GraylingSTS(SS)
12-19-06, 10:30 PM
It's December 6th, 1939 and already I'm mourning my first loss of all hands.
After an respectable initial patrol I had 3 consecutive patrols with less than ideal conditions for hunting, wind and rain.
Finally on my 5th patrol, I set sail under clear skies and I didn't have far to travel...patrol grid AN52. I arrived on station and the weather was still calm. Worried about allied air cover, I spent the daylight hours patrolling at PD and surfaced at night to cover some distance and recharge. The first night, I came across my first victim of the patrol, a little tramp steamer that my deck gun crew finished off with no fish wasted. Just at daybreak, I ran across a small merchant and I risked another deck gun attack at sunrise then cleared the area at ahead flank before heading back to PD to wait out the day.
That evening, about an hour before dark, my sonarman picks up a merchant contact just to the south and closing. I head in that general direction and just after dusk I gain visual contact on my FIRST Pyro ammo ship. One torpedoe and he goes up like the 4th of July! Awesome fireworks! Awesome enough apparently to catch the attention of a nearby destroyer. He was on the other side of the Pyro though so I reversed course and made an easy escape.
The next few days were fruitful to say the least. I finished my time in the patrol box and made my way north up the coast and came across 2 more Pyros and a large merchant! I couldn't believe my good fortune.
Then it started to rain. Visibility went down the crapper, you could cut the fog with a knife. I opened the distance between me and the coast and was at PD when my sound man picked up another merchant contact... closing. I waited patiently, straining to pick something visually out of the fog. I knew I wouldn't have much time to react...the contact was moving at medium speed and visibility was 300m at best. Finally her bow appeared from the haze...a passenger/cargo carrier at about 325 meters and an almost perfect 90 degree aspect angle. Fire tubes 1 & 2...1 set just below the keel...magnetic, 2 fired as an after thought, default depth. Both eels hit their target, and she slowed to 4 knots and was visibly listing to her starboard side. I was struggling with the fog to maintain contact and manuever for another shot. I just about had her lined up when a secondary explosion rocked her and sent her to the bottom.
I continued my patrol and the rain continued to fall. My crew are starting to feel the strain from the constant heaving of the boat under the heavy swells. The sound man reports a closing warship @ medium range and the timing couldn't have been worse... battery power at 10%, and the wind is howling, visibility pitiful. I reluctantly surfaced and let the batteries charge to 25% and the dove back to PD to let sonar get a fix on the warship that I knew had to be getting dangerously close. Right on cue, the sound man reports a close aboard contact bearing 200...I quickly swung the scope around and all I could see was an ominous looking bow racing through the haze on a collision course with yours truly. A snap shot from the aft tube and a prayer that the fish would have enough distance to arm before making contact...I ordered crash dive and 15 loooooong seconds later the most beautiful sound..."Torpedoe Impact!" I ordered ahead slow, and crept away thinking if I make it back to the surface, my rear end is heading for home!
2 hours later, I surfaced and made a course for home. The crew was exhausted and even though I had 5 fish left, I felt it would be reckless to press on. Besides, the weather showed no sign of letting up. It looked as if it was raining all over the world. I made sure I had a relatively rested watch crew on the bridge and headed below. In real life, I went to the fridge and got a cold beer.
When I came back, my heart almost stopped. "We're under attack sir!", damn! Crash dive! Too late...he dropped his cans right on my head...and the damage was intense. I mustered a damage control team from a crew that had already exceeded its limits. I had flooding from the radio room all the way to the stern torpedoe room. My port side took the brunt of the damage... the port electric motor and battery were destroyed. I set depth at 100m and believe it or not was able to stop flooding in every compartment except the engine room. The starboard motors and batteries were repaired and I made my depth 50 meters, hoping to get a handle on the engine room flooding. I could only imagine the guys back there having to grab a breath of air and then go under in a desperate attempt to shore up the bulkheads.
Incredibly, the other depth charges that the destroyer dropped were slightly off the mark and I wasn't damaged further. At 50 meters, the flooding in the engine room was still too much for the damage control team. The only option I had left was to emergency surface and pray that the poor visibility would afford me an escape route. And that may have worked, had the engine room not been 90% under water.
As my beloved U-49 broke the surface, the men in the engine room finally succumbed to the in rushing sea and the entire damage control team was lost along with the crew in that compartment. The destroyer brought his guns to bear and with them laid down his wrath in revenge for the almost 42,000 tons of allied shipping that now lay on the bottom as a result of the remarkable 5th patrol of the U-49.
