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IceGrog · 01-07-07, 05:14 PM

My short career of 1939 (GWX) I headed straight for Scapa Flow, kept running into lone ships that we took down with the deck guns, a total of about 8000 tons, even a small sailing ship we took out with the AA guns for a grand total of 8008 tons. Finally arrived at Scapa Flow at night, had to hide from a couple of destroyers before we got thru the sunken ships, going thru these in the pitch black of night was cool, had to stand on the conning tower the whole time, a wee bit cold but the weather was calm. Once in went to periscope depth. Slowly pass by two anchored destroyers, must have been no one on watch, proceeded to northward into a large troop ship was sighted, next to another anchored destroyer.
As we readied the torpedoes, I had second thoughts, once the troop ship was hit would we be able to get out with all the destroyers around, but came this far, fired two torpedoes at the troop ship and one at the destroyer then immediately turned to traced our path back out. When the troop ship came into sight my rear tube, I fired another at her, and now the first two destroyers were dead ahead of me, fired one at the closest one. A report of torpedo impact was announced, must have been the troop ship, then another impact, then a report of a missed torpedo, couldn’t believe this we were within 1200m and of the troopship and destroyer, how could we miss? I was thinking it had to be the destroyer that we missed. Then a report of ship going down (the first destroyer) then another report of another impact and a ship going down (the second destroyer).
By this time reports of warships on the move were all over the bay. We were coming into range of the first anchored destroyer that we passed coming in, still sitting there, and now we had another torpedo loaded, we fired. In the distance behind us we could lights scanning the bay for us and hear the explosions of depth charges. I was worried about have to surface to get back through the sunken ship barricade. This was best part of this mission; my heart was pounding as I was on the surface knowing that any of the warships now could take me out so easily. But we got through and out into freedom of open sea with no problem.
As we were negotiating the sunken ships came the report of another ship going down (the troopship) yeah! This is where it all went to my head. We were thinking nobody can take us now, 1939 out in the ocean, if we see any warships we just go deep, Suddenly a report of a ship reported off our port bow, very long range. No problem, Barnard, if she comes towards us, we can avoid them, no problem, just as I thinking this, the whole u-boat lights up with an explosion, what the… take her down, bullets tearing up our deck, another explosion, blasted sub can’t go down fast enough now. Reports of heavy flooding, crap, how could have this happened, I use the special camera to look, and there in sky are two RAF clowns, 1939 wow. Now half my crew are red and we are diving to bottom by "no" choice of mine.

01-07-07, 05:14 PM	#1
IceGrog Engineer Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: USA on the edge of the Pacific Posts: 217 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	So full of pride...so dead. My short career of 1939 (GWX) I headed straight for Scapa Flow, kept running into lone ships that we took down with the deck guns, a total of about 8000 tons, even a small sailing ship we took out with the AA guns for a grand total of 8008 tons. Finally arrived at Scapa Flow at night, had to hide from a couple of destroyers before we got thru the sunken ships, going thru these in the pitch black of night was cool, had to stand on the conning tower the whole time, a wee bit cold but the weather was calm. Once in went to periscope depth. Slowly pass by two anchored destroyers, must have been no one on watch, proceeded to northward into a large troop ship was sighted, next to another anchored destroyer. As we readied the torpedoes, I had second thoughts, once the troop ship was hit would we be able to get out with all the destroyers around, but came this far, fired two torpedoes at the troop ship and one at the destroyer then immediately turned to traced our path back out. When the troop ship came into sight my rear tube, I fired another at her, and now the first two destroyers were dead ahead of me, fired one at the closest one. A report of torpedo impact was announced, must have been the troop ship, then another impact, then a report of a missed torpedo, couldn’t believe this we were within 1200m and of the troopship and destroyer, how could we miss? I was thinking it had to be the destroyer that we missed. Then a report of ship going down (the first destroyer) then another report of another impact and a ship going down (the second destroyer). By this time reports of warships on the move were all over the bay. We were coming into range of the first anchored destroyer that we passed coming in, still sitting there, and now we had another torpedo loaded, we fired. In the distance behind us we could lights scanning the bay for us and hear the explosions of depth charges. I was worried about have to surface to get back through the sunken ship barricade. This was best part of this mission; my heart was pounding as I was on the surface knowing that any of the warships now could take me out so easily. But we got through and out into freedom of open sea with no problem. As we were negotiating the sunken ships came the report of another ship going down (the troopship) yeah! This is where it all went to my head. We were thinking nobody can take us now, 1939 out in the ocean, if we see any warships we just go deep, Suddenly a report of a ship reported off our port bow, very long range. No problem, Barnard, if she comes towards us, we can avoid them, no problem, just as I thinking this, the whole u-boat lights up with an explosion, what the… take her down, bullets tearing up our deck, another explosion, blasted sub can’t go down fast enough now. Reports of heavy flooding, crap, how could have this happened, I use the special camera to look, and there in sky are two RAF clowns, 1939 wow. Now half my crew are red and we are diving to bottom by "no" choice of mine. __________________ U-551 7th Flottille Laid down: 21 Nov, 1939, Blohm & Voss, Hamburg Commissioned: 7 Nov, 1940 Commander: Kptlt. IceGrog von Ritter Sunk: 12/11/1940, 01/01/1941, 10/16/1941, 01/16/1942, 08/04/1943 .................................................. .......... A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory Last edited by IceGrog; 01-08-07 at 09:10 AM.