3rd Jan 1940
Last night I ordered to submerge to 25m as we passed through the area between the Shetlands,and moments after diving we picked up a merchant sound contact heading away from us,seemingly heading west.I swung the boat around in the relative direction and ordered a high speed surface ready for the hunt! The time was about 0:600 when we surfaced and it was still dark and the sea was calm,perfect for an attack!.I predicted from the strength of the contact we may expect visual contact well within the hour.After 30 mins of chasing and a sound check on the 15 min mark we made visual contact on the ship.Turned out to be a measly coastal freighter (GB),bearing 240 degrees at a slow 5 kts.There was only one thing we could do here,prepare the deck gun and let her have it!
I ordered to hold fire until we were about 300-400m from her then to pound her waterline,I didnt want to destroy the poor bugger,just to sink her.We closed keeping our silhouette nice and tight and after startling the vessel opened fire.The frightened vessel trained its search light on us and we were bathed in a ghostly white light mixed with the orange and red plumes rising from the already seriously damaged vessel.After 3 or 4 rds the search light hung limp clearly evident that we had killed those who were operating it.I ordered to keep pounding the waterline,we couldnt hang around too long here,they may have sent an SOS signal.20 rds later and she sank on even keel for just under 2.000 GRT,hardly worth it,but we cant just allow ships to slip through simply because we are trying to be too conservative with the ammo.
I then sent a quick radio report back to base notifying them of our sinking then returned to 25m and continued our submerged transit through the Shetlands.
We are off to a good start already
NOTE- pity I still cant take screenshots for some reason,either there is a problem with the high res fix I use or I am still hitting the wrong bloody key! would have loved to have taken a quick snap as we were bathed in the white light pounding the merchant.