I was on patrol on international waters. My IWO sights a neutral passenger liner. I consult BdU orders as we have unrestricted submarine warfare and possibility to engage. I am also in an operation with focus on warships and troop transports. After long consideration I decide not to sink her. I only snatch a small ID photo. 15 min later it feels dissapointing to let a 8000t target go...
For some reason I keep coming back to this photo. So after the patrol I decide to try and find out the name of the ship. I Google "Swedish passenger liner". The 2nd result leads me to a Wikipedia article and the similarity is clear as day.
Just amazing. They match almost perfectly. Here is a bit of the article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Drottningholm
Quote:
The Drottningholm was one of the few passenger liners along with Cunard's RMS Aquitania, to have completed service in both World Wars. During wartime the ship was used as a mercy ship to exchange civilian internees, POWs, and diplomats. She was chartered by the American, British, and French governments for a total of 14 voyages that transported 18,160 individuals.
In March 1942 the ship was chartered by the U.S. State Department via an arrangement with the Nazi Germans and other Axis powers, facilitated with the help of the Swiss and Swedish governments, to repatriate civilian internees and diplomats from both sides of the war. Her first east bound voyage from the US, carrying Axis individuals, was from New York City to Lisbon, Portugal on May 7, 1942. On May 22, she departed Lisbon for a west bound return trip carrying Allied individuals to New York, arriving on June 1, 1942. The passengers included American Chargé d'affaires to Germany Leland B. Morris and diplomat George Kennan. She made one more east bound voyage to Lisbon on June 3 from Jersey City, New Jersey. Her final west bound exchange mission from Lisbon to New York arrived in the United States on June 30. That would be her last exchange trip from Lisbon as the Nazi government cancelled all further trades. On July 15, she left from New York City to her home port in Gothenburg, Sweden, carrying approximately 800 Axis nationals.
She continued to serve the British and French as a repatriation mercy ship. The Drottningholm carried Red Cross supplies for distribution to other nationalsstill in Japanese controlled territory. One Japanese national jumped overboard and drowned causing the exchange to be halted until an American offered to stay in captivity.
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Quote:
The Drottningholm was painted white with the name of the vessel in very large letters, the Swedish flag and the words "Sverige" (Sweden) and "Diplomat" painted prominently on port and starboard. She was fully illuminated so her markings could be easily viewed. On 16 March 1944 she docked in New York after an exchange voyage that took 750
Germans to Europe in exchange for 600 wartime internees, including Mary Berg. In September 1944, she was being used by the Red Cross to transport POWs and civilians being repatriated from Germany to the UK via Sweden, under the command of Captain John Nordlander. Another voyage in April 1945 docked in Liverpool that included 212 ex-interned Channel Islanders.
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This is just the ww2 history. The ship transported Canadian troops during ww1 and was involved in the disaster of the Titanic.
So now having learned the story of the ship in the sights of my UZO, I am glad I didn't sink her. Without learning the story I would have just thought "another neutral wasting my time in the game". So this brings a lot of new feeling to the game. How big of a responsibility a U-boat commander has on the decision to sink a ship or not. On that night I did not observe any diplomatic markings. Had I sunk her, I would have been in so much trouble. If it were not possible to cover the sinking as a mine.. With my decision, hang in the balance a big international incident, which would effect relations between Germany and Sweden. Perhaps on a strategical scale in ww2. But now I can be glad I made the right choice. I can put this ship in my photo album, marking down where and when I met her. Next we encounter, I will recognize her quite instantly.