Update from the log of Werner Faust, U-707
12:20pm 17th December 1940 - Another hydrophone contact at 9:32pm, a merchant travelling slow and heading west toward our position. Visual identification proved it to be an armed British Ore Carrier doing 5 knots. Diving into attack position we awaited its arrival at the firing point. 2 G7a's were fired on a 5 degree spread, one missed just in front of the bow, the other hit under the forward deck near the bow.
I was about to move the boat to take a rear tube shot when I noticed the merchant's bow was pitching quite heavily under the sea and scooping up tons of water onto the deck. I suddenly realised the ships captain, in his haste to get his ship as far from us as possible, was making the situation worse. As we followed parallel to its course, it was obvious this ship was going to go down eventually, so I held off firing again and simply watched and waited.
Large amounts of smoke began to pour from the deck at an area where I would guess the engine room to be and the bow was pitching more and more into the water as the merchant vessel ploughed onward. I couldn't understand why the crew weren't abandoning the ship yet, was i the only one to see it was a doomed vessel?
Finally, the lifeboats started to fill at 10:43pm as the crew decided to get to relative safety. at 10:45pm the ships screw stopped turning and the bow pitched under the water and this time didn't rise back above it. It wasn't long after that, that the bow finally started to pull the ship down, raising the stern a good 50 feet out of the water ( one the the crew snapped a photo while we stood watching this marvel ), at 10:48pm, the merchant had gone down, on its way into the murky deep.
17th December 1940 @ 10:45pm
Ore Carrier sinking awaiting confirmation from BDU...
Status Report 12:40pm 17th December 1940
Grid : AM52
Fuel : 60%
Torpedo's : 4 (3 G7e and 1 G7a)
Ships Sunk : 10 (1 tanker)
Tonnage : 52,751 (unconfirmed)