December 11th, 1939. We open our Top Secret orders as we pass Den Helder. We are to try a repeat of the raid on Scapa Flow, but our target is Portsmouth.
We approach at darkness and surface to slide over the sub net at the choke point into the harbor. We hug the pier and at silent speed navigate right into the main anchorage. A destroyer and a patrol boat are plying the waters of the bay.
What a disappointment. Only a few merchant ships lie at anchor. I took out a 10,000 ton Modern Tanker and another small tanker and then we left the way we came, hugging the pier. We were never detected.
We surface and clear the sub net, and then race at flank speed back out into the channel.
Just when I thought we were clear, star shells appear above us and we hear faint sirens from the shore. Shore batteries start to fire on us, so we dive.
All of the escorts, at least 4 of them, in the channel have predictably beached themselves on the channel side as they could not find the way into Portsmouth.
We egress the channel by Dover and resume our usual 1939 ravage of the eastern coast of Britain.
Steve
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