we knew about it was the shell fire. One of which bashed in our port bow casing and sprung a valve.

The First Lieutenant was most righteous in his indignation, as we scampered below, to the trilling of the alarm bell

"I've just had that fixed!"

He fell down the ladder on top of the crew rushing forward to help push the boat down.

There was some very un-officer-like language.

If I'd sounded harsh with the second watch, this was a salutory lesson.

"Deeper, Chief. Give me 100 metres. Hard a-starboard to course 80, then bring her level at slow speed. I want accurate damage reports!"

I could already see Kurt going forward with his newly acquired bag of tricks

Everyone looked accusingly at the Second Watch Officer still in his wet oilskins and badly shaken

"Right out of a fog bank, Sir. On us before we knew it. Almost as if they knew we were there!"

We're looking at the depth gauge and willing the needle around.

There is the distant crump of detonations.

"Hah! Rubbish!" cries the Quartermaster. It's his job to check the depth charges off. But he's doing this more for the effect on the lads.

"Miles away!"

He knows that the destroyer's surface speed relative to our submerged little amble, gives him plenty of time for another run, if he can find us

All stations are reporting in. All good aft. It must be hard in the engine and battery rooms, they never have much of a clue as to what's going on

Kurt emerges from the fore-ends, soaking wet and still clutching a big spanner, with the CPO who is looking after him.

"Beg to report, Sir, we took a little dent but all leaks stopped" he grinned

Another succession of bangs, this time closer, rocks the boat, but nothing worse.

I turn to the Chief.

"Let's go quiet now, Otto. Can you you put us down a little deeper? Steer 170, that should show her our arse......"

The next day the destroyer has gone.

......"Surface stations!"


Now a new development

Radio Message from BdU

We are to curtail our patrol and put in to St Nazaire after all. All boats from 7th Flotilla to arrive as current operations allow. U-46 will be one of the first.

"You don't seem pleased with the news?" remarks Otto in the Wardroom

I shrug, and quietly think of Heidi back in Kiel

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

[Dowly]

This is like reading a book!! Keep it up!!

[stratege]

you definitly a king.

i love reading what you are doing.

This IS AMAZING, DRILLING, EXCITING ....

a real break throught ..........


I am definitly becoming a U-46 addict !!!


If i go to london soon, i will definitly PM you inorder to pay you a pint of beer !!!

[HundertzehnGustav]

tears rolling off cheek

wonderful
like sugar on cake.

[Der Schatten]

Laughing Swordfish, I believe you are overdue with a report! This is not acceptable

[U-104]

Originally Posted by The_Pharoah

dude I don't know who you are but you're a DAMN good author. Maybe you should consider writing something like this for real. I'm not kidding. Just from reading the stuff you wrote (and I read a lot of books as most people do I'm sure), I actually got the usual mental pic - pretty good.

What he said

[Kaleun]

The_Pharoah wrote:
dude I don't know who you are but you're a DAMN good author. Maybe you should consider writing something like this for real. I'm not kidding. Just from reading the stuff you wrote (and I read a lot of books as most people do I'm sure), I actually got the usual mental pic - pretty good.

What he said as well!

[Nopileo]

Originally Posted by Der Schatten

Laughing Swordfish, I believe you are overdue with a report! This is not acceptable

He's probabøy still in St. Nazaire doing some R&R...

[JBClark]

Laughing Swordfish,

This is very fine writing. Thanks. Please keep it up, I enjoy reading it. My only regret is that when I next return to port, I will have to paint over my own laughing swordfish.

And I will probably have to wield the brush myself. My crew will certainly be drunk beyond all use within a few hours of docking. I fear my authority as Kaleun is not sufficient to stop this revelry, and the boys have earned it after all.

You have earned the sole use of the "Laughing Swordfish" tower art, and I urge my fellow kapitans to follow my lead and refrain from choosing that one. Paint over it if you currently display it. I've done 24 patrols in three careers sporting this stupid green fish but no more.

Keep up the good work.

JBC

[iambecomelife]

Really engaging; keep it up

[Laughing Swordfish]

St Nazaire looks like any other port when we sail in to dock, but there is no curbing the excitement of the young Lordships, most of whom have never set foot in any other country but Germany.

There is a stern, but utterly wasted, lecture on the dangers of fraternisation from the Number One; the lads are itching to get into their best rig and go out on the town.

Soon they may just be itching

The Chief shakes his head. "Join the Navy and see the world!"

