[maillemaker]

Last night was our 3rd patrol, out of Kiel. 1939. We were just about to AM18 at night in foul weather when we made contact with a convoy. I was on the surface when we sighted the first escort.

I dropped us to periscope depth, and we made for the contacts northwesterly until I felt we were close enough to take a peek with the scope. I scanned the convoy - some big tankers, cargo ships, good, good, and then WOAH! A battleship! A quick scan through the identification manual identified her as the HMS Nelson.

I gave her 3 torpedoes and sent a fourth to a tanker. Then I spun around and targeted a cargo ship behind us - all with manual targetting.

All 3 hit the battleship, and she went down. One hit the tanker, and it was burning. I dogged the convoy until morning, most of the time without much response from the escorts, until finally they found us and kept us down for a few hours with some intense depth charging. We sprung some leaks but our new officer with his repair skills got us back into good form again.

When morning came, 4 ships were gone from the convoy and all my torpedoes were gone.

It was my first mission with manual targetting.