U-99 has just returned from her second patrol in the atlantic, a very successful one as it turned out!

We were ordered to patrol grid square BE99, just off the coast of Spain. This was excellent news, as it was about one quarter of the distance we'd had to travel during the boat's first patrol down in square DT. It would mean we could patrol the square for our 24 hours, then turn north, into the more fruitful hunting grounds of the North Atlantic.

We ;eft St Nazaire in the early hours of the 7th of November 1940. Travelling at a relaxed speed, we made grid square BE99 without incident, and patrolled for a whole day, with no ship sightings or soundings. Our assigned mission over, we turned North West, and soon had a convoy sighting, U-99's first!

The convoy was on a SSE heading, and we intercepted at about 22:00 hours, at periscope death on the convoy's port side. I counted 20 ships, and many escorting frigates - one sweeping ahead of the convoy, one one either side, and at least one to the rear. This would be tricky!

Using no more than slow engine revolutions, we moved into position, less than 1000 metres off the 1st column. Miraculously, the Frigate nearest us didn't spot us, and we were free to fire all 4 torpedoes, at 4 different ships in the leading row. Just as the frigate to the side of the convoy passed astern, we fired a rear torpedo snap-shot as well, but missed.

No time to waste, U-99 changed course, to head under the convoy - away from the nearest 3 Black Swan Frigates, and went deep. We heard 2 torpedo impacts, only a 40% hit rate, not too good! :(

Depth charge after depth charge exploded around us, but all were wide of the mark. During the explosions, we heard the sounds of a cargo ship breaking up, we'd sunk her - U-99's second kill! Wondering what had happened to the second ship we'd hit, the crew waited out attack after attack. Nearly 2 hours later, the Frigates were further and further wide of the mark, and the depth charges fell astern. We waited a little more, until the propellor sounds had receded a little, then risked periscope depth.

The convoy was heading away from us now, and was nearly 10km ahead of us. U-99 broke the surface, revved the diesels flat out, and overtook the convoy - which had changed course following our first attack. As the night grew darker, we took sightings from the bridge as we went to confirm the convoy's new course. The crew reloaded the torpedoes into the tubes, and made ready for our second attack.

We moved into attack position, again just below periscope depth, justt off to the convoy's starboard beam. We'd face the oncoming ships to minimize our sound reflection, and turn just in time to shoot. This time though, the frigate defending our side of the convoy was more alert, and swung towards our position - we'd been spotted, before even getting a shot off! We started moving slowly deeper reaching 30 or 40 metres down, but soon the propellor sounds came closer, and 4 depth charges entered the water - FLANK SPEED!!!

Then I came to a snap decision, and decided to bring the boat back to periscope depth as the frigate passed over the top of us, and started heading astern - she would take a minute to turn around and prepare for another run, and we might be able to get a shot off....! Sure enough, the periscope broke the surface, I checked behind, and the frigate had only just started turning. As I swung it around, we were right in amongst the convoy, a large cargo ship, and an empire class freighter were nearly dead ahead, less than 1km away!

Taking no chances, we quickly fired all 4 torpedoes, 2 at each of the lumbering ships, and then, hearing the frigate closing once more, crash dived, and changed course sharply. As the explosions rocked the boat, the periscope was damaged, and the deck guns put out of commission, but the hull held - at least for now. We heard 1, 2, 3.....4 hits - all our torpedoes had hit! 4 more charges tore the ocean, and reminded us of the peril we'd put ourselves in by making that second attack as we descended, taking advantage of the disturbances to move quickly at full speed.

Again, the cat and mouse game begun, as 3 frigates begun the hunt. U-99 went silent, to 50 revolutions per minute, and way down to 200m depth, ignoring the Chief's warnings that the boat couldn't take the pressure. We heard both freighters break up on the surface, confirming our 2nd and 3rd kills - big ones this time, the tonnage was racking up! The hunters were better this time, the charges came closer and became louder. Once again using the noise to cover our noise, we went to top speed, and changed course abruptly again, again and again - but after another 2 or 3 hours, the depth charges once again fell astern, and the soundman reported the ships moving away - we had survived our audacious attack!

