(Story) U52 - Another Wolf plays its part

[Bosje]

U52 – Another wolf plays its part

December 2nd 1939

Wilhelmshafen quickly vanished from sight as the boat cut through the cold fog which had settled in at sunset on this winter afternoon. Gray, cold and desolate, even 10 miles out of port. Some six weeks of loneliness lay ahead and the north Atlantic was not likely to be very hospitable this time of year. The Old Man lit up a cigarette on the bridge of the U-boat and inhaled deeply. Immediately he coughed with a sound like his grandfather and his mouth filled with the taste of blood. He had a bad cold but it would pass, he assumed. No point staying in bed, they had a job to do. He straightened himself up, still coughing and ignored his watch officer who looked at him in a disconcerted way. 'I'll be fine,' he grumbled and he continued to smoke his cigarette, trying hard to suppress the disgustingly unhealthy sounding old man's cough. After all, he was only 34 years old.

:arrgh!:

[Bosje]

Occasionally, ships and snow-covered shoreline fluttered in and out of view as they made their way to the open sea. Their orders were clear and simple: Patrol the northern channels of the Western Approaches. KM grid AM51 was their assigned grid but first they had to get there: A long trip around the British Isles, a great big curve around the naval bases on the Eastern coast and in Scotland, theoretically avoiding most enemy air and sea patrols. The men had spent the last months on shorter patrols close to the English East Coast. They had been quite successful but it was slow and dangerous. Lots of enemy patrols and lately, the big merchants avoided those shores. So now they had a new hunting ground. The crew were quite eager to join the convoy battles in the Northern Atlantic and the Old Man didn't blame them. First things first however: get there in one piece. Two weeks of boring travel while trying to keep a sharp lookout. It would become routine soon enough.

[Bosje]

December 6th 1939, north of the Scottish Isles

Alaaaaaaaaarm! The watchcrew scrambled down through the open hatches as the forward ballast tanks were already being flooded. Twenty seconds after the call, the nose of the boat dipped below the waves and the boat drove itself into the depths of the darkgreen ocean. I was struck by a coughing attack while the LI called 50 meters. 'Deeper' I yelled in between the coughs, gesturing downwards with my hands. My cold had worsened and I ran a slight fever, much to the annoyance of my officers, it would be really bad form if the Old Man himself spread a flu throughout the crew. But they were all healthy young men, I assumed my cold would pass soon enough and the crew would probably be fine.

The boat reached 110 meters and I nodded to the LI. This was enough. We both grinned. All around us, the boys were looking up at the ceiling, their faces white with apprehension. What did we dive from? Escorts? Aircraft? 'All stop, check all valves and hatches.'
I grinned at the 1.WO who was also looking ill at ease. Practise drill, my grin told him.
Three hours later we were back on the surface, again on our way to the open ocean.
Alaaaaaaaaarm!! This time it was no drill. A double engine aircraft had been spotted briefly through the coulds. Or so the watch officer claimed. No bombs were dropped and for the next couple of hours we ran silent at 20 meters, no contacts were heard and we secured from battle stations. Had it really been a plane or just a shadow? We'd never know, better safe than sorry, it was all part of the routine.

[Bosje]

December 11th 1939, AM5153

I browsed the War Journal.
'dec9 Reached patrol area, grid search with hydrophone check every 4 hrs'
'dec10 20:30 multiple contacts very far away SSW, moving away, moving to intercept at full speed'
'dec11 03:00 getting closed to suspected convoy. New single contact approaching slow from WSW.'
'dec11 04:00 Hog Island freighter 4000 tons. Single hit from tube 5. On fire and sinking by the bow.'

I smiled, our first kill on this patrol. I scribbled in the margin to add: '20 shells from deckgun to quicken kill, convoy still in hydro range.'
'dec11 05:00 much closer to contacts, turns out to be a flock of whales. Resume patrol on surface.'
I looked at Benno and sighed. He is still very young and inexperienced, like all of us, but I had given him a very hard time for wasting 6 hours and invaluable gallons of fuel on a high-speed chase, going after a couple of whales.

The next day we had finished our 72-hour patrol of AM51 and we received new orders. Another 72-hour patrol, this time AN13. Quite close to the Royal Navy's bases in Scotland and a long way away from our current patrol area. I frowned when the navigator gave me the time and fuel consumption we would need for transfer but Befehl was Befehl. At least my cold was largely gone, just a slight cough remained.

We spent the rest of the week following the reports from the Southern Atlantic. Graf Spee had been doing amazing things, we were led to believe, until it somehow succombed to a couple of much smaller English cruisers. Hard to believe.
Beat down, we returned home when fuel and torpedoes ran out. Not a bad patrol but we not exactly beating the Royal Navy and winning the war at this pace.

[Bosje]

Hi there fellow Kaleuns,

back in the days of SH3 GWX I tought myself to play and fell in love with the modded subsim phenomenon and with this community. I wrote a story (U2 war diary) about three subsequent careers, that was some 5 years ago.

now I'm back, playing SH5 with Wolves of Steel and although there are some gameplay features from the devs that turn my stomach, I am seriously enjoying myself on my current career. hardly any CTDs and the modded game looks abolutely stunning. Also the gameplay is quite alright.
thanks to all the modders! hats off to you. :salute:

Now, because i have a week off from work, I thought I'd try my hand at some writing again. A little rusty but I hope you like it. feedback is most welcome

happy hunting,
bosje
:arrgh!:

[Defiance]

Hiya,

Gripping stuff, reads like you'd imagine in rl

In all the years of playing the sh series i'm yet to finish a career, what with mods and finding more mods etc etc new career starts become a fact of life hehe

i'll keep checking back on your war journal :up:

:salute:

[Trevally.]

