As experienced by Max Wermuth, 6th January 1941, noon, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.
Even through the hydrophones on my ears, I can hear them, pinging. Very faintly. Then again, few explosions to our left. They definitely think we are somewhere else than we really are. 200 meters under. Listening. Waiting for the escorts to catch up to the convoy. They should fear for the now poorly protected convoy and leave us be.
We heard all 6 torpedoes explode, but the captain wasn’t very happy about the first two. They exploded too early, captain first thought that they went off prematurely. Then I heard the crushing of metal, pressures claiming a ship, squeezing it in the deep water. After telling the captain, he began laughing. He said he misjudged the first two forward torpedoes, and it probably hit the small merchant closest to us, instead of a large merchant that we were supposed to hit.
Another set of depth charges explode to our left. Then a few more behind us, but I can tell they’re somewhat different. I quickly turn the wheel to listen in that direction. There! Another ship, slowly making its way down to the ocean floor. Captain reeks happiness now – both stern torpedoes found its target – cargo ship, estimated 9000 tons.
Another set of depth charges. The captain is good – he doesn’t believe in the reliability of electric torpedoes, but uses them for the stern tubes – so the escorts don’t have such an easy time to guess our position. They can’t find us even in this calm sea.
Time passes by. Still, I can hear three engines operating to our left, although they stopped with the charges. They should catch up to the convoy any time now. Then we maybe could go home…
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