Quote:
Originally Posted by Falkirion
Fun isn't it Bill? Never had my heart pounding so much when I had my damage control team working to save my boat from damage suffered from my stupidity (BB Rodney vs U 47 surface battle in GWX3.0. I nearly sank)
Never been hit by DC's though, always dove below 200m if I need to. 200m is about the reach of Allied sonar early in the war.
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Yeah, I usually sink like a rock to about 210 if I'm reasonably sure I'm going to be evading for a long time. The waters I was in were only 75m deep, though, which is what made it possible for them to keep pinging me. I just got a little careless because I'd never been hit before, so I let my guard down. Big mistake!
PS:
Patrol 6 – Left Wilhelmshaven for AN34, April 18th, 1940. No contacts. Sailed north and around the coast of Norway. No contacts. Sailed towards Scapa Flow. Encountered one ASW Trawler, ordered WO to engage with deck gun. Our newly-trained gunnery PO did a wonderful job, scoring three hits from close range (we had approached under cover of darkness to about 1000m off her stern). She stopped returning fire and began to nose down, so ordered cease fire.
Off Dundee, encountered one coastal tanker. Sank with deck gun.
Sailed down the eastern coast of England. No contacts for days on end. Encountered one medium cargo off Newcastle-on-Tyne and sank with two torpedoes. A measly 7000+ GRT when counting the other two boats.
In my frustration, I decided to raid Hartlepool. I had done this once before and got away clean. I went in in very poor visibility. As I was punching information into the TDC, the WO screamed that we had been spotted. Those would be his last words, as one seconds later, a shell slammed into the conning tower, killing him outright. He had been awarded the Iron Crosses Second and First Class, as well as the Knight's Cross. I had promoted him to Leutnant z. S two patrols ago, and was getting ready to promote him off to commission his own boat.
It was not to be. We dove to 17m too quickly to recover his body from the tower. We began picking our way out of the harbour with three ASW Trawlers and one destroyer above us. They had a hell of a time depth charging us, as the water was so shallow that they would wind up blowing themselves up. As a result, they weren't able to score any hits for the first three hours. At the top of the fourth, though, they caught us in a pattern – all four dropped depth charges within a few seconds of each other (I watched this underwater through the attack scope).
Port diesel destroyed. Deck gun destroyed. Attack scope destroyed. Observation scope destroyed. Hydrophone damaged. Aft batteries damaged. Fuel tanks damaged. Fore batteries damaged. Heavy flooding.
Went to flank and secured from silent running. Damage control worked their magic, though by the time they had, we were down to 10% of our diesel.
Went to one knot and stayed at that speed for the remainder of evasion. Noticed that they were now only depth charging to our stern, and quite some distance away. Stayed down for another 7 hours before surfacing at night in the midst of a storm. Limped home with one engine. Docked at Wilhelmshaven with 7683 GRT sunk, 12 torpedoes left, hull integrity at 4.82%, and personal effects for Leutnant z. S. Heinz Giebler's wife and children. We'll be in port until August.
Guess I'd better not let my frustration get the better of me. It was too reckless and irresponsible. I'm lucky only the one crewmember died.