We're closing in on the two month mark... coming back up along the Sierra Leone convoy route, west of the Canaries... figure I'll cut NE between there and Madeira to follow the shipping lanes towards Gibraltar. Just plan on picking up targets of opportunity unless we get a contact report confirming there's an actual convoy in the area. From there we'll just head NW towards the Western Approaches and see what happens.
Two days prior to our rendezvous with the Corrientes we got a report of a convoy coming NNE out of Freetown... it was right in our path and completely unescorted aside from at least one freighter that was armed. Spent our last eels on two large merchants and a couple of ore carriers. The merchants went down after we hit them both in the first attack run... we stayed at periscope depth because it was just after sunset but we slowed the whole convoy down enough that we were able to stay with them without surfacing.
Kept close and put our last two eels into the ore carriers, both of which refused to sink although one was burning and the other was listing a bit to port. Shadowed them until it got dark enough to surface (weather was completely clear, calm seas) and then wheeled back in and started shelling them with the deck gun.
That's when we found out there was an armed merchant in the convoy. Twice we had to submerge to repair damage but the second time we started shelling we took out the burning ore carrier plus I'd been able to pinpoint who was firing on us before we dove. It was a small freighter on the far side of the convoy.
Took care of the second round of damage and came back to p-depth from about 2 km out and managed to plot a course that put the second ore carrier right between us and the one merchant I knew for sure was armed. Surfaced and manned the deck gun straightaway and came in right towards both the ore carrier and the more distant freighter, which tried to fire on us over top of the other ship but with no success. We sank the second ore carrier without taking any more damage and then turned and headed for Las Palmas.
We might've had enough fuel to make it back to Willy if we'd headed straight for home, but with no eels in the tubes and the Corrientes being only coupla days away... why not resupply and see how much fun we can have on the way back?
We have over 44000 GRT so far on patrol 4/5, bringing our total for the war to date to somewhere around 92000. And my neck is getting
really itchy for some reason.