As morning broke, U-99 came back up to periscope depth, saw the convoy receding astern. Having nearly exhausted our torpedoes, and been lucky twice, U-99 turned for home.

Just then, the soundman picked up a lone merchant, on the same heading as the main convoy, but nearly 12km behind. The periscope confirmed it - the same merchant that we'd hit in our first attack, but not sunk. The ship was listing badly, and perhaps only making 2 knots, the convoy had left it behind!

We only had our stern tube loaded, and day was getting lighter, so we had to stay submerged, moving ahead of the limping ship, and across it's course, so as to present our rear to the target. We fired, from only 400m away, and the torpedo streaked across the water, bubbles streaming. The merchant's captain was powerless to react, and the torpedo struck home, sending her straight to the bottom - our 4th sinking, just as the sun was coming up.

Now we really did have to head home - we had only 2 torpedoes remaing in reserve. There was a chance the escorts might have heard, and turn around to come after us again, so U-99 made her escape on the surface, at maximum revolutions. After a few hours we slowed a little - the hunters had left us! :) We took advantage of the downtime to perform repairs on the periscope, sustained in the daring attack of the previous night.

Just as the crew was relaxing, and beginning to get some rest after a solid 36 hours on duty, the tired bridge lookouts spotted another merchant ship halfway across the Bay of Biscay, a healthy, lone, large 10,000 tonner, with no escort! Tubes reloaded, we made sure of the ship's course, submerged, and waited for her to draw closer.

Sure enough, at the calculated time, we popped the periscope through the water, and there she was, just about to move ahead of us. The chief took his measurements - there was a large margin of error this time - the huge ship was only 800m away, and we fired both remaing torpedoes. Both hit! And the ship slipped under the surface in less than 20 minutes.

The 2 day voyage back to St Nazaire passed without event, although the crew did reload the torpedoes out from the top deck and down into the tubes, just in case. We made port on the 14th of November - just over a week since we'd left, and 35,200 tonnes more to our credit!

######

Top marks to SH3, and especially the GWX team, it's been a long time since I've become so immersed in a game as to write a mini story about it!

U-Boat 109 U-Boat Class:IXB

Oct.2 1944 13:48
Grid: BE38. Heading back to Lorient after a "sucessful" but shipless patrol.
The Sonarman was sent in the crew quarters to rest.
Suddenly the a sharp-eye watchman yells "Schiff gesichtet!"
It was a Black Swan Frigate.
"What the heck is a Frigate doing in the middle of the ocean..?
There must be a convoy around!" - I thought.

I decided to approach, emerged at first and then submerged.
"Un"fortunatelly, the Frigate spotted me from distance and turned to get me.
From my experience on previous patrols, i knew the ship aint gonna zig zag soon on its way to me, so i fired the first torpedo to it.

"Rohr eins, LOS!"
After a minute or so:
"Torpedo treffen!"
It was a direct hit that damaged the ship and by the time i was in range of its guns,
the bow was below waterline. It slowly went down.

Other escort ships came to the area. I submerged in the meantime.
For the next ship, it was a destroyer, i followed a similar tactic.
I was watching it with the attack periscope and before it even came close to start its circle around the shipwreck, i brought it down with one TIII Electric propulsion
torpedo. That blew the ship sky high!

For the 3th ship, if i recall right it was a Hunt III Destroyer, i decided not to fire a bow torpedo but go a bit further and fire a stern torpedo.
Since i wasnt sure on my aim i fired an acoustic homing torpedo.
It hit its target and it went down.

"Now" I said, "There must be a couple escorts left and then its me and the convoy!"
I emerged and sailed on, ahead flank.
A couple of gametime hours later, the watchman yelled:
"Schiff gesichtet!"
It was a Nelson Battleship!
"Task Force!" I thought.
I sailed on a parallel, with them, pattern for quite a bit, so i can make it ahead of them and intercept all possible ships there.

After a bit i found out that there were no more escorts and 3 battleships were sailing into line formation.
King George V Battleship, Revenge Battleship, Nelson Battleship.

I managed to get a bit ahead of the ships so i turned, heading to them and wait
for the right moment.
I had 1 Acoustic Homing and 3 Electric Propulsion torpedoes in, so i thought,
to get all three of them, to fire the homing torpedo to the King George V battleship
to destroy its engines, 2 TIII torpedoes to the Revenge Battleship and the last one of the bow tubes to the Nelson Battleship.

