Almost sunk by my own torpedo!

cawimmer430 · 08-29-10, 04:24 AM

It's early May 1945. I had just completed a patrol in my IXC and was returning home via north of Scapa Flow. Halfway between Scapa Flow and Wilhelmshafen, during a particularly dark night with no moon, my crew makes out an enemy warship, a destroyer, patrolling at extremely low speed. An odd place for a warship to be all by itself. Nevertheless, I had one torpedo left - a Zaunkonig II, so I decide to use it on this ship. I go to flank speed on an interception course. A few kilometers in front of him, I go to periscope depth and wait for him to come near me. He's about a kilometer away when I fire my torpedo.

The destroyers passes me at a distance of about 800 meters and doesn't detect me. But neither does my torpedo hit him. As he cruises out of range, I surface the boat and go on a new course for home. All of a sudden there's a big explosion to my port side. I get the usual flooding messages as well as a few dead and wounded crew members. Both my sonar and radio operators are dead, weapons officer is dead and everyone else in the bridge compartment is wounded badly.

Since I have seven experienced petty officers with the repair qualification as well as an experienced commander, we quickly get the flooding under control. Nevertheless, sonar, hydrophone, forward and rear batteries, observation and attack scope and radio are destroyed. I can't travel submerged anymore. Great.

Still, I manage to make it back to Wilhemshaven and the war ends for me.

Man, almost sunk by my own torpedo. What a bummer that would have been to have survived the war and then be sunk by the last torpedo you're ever going to fire in this bloody war!

08-29-10, 04:24 AM	#1
cawimmer430 Torpedoman Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 114 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	Almost sunk by my own torpedo! It's early May 1945. I had just completed a patrol in my IXC and was returning home via north of Scapa Flow. Halfway between Scapa Flow and Wilhelmshafen, during a particularly dark night with no moon, my crew makes out an enemy warship, a destroyer, patrolling at extremely low speed. An odd place for a warship to be all by itself. Nevertheless, I had one torpedo left - a Zaunkonig II, so I decide to use it on this ship. I go to flank speed on an interception course. A few kilometers in front of him, I go to periscope depth and wait for him to come near me. He's about a kilometer away when I fire my torpedo. The destroyers passes me at a distance of about 800 meters and doesn't detect me. But neither does my torpedo hit him. As he cruises out of range, I surface the boat and go on a new course for home. All of a sudden there's a big explosion to my port side. I get the usual flooding messages as well as a few dead and wounded crew members. Both my sonar and radio operators are dead, weapons officer is dead and everyone else in the bridge compartment is wounded badly. Since I have seven experienced petty officers with the repair qualification as well as an experienced commander, we quickly get the flooding under control. Nevertheless, sonar, hydrophone, forward and rear batteries, observation and attack scope and radio are destroyed. I can't travel submerged anymore. Great. Still, I manage to make it back to Wilhemshaven and the war ends for me. Man, almost sunk by my own torpedo. What a bummer that would have been to have survived the war and then be sunk by the last torpedo you're ever going to fire in this bloody war!