Did I mention GWX rocks?
After an respectable initial patrol I had 3 consecutive patrols with less than ideal conditions for hunting, wind and rain.
Finally on my 5th patrol, I set sail under clear skies and I didn't have far to travel...patrol grid AN52. I arrived on station and the weather was still calm. Worried about allied air cover, I spent the daylight hours patrolling at PD and surfaced at night to cover some distance and recharge. The first night, I came across my first victim of the patrol, a little tramp steamer that my deck gun crew finished off with no fish wasted. Just at daybreak, I ran across a small merchant and I risked another deck gun attack at sunrise then cleared the area at ahead flank before heading back to PD to wait out the day.
That evening, about an hour before dark, my sonarman picks up a merchant contact just to the south and closing. I head in that general direction and just after dusk I gain visual contact on my FIRST Pyro ammo ship. One torpedoe and he goes up like the 4th of July! Awesome fireworks! Awesome enough apparently to catch the attention of a nearby destroyer. He was on the other side of the Pyro though so I reversed course and made an easy escape.
The next few days were fruitful to say the least. I finished my time in the patrol box and made my way north up the coast and came across 2 more Pyros and a large merchant! I couldn't believe my good fortune.
Then it started to rain. Visibility went down the crapper, you could cut the fog with a knife. I opened the distance between me and the coast and was at PD when my sound man picked up another merchant contact... closing. I waited patiently, straining to pick something visually out of the fog. I knew I wouldn't have much time to react...the contact was moving at medium speed and visibility was 300m at best. Finally her bow appeared from the haze...a passenger/cargo carrier at about 325 meters and an almost perfect 90 degree aspect angle. Fire tubes 1 & 2...1 set just below the keel...magnetic, 2 fired as an after thought, default depth. Both eels hit their target, and she slowed to 4 knots and was visibly listing to her starboard side. I was struggling with the fog to maintain contact and manuever for another shot. I just about had her lined up when a secondary explosion rocked her and sent her to the bottom.
I continued my patrol and the rain continued to fall. My crew are starting to feel the strain from the constant heaving of the boat under the heavy swells. The sound man reports a closing warship @ medium range and the timing couldn't have been worse... battery power at 10%, and the wind is howling, visibility pitiful. I reluctantly surfaced and let the batteries charge to 25% and the dove back to PD to let sonar get a fix on the warship that I knew had to be getting dangerously close. Right on cue, the sound man reports a close aboard contact bearing 200...I quickly swung the scope around and all I could see was an ominous looking bow racing through the haze on a collision course with yours truly. A snap shot from the aft tube and a prayer that the fish would have enough distance to arm before making contact...I ordered crash dive and 15 loooooong seconds later the most beautiful sound..."Torpedoe Impact!" I ordered ahead slow, and crept away thinking if I make it back to the surface, my rear end is heading for home!
2 hours later, I surfaced and made a course for home. The crew was exhausted and even though I had 5 fish left, I felt it would be reckless to press on. Besides, the weather showed no sign of letting up. It looked as if it was raining all over the world. I made sure I had a relatively rested watch crew on the bridge and headed below. In real life, I went to the fridge and got a cold beer.
When I came back, my heart almost stopped. "We're under attack sir!", damn! Crash dive! Too late...he dropped his cans right on my head...and the damage was intense. I mustered a damage control team from a crew that had already exceeded its limits. I had flooding from the radio room all the way to the stern torpedoe room. My port side took the brunt of the damage... the port electric motor and battery were destroyed. I set depth at 100m and believe it or not was able to stop flooding in every compartment except the engine room. The starboard motors and batteries were repaired and I made my depth 50 meters, hoping to get a handle on the engine room flooding. I could only imagine the guys back there having to grab a breath of air and then go under in a desperate attempt to shore up the bulkheads.
Incredibly, the other depth charges that the destroyer dropped were slightly off the mark and I wasn't damaged further. At 50 meters, the flooding in the engine room was still too much for the damage control team. The only option I had left was to emergency surface and pray that the poor visibility would afford me an escape route. And that may have worked, had the engine room not been 90% under water.
As my beloved U-49 broke the surface, the men in the engine room finally succumbed to the in rushing sea and the entire damage control team was lost along with the crew in that compartment. The destroyer brought his guns to bear and with them laid down his wrath in revenge for the almost 42,000 tons of allied shipping that now lay on the bottom as a result of the remarkable 5th patrol of the U-49.
Did I mention GWX rocks?