"Torpedo treffen!" The first torpedo hit its target and, as expected, it blew off its propellers.
"Torpedo treffen!" The second torpedo, as if by miracle, was enough to blow the Revenge Battleship sky high!
"Torpedo treffen!" The fourth torpedo hit the Nelson Battleship on its bow so minimal damage was done.
I turned the uboat around and decided to finish off the damaged King George V Battleship and then pursuit the last battleship remaining.
And so i did. King George V went down to meet his ancestors while the Nelson Battleship had moved quite a bit further.

Suddenly, aircraft came in the show to play their part.
I was concerned that they wont leave me alone soon and ill lose the ship
so i said ill take my chances.
By that time only 2 of the 4 tubes were loaded so i fired the torpedoes and commanded to crash dive.
All the crew was in the boat and only the top of the tower was out of the water when i recieved a devastating direct hit by a Spitfire, which blew off my AA guns
and completelly destroyed the conning tower!

I had flooding in 4 compartments. 2 of them were flooding fast!
The uboat was sinking!

170 Meters!
180 Meters!
190 Meters!
200 Meters!
210 Meters!

The engines were set to full speed and my boat was strugling to stop going down!
Slowly but steadily, it was going down...
But the meters stopped at 213.
The repair crew had done well. The boat was slowly going up!

170 Meters.
130 Meters.
80 Meters.

I managed to bring back the boat from hell and bring it to 15meters depth.
The attack periscope was destroyed so the uboat was actually blind underwater.
Since i had 2 more torpedoes on the bow, i decided to try and aim using the map and the hydrophone.

The Battleship was still zigzagging so i made a loop to the left, then to the right and i synchronized the uboat to the battleship for maximum accuracy.

"Rohr eins, LOS! Rohr zwei, LOS!"
I fired the remaining 2 torpedoes.
One of them hit its target, probably near the engines cause it slowed down.
"Now its my chance!" i thought and turned 180degrees the uboat.
Using again the hydrophone, i fired off 2 stern torpedoes.
"Torpedo treffen!" i heard it twice...
Thats its. The ship was going down.
After so many hours of pursuing, fighting and repairing, i managed to bring down the whole task force, including the escort ships.

When i made it back home, promotions and medals were waitting for the torpedo
and repair men!


PS There might be some inaccuracies in, cause this event occured
on my first campaign, a couple months ago. :D

Rivetting stuff http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

January 6th 1942, location...off the west coast of north africa...0100 hours. Type IXC, heading south towards capetown. It's the darkest night Herr Kerleun Otto Jahde has experienced. That all of us here in this fine vessel have experienced. When out of the dark a tribal destroyer hidden in the dark nights fog fires several shells, hitting our new IXC sub. They knew we were here! damn those new allied radar and sonar devices. But our fine captain Otto was quick, and immediately ordered a dive, and a fire solution, a quick revenge fireoff at this destroyer before diving to the deep. Herr Kurt Knappe was our expert fire solution weapons officer. Though with very little info to set such a solution, there wasn't much of a chance to fire off a accurate torp. But he did he and I heard Otto order flood tube 1...LOS and immediately after that our IXC at flank speed dove..to 175 meters. Suddenly we hear a explosion on the hydrophones...I remember the crew cheering, and being hushed by our 1WO. we stayed there for 30 minutes before deciding that either this tribal destroyer really did sink or not. We arose to periscope depth and Otto looked through the periscope and indeed there was a tribal destroyer at a stand still. Otto ordered it's position radioed and off we sailed to save our torps for some merchies. Later on we received a radio message from our luftwaffe boys saying that one of their patrols sighted and sunk a standstill destroyer. :up:

Had quite a terrible start to a convoy attack last night,In Grid AL i got a report of a large convoy sailing west,being my first patrol after many lost Uboats i went full ahead to catch and shadow it,hopefully i would get some extra help on this oner as it was a large convoy too. I came across it at about 2pm(game time),went to flank speed to get ahead of it to lie in wait(which is my usual tactic),after much effort i got ahead of the merchants.

