Q: Did you leave the patrol area after this?
No, but we did keep a bit of distance for the next two days, resting and recharging our batteries. The weather gradually improved. Sometime around then, the K-1 passed our position, though we didn’t know it at the time - soon they reported from patrol position No.1 much further south. It seemed that our division commander Gadzhiev very quickly got the “Katyushas” on war footing, and this was to be the cruiser submarines’ first patrol (of many) in Arctic waters. It was also the furthest south any of our submarines went at that time.
On the 27th of August, we decided to go reconnoiter the other side of Soroysund and the approaches to Hammerfest. The sea was calmer by then, and we figured we would approach the port on the surface with some of our tanks flooded and decks awash, and then go to the exit from the straits and lay on the bottom by day until it got dark again.
Our plans to get near the harbour were cancelled by a patrolling anti-submarine cutter which we’d maneuvered away from, but by morning we entered the center of the straits and laid on the bottom.
At about 6:20, we once again had a loud hydroacoustic contact. It was quickly determined to be a convoy - I counted 5 ships at minimum. However, perhaps because of the winding coastline, it seemed that we picked them up quite late and they were about to pass us on the other end of the strait.
Foolishly, I ordered quick speed submerged to get into an intercept position - but that not only failed to get us close enough to attack, it also seemed to attract the attention of the convoy’s escorts. They dropped a few depth charges, very inaccurately, but proceeded to circle and search for us overhead. We had only 30m of depth at best in that part of the strait, so it was very dangerous if we were to get bombed directly.
Q: How did you get away?
Silly as it sounds, mostly by playing dead. I ordered silence on the boat, turned off the electric motors and pumps, and let the boat sink down to the rocky bottom. This actually made us hard to detect, and the enemy seemed conscious of conserving depth charges. Their tactic seemed to be to trick us into surfacing. The larger escorts left towards Hammerfest to catch up with the convoy within about an hour and a half, leaving a small cutter to circle for about another hour and a half. We then heard them leaving.
It was quiet for nearly 2 hours, so I was about ready to surface, but suddenly we heard a small boat coming back to the area. I figured they were still some distance away, but it seems our ears fooled us - when I ordered periscope depth to check, I stuck out the scope and found myself staring right at him, maybe a couple of hundred meters away.
Naturally, I retracted it back down and silently went to the bottom right away, but I’m certain he’d seen it. This time, the boat wouldn’t leave us alone - they dropped no depth charges, but continued circling directly over our position for the rest of the day.
Finally by 4 in the afternoon I had enough. I ordered the motors to the slowest speed and about 1kt of forward speed so we could change up our position. Surprisingly, not even half an hour later, the little boat left.
I took no chances, though. I rested the boat on the bottom until dark, and it was only at about 8:30 - more than 14 hours since we first bumped into that convoy - that we finally surfaced and got some fresh air into the boat.
To be continued...