[Tango589]

Not long on our first patrol off SW Ireland, we were hanging around at PD listening for contacts, whilst I was laying on my bunk day-dreaming of my girlfriend in Bonn. 'Contact spotted' called the Hydrophone operator, so I leapt off the bunk and raised the Obs scope to have a butchers at what we had. It's only a British small merchant, roughly 2k tonnes, so I order the boat to surface, man the deck gun and give the ship a taste of German lead. I am plotting our course with the Nav Officer, whilst listening to the deep, satisfying booms of our gun, along with the harsh metallic clangs of reloading, when I hear an almighty racket and screams from the deck! I rush up the ladder in a panic, to find the body of my WO draped over the side of the turm, killed instantly by gunfire from the merchants' gun on it's fan-tail. I'm briefly numbed with shock, I had known Kurt Meuller since school, and was glad to have him onboard my boat. Further shots hit the side of my boat, i'm not sure how much damage they were causing. I ran down to the deck gun, took command and proceeded to vent my rage at this damned British minnow who took the life of my friend. My first lucky shot destroyed their armament, then I ordered the boat to pull alongside the merchant at 800 meters range, whilst I pepppered their waterline. After 5 or 6 shots, I must have hit something vital, because the ship was rent by a huge explosion that broke her back and she sunk in a matter of minutes. With ears stil ringing from the gunfire and expolsion, I ordered the ship to return to course, not interested in helping survivors. Later we had a brief but poignant ceremony to bury my WO and friend Kurt at sea. The crews' morale was low but it did improve when we sunk more British shipping.