May 1st, 1940.
Rats! Woking man day, a holiday find us ... working. Just for being holiday I decide to NOT beat the radio officer.
06:39 Radio report; with fear, the radio officer gives me the message. Large Convoy detected at AM17 (we are at AM45, somewhat close), in an easterly course at 7 knots. We calculate along with the navigator and estimate that we can reach them in 12 or 13 hours at 13 knots ("The Hunt", excelent tutorial). "How wonderful!" I shout, and the radio officer runs to hide at his post; strange. I order new course and set the diesels to 13 knots, let's party.
17:46 Another radio message informing about the same convoy; we are on track and close to them.
18:13 In the mist we spot a Flower corvette (what kind of war name is "Flower" corvette?); obviously part of the escort. We go silently to periscope depth.
The sonar man have to take off his headset saying there is a very loud noise out there; he can barely identify the contacts.
Curious, I look through the periscope and the sight is unbeleivable. This is the mother, father,and granny of all convoys.
I try to spot the escort, but all I can see is the corvette zigzagging in front, nothing else.
I order the sonar to report any movement of the corvette, I don't want nasty surprises. Meanwhile, I try to identify the ships, I remember a fellow captain in the U-46 that mistakenly attacked a neutral ship and ended his career at the OKM; what a shame, he's a good man.
There are ships from practicaly the whole world; British, Americans, Belgian, Greek ...
I concentrate only on the british. We get closer abeam the convoy.
18:54 I fire tube III on a T2 tanker; one shot should be enough to put her ablaze. With tube IV I fire on a C2 cargo.
18:58 Impact on T2, with the expected results.
Seconds later, impact on the C2.
Chaos begins; the convoy disorganize, every ship start to zigzag in a disordered manner. Solutions will be harder now.
I look the sonar man, that says the corvette have reversed the course, but don't seems to have found us. With the engines stopped she can't hear us; strangely, they don't ping us; worst for them.
18:59 Fire tube I.
19:01 Impact on another C2.
19:02 Fire II, while I order every man available to reload. This is where I pat myself on the back for taking the precaution the day we sank the C2 near our patrol zone to transport the external torpedos to the internal reserves; good boy.
19:05 I fire tube III over a T3 tanker, but fails and hit a C2 behind it; oh well, an impact is better than none.
19:12 I spot a liner, 24.000 tons, not to chivalrous on my part, but since she wears a british flag I fire tube I
19:15 Impact on the liner. She catchs some fire and starts to slow down, we may have hit the engines.