"Better let them make the most of it," I murmur, "I reckon we'll be out again soon enough. Someone tell Dieter not to lose his trousers this time, though"

I report to the makeshift headquarters with our very modest tonnage from the last patrol, and some slight repairs to be done.

Sure enough we're expected to turn the boat round and be back out in double quick time. Other boats from 7th Flotilla are due in soon.

"Keep your roughs in order, Lieutenant" says a poker-faced base-rat of a captain, as he sourly sifts through the endless paperwork. "We'll be needing them for the invasion of England soon, once we've put paid to the RAF"

I look around hopefully in the chaotic beehive of our new home. The majority of Flotilla Command, and a certain blonde receptionist are not here.

Otto, me and some of the other officers not still stuck working on U-46, go out for a quiet beer.

"So, next round in Portsmouth, Sir!" my Number Two grins confidently

"Don't be too sure" I reply, although it's a nice vision.

As we stroll back through the main square, we see a pair of Kriegsmarine No1 Dress trousers dangling from the top of the statue in the middle of the fountain.

"Have Dieter report to me first thing in the morning" I sigh.

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

[yankee-V]

[Laughing Swordfish]

The grand music of the military band seemed to subside a little, when everyone saw the state U-46 was in when we came back into St Nazaire from our first patrol

Even our youngest blades, normally waving and cheering every time we dock, were too tired to do more than accept the garlands thrown around their necks As we tied on.

I sensed all they wanted to do was kiss dry land again, and I don't blame them.

I refused to be towed in, but really I should have.

Even out of the open sea, U-46 was listing and responding very noisily and sulkily to every ministration that Otto could coax out of her engines. Our pressure hull hadn't let us down, thank God, but almost everything else was smashed, right down to Willi's favourite lucky blue cup.

Observation scope wrenched out of action, decks awash despite full pumping when we came back to the top, and getting the exhausted off-watch hands to bail. Two of the fore tubes out of action. All the perishable goods had to go over the side, they were the first to perish in the counter-attack, I'm afraid. All valves and seals made as good as possible, due to some desperate work from Kurt and the others. Some batteries cracked, but not too bad. The hint of chlorine and the water under foot, reminded me of a summer camp at a swimming pool in Baden....

Every piece of glass in every bulb and guage shattered. The Control Room PO fixed up the main ones to get us back.

Electrics severed or shorted in several places, but the stokers rallied round and patched that up.

Top side, it looked like we'd been chewed up and spat out. Which, in a sense we had been.

Up top everything seemed to be either dented or missing, including the AA gun, or most of it. The Wintergarten rail was still hanging off. No longer a safe place to sit.

U-46 wouldn't be appearing in a propaganda film any time soon.

Deck compass skewed hopelessly out of true. Only time I saw Willi lose his temper with his sextant, and I asked him for a navigational report. He just flung his hand out to our starboard bow, into a great grey heaving void of sea, and yelled "France is somewhere over there, Sir!"

He got us home, though.

"Sorry, Sir" he said later "But let me show you something....."

He lead me down from the conning tower to inspect the exterior damage.

"Pretty knackered, I'd have to say" I shrugged

"No, look, please, Sir"

He was pointing at our Laughing Swordfish emblem painted on the tower.

"There isn't a scratch on her"

It was true. The paintwork was completely unscathed

"Same on the other side" he grinned,

"This is a lucky boat!"

On the way back, we helped stick Willi's blue cup back together. Ridiculous really with everything else that needed to be done, but everyone found an excuse to search for the one last missing piece.

It was the Doc, Oscar, who found it, inadvertantly dislodging it with his boot from the scuppers when the boat rolled out of a wave.
They were great childish yells of joy. Me included
The beer bottles had all been broken, but Oscar himself produced a bottle of brandy from his cabinet, as Willi joyfully glued the last bit in place.

It hadn't been a bad patrol - three decent sized ships no longer going to Southampton or Bristol. But at the same time we'd been beaten off a major convoy three times, and taken quite a hammering into the bargain.

Plus, I'd bent the boat I'd been issued with. And I had to miss our usual reports in. The antennae were shot away in the first chase. Everyone seems amazed we're here at all.

I walked unsteadily down the gangplank, probably stinking to high heaven. Thinking of only a bath and a few hours grace before I have to face the music.

"Herr Kapitan Leutnant!"

I turn

"You are to report immediateley to BdU at Kerneval"

I stand there open-mouthed.

"I am to be your driver, Sir"

It's Heidi.

And I can see she has been crying......


Lt de Bunsen, U-46

[Kpt. Lehmann]

THREE CHEERS! ... and a SALUTE!

Well written!