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I was shooting the channel on my second patrol (1939) in U-49 of of Wilhelmshaven last night. Was about halfway through the channel, and around 0100 picked up sonar from a destroyer directly ahead at medium range closing fast from the SW. I immediately turned N at full speed hoping to sneak by, but as luck would have it on his sweep he happened to turn directly at me and shortly afterwards picked me up. In 25m of water not really anywhere to hide, so I dropped to 3 knots silent NW trying to lose him. As the pings got closer I knew he was onto me and it did not look good. Just then I pickup 3 more sonar contacts, warships (DD) approaching fast from the NE. I have no choice but to pop up the periscope to see what's going on, to find the V&W heading directly at me at 400m, spotlight on, and shooting his deck gun at the peri. I drop the periscope and hard rudder left, flank speed, open tube 5. At this point I only have one chance, it's me or him. As soon as the boat gets turned a bit I pop open the periscope and he's there at about 300m and still 20 degrees off at an angle. With no time left to get a better angle I order fire tube 5. 20 seconds later, torpedo impact. The jubilation was tempered when I noticed the pings returning a few seconds later. I take a look at the destroyer and find (thankfully) it is dead in the water. With 3 other DD still quickly closing fast to join the hunt I turn SW and head out at flank. A few minutes later I see the destroyer going down. Needing to get out of there asap I surface at flank and high tail it out of there. Once I was well out of the area I returned to course at normal speed, thanked my lucky stars, and headed for the west end of the channel.
I think we'll take the North Sea for the return trip...
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