At night: attacked by Catalina after convoy raid [pics]

[Phylacista]

P04: NOV1941 U-556 was moving from grid CG88 to CG89 when a FT announced a convoy 80km to the east heading SE. I went AK - night falls, calm weather. 3 hours later another contact report. This time 40km NE heading NW - could this be a 2nd convoy? Made a short sprint and did a hdrophone check. NE multiple sound contacts and after some time single merchant to the S.

I decided to go for the multiple contacts. Ahead Flank. At something around midnight made eyeball contact with leading destroyer. Periscope Depth. Aligning course with convoy course: 255 degrees. I planned to let them overhaul me.
Started raising the scope and looking for the shiplanes. Great: A dido small cruiser. Ok there is a DD approx 1000m off. When plotting suddenly: PING!

One short periscope look DD rushing at me. Searchlight.
ALARM! Was at 20 m when he passed me. Hard right. WASSERBOMBEN. Luckily I was shaken but not damaged. Whent deep and made evasive maneuvers. Sonarman goes crazy: At least 2 other DD coming for me. Happily I seem to have shaken the 1st before they are at the spot. No more pinging - still dropping a lot of DCs.

U-556 came away undamaged. At PD I see 3 DD at 0.5 km dropping DC. Increased speed to 1/3 ahead. Of course submerged. When the DD are out of sight: Surface the Boat! Ahead Flank! Course 255! We have to intercept that convoy while it is still dark. Of course we made a contact report for BdU.

Then as we are racing to the convoy at 16.5 kts. Star illuminated night. WO: "Airplane sighted. 270 degrees. Type unknown"
ALARM! Good Man - to spot a plane at night!

Suddenly as the boat is going under we are illuminated from the sky. Rudder hard backboard. Bullets splashing in the water.



-View from the plane-


-you can see the bomb falling at the right side of pic-



Now we are waiting for the bombs to come...

- explosion starboard -


-view from the cat, bombs exploding-


-splash, you can still see where the U-boat went under-


Again U-556 was shaken but took no damage.

On the second attack run...


we were save at 50m:



After 10 min we surfaced again. We have to intercept that convoy. Right now we are going Ahead flank for one hour after the Cat-attack. FlaK ready.
WO and Sonarman are definitely due for a medal.

Sound contact with convoy - plotting interception course. Its still dark outside.

Wish us luck!