The glorious career of Oberleutnant z. S. M. Anderson, commanding the VIIB U-48 came to end on April 13, 1940 in Vestfjiord outside of Narvik. The boat was lost with all hands. (The brothels in Wilhelmshaven will fly there panties at half mast in honor of her gallant crew.)
I keep wondering, how?
I just sank the HMS Nelson(my first battleship-
), escorted by 9 destroyers. I crash dived after a destroyer spotted my periscope(too busy rubbernecking the sinking and hoping to maybe even the odds a little bit by taking a destroyer out as well) and hit me with gunfire. I had minor damage to the conning tower, no flooding that I could see. I passed 80 meters and kept going. I put on speed to try to arrest the descent but unfortuneately, I had to go pick up the kids from day care and I had to save-I know...saving submerged, near land, with other ships nearby is supposedly taboo, but I've never had any problems before.
Yesterday, I come home from work and have some time to play a little bit and am looking forward to trying to evade 9 pissed destroyers and figure out why I keep going down past my ordered depth.
I load up, the control room opens up showing a very steep angle, lights flashing, explosions, and reports of damage, men on deck and what not and then the death screen. The depth meter showed about 110m and I had at least another 100m below keel.
WTF.
I just keep wondering what happened. It went from a seemingly under control, albeit tense, situation to the death screen and the commanders white cap floating to the surface.
There didn't seem to be any destroyers nearby dropping DC's at the time of the save, but I have a feeling that is exactly what happened and I just got caught in a bad DC pattern. Just plain bad timing I guess.
I kinda wonder if it was changing the depth after ordering a crash dive. I've heard stories that is not a good thing to do, but I guess I'll just never know exactly what happened.
Oh well. Dead is dead.
On a good note, I was awarded the Oak Leaves to my Knights Cross. Unfortuneately, it was posthumously.
A new Kaleun has joined the ranks in U-36 in May of 1940. He his currently on his first patrol near Dunkirk in water that is waaaaay to shallow for his liking.
