1st post on here for me , so i'll skip the hello's and say.........

this is such a fantastic read :rock:

Hey, my first post too. :yep:

Nice writing, Swordfish! Coincidentally, my u-boat is also designated U-46! :o

The Second Officer was first down the bridge ladder, swearing like a docker.

I was next, followed by the rest of the lookouts clattering disconsolately down.

My cap flew angrily across the control room, bouncing sharply off the head of one of the blameless diving plane hands and landing on the top of a sack of dried apricots, by the chart table.

"That was terrible! Absolutely *********g abysmal!" I shouted.

A sheet of cold Atlantic seawater followed the last man down, dowsing my bare head, and further improving my furious temper.

I gave a quick shallow dive order and a return to our monotonous course. The two plane hands spun their wheels and looked intently to their front, not daring to look round. A number of the crew who always gather in the Control Room during an attack were already backing out sheepishly through the hatches, in case some of tonight's fiasco attached to them somehow.

Hans poked his head round from the sonar cabin. I knew what he was going to say: something like "Slow screws bearing East, drawing away"

He took one look at my face and ducked back again, silently.

"I want all tubes reloaded now. Double check the warheads, percussion pistols and arming devices. ..Not you Joachim.."

I barked at the Weapons Officer,

"..Shake the coxswain out of his bunk, he can supervise it.

"All the officers in the Wardroom , right now!"

It was a tight squeeze. All the officers were bunched up and staring down intently at their own little patch of table.

"Well that was a bloody shambles!" I yelled.

"Five torpedoes gone, and for what?"

"We've just been given the run around, the cream of the Kriegsmarine, by a little coastal steamer. It's now laughing at us all the way back to England."

"What do you have to say Joachim?"

Joachim clenched his jaw and sighed. His exhausted stare never once leaving the table.

"At least one, maybe two of those eels porpoised , Sir. When they jump out of the sea in those waves, it can throw off the arming device. Judging by the wake and the firing data. They hit ok, just failed to detonate. One just sank after 200 metres" he shrugged.

"The others... "

He seemed to struggle to find the diplomatic words

"...perhaps didn't run square on to the target, Sir"

I felt my anger and frustration subside. I knew what he meant. It was my responsibility to obtain and check the optimum firing data before having it relayed downstairs. It was quite likely that the other two, if they would have exploded at all, had simply glanced off obliquely, as the freighter zigged and zagged desperately with a surprising amount of manouevrability.

I'd been too impatient as the night wore on, compounding other failures with those of my own.

"Yes well, she did lead us a merry dance didn't she? Probably have a few war stories to tell when they get back. Slippery little devils...

"But we have to be sinking these tiddlers as a matter of course. Show them whose Boss, and make every Tommy think twice about leaving port."

A few sad nods around the table

"But not tonight, though, eh?"

"Let's sleep on it, Menschen."

"It's not as though those torpedoes are coming out of our pay packets after all!"

I forced a smile and got a few grimaces back in return.

Otto, who had manned the Control Room during my outburst, was standing in the wardroom opening, as the officers trooped wearily out. Joachim, I noticed, making straight for the fore torpedo room.

"You haven't got anything to prove, Sir. You know that. We'll bag some more in the next couple of weeks, but it's not white pennants she's looking for, it's your white cap back at St Nazaire."

"0h yes, my cap", I murmured, feeling foolish.

"On your bunk, where you should be. See you in the morning, Sir, we'll still have a patrol to do."

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

:rock:

Viktor had his feet up, and was avidly devouring his latest American detective pulp thriller, in the radio room when I poked my head in.

They really were pulp, with the damp and mildew on board, and the times they changed hands, our literary collection was always dog-eared, but still worth the 50 pfennings a day, that I'm led to believe, but couldn't possibly condone, that our radio hand charged as the U-46's Chief Librarian.

Word might have it that he had been known to tear out the last page or two of a whodunnit, and charge an extra mark for them.

"Zu Befehl, Herr Kaleun!"

Viktor tried to snap to attention in the confined space and only added to his confusion.

"Take it easy, Viktor" I smiled.

"What is the book of the month?

He offered me the limp paperback.

It's appeal was obvious to the Lordships in the fore ends.

As far as I could tell, amid the oil stains, grime and thumbprints, the front cover depicted a voluptous redhead on a bed, with a heaving bosom, a low-cut green silk evening gown slit to her thigh, recoiling in fright from an unseen man but clearly wearing a trenchcoat, a fedora hat and wielding a large pistol from the artists's shadow thrown from the doorway.

"And they say that we Germans don't appreciate culture, eh, Viktor!"

"Well they appreciate the front cover, Sir"

"And so they should Viktor"

Viktor was a bit of a loner, and some say had a shady past. Volunteered for U-boat service to get out of prison, so they say. Learnt his morse code (and he was an infallible 20 words-a-minute man) just from tapping on the bars of his cell.

But you can't believe everything you hear in the Kriegsmarine.

I know it would have been passed to me, but I can't help asking anyway.

"Any new word from Wolfpack Greif?"

"Not since my last report, Herr Kaleun"

That last summary, had Max come in with a 5,000 tonner confirmed; Freddie bitching about aircraft every other day. Stefan with teething troubles in his new Type IX, but last heard still on station. The new lad hadn't come in on time. There could be a lot of reasons for that, but I had already got Willi to plot a contingency on the charts for filling that northern picket.

