July 04 1941
U-507 (Type IXC) was commisioned to Hans Linnenberg, on it's first patrol we had to roam through grid EK77, we sailed from Loriend and beyond us was a long trip.
July 07 1941
We had our first radar contact a small convoy (Grid CF95), the weather was really bad but we had great visibility (7-8km)
22:40 The convoy was conformed by 2 small merchants, 1 Large Merchant, 1 Empire Type-Freighter & JK Class protecting them, when we where 4km away from the convoy I inmeaditely ordered periscope depth
22:45 At 2.5km fired 1 Torpedo to each of the 2 larger ships and 1 to a small merchant
22:47 Hitted the 2 large ships and the small merchant got away, our cover was blown up, so the escort came after us, ordered slow ahead to keep the sound to a minimum
22:50 Fired 2 more torpedoes to each ship and all 4 hit their target, the escort is less than 900m away from us and has started to ping us
22:55 S.S. Monarch of the seas (Empire-type Freighter, 6781tons) sunk, escort has layed some deep charges but none hit, when he was coming around to start a second run fired a torpedo at 300m away from him and succesfully hit it in his ammo compartment, ordered surface boat so the crew could see the beatiful fireworks coming from the destroyed escort (HMS Jaguar, 1690tons)
22:57 S.S. Harpeley (Large Merchant, 10,616tons) sunk slowly, we left the 2 small merchants go away, ordered the man to load the outside torpedoes into the sub
July 11 1941
5:00 Got a report form a large convoy going north, ordered full ahead, visibility was very poor and had a storm on top of us, suddenly a AB Class escort appeared behind us and started shooting us, destroying both periscopes the starboard diesel engine and hull damage down to 38%, had flooding all across the sub, ordered dive to 110m and left rudder 35°, we had lot of pressure with the hull damaged so bad, we lost 10% of it, ordered new depth 60m.
5:19 After 19 minutes of dept charges decided to come to periscope depth at full ahead, used sonar to guess his path, fired 2 torpedoes into his way, the first one missed by a few meters, the second torpedo hit him in his machinery compartment, sinking inmediately (HMS Boreas, 1350tons)
5:25 After examining the sub, it was hurt really bad and I was almost out of torpedoes, had to order to return to base so I had to ignore the convoy.
Patrol#1 had a total of 20,437 tons sunk and returned home with 27% hull
Crew got 4 U-boat war badges and 1 Iron Cross Second Class
|