30 minutes later...
"Range to target is 1850 meters, Herr Kaleun. Course and speed are steady." We had been tracking our contact for 15 minutes, since identifying it as a merchant, and were now almost in position to fire. From over 1500 meters. At 40 meters. This is madness, I thought to myself.
The sonarman continued pinging the target. "Range is now 1600 meters." We were closing at 6 knots, which would have made enough racket to bother a deaf man. The Type XXI, on the other hand, slid neatly and silently through the dark water, thanks to her streamlined hull.
Meanwhile, the tracking crew was busy updating the solution for a pair of acoustic torpedoes. "We must close to at least 1000 meters to ensure they acquire the target," Prietschner said reminded everyone and no one. "Set boths tubes to run at one meter. Any lower and they might bounce off the hull."
Several minutes later we were finally ready. Wagner popped his head into the radioroom. "Range to target?"
"1100 meters, sir." The sonarman sent one final ping to confirm his estimate.
"Close enough," the captain mused. "Flood tubes one and two... Feuer, einz! Feuer, zwei!"
One minute and sixteen seconds later, we heard first one, then the other torpedo impact. After continuing on for several more seconds, Reckhoff, back on the hydrophones, reported that our target was sinking.
Once we were clear of the attack area and the excitement and worn off, I took the time to record both attacks in the ship's log. As I began on the first entry I wondered how large the ships we had sunk were. So far we had detected and sunk three ships, and we hadn't even rounded the northern tip of Great Britain. Hopefully we would have enough torpedoes to stir up some trouble when we arrived at our assigned grid...
Several hours later, while we celebrated a clean escape, our sonarman suddenly yelled out a warning: "Warship! Bearing 230, long range but closing fast!"
To be continued...
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