And now perhaps the real reason for my visit to the funkraum.

"Anything from BdU, Viktor?"

It wasn't unknown for them to send coded personal messages from time to time. The birth of Prien's daughter being one from Uncle Karl that was still widely celebrated in the service. - 'A u-boat has been launched without any torpedo'

"Anything at all?"

"Nothing, Sir" Viktor shrugged apologetically.

"Very well"

I cast my eyes over the small cabin. Next to the Enigma machine was a canvas satchel. The lumps in it, I knew were lead weights.
The code books were placed neatly by the satchel, and there was a 3 kg engineers hammer alongside the keyboard.

Our eyes met.

It was Viktor's job to see to it that none of his stuff fell in to enemy hands, at the peril of being last up the ladder, and then to dump what he couldn't destroy, over the side.

He was only being professional, but it struck a pessimistic cord with me.

"Good Viktor.." I said "..Good"

"But don't let the lads see that gear"

"We're never going to need it you know.."

"No, Sir"

I started through the hatch to the fore torpedo compartment for inspection, but turned at the bulkhead.

"Oh, and Viktor..."

"Yes, Sir?"

"Don't tell me what happens with the redhead, ok? I want to read it for myself. But I can tell you how the War will end...."

"Yes Sir...!?"

"It's a happy ending, but I can only reveal it when whe're back in St Nazaire, so keep 10 francs handy, when we're back safe again. That's the Captain's going rate these days!"

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

Hello all.

Again, I'd like to say thank you, to all your replies to the U-46 war diary.

Every time I read one, I am inspired to write the next chapter.

The operational events depicted actually took place, and are taking place in SH3 with U-46

I hate to keep my periscope up for too long out of the story, but just to say that I have been working on cobbling all the reports together onto a website.

It is far from finished, and is just raw text, which I hope to polish into the website, but the site will exist.

More follows..

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

Laughing Swordfish,


Thanks very much for the excellent story. Very well done indeed!

Bdu huh........................yer right he's hoping for a Message from his own Femme fatale ;)

The consolidated story will be at www.laughingswordfish.net

I've registered it and the site should be up in a day or three once it's processed.

Still pretty rough at the moment, and I hope I have got everything on, and in the right order, but I'll edit it and tidy it up when I can

Yours truly, LS

Great news, LS! Can´t wait for the site to be up! :up:

I think it's already up and running here at:

http://www.laughingswordfish.net/

Looking back on it, there's loads of typos and mistakes I need to correct, plus it might be nice to put a chat or guest room facility on there. Or any other suggestions?

Obviously the subsim site will always get any posting first, I wouldn't dream of breaking away from our excellent community.

This site is just supposed to be an archive.

The logo that I found was the original one from the U-96, which inspired the film, I'm delighted to report that it seems to be still preserved for posterity somewhere.

About time I got back to U-46 She's still afloat, and has even sunk another ship after my last tantrum!

Kind regards, fellow submariners!

LS

Awesome!

You know you might even accompany the story on your website with interspersed black and white photos that accent what you write. :cool:

:rock: :rock: :up: :up: :D :D :sunny: :sunny: :|\ :|\ :cool: :cool:

I duck through from Viktor's lonely radio vigil into the bow torpedo compartment. Essentially the barracks of the boat for most of the hands who 'hot-bed' it here.

"Kapitan on the Deck!"

Joachim and the petty officers snap to attention. The Lordships do the best they can after their own way. (ie they condescend to put down their skat cards, or lift themselves up from their torpor) All the men, including the seniors are stripped to the waist, or wearing oily, begrimed, once-white vests. Even in that heat, the seniors are still wearing their caps of rank, or quickly don them.

"At ease, Menschen"

All of them, I know, are exhausted. They have just finished overhauling for the third time every torpedo that needs to be winched in and out of it's tube. There are tools, forgotten scraps of meals and hardly touched cups of coffee everywhere.

Since that last debacle, the Lordships' pride has been stung.

"My report, Sir!"

Joachim reels off the laborious efforts to inspect every eel. dismantle, clean and re-calibrate every detonating pistol, arming and magnetic device, every steam tube or electric system on every torpedo.

Each one is like a mini submarine in effect. And some would say just as short-lived. But almost as complex.

"Very good Joachim."

"Thanks to you, men, we'll have better hunting next time."

Amongst all the grease and turmoil, I spot a white barracks bedding sheet that has been hung up and kept spotlessly clean.

I turn to a young rating.

"What's that for, Helmuth?"

"Begging your pardon, Sir, that's for cutting up into pennants for when we hit the next convoy"

I was momentarily at loss for words. This was Loyalty. Not what the Party Big Wigs would have us believe

"That's a big sheet, boys," I gulped.

"Hope my aim is better next time, at least!"

Shouts of demurral and other cheers rang out, only interrupted by the opening of the hatch by the steward. climbing through manfully with a case of beer.

"Thought you might like to wet your whistles lads. One between two mind, we surface in five minutes" And then, gesturing at the four sealed torpedo loading caps,

"Let's have a go with this damned things!"

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

Messing around with that website guys.

I've put on an extra page to basically explain what it is about.

But I had in mind to put on a related u-boat links page, and I'm sure there are a lot out there, and the obvious place to start with was this fine forum.

But I should get permission and the right link to do that, does anyone know?

LS