I order persicope depth,using the hydrophone as my guide positioned my boat to what i thought would be a better firing position when I heard the first "PING",exactly what i didn't want to happen did.

Came under attack at 15:00 by a Flower class.At first i tried to fire off my stern Fish but missed her,so went into crash dive to 40 meters at Flank speed,it was a close encounter she nearly clipped my conning tower but thankfully not!

At this point i decided not to run silently and escape but rather head toward the convoy as fast as i could,I had many succesful missions in prior campaigns like this.

Another 45mins of getting DC's dropped and a few near misses i got within my preffered >1000M of a Troop/Cargo & a Tanker(sorry havent got the detailed info but it's off memory).

Moved to periscope depth,raised the scope got my calculations on both vessels to get hits within 10seconds of each other,fired my 4 frontal tubes and then headed to the depths again.

The time ticked by seeming like hours,the dd's were closing in on my position too,got to my 100m dive and went silent,at this point there were 2hits on the tanker,10 secs later 2 hits on the troop/cargo,was pleased by this as were the crew.

We made our escape good,finished up the order to patrol Grid AK13 and then decided to head to the carribean,along the way i encounter 4 more ships in pairs,torpedoed 3 of them and sent the last down with my deck gun.

Currently docked at a Milk cow headed towards the carribean in search of some easy pickings(directions to where i can find loads of tankers would be appreciated)

In total i sank just over 16K tonnage

Nothing too major: U559 operating in the Mediterranean on 1st patrol. Two lone ships sunk thus far, a 10,000 tonne large merchant, and a 1200 tonne tramp steamer.

Encountered a group of two cargo's being escorted by a couple of Frigates. Plotted their course, began moving into a firing position. A short time after the lead frigate crossed my bow, they all changed course and began heading south, this put the lead frigate pretty much on a direct course for me...my attack plan in tatters, I decided to cut the engines and make like a hole in the water and let them slip by.

Lead frigate suddenly opens up with the ASDIC and zeros in on me from about 500mtrs or so. Emergency dive full speed....minor depth charge attack lasted for some 20 minutes. No damaged sustained. Dove down to 140mtrs and they lost track of me, instead throwing their cans in the wrong direction and too shallow.

Slipped away at 1knt, surfaced again 8 hours later to fight another day. :)

I think that's the first time i've had ships change course at the last minute before an attack.....god was i infuriated with their course change!!:arrgh!:

U-53 stories
 

Only if you understand french :
http://www.filefront.com/13986649/Jo...ept-1939.doc//

or here :
http://www.mille-sabords.com/forum/i...howtopic=36353

TarJak's Funkraum is now open. I'm planning to host some of my detailed patrol logs here for the community to enjoy. I hope you like reading them as much as I enjoy creating them.

http://sites.google.com/site/tarjaksfunkraum/

Looks like spell check is in for a busy time :O:

29.5.1940U-45 19 days out of Kiel. Sunk Freighter vic. AM 2698 with deck gun for 3600 GRT. Here is copy of Nav Log for an 'Etmal' (days run, noon to noon).Just passed Rockall Bank:
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9593/adaysrun.th.jpg

3.12.1939 U-45 on route to grid AN13, the idea was to sneak throught Scapa Flow. So I make my way to the eastern approach, at distance of about 4km from ship wrecks in the canal, i was spoted by V&W Destroyer. Damn those things... DD was quite close so i have to submerge, in 17m water. depthcharging destroyed my port propeller, and cause some minor damage to aft sections. fortunately eel from aft tube reached its target. And then AI showed what its made of, 5 DD got stucked on shore trying to get to my position... after getting inside Scapa Flow with lack of more intresting targets I sunk 3 anchored DD and one merchant for 8000GRT

This material looks good and a good price too . http://www.paperlessarchives.com/wwi...boat_docs.html

My first uboat story
 

May 16th, 1941.

U-123 left Wilhelmshaven up north, to Bergen, intending to patrol nearby waters for the arrival of Bismark. At day 17, was attacked by a Hudson MK3 bomber, but instead of diving away (normal procedure), I wanted to try out my new AA guns I just had installed. The bomber was alone, so I thought it would be safe. Got those 3 AA guns manned and before the bomber got a change of getting close, he was downed. At day 19, left for the Denmark strait, passing over scotland. It was a long trip without anything being spotted. The weather started getting very heavy, so I was basically submerged all the time, 25m, and had my ears on the hydrophone. Winds were at 15m/s and the fog so heavy I couldn't see 300m in any direction, so eventual surfacings for air, and back to 25m.

