Hehe well it turns out I made it. Repaired and pumped for a while and then time accelerated for a few hours to make sure I'd be alone when I went up. The worst was getting the boat moving at all... The dive planes were ''Damaged'' too so maybe that didn't help. The batteries were so low on juice that they only ever managed 1 knot but I made it to the surface (eventually ...). Apparently the return to base button didn't mind I was out of fuel because it took me right back to Lorient
.
It was either that or waiting for the next DD to finish me.. I think there should be the ''abandon ship'' option for those situations though. Has anyone ever made a mod that included this? Oh and it was still happy time... late '40. That probably contributed to the DDs not finishing me.