[Schöneboom]

Dietrichs marked a chalkboard to keep count of the wabos. Our boat no longer shook from the explosions, but they could never be far enough away.

"His aim's getting worse," I said. "All they need to do is keep us down while the rest make a clean getaway."

"The Schweine," said Bachmann. "If only we could reload our tubes!"

Oberfahnrich Steinhauser, my 2WO, came in from the bow compartment. He seemed perturbed, and not only from the wabos.

"It's a little early for your watch," I said. "Why aren't you in your bunk?"

"Sorry, Herr Oberleutnant," he replied. "I couldn't stay in there any longer, not without breathing through a Tauchretter."

"Weissdorn again?" asked Dietrichs. The planesmen emitted sighs of disgust.

Steinhauser nodded. "If we fired him at the Tommies, it'd be a war crime under the Geneva Code."

"What's his excuse this time?" I asked.

"We're too deep, Herr Oberleutnant. He says he can feel the pressure on his bowels."

Geissler said, "Now we know we'll never live to see crush depth on this boat. Weissdorn will asphyxiate us all first!"

A crowd grew slowly in the passageway from the Bugraum to the Zentrale as we waited with increasing desperation for the Tommies to give up the hunt and leave. So it was welcome news when Richter reported that the other two destroyers were departing along with the freighters. Having collected the survivors from the sunken cruiser, the convoy would make a run for the relative safety of the Continental Shelf.

About two hours later, with the convoy miles away, the Black Swan finally relented and took off at high speed. Returning to periscope depth, I confirmed that it was not a trick, that we were truly alone.

"Load the reserve torpedoes and complete repairs," I ordered. Though we would have preferred fresh air at that moment, the heavy seas made torpedo-loading on the surface too hazardous. I made sure one of the T-1s was fitted with an impact trigger. Bachmann contended that both our remaining eels should have impact triggers.

"I have an experiment in mind," I said. "We will discuss this later."

After surfacing, we popped open the tower hatch -- a joyous event rivalling our first torpedo hit -- then steered a course that took us past the oil slick left by our victim. From the floating debris we collected evidence that the cruiser was HMS Liverpool. Approx. 11,000 tons. We did not know the size of her crew, but several hundred was a reasonable guess.

We set course to pursue the convoy at flank speed. Our hope was that we would overtake them by nightfall, before they reached the edge of the Shelf.

My officers and I ate breakfast standing in the galley, for our boat did not have an officers' mess. We did not dine together in this way often, but we had things to discuss in relative privacy. Back home we would be asked to explain the two shots that missed.

"Beg your pardon, Herr Oberleutnant," said Bachmann. "But strictly speaking, they didn't miss. They failed to detonate."

Geissler dissected this argument with the icy skill of an attorney. "If I recall correctly, there was an interval between the first shot at the cruiser and the two you aimed at the freighter. Is it not possible that the freighter's captain had enough time to turn his ship and evade our eels?"

"That depends," I said. "How much did time he have from the moment the cruiser was hit? Thirty seconds, maybe?"

I saw Bachmann straining to remember his calculations. To any outsider this might have seemed a mere academic exercise. But it was our first attack on the enemy, and we felt our reputations were at stake, given the Ubootwaffe's strategy: the freighter could be seen as the more valuable target, regardless of tonnage.

I had to concede that even a ship as huge as the 9000-tonner could have turned in time to evade our torpedoes. However no one had actually seen the ship turn. Geissler had made his point, but it was ultimately unprovable. And that left the other explanations:

"Magnetic triggers," muttered Bachmann. "They're crap, everyone knows it!"

"Seemed to work well enough on that cruiser," said Geissler.

"That makes one out of three," I said. "And if it's not the trigger, it could be the depth-keeping mechanism. A few metres too deep, and even with a good trigger, it wouldn't explode."

Geissler remained unconvinced. He had no vested interest in defending the technology, but he had seen enough of human nature to know that people will shift the blame off themselves whenever a mechanical scapegoat is handy.

I said to Geissler, "We still have a magnetic trigger on one of our remaining eels. Perhaps on the next attack, we'll learn something."

"Whether it works or not, statistically it's meaningless," he said. Anticipating my retort, he continued, "But combined with shot reports from all the other boats, maybe it'll shed some light."

Later that day, I found Bachmann at the map table with the recognition manual open beside him. On a sheet of paper he drew lines at precise angles, along with figures he produced with a slide rule. Clearly the question of the torpedoes gnawed at him, and I was not inclined to dissuade him, for the question concerned me as well.

"We're going after that big freighter again," I told him. "This time we'll get him, eh?"

"Absolutely, Herr Oberleutnant!"

By afternoon we were all sick as dogs from the boat's ceaseless rocking. Lying in my bunk, my attempts to sleep were interrupted by some unfortunate crewman running for the head. I learned later that Matrosengefreiter Rolf Lang was taking bets on whether a man would reach the head in time or lose his lunch on the deck. For Lang it was a profitable game -- until it was his turn to run the length of the boat.

As he dashed from the Bugraum covering his mouth, everyone jeered with pure schadenfreude, "Los! Los! Into the bilge! Into the bilge!"

He made it through the Zentrale and puked just inches from my bunk.

"Very sorry, Herr Oberleutnant," Lang gasped between heaves.

"Next time, don't hesitate so long," I said, turning over to sleep.

The convoy remained off our starboard side the entire day. A Flower-class escort forced us to dive twice when she turned in our direction, perhaps alerted by our wake. But even with two destroyers searching for us, they did not press the attack for long. They surely felt the pressure of time as we did.

On the bridge in the evening, I savoured the fresh air and calmer seas, but could not appreciate the lingering twilight, a feature of the northern latitudes. The convoy had turned east, parallel with the North Irish coast. Soon we would be over the Shelf, which would seriously limit our diving options.

With the convoy off our starboard quarter, I gave the order to turn southeast, with the goal of passing the lead escort and getting into firing position. The horizon was turning deep purple.

"Verdammt, still too light for a surfaced attack!" I said.

We remaining undetected as we passed a Hunt-class destroyer. I guessed that the Black Swan had taken the place of the sunken cruiser. We only had to continue due south, and the freighters would appear off our starboard bow.

I was badly mistaken, however. At 2210, our targets had failed to show up as expected. They were in fact behind us -- we had gone too far south! Along with the lookouts, I stared at the ships, now 4 km away, about to pass our stern.

"Scheisse, we have to double back! Rudder, hard to port!" I called down the voice tube. "All hands to battle stations!"

Turning round to head north, I searched for our grand prize, the 9000-tonner. As if on cue, there she was, front and center, much farther away than on our first attack. And there was the Black Swan, off her starboard quarter. I had a hard decision to make.

"We'll have to wait till it's darker, if we want to attack on the surface," said Bachmann. "Or that Black Swan will spot us for sure."

"By then, we'll be in shallower waters," I said. "No, we must attack now, like it or not."

"Submerged, then?"

"Ja. There's nothing for it. Clear the bridge!"

Less than 30 seconds later, we were at periscope depth. Bachmann joined me at the attack scope to set the fire controls. As commander, the responsibility for calculating submerged shots was mine alone. Peering through the lens, I realised what an awful position I was in: by the stadimeter reading, the freighter we wanted was 4200 metres away. Though that fell within the range of our steam torpedoes, it was at the outer limits of U-boat marksmanship. I had never before hit anything, even in practice, at such a distance.

As fast as I could, I calculated the firing solution. Then, on a lark, I had Bachmann try his hand at the periscope. He estimated the target was even farther away. Worse yet, he calculated that she was travelling at six knots, not five, as I had figured. At over 4000 metres, one knot could be the difference between a hit and a miss.

Bachmann's solution might have been more accurate than mine; his aim was proven good enough to sink a cruiser. But I was too stubborn to concede this. I noted his figures, but said nothing. He took it quite well, considering.

So our last two eels were left with my original settings, come what may. As for the one with the impact trigger, I set its depth at five metres. That one I aimed for the foremast. The second, with the magnetic trigger, I aimed for the midsection, depth set at 11 metres.

"Los!" and "Los!" and off they went. I lowered the periscope and sipped my coffee. Rather than go deep at once, I decided we would stay and observe the results, if any. It was to be the longest 4-1/2 minutes of my life.

"With any luck, no one will spot the tracks in advance," Bachmann said. I simply nodded. It pained me to think that I had probably wasted our last two shots, and I should have postponed our attack.

Just before the anticipated detonations I raised the periscope and trained it on the freighter. Bachmann clicked the stopwatch and sighed. He knew he was right, and I should have listened to him.

Then an explosion startled us. A hit! My view of the freighter was partly obscured by a smaller passenger/cargo ship, but I saw the geyser. It was well aft of the foremast, but it was a hit! You could have knocked me over with a feather.

There was no second hit. Our second shot could easily have missed at that range. Alas, the torpedo that struck appeared to have little effect on our target. On the other ships, searchlights came on. The destroyers began to circle and fire star shells. I lowered the scope and resigned myself to failure.

"Congratulations, Herr Oberleutnant," said Bachmann. "Superb shooting, by anyone's standards."

"Danke, Bachmann. Still, a sinking would have been nice." I called down the hatch, "L.I., ahead full. Take us down to 120 metres. Steer to new course 280." Our last measurement in this area indicated 200 metres of water below us.

Bachmann and I returned to the Zentrale. I was about to get a refill from Clausen when we heard a massive explosion. I turned to Bootsmann Schmidt at the hydrophones. "Wabos already?" I asked.

He grinned. "The freighter! She blew up!" A chorus of rooster calls echoed from the Bugraum and spread all the way to the engine room.

"What?!" Schmidt handed me the headphones and turned the wheel. I could hardly believe my ears; the ship was already sinking. I hoped her crew had made it off in time.

My own boat sounded like a orgy in a chicken coop; I called for silent running. I paid a visit to the Bugraum and met with the surreal spectacle of my torpedomen, thumbs tucked into armpits, flapping their elbows wildly. You had to be there.

I took the opportunity to shake the hands of every man in the Bugraum, thanking them for their excellent performance. Our merriment was cut short by the ASDIC pings of the escorts. I promised my men we would celebrate properly back in Kiel, and returned to the Zentrale.

We had two destroyers after us, of which one had to be the bloodthirsty Black Swan. It was impossible to be in alignment with both hunters simultaneously. One saving grace of the Type II, however, was that its small size made it harder to detect at most angles than our larger boats.

Every time we were bombarded, I ordered full speed and made a small course change, heading generally westward, opposite the convoy's direction. It was not a perfect tactic, for we could only guess how long our motor noise was masked by the wabo explosions. Our bursts of speed lasted 30 seconds at a time. Thus our escape was an excruciatingly slow crawl.

Physical damage to our boat was minor, but the Tommies tormented us as long as they could, dropping many more depth charges than the last time. Geissler's main concern was the battery power, for we had driven the boat all day with both diesels. Now we were at 75% of battery capacity. There was no telling how long the ordeal would continue.

This time we managed to stay above Weissdorn's "crush depth" and keep the air relatively breathable. All we could do was keep quiet and remain calm while the wabos detonated. By midnight it was clear that we had slipped the noose -- the frustrated destroyers rejoined their convoy, en route to the North Channel.

After a careful search by periscope and hydrophones, we surfaced in perfect darkness and solitude. Charging our batteries with one diesel, we set course for home. By morning we were running on both diesels again at 10 knots. Though we expected to be hunted down by the RAF as well as the RN, we were unmolested for the entire journey. For this I must give some credit to the Luftwaffe, for it was during this period -- 15 September in particular -- that they made their last (unfortunately futile) "big push" against the RAF in southern England. We could not have arranged a better diversion.

The most hair-raising part of our return journey turned out to be the night of 21 September, when we traversed the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal in pouring rain and fog so thick that we couldn't see the bridges until half a kilometre away. Despite this, our helmsman Jakob Galland, a native of Brunsbüttel, insisted that he knew the Kanal like the back of his hand. "No worries," as he put it, operating the rudder from the bridge in full rain gear.

So rather than stopping for the night as any sane person would've done, we careened onwards, narrowly avoiding jetties, ships, seawalls, and bridges. We were young and felt invulnerable, that's the only way to explain it. The reception at our dock in Kiel was noticeably smaller than the crowd that sent us off, mainly due to the foul weather and that no one really expected us to turn up at 0900.

Korvkpt. Hans Eckermann, chief of the 1st Flotilla, was the first to greet us. I felt cold, wet, and desperately in need of a bath, but it was a pleasure to see the respect in everyone's eyes.

"Congratulations, Prohaska!" said Eckermann. "Your total tonnage is 19,300. You're now U-boat Ace No. 15, right after Jürgen Oesten!" I was dazed by a reporter's camera-flash; given my appearance, it came as no surprise that the photo never appeared in print.

Eckermann shook hands with the entire crew lined up on the casing. We were proud and jolly as pirates, itching to go berserk on leave. Of course I had to meet with more senior officers and file my paperwork, including the torpedo shot reports, with annotated diagrams drawn by Bachmann.

As Eckermann led me to the Officer's Club for a champagne breakfast, he said, "You know, BdU had planned to phase out the Type II, but in light of your resounding success, it looks like we'll keep them in front-line service another year. Isn't that great?!"