Our shortest patrol ever with highest tonnage per day we'll probably ever gain. 5 days patrol, 138k tonns sunk (18 ships in a 10 hours lasting 'battle'). For those, who don't like to read a lot in bad English:
only this patrol log,
whole the career log.
October 1940. 2 days after leaving Lorient on our way to AL grid we got a report about a west bound convoy. Somewhat far away from our route, but the crew was extremely bored with chasing singles and wanted some variation. We also hoped to meet something interesting, like a battleship, so we wasted our fuel to intercept the convoy at flank speed.
On arrival to intercept point at the shelf boarder we got a new report - the convoy changed its course. But finally we got it... It was very late evening (2200), weather was calm, sees flat. Submerged approach was quite easy, escorts were silent, ships slow... So, however the first approach was intended to be a 'look-around' we decided to engage. Fired all the 6 torpedoes, scored 3 misses and 3 hits into three targets. Two of them went down quite immediately (10.5k tons), the third didn't.
After submerging to loose escorts (who never found us) we came back to the spot and - mein gott! - we spotted two merchants sitting still in the water - a large cargo and large merchant for total 20k tons. And THAT WAS SUSPICIOUS, as only one of them was actually hit... What did the second do here? We didn't know, till we got closer... and the freak started shooting at us. It was exactly 0000 and after 6 minutes of shooting like there was no tomorrow both the ships went down - 0006.
The crew were reloading internal torpedoes and we stay surfaced to move the external inside too. We were moving slowly towards the convoy tail, and that was a HUGE MISTAKE (we'll never do it again being so close...). A few minutes after our First Watch Idiot spotted a warship that was way too close to submerge in time... We seemed to be doomed. But we didn't want to sell our skin for cheap, no...
Man the deck gun! Shoot at will! Aim at just ANYTHING but sink the damn frigate down!! And... we sank it with 6 shots...
After 8 minutes another frigate came. We sank her with deck gun.
After 20 minutes another frigate came. We sank her with deck gun...
And that made 3 sunk frigates total. Our crew was never, absolutely NEVER as cocky as after this. They insisted... no, they didn't INSIST. They DEMANDED that we go and sink all the escorts NOW! What could I do..? "But first reload the torpedoes", I said... And we went on.
We spotted the convoy 4 hours later, at about 0500. We stayed surfaced and went to all ahead to let them know we were here. This was the shortest way to learn if there is any escort left with them. There wasn't. No escort at all.
Let the slaughter begin!
It was like a shooting practise. Every crew member had a chance to shoot at least few rounds, everyone wanted to press the LOSS button... We were moving to and fro in the middle of the convoy, shooting like mad devils, picking only the large ships as there were too many targets to sink them all. They were all unarmed, they were all too slow... And the RAF must have had their free time, as no plane went to hel them. We lost all torpedoes, all HE rounds for deck gun and every single anti-aircraft patron... When there was no ammo left, total 0f 18 ships were sunk, 1 severly damaged and maybe like 5-10 merchants that were not a valid target, as they were too small...
Then there was no point to go to our patrol area, so as the sun rose we set our course straight back to base. 138k tonns in a five days patrol... Noone would believe us when we tell the story...
When we were on our way home, we got another report - the rest of the convoy was shadowed by our U-Boots... I suppose none of these ships made it to US... Not even a single one.
The paper work:
Report and crew medals:
Will anything be so exciting in the future? Let me doubt it... My shirt is still wet from sweat... That was an incredible patrol.