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Chisum
03-22-10, 04:18 PM
And now all is over.

After a last attack on a convoy en route to Murmansk, we had several damages. I escaped but this time it was really difficult...
Messages from BdU ask us to continue the fight to the end and talks about our "sense of duty" but at the same time on the English radio we understand that things are not in the right way for us. We are defeated and the war will be over soon...

After meeting the crew and obtained the agreement of all, I decided to walk without returning to seek contact to save human life, at this stage would have been totally unnecessary. Also, I deliberately ignored the stupid recommendations calling to fight to the end at a time when everything was lost.

The rest of the trip, music on, was imbued with a strange atmosphere.
Each understood that it was the last time in his life he was sailing on a submarine. All knew we would have to face a life farless dangerous but as hard and this prospect was not really pleasing.
And finally, after 10 days passed to avoid all Allied ships, May 6, 1945 around 5 am, I returned U-2506 in a shelters in Kiel, because Bergen and Trondheim was no more operational.

Begun January 9, 2009, I concluded this 8th campaign 14 months later, it's enormous for a game, so great that the time seems so long as true. Immersion is really total if we have enough imagination to do abstraction of "no-game" moments.
Thus, through this immersion, it generates an impression of realism so strong that returning home I was wondering what thought these sailors at that time and I thought now this is no more convoys that we must found but potatoes to eat...

What was the life of those soldiers soon after capitulation ? It must be something strange, memories full head and cruel realities right in the eyes, country destroyed, defeat spirit in the soul and a world that has radically changed and we don't recognize. How did they have it integrated ? How did they survive ? We do almost never speaks, but it is a very interesting subject.

And after being offered one last drink at this valiant crew has never failed, after remember our three gunners killed by a bomb two years ago, we exchanged our address and promising to meet again a day...
And to my second, "Kunz", I promised to visit him in his Bavaria native.

Then I started walking, I got on a train and I went home find my parents.
The war was finally over.

The last war pictures, a big tankers in flamme in the Arctic Ocean.
http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/13/87/46/18/sh3im109.jpg

U-2506 in the North Sea, returning home for the last time.
http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/13/87/46/18/sh3im105.jpg

http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/13/87/46/18/sh3im110.jpg

Engines stop forever.
http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/13/87/46/18/sh3im108.jpg

Final account.
http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/13/87/46/18/final_11.gif

(I hope this Google translation reworked by myself and my poor knowledge will let you understand all I mean lol).

Brag
03-22-10, 05:07 PM
You captured well the poignancy of the moment.

Congratulations :salute:

maillemaker
03-22-10, 05:33 PM
Great story. You were fortunate to have the chance to take one of those Type XXI's to sea.

Steve

frau kaleun
03-22-10, 05:57 PM
One of the doctors I used to work for (now retired) was in our office today and somehow the talk turned to computer gaming and I mentioned Silent Hunter 3. Much to my surprise he said he'd been interested in submarines for some time and asked more about the game.

I described it a bit and he asked if it was a "shooter" and I said no, even though the "point" of going out on patrol was to attack and sink enemy shipping, it really was more of a simulation than a game... especially since there was no way to "win" except by surviving until Germany surrenders and the conflict ends.

There was a thoughtful moment of silence after which we agreed that, for a combatant, the only real way to "win" a war is to still be alive when it's all over.

:salute:

Pappy55
03-23-10, 12:50 PM
You captured well the poignancy of the moment.

Congratulations :salute:

read it with this playing in the BG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwM2KX1bkjs

I love this track and that film
Der Untergang is definatly a ww2 film that has stuck with me

Jimbuna
03-23-10, 03:05 PM
Congratulations Kaleun, you achieved the greatest victory of all.....survival http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

Snestorm
03-24-10, 12:12 PM
Congratulations Kaleun, you achieved the greatest victory of all.....survival http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

Mr. Jimbuna got it covered, again.
I echo that.

KL-alfman
03-24-10, 12:36 PM
grats that you survived until war ended.

as I understand from the bottom-lines in your SH3Commander-log, this Kaleu was imprisoned until January1948. I didn't know that "normal" soldiers were held POW for such a long time (unless one was captured by Soviet troups).
does anybody know if this is correctly specified in the Commander-log??

frau kaleun
03-24-10, 12:50 PM
According to uboat.net, Kretschmer was held for over 6 1/2 years after his capture, which would put his release date in late 1947; that's the latest release date I'm aware of among those captured by non-Soviet Allied forces. Doesn't mean some weren't held longer though.

Chisum
03-24-10, 12:58 PM
I don't know Herr Kaleun(Alfman), but note it was an older version of SH3Commander, 3.2 was not installed at this time.

I already saw some mistakes in the preview version, one time I was killed in patrol but the patrol log said the same thing: captivity.

PS: now I must try a DID campaign and learn how to fire torpedoes manually because without it I still a pure newbie...I have begon a "Jochen Mohr campaign" onboard U-124 and I'll try to do it. So long mates, I don't know if I would come back home again....


:cry:


http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/13/87/46/18/jm_cam10.gif

KL-alfman
03-24-10, 01:04 PM
thx Frau Kaleun and Chisum for the replies! :up:

Chisum
03-24-10, 01:44 PM
And thank you all for taking the time to read my message.

That let me know how big is your sensibility.

:up:

Jimbuna
03-24-10, 04:10 PM
According to uboat.net, Kretschmer was held for over 6 1/2 years after his capture, which would put his release date in late 1947; that's the latest release date I'm aware of among those captured by non-Soviet Allied forces. Doesn't mean some weren't held longer though.


German POW’s continued to be held by the Allies for a number of years after the war had ended. The last POW’s held in Egypt returned to Germany in December 1948.

KL-alfman
03-24-10, 04:31 PM
German POW’s continued to be held by the Allies for a number of years after the war had ended. The last POW’s held in Egypt returned to Germany in December 1948.


do you happen to know any reasons why regular soldiers were kept for such a long time?
(and I don't relate to war-criminals)

Snestorm
03-24-10, 05:14 PM
do you happen to know any reasons why regular soldiers were kept for such a long time?
(and I don't relate to war-criminals)

That's a question thats been on my mind for many years.

Jimbuna
03-24-10, 05:20 PM
do you happen to know any reasons why regular soldiers were kept for such a long time?
(and I don't relate to war-criminals)

I've absolutely no idea but I'd hazard a guess it was because of the attitude of some of the allied governments and the administration involved in keeping so many was not as good in some countries as that of others.

Just a guess mind.

Chisum
03-24-10, 05:35 PM
Only one answer: winner has all rights...
It is a secular law of war, unfortunately.
It still that to be prisoner of the US was better.
Some German prisoners in the Soviet Union have been released more than 10 years after the end of the war(when they were not dead because they worked very hard...) because for the soviets, every german soldier was a war criminal guilty of crimes against Soviet Union, even a simple cook...

KL-alfman
03-24-10, 06:10 PM
thx Snestorm, Chisum and Jimbuna!

I was wondering if there had been legal reasons or not?! don't know anything about the regulations of the Hague Treaty ....

it's just that I imagine it was terrible not to be allowed to get home and see your family after the atrocities of war. sad case.

Chisum
03-24-10, 06:28 PM
Soviet Union was not a democracy and the "Convention de Genève" was just a little paper for them...
Eye for eye, jungle law.

KL-alfman
03-24-10, 06:54 PM
thx for pointing me to the mistake I made.
guess the Hague Treaty was only how to act and re-act in armed conflicts.
the Geneva Convention regulated the treatment of POWs, I guess.

Chisum
03-24-10, 07:12 PM
Your Welcome Herr Kaleun.

:salute: