Lible
09-06-07, 01:08 PM
U-2511, the first XXI to be combat-ready left Bergen on fifth september. The crew was very happy with the new boat. And the old man Kurt Ehlert was proud to be the first to be assigned a XXI. The destination of the patrol was North-Atlantic. The trip there went quietly, except for a few crash dives and a small merchant sunk (that was easy). Somewhere in the grid AL (Can't tell you exactly because of manual navigation). We encountered a biig convoy. We got the radio report, but as we weren't sure of our location, it wasn't very good. But suddenly, on the morning of 14th September our radar found 'em. We dived immeadiletly and sneaked about 10 kilometres from them underwater, waiting for the darkness to arrive. It took long, because September is still so bright.. at 11:30, having planned the entrance to the convoy, we started approaching them, quietly. The sea was perfectly calm for our plan. 3 KMs from the convoy we made it to periscope depth. And observed the ships. Well.. that convoy was one nice view, more than 40 ships. I carefully chose the targets, a medium tanker, some big merchants and some big tankers. I told the torpedo crew to put in the good old' steam torpedoes and set them all to the slowest speed, calculating everything necessary during the process. Then as quickly as possible I shot every torpedo and told the crew to put new torpedoes in as quickly as possible. They did that well, all the six torpedoes were reloaded in something like 12 minutes. During the time, some very nice explosions happened and everyone started to get nervous. Very thankfully, the destroyers (there was many of them) didn't get bearing to me. I launched the next six torpedoes, and thought that was enough for that time, we turned around and immeaditly descended into the darkness, to 210 meters. Crawling away slowly. Now looking into that log we hit 10 ships! of 63,000 tons! And that on the year 1944! We patroled more in the Atlantic, but didn't find anything more to blow, except for another lone small merchant, which went down easily. On the 10th of October we decided to return to Bergen. We kept ourself as far as possible from the English coast travelling submerged and snorkeling every two days (at night). But suddenly, on the 16th of October. Kabooom... the watchman at the observing pericope must've been sleeping. We quickly started to sink. Torpedoroom was quickly full of water, and the engines were all out of order. I but the best men avaiable in the repair department and ordered everyone to the back of the boat. But nothing helped.. we sank.. We quickly passed 250 meters, when the hull started making terrible noises.. 300 (blowing off ballast..) meters.. 325, finally got the torpedo room clean of water.. 350.. The engines are soon repaired 375.. the crew was crying.. 380 - The engines are repaired, I ordered full speed forward and blow all the compressed air we have.. and guess what, from 389 meters we started to rise! We made it up to the surface and made it to Bergen.
This has been my absolute best patrol so far. 68000 tons sank.. ahh.
This has been my absolute best patrol so far. 68000 tons sank.. ahh.