Of.z.S. Hageman writes:
06 January 1941
The previous night we saw two American tankers lit up like St.Pauli bei Nacht. The watch on those ships would have been indignant if they saw the indecent gestures we made.
Frustrated we carried on toward our assigned grid SSE of Greenland.
Shortly after sunset, U-104 Rumbled along at 8 knots on a calm sea.
"Our first kill is going to be tanker tonight," Balz said when the navigator got finished making the evening star shots. "Periscope depth."
After dinner, we sat in the officers' nook practing Balz's Rule of One (One ship, one torpedo. One glass of wine during dinner. One cognac after dinner). The soundman announced, Freighter,fast, nearing."
Balz took a sip of his cognac. "New heading 330, give us turns for six knots."
I went to the chart table. The relative bearing of the target remained constant, I wondered how Balz got our intercept heading right without leaving his corner seat.
"Let me know when that tanker is two thousand meters from us."
"Herr Kaleun, how do you know it's a tanker?"
"I am just great, not perfect, but great. And we are crossing Tanker Alley. We will break the rule of one by sinking it with the deck gun. But being hoochie woochie we'll call it one gun one ship."
Balz placed his tea cozy on his head and we surfaced. The first shell set the ship ablaze, revealing it was small tanker. It took 16 shells to put out the floating bonfire by sinking it.
The singing twirlers mustered on the after deck and sang the Hoochie-woochie boom-boom song.
We resumed our course to the patrol area.
(smileys pilfered from Jimbuna)