Good read Bosje:salute:

[World_Devastator]

Good read, will be waiting for more :up:

[Bosje]

It's the third night on station, only 150 miles West from Tobermory, we are in between Ireland and the Hebrides. Annoyingly, all we sank here so far are three small fishing boats. Killed them with short bursts from the 20mm. The storm did the rest. A small freighter passed us close by in the fog, doing 12 knots and after a short chase we launched from our rear tube. The eel ran under it though, and in the heavy seas I don't want to waste any more precious torpedoes on anything less than 3000 tons. According to the sparse radio messages we manage to receive and decode, all the other boats are having torpedo troubles too.

We left Wilhemshaven on January 7th and initially patrolled AM54, way out in the open ocean. Sank three large ships, including a big old liner which had been converted to transport troops. About 17000 tons on that one kill alone, not bad for two eels. Then we were assigned a new patrol area, right into the lion's den. I thought BdU must have fallen off his rocks but we still live, after two days and three nights. Hydrophone reports warships all around us but they never find us in this horrible weather. Four times we got jumped by fighter planes tearing out of the fog. I guess we surprised them as much as they did us, by the time they had turned around to come in for an attack we were at 30 meters. It's hard to believe they even fly in this weather. For days it has been high seas and heavy winds. And fog. Oh the fog, I guess only the Brits can conjure up this kind of fog. One minute you can see clear to the horizon, which makes the crew very jumpy, next minute you can hardly see the bow of the boat. So there it is, right in the middle of what is supposed to be one of the busiest shipping lanes. If only some nice fat freighters would turn up.

At least my health is better, upon return from our last patrol my cold was gone and none of the crew had been affected. It was only a cold, after all. Never mind the fact that on board I am the old man,I am in the prime of my life, theoretically. Only a persistent and nasty sounding cough lingers. Probably a result from the stale air on a submarine combined with my bad habit to smoke roll-ups every chance I get. I spend rather more time on the bridge than a commander needs to. But I like the surface and being on the bridge keeps me sharp as well as allowing me my ciggies, as long as I keep the glow concealed of course. I fully agree with the other Kaleuns of my generation, the boys who learned the trade in the mid thirties: attacking from a distance at periscope depth is all very nice and true in the manuals, but for more accurate and, strangely, safer attacks we prefer to do it at short range on the surface, in the dark. Spotting a U-boat in the ocean at night is almost impossible. We really only dive to listen around and escape from aircraft. Even these past days, right in between heavy surface and air patrols we spent more time on the surface than submerged. We make the English fog work in our advantage. Every few hours we dive again to listen around, hoping to finally catch the tonnage.

[Defiance]

Bravo

:salute:

[World_Devastator]

Nice, I can picture it in my head, I read alot of WW2 Submarine Patrol logs and you do a very good job of depicting it just like they did...... Cant wait for more!

[Bosje]

'Is that damned destroyer still with us, Benno?'
'Jawohl Herr Kaleun, Backbord voraus, entfernt zich jetzt aber mit langsahme fahrt.'
'Take us up to periscope depth, LI, up scope.'
Nothing but darkness around us, and slivers of fog as a matter of course. I slammed the periscope handles back to the casing slightly harder than was strictly necessary. 'Surface'.

We sent a report back to BdU but no reply, Wolfram Raabe thought perhaps the report did not get through entirely, the boat kept dipping down low in the swell and it made sense that the wires failed to transmit the report clearly. Just to be sure, I told him to repeat it three times.
I read a book once about radio detection and something called Huffduff by the Brits, apparently they can triangulate us just from us using our radio. Spooky. Now I guess we will see how well it works. I am hardly worried though, just as we are having a hard time finding big old freighters it will be nearly impossible for them to find a tiny boat like ours. Besides, they should already know we are somewhere around here from the airplanes and fishing crews we bumped into the past few days.

It seems we got through to BdU after all. The three days we were told to spend here are over and they give us new orders. AM36 this time. Fine by me, we are here to cripple their war effort after all, and three fishing trawlers doesn't fit the bill. In fact, it does nothing except piss them off, I suppose. The L.I. and me discussed it over cigarettes on the bridge and we agreed with a grin. Might as well leave those poor bastards alone for now. If only those convoys showed up. We had never seen a single convoy, not in all those weeks we spent at sea since September '39. Plenty of single freighters, I had got my fair share of tonnage, but the convoys is what it was all about. Convoys were supposed to save the allied war effort and it was our job to prove them wrong. But first we had to find one. I smoked another cigarette and coughed violently after my first pull. I spat the slime over the side of the bathtub and winked at the frowning 1.WO. 'And they say ocean air is good for you, huh?' He didn't laugh. Well screw him. If he hadn't been good at his job I'd have had him removed from my command long ago. Stuck up fanatic making his career over the backs of good men and good connections with the top brass. I dislike him which is bad for a commander, the crew don't like him much either. They have to do as they're told and they will, but it helps if they respect their superiors.

[Defiance]

:yeah: