December 24th, 1941
I get my orders to transfer to Surabaya, Java while on patrol. When i was towards the bottom of the South China Sea, I got a new warship contact. Only one....I was suspicious and followed it. Soon, a gray "ship sunk" icon appeared to my east. I ran at full speed to the mark and what do I find?
A German Type IX-D2 u-boat with full watch crew on deck. No flag was flying. I asked my watch officer if there were any visual contacts, but there were none. Added to this was the sea state. The waves were huge and pitching both boats back and forth. There was about 100 feet of water here so the boat didn't hit the bottom from a wave. Why did it show up as sunk on the map? There was no visible damage. I thought this was a bit strange....
