Wow, I had seen on the Net that D-2 was preserved, but I had no idea how well preserved she is.
Did anybody yet visit K-21 in Murmansk? Or S-56 in Vladivostok?
I wonder in what condition these two are.
Regarding the attack on the rail ferry Deutschland (2300 tons), it took place on 19th October 1942.
D-2 had allready sunk a 4000 ton freighter on this patrol and damaged another vessel (according to german sources) when it attacked the Ferry which was carrying around 1000 Soldiers on leave from the postings in Norway.
I wonder how almost half of those could have been killed by a hit which was not fatal, especially since I couldnt find anything about loss of life in my literature; which doesnt mean there was none, only that I couldnt find anything except a short notice in Rohwers "Chronology of war at sea". Maybe a fire, but the Ferry Deutschland continued operation throughout the war and was used for the east prussia evacuation in early 1945. Apparently the ship survived the war, but had to be given away as reparations, so that a new "Deutschland" ferry was build for the route in 1952.
I find it suprising that such a major troopship disaster wouldnt be mentioned in more detail.
Ok, the picture is somewhat idealistic, since there were hardly regular german warships to escort a ferry running Trelleborg-Gedser. If there was an escort, it was converted Trawlers, not Z-Class destroyers.
But rather I suppose they didnt expect a soviet sub attack that far west in the Baltic, almost in the Kattegatt.
Interestingly, D-2s Captain was named Lindberg.
Regarding soviet WW2 subs, I have Kolyshkins "In arctic depths", published in Chrushew's time around 1960, but that, as the name implies, covers arctic fleet subs only. I read it in german translation, published by the GDR.
Of course he claims the Germans still cover up the fact that the Tirpitz had to abandon the PQ-17 sortie due to heavy damage by K-21.
But apart from occasional propaganda and vastly inflated sinking claims (apparently the arctic subs sank every german vessel in Norway twice) it is better than nothing as a source.
Seems soviet subs operated pretty similar to US ones in 1941. Submerged attacks only, mostly they dived away directly after firing torpedoes, so that the success of an attack was only judged by explosions.
Torpedoes could apparently be fired off angle, but there was nothing like a TDC. At least soviet torpedoes (only steam ones) were very reliable and there were no dud problems.
He describes some missions of D-4, and apparently the D-type submarines were a nightmare to operate, especially in arctic conditions. They took extremely long to dive, over a minute.