[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 27th December 1940, U-104, 200km west of Brest.

The Captain woke us up at 5 AM. The few people here, who were with him on his previous ship, the U-1 „Cloverleaf“ from 1st Flotilla, tell us, that it’s in his nature. We were told that he is very eager and doesn’t like to come back from patrol with spare torpedoes. Back in Lorient, they told us (again) the story of Cloverleaf’s demise. How the captain had tried to get to Scapa Flow out of frustration, that they had no luck with finding ships. The Cloverleaf had returned to Helgoland in terrible shape with only 14 survivors and had been ripped of useful equipment and scuttled there. It had only lasted 6 patrols.

We are now going to sail near the Irish coast to pick a few tons of British (if we’re lucky) and then head to our patrol destination. I think I heard the captain say something about grid AK53, but I didn’t see the orders myself.

In the evening, the captain told us all to come up with a name for the U-104 to grant us luck in the Atlantic. I don’t care about the name, but I really hope for some luck with this bloodthirsty captain.



Note 1 – This is turning out to be quite a good English practice for me.

Note 2 – I may have to rush this patrol a bit, because I started writing this when the patrol was at like 10th January 1940. I just don’t want to forget what all happened. I even stopped playing SH3 for a while to catch up with my writing.

Note 3 – You may already guessed it, I don’t have a name for the boat yet. Any ideas?

Note 4 – The part about Cloverleaf is almost true. I had a career with a IIA that had a cloverleaf as an emblem. And yes, I tried to go into Scapa Flow. And yes, it didn’t go that well, but I survived, I had 14 people alive, and I ended the career in German waters with a canoe that barely floated. I just couldn’t take anymore of the IIAs and I got overplayed with VIIBs, so I tried the IXB.

Note 5 – I like to play a little hardcore. I always return back to base, I never load a saved game if I die. I even researched that electric torpedoes couldn’t be placed in external reserves because of maintenance. This means that this story can end anytime, even in patrol 4, because it hasn’t ended yet.

Note 6 – Until now, I had my auto-correct set to Czech, so there may have been some mangled words so far. Usually you can guess what it is supposed to be in English.