Message in a Lifejacket (BALZ)

[Brag]

From Lt- Schmenck's Diary.

12 May 1940

Our aft torpedo room is flooded. We sit at a sharp angle, the stern touching bottom. One of the electric motors is out of service. Damage in rear and forward battery compartments. The enemy destroyer knows our exact position, its lethal depth charges keep adding damage. We are going to die.

I will wrap this diary in a life jacket. Maybe someone will find it.

We left Wilhelmsaven on the Same day as Wesserubung and met Sharnhorst and Gneisenau. A magnificent sight. Our patrol assignment was just off the Shetlands, so we missed all the Norwegian action.

At the Shetlands the weather was atrocious. We heard a lot of warships but saw none.
After five days, Balz laid course for what he calls Loners´ Lane, changed his chicken tea cozy for a parrot one, and intensified choir practice.

"The secret of finding ships to sink lies in the precise juxtaposition of the hoochie woochie," He declared.

In Loners' Lane we neither heard or saw a single ship. Balz ordered Bernard to transfer all his bazaar medals from the burgundy smoking jacket to his new silver one. "One must show class when one is going to Tanker Alley," Balz said as we headed southwest of England.

There we found a convoy. It took us three attempts to position ourselves for an attack. We sunk a medium and a large freighter.

On the next attack, Balz scanned the convoy. "Not one single ship worthy of my heroic efforts is left in this miserable convoy," He grumbled.
Bernard approached the TDC. "Can I fire a torpedo then?"
"No, you fulminating idiot." Balz turned the periscope. "Oh, oh, here comes something to further my heroic career. Astern emergency!"
"Astern emergency to forward your career?" Bernard asked.
"Flood tubes one, two, three!"
"You always say, one ship, one torpedo."
"Two degree spread., zero gyro angle."
"Staaand by. Los!"
Balz stepped back from the periscope as three torpedoes wooshed out. "Einz, zwei, drei, Hoochie woochie. Everyone say good bye to a Southampton cruiser."

Duty twirlers twirled and the Attack Quartet sang Glory to Balz. A few seconds later, three explosions rumbled across the water.

"A satisfying badakaboom boom, boom." Balz sat on the chart box." Take her down to one hundred fifty meters."

We then returned to Loners' Lane and sunk three ships in 24 hours.

"This is as good as it gets here," Balz said. "We will go to Bonus Corner and then back to Wily to celebrate my greatness."

I Bonus Corner is when things went wrong. A destroyer spotted us and came pinging. Its first DC attack sent us to the bottom.

We have a superb damage control crew and they managed to control most leaks. By using flank speed, Balz was able to rise the boat to 70 meters and avoid the DCs. But the destroyer was relentless. Each pass caused more damage- At less than flank speed the boat went to the bottom. We were finished.

Then, something strange happened. A freight passed very close to our position and the destroyer lost us. Once the destroyer was gone, the flooding of the aft torpedo room was repaired just in time for us to raise to periscope depth and sink a medium freighter.

Balz received a Knight's Cross, but his request for a type IX boat was again denied.