Neptune's Pitchfork

[Bosje]

My grandfather's brother passed away at the ripe old age of 94, there was the socially acceptable amount of sadness and mourning and there was a perfunctional funeral attended by several dozen people who were mostly invited to make sure the church wasn't empty. He never had any kids of his own and most of his friends were long gone. As such, the only family was us, his brother's descendants. After the funeral we had our coffee and cake and that was that, all that remained was a house full of junk. He'd been a bit of a herder.

My mum was in charge of clearing it up and two weeks ago she showed me a box with stuff from the war, asking me to look if there was anything I might like to keep. As it turned out there was: A medal for serving in 1940 in the drafted Dutch army, some trinkets remembering his old infantry regiment, a piece of plexiglass which i knew had once been part of the cockpit of an Allied bomber shot down over Holland and a tattered diary. How he came to possess this diary I have no idea but it was in German and at first glance it seemed to have belonged to a man called Berthold Bauer. That's what it says inside the cover, anyway. The first entry reads:

'November 26th 1939. Neptune's Pitchfork goes on her first war patrol. Destination: coast of England grid AN44. The 1.WO takes her through the Kiel channel while I try to get my first hours of sleep on board. Est reaching open sea at sunrise, eagerly anticipating speed and dive trials.'

Reading this, the hairs on my neck stood up as I realized this was the war diary of a German naval officer. Parts are too damaged to decipher and other parts are simply unintelligeable but I'll try to translate some of it here because there are some interesting bits in it. As far as I can tell, Neptune's Pitchfork is a small submarine, possibly a Type II. The crew, which seems to be quite small, have been on patrol before but this is their first time out in their new boat. Mr Bauer doesn't seem to say which number his boat has. He just calls it 'Neptune's Pitchfork', for unknown reasons, or more often simply 'her' or 'she'.

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Bosje

Parts are too damaged to decipher and other parts are simply unintelligeable but I'll try to translate some of it here because there are some interesting bits in it.

Please do as it already sounds quite interesting...

[Bosje]

November 27th, 10:00
Frantz woke me up after a good night of sleep, there was fresh coffee on the stove and I did a round of the boat. The men are eager and confident. We went to action stations at 9 o clock and took the boat through her paces. Results: top speed almost 13 knots surfaced. Dive time 30 seconds in ideal conditions. Top speed almost 8 knots submerged. Most importantly, she handles very well and especially depth keeping is a lot better than our last boat. We will do some more drills to improve diving times and then we will be as ready as can be.
I have confidence that this boat will take good care of us during those long days and nights off the English coast. Likewise, we will take good care of her. The men will spend the rest of the day finishing the painting on the side of the conning tower. It is a big trident and I am sure BDU won't mind it as a nautical symbol. Most front boats are looking at some or other emblem to give them an identity. Ours is the trident and nobody will mind. Just so long as they don't find out about our little cult.

November 30th, midnight
Starting our patrol of grid AN44, initially 50-km legs from north to south along the shipping lanes.
2 hours on the surface, 1 hour submerged. Our habitual routine paid off on the two war patrols we made in our old boat, we can be sure to detect any merchant within 10 km.

December 1st, 02:00
First blood, earlier in the evening we got a contact on the hydrophone and we moved to intercept on the surface. It was a little schooner, using her engines for lack of wind. We fired warning shots and closed in. The crew left their ship and we fired 100 rounds at it with the 2cm. On fire and her rigging a mess, she went down while the enemy crew looked angry and sad, one older man wept. Afterwards, we moved away from the scene and set up a new patrol line.
Karl just came to inform me of a contact report, we are now on our way to intercept.
3:00
It is a small freighter, we estimate it at 2000 tons. Fired one torpedo and hit but it is not sinking.
It is now crawling along to our port side. I don't think they know we are here. Looks like they are trying to make it to the nearest port, we will have to shadow it and maybe use another torpedo before sunrise if it hasn't sunk by then.
05:30
Fired a seond torpedo, it sank almost immediately after the explosion. Now the enemy sailors do know we are here! They had lifeboats and we approached to see if we could do anything for them. But they were shouting and swearing at us when they noticed us! Some of them started to throw things at us, maybe they thought we were there to capture them or even kill them in cold blood. Stupid idiots. The English coast is very close by so we left them alone without further interaction. The sun is almost up now, we will dive soon.

[Jimbuna]

Could well be the Type II boat U-19.

[frau kaleun]

Wow - fascinating! What a find!

This site:

http://www.ubootwaffe.net/index.html

offers a wealth of information regarding names of u-boat crews, u-boat locations by date, ships sunk by date, etc. Maybe you'll be able to figure out what boat it was!


Edit: oops, looks like maybe that was a very clever way of introducing the story of a fictional u-boat. Nicely done, if so, you had me convinced.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Wow - fascinating! What a find!

This site:

http://www.ubootwaffe.net/index.html

offers a wealth of information regarding names of u-boat crews, u-boat locations by date, ships sunk by date, etc. Maybe you'll be able to figure out what boat it was!


Edit: oops, looks like maybe that was a very clever way of introducing the story of a fictional u-boat. Nicely done, if so, you had me convinced.

[FIREWALL]

How ever this turns out. I'de like to see more.

[Bakkels]

At first I believed it, but something in the 'tone' of the diary just reminded me a little bit too much of other fictional stories on forums. So I went to U-boat.net's complete list of WWII commanders, and there's no Berthold Bauer.
Still, this is one beautifully written introduction to a story. Goed werk Bosje

[Bosje]

lol yeah the diary itself isnt good enough, is it

still i'll keep this up, switching in and out of character

@ Frau Kaleun and Jim

[Jimbuna]

SINK EM ALL!!

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Bosje

lol yeah the diary itself isnt good enough, is it

Still makes for a good read, keep it up!

I like it.
Please continue.

[Bosje]

Reading the next couple of pages, Mr Bauer's writing is drole but what he writes about is fascinating: Accounts of torpedoes being fired at ships and then sailing away with another kill in their log. Also accounts of torpedoes missing or ships steaming on after being hit. And endless days of rain, wind, waves and boredom. Lots and lots of unimagineable boredom.

Entire pages seem to be missing and there are unconnected intermezzos, praying to Neptune, begging for or even demanding a change in fortune. I still can't quite make anything of that religious tone.
And then there is this entry for January 7th at 5 am:
“The damn steamer is still afloat even 6 hours after the attack. The convoy is long gone minus the three we struck. [...unreadable...] finish her off and then we'll only have one fish left. Three big kills in one night, the attack was perfect, the sea was calm although […] bloody cold. We'll sacrifice another case of beer to The [...]”

A convoy engagement, so early in the war! And in a Type II as well. It's a shame I don't have the ship's Kriegs Tagebuch to see the official entries, his personal diary is mostly about his own perceptions and feelings; Mr Bauer never really talks much about his torpedo settings and the convoy's speed, course and composition. All that stuff is probably already taken down in the KTB. But I can at least try to imagine what it must have been like.

[Gerald]

Go on...

[Herr-Berbunch]

Really good read so far, keep it up!