[Leandros]

Originally Posted by Leandros

Patrol 38 Kaleu Eckhardt - U-68 - Feb. 23rd 1945 09:10

Left Trondheim this morning 08:54. Some quick checks unravelled serious technical problems again. Max speed at surface 10-12 knops. What's worse - we only achieved 3 knots submerged. Looks as if we have to abort mission and return to base.

Patrol 37 almost ended with disaster. The escorts of the convoy we ambushed in AM12 was on us like wild dogs even before we sighted any merchants (extremely bad weather, BTW). Had to use half of our torps to keep them on bay, including the 3 Falkes. 2 of these accounted for 2 Captain I class. Our second try to sneak in resulted in our losing both scopes and the port diesel engine. Was also hit by one Hedgehog bomb, but no serious damage. Luckily, the weather was so bad that it was quite easy to escape their circle at 120 meters depth. The Bold III's seems very effective when used for quick dives and sneak-outs.

On the way back we made a typical mistake. To avoid being detected on radar we started up schnorkel/diesel about 10 nm from the convoy. One destroyer obviously snuck up on us in our blind rear angle - suddenly something was hitting us! We crash-dived and lowered the schnorkel simultaneously. He was so close upon us that we were inside his side-thrown D/C's. Again we could escape at 120 m. Didn't dare go deeper as HI was only 54 %.

The crew doesn't mind us returning to base.

Patrol 40 Kaleu Eckhardt - U-68 - May 8th 1945 09:00

War is over! The engines of U-68 obviously are completely shot. Had to RTB on Patrol 39, too. Before repairs could be made - no spare engines - the war ended. Thank you!