May 24th, 1941.

At quadrant AD52, my sonarman reported a warship propeller sound, travelling alone, at 25km distance. It was at a very fast speed and coming from my left, was going to pass 3km away from me, so I set an intercepting course and went to the surface, and ordered ahead flank, so I wouldn't miss it. When I felt I was almost in the right place, I went back to periscope depth, and asked sonarman for details. The warship was 1.8km from me, and was going to pass right in front of me in a couple of minutes. I took a look at the periscope, but that damn fog wouldn't allow me to see anything. I tried to plot it's path on the map using the hydro, and I got myself as close as I could. I had 3 torpedoes set for 3 meters, high speed, impact pistol. When it was around 450m from me, I could see the shadow in the horizon, beheath the fog. It was a big warship, so I fired 3 fishes, middle, middle-bow, bow. Waited... Managed to get 2 hits, the third was either a dud or missed. The ship cought on fire, was sinking by the bow and losing speed fast. I could only see the flames thru the fog and I got closer to take a peek. It was Norfolk, sitting dead on the water, sinking slowly. I waited for 5 minutes, and when I saw it was really going down (water was over the bow) I got back to my waypoints. I wanted to get in a better position for further attacks. Went for the surface for 3 hours to get 3 new fishes inside, and then went back at 25m. Decided to get away from the strait, into quadrant AK, getting a direct shortcut for supporting the fight in that region, as ordered thru a message from BdU.

May 26th, 1941.

Quadrant AK99, my watch officer reported a shadow in the horizon, coming fast in my direction, head on. I went under, and my sonarman reported 7 warships coming straight to me. Some minutes later I could see Rodney Battleship and Heavy Cruiser Dorsetshire right behind it. The other 5 were destroyers, all around them. I turned left 90º and waited. Rodney and Dorsetshire would pass right in my nose, right a destroyer passing in my stern. They were hot fast, 30kts. At 800m distance, I fired 3 fishes at Rodney, saving 1 for Dorsetshire, that was 500m behind Rodney, and I had my 2 stern fishes set for fast, shalow, impact. The destroyer passed in my stern seconds later, and I fired a fish, it was at 380m, not a chance to miss it. I was dead stop on the water, silently, and before the torpedos got Rodney, I fired my last one at Dorsetshire. Still 7 minutes to a new torpedo reloaded, and I knew I would need it. Rodney got all 3 hits, very near eachother. Two below the turrets and one in the middle. It had severe fire, but no explosions. The smoke went miles high. Dorsetshire was hit in the bow, and got severe flooding. Both Rodney and Dorsetshire reduced their speeds to around 3 kts, while the other destroyers were going crazy after me. Except they're looking in the wrong spot. They were on the other side. After some minutes I got a fish loaded and ready, so I fired at Dorsetshire and went under, since I saw that Rodney was going to sink for sure. As I passed 35m, I heard the explosion, followed by several other explosions. Soon I could hear the "Song of the Sinking Ship." Plotted a course in the opposite direction the destroyers were searching, and went away.

May 27th, 1941.

Quadrant BE16, my watch officer reported a shadow in the horizon, coming fast in my direction, 5 O'Clock. Went to periscope depth and set an interception course. Again, my sonarman reported a heavy warship, alone, around 20kts. The weather was clear, and soon I managed to see thru the periscope. I was in a perfect position for a lateral hit, it was going to pass right in my nose. At 2km, I could see it perfectly. Heavy Cruiser Suffolk. Two fishes on the water, first hit right under the stern turrets and the second hit the stern. After 12 minutes, it was heavly flooded on the left side, and some minutes later the mast touched the water, fell to the left. But it wouldn't sink. After 2 hours, nothing. It was completly on it's side, but still afloat. I went around it and fired a third torpedo from my stern into the middle of its hull. No explosions, but it started to sink more, slowly. I could see two of the three propellers out of water. I followed my way surfaced, and when I was around 6km away I could see it disappearing below the waves.

