Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 25th January 1941, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, somewhere in the Atlantic.
The convoy left with its escort in the morning. The British had kept looking for us through the entire night, but they had begun saving their ammunition after midnight. After noon, the captain decided that we waited long enough, so we checked if there weren’t any strugglers left. Then we’ve set our course to Lorient.
The crew has been quite euphoric since our encounter with the last convoy; we have no torpedoes left, the sea is showing us its increasing strength, so our deck gun isn’t really much help either. This means we are going home. Finally. The only one who isn’t smiling like a child given a bag full of lollipops is our doctor. And nobody blames him – one of the burned guys from Sharkfin is getting worse by the minute. That is also why we’re racing back to France like there’s no tomorrow. There could be no tomorrow for the poor lad, if he doesn’t get proper hospital attention soon. We should get to Lorient in a few days if we maintain this pace.
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