If you clowns at BdU think I'm going to roll over and meekly submit to a Board of Enquiry and Court Marshall for following orders to the letter, you've got another think coming!
What happened, you ask? Konigsberg happened! Oh, you heard about it? Well, how could you not! Yes, that was me and I'm sure I'll never live it down! BUT IT WASN'T MY FAULT!!
OK, OK, I'll settle down and tell you. I was assigned a new crew and nice VIIB with Flot Wegener. Now, our command briefing did mention malfunctions as a possibility, but Naval Intelligence (Hah!) was firm that the likelihood of sabotage was all but non-existent.
The order packet required that we stay in the confines of the bay and sink the target ships, carry out a shake-down and, curiously, "avoid any damage" - didn't think much of that at the time, but oh!, how the author of that little gem must have been wetting himself at the time! Evil bastard.
It was, as you may expect, a shooting in a barrel of some ducks. I did notice that they looked strangely good for target hulks, but ours not to question why. But then, I noticed something even stranger. Running on the surface back toward the throat of the bay, I encountered two british ships coming out. When they were in visible range of my watch crew, they went into radical evasive manoeuvres - zig-zag, reversing course etc. It was good training for my Navi to track them accurately on the map, but it left an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.
As we had a couple of hours to run up to dock, in perfect weather with good visibility, I allowed my Exec to take the con for the run into dock. It was his first time at the Con, fresh out of sub school, and he is very young. Oh, and one other thing, it is with pride that I tell you, he is my son. I went below to fill out our mission report and have a quiet Apfel Schnapps (which I do after every successful mission), when I felt a great BANG! and things went flying!
The crew was yelling that we were taking damage (bloody obvious!); and I smashed my head on the overhead trying to get out of my bunk area & into control. I'm screaming for the COB to tell me what the hell is going on. He doesn't know, so I take a quick look at the map on my way topside. We are not near land, no warships or planes around to attack us, and I order Nav to give me a sounding ping in case we are in shallows. Plenty depth.
I skin my knuckles trying to levitate up the ladder to ask the XO what the hell is going on. He doesn't know either, but it seems that we ARE under attack! But from where?!! WHY?! WHO?!?? So, I order periscope depth and ahead flank. In the second or two it took to head back down the hatch, I noticed a barrel flash from a shore battery pill box! In Konigs-bloody-berg Harbour! Firing at ME!
Well, no time to think about that - had to get more crew onto damage control. Once at depth, came to all stop, as we were about to bottom out, and spent the next 15 minutes catching my breath and getting things back under control. Damage control estimated we had lost over 10% hull integrity.
So, what to do? We were being targeted as hostile by those idiots manning the shore batteries. I decided to continue to within 500 m of dock submerged (partly as we concluded that the shore batteries couldn't arc more than about 90deg, so the dock area would be out of range).
All went well until we commenced surfacing, when we came under fire AGAIN! Don't know who by (probably those monkeys on the artillery barges wanting to get in on the fun), didn't have time to find out, but knew the only thing we could do was blow ballast to get fully surfaced and escape to the dock. We managed this without further substantial damage or, more importantly, loss of life or injury to my crew.
Speaking of which, I will not see my crew censored in any way. Only their exemplary reaction times; refusal to panic in the face of inexplicable terror on what should have been a pleasant afternoon cruise; and sticking to their tasks, saved the boat.
So, clearly these orders were BOGUS. The so-called target ships were operating merchants! No wonder WE were targeted. This was no 'malfunction' nor accident, but deliberate sabotage coming right from the heart of BdU!
The schweinhund that cut those orders better hope those new SS guys that I've seen around catch up with him first, because I've got a deck-load full of machinist's mates, a Sergeant-at-Arms, a COB and a new XO that all want to use their shore leave to go to HQ and hunt the bastard down. Using him as a cleaning swab for #3 tube has been suggested. I would in no way object.
So, you can see why I say I will NOT go belly-up for a negative finding from a Board of Enquiry, apportioning blame to us just to cover some lard-ass's backside at HQ who let this spy (probably named Jones, or something) into the very heart of the KM! And you can tell that to all your colleagues at BdU up to, and including, the Vice Admiral for all I care - I'll take you all on! I've got friends in high places too, you know.