May 29th, 1941.

Saw a lonely merchant, 7k tons, british flag. I was pissed about Bismark and fired 3 fishes at it, just to cool off (lol). I was almost without fuel, and so I plotted a course back home.

May 30th, 1941.

7pm, low light. Quadrant BF33, dangerous waters. Was reading a message when I heard someone yelling at the bridge, and followed my a sound of a shell hitting the water nearby the sub. "Are my watch crew playing cards up there?"... Quickly to periscope depth to avoyd the gunfire, and a peek to see whatta hell was it. A destroyer, coming fast right at me. It was around 6km away, so I changed my course at 90º from him and went ahead flank. He wouldn't listen to me coming over 30kts, and I could open a very good distance from the spot where he lost me, till he got his engine slower to commence hydro search. When I noticed it was slowing down thru my periscope, I ordered silent running. Managed to get myself around 1.5km away from the original spot, where it was searching now. I was pretty close to the shore, shallow waters, couldn't do something stupid. It was running in circles and when I thought I had got away with it, an explosion! People screaming everywhere, while the boat shaked. Flood everywhere, both my sonarman and radarman dead. I got everybody to stop the flooding while I was thinking to myself... "Mines...?... Bloody mines..."

I got away from the destroyer, but things weren't looking very good. The only 2 places I didn't had flood was in both torpedo rooms. Most of my equipment was either destroyed or not working. (which is great when you're using LRT mod.:shifty:). I putted every single guy I had to stop the flooding, including an officer with repair skills in charge. Surfaced, and went ahead flank to get home as soon as possible. Only to discover some minutes later, 3 destroyers coming hot at me, one from the left, one from behind, and one from 10 O'clock. I thought "Im screwed..."... I thought about diving, but then I saw a large amount of water filling all compartments, and I checked the battery level, around 10%. If I dived, I couldn't get back to the surface. Depth under keel was 32 meters. It was dusk, and the destroyers hadn't spotted me yet, so I tried to plot a course that would get me away from them. Didnt work... some minutes later, one of them spotted me and started firing. I was done for... I was sure that was the end of my carrer...

But then a miracle happened! (using WAC 4.1 by the way), SEVEN german bombers appeared out of nowhere, and started bombing the destroyers! Starting with the one that was closest to me. The destroyers stopped firing at me, and started worrying about the aircrafts. I was getting away from that mess, slowly, and my smile was getting bigger. :D

The last thing I saw was the planes bombing those destroyers. One had gone down already, the second was in flames and slow, and the third was zig-zagging and firing desperatedly. THANK YOU, AIR SUPPORT! First time that a message to BdU reporting damage actually works. Either that or the planes happened to be nearby and spotted those destroyers. Truth be told, I never saw the amount of aircrafts during a patrol, it was around 50. (good work, Hans).

I was around 220 miles from home, but the flooding was really unstoppable. Specially in the radioroom. I had a big fight going there, the water against the repair group. I had around 6 hours to get to the base, or I would be flooded. I had my engines ahead flank for hours already, but then something cought my attention... I wouldn't have enough fuel to get there going ahead flank, and I couldn't reduce my speed much cos otherwise I wouldn't get there in time before the compartment flooded.

When I thought things couldn't be worst, I went to the bridge only to discover that I was sinking by the bow, due to overweight. My deckgun was already underwater. That made me start sinking even faster. I tried blowing ballast 3 times, but it wouldn't help for more then 2 minutes. ok... turn 180 degrees, and back emergency! Lets go home going backwards. It worked! The bow was still pretty much underwater, but the uboat was floating better, and the speed was better too.

I managed to get back home with my bow already scratching the floor, and the fuel was totally out. I got as close as I could, and beached the uboat. Me and my guys walked the last miles back to base... on foot!

Three compartments fully flooded
No fuel
No torpedos
90% equipment not working
2 bodies to bury.

sucess?

First patrol of horror
 

I started a new career and sailed U-27 out of Wilhelmshaven. My orders were to patrol grid BF 16, south of Ireland. Patrol started 17th August so easy access through canal could be used.

