A crazy event
09 April 1942.
Weather still lousy (fortunatelly).
We were following a whale factory, waiting for it to sink from one torpedo hit.
A destroyer popped out of the darkness and opened fire. We took a lot of damage while submerging. A sharp turn while still at high speed saved us from a depth charge barrage.
Critical leaks in both torpedoe compartments and electric motors comparment accelerated our dive. The destroyer made another pass but missed. Not that it made much difference. I realized we were sinking as we passed 200 meters.I blew ballast, it slowed the dive.
While boat chief bitched about our situation the crew cheered. We sank something. There were lots of explosions nearby.
On approaching 300 meters I blew all ballastand we began to rise.
The logbook showed the whalefactory as sunk.
We no longer heard the destroyer.
We broke surface expecting the destroyer to open fire on us--nothing. I turned east and headed away from the area at 7 knots.
The crew fixed the leaks, we're still floating. What happened to that destroyer is a mystery.
|