[Leandros]

Originally Posted by Leandros

U47 - Lt.z.S. Willi Hartmann - 3rd patrol - Oct. 1939 190636 - in the English Channel

Heading back home through the Channel now with one aft tube torp for self-defense left. We have seen a lot of small coastal vessels, most of them sunk using the deck gun. Also snuk up on an ASW trawler in the dark and finished him. Finally hit upon a large westbound convoy South of Exmouth escorted only by a J&K destroyer. Tried to nail him while he passed us in front of the convoy, he was saved by the zigzagging, did not discover the bubble track of the torpedo. We let him go and concentrated on the merchants. Then we experienced a multitude of torpedo failures, mostly when firing on magnetic fuze. Lost 2 "Medium Cargos" on that. The end result was two Intermediate Tankers and the J&K which returned to the convoy.

Just as he started hunting us we lost power on the electric engines and started slowly descending. However, the J&K missed us marginally on his first run-in. I switched a dedicated engineer officer to the engine room, that seemed to help. Ordered full reverse when he had passed behind us and lined him up for bow shot as he started to turn around in front of us. Gave him a nice full angle on impact almost exactly at 400 meters distance. He stopped still in the water, burning, but not sinking. After having wasted a couple of more torps on the merchants I gave him the decisive blow as we were leaving the field.

Hope we get safely home now.

U47 - Lt.z.S. Willi Hartmann - 4th patrol - Nov. 1939 260000 - Wilhelmshafen

Ready to depart on Patrol 4 now. The last part of Patrol 3 was not without incidents. W were discovered by an MTB in daylight half way through the Channel, approaching us straight from the fore. Decided to stay above not to be caught up by any destroyers called in by the MTB. Gun crew started fire at 4.000 meters distance. At 1.000 meters there was finally a good hit. Lucky, as we only had 20 rounds when the skirmish started. I had forgot. In the meantime we had received some damage but no casualties. The Flak crew finished it off. Later in the day we were jumped by an ASW trawler suddenly approaching out of the mist on our starboard side. With only the spare aft torpedo left and all the deck gun ammo wasted I turned tail, heading AK straight north to get away from it. In this we succeeded as it did only 8 knots but only after having received some more damage.

As we approached the narrowest part of the Straits we went down and waited for the dark. We then crossed over on the surface without any incidents. HI when in Wilhelmshafen 64%.

We have now been given a mission area in North Atlantic and I decided to postpone my application for transfer to Type IX. We are departing shortly. Hopefully we find some fat convoys. Till now there has been too much small frey.