After 20 or so uneventful days radio report was received: Enemy convoy, course east, speed 5kts. My boat boat was located some 70 km ENE of the convoy. Easy job to maneuver front of it and perform a submerged daytime attack. I managed to get middle of the convoy and targeted large & medium tankers. First to go was large tanker. Double shot at 1000m scored two hits as both magnetic pistols exploded. (I use magnetic pistols till Norway campagin.) First exploded under the bow and second hit midship breaking the poor tanker in half. Luck (or skill) wasn't on my side when attacking medium tanker. Two misses at 1200m distance. Luckily it was an overlapping target so one coastal merchant was at least sent to bottom.

I searched suitable target for rear tube when periscope view is filled with destroyer coming right towards me. Scope down, full speed and deeper but it's two late. Destroyer rams to conning tower but damages it only lighty. Split second later comes depth charges which rattle my boat and causes serious damage throughout. Aft torpedo room and radio room are in worst condition. Sonar operator killed, radioman wounded. Boat is taking in lot of water.

Damage control and various section crews are working their butts off to gain control of the flooding. Boat keeps sinking and hits the bottom at 70 meters and stays there. More damage, more flooding.

Frantic effort by the crew were finally paying off. Electric engines fixed, flooding stopped and most of water pumped out. Although boat was still lying at the bottom. At this time destroyer above is kind enough to throw some more complimentary droppings off board. More red in the damage control screen, flooding and three more dead. During repair the destroyer attacked three times but fortunately with lesser accuracy. Sound of asdic ping and detonating depth charges while boat lies crippled at the bottom creates very tense feeling. Are we going to ever surface again?

When boat finally raised for a few meters off the bottom and could maneuver again things got little easier. Getting the destroyer off my tail was a bit harder than usual, my hydrophone was completly destroyed. Destroyer cared to ping and pound me for a whole hour. They say an U boat is blind submerged but what is U boat submerged without sonar?

After three hours in silent runing my batteries were quite dead. Aft ones were destroyed by depth charges. Rising to surface was a risky thing as hydrophone and both periscopes were destroyed. Fortunately destroyer was long gone. Surprises keep coming and not in very pleasant manner. Conning tower was destroyed beyond condtion to hold any watch crew. What it really matters at this point radio was out too.

I'm south of Ireland some 4500 km around the British isles from Wilhelmshaven and I can't get watch crew on bridge. Adding to my problems is low fuel level. Before the convoy attack I was burning my last quarter of the stock and fuel tank took hit during depth charge attack. In September -39 my options are slim. Without somekind of watch crew canal is out of option. Supply ship Corrientes is located in Canary islands some 2500km away but taking a bombed out hull to a supply ship is not wise. So around we go.

Without further incidents I manged to get within 50km out of Helgoland and dock there.

After a very successful ongoing 1st patrol from Wilhemshaven after sinking 3 merchants (of tolerable size) just south of Portsmouth in very calm sea's I spot another juicy merchant all on its lonesome. I decide that a surface attack with my deck gun at medium range is the best way to down this monster to conserve my fish for the journey ahead. I travel at 5km hr stalking the beast who seems to have yet to notice me. Then comes the call "Crew on deck" and "FIRE AT WILL"...... boom...boom... the fire and hail of destruction spews from the mouth of the deck gun raining hell on all aboard the merchant!! What doesnt seem like 10 minutes of shelling and the helpless merchant is pouring smoke and going to Davy Jones locker very quickly! Ah, I think to myself and crew!! SUCCESS!! And there they were..... dropping from the sky like lions chasing the kill..... air support... now its hard to tell who they were because once that first bird dropped his ordinance and had a near miss on my boat I made the call before they could come back around and cripple us and possibly injure my mighty crew! The call was sounded!!!! "CRASH DIVE" men ran to the boats belly quick as lightining!! Everything was fine the first 15 meters then came a damage report and next was the horrible sound of water spraying from diffrent corridors of the boat..... I thought what is happening??? are they dropping a storm of charges?? More damage reported..... BOOM BOOM .....BOOM.......... WTF????


Long story short...........................DONT EVER CRASH DIVE IN 30 Meters of water......... Its will result in DIVE CRASH.....:damn:

Luckly I was able to get the boat off the bottom of the sea and get us to safety..... Sorry crew