Barely made it home.

[Mauser KAR98K]

Just ran a rather bad patrol. Only Sank two ships and came home with a 64% hull integraty, (I now most of yas come back a lot worse), but this was the worst patrol for me. Ran it with GW 1.11. First bit I sank a small merchant on the way to AN 79 near the Dover coast. Problem was, there were two destroyers near by. My first fish nailed the cargo ship in the butt and disabled it, love magentic detonation, and was setting up for a second shot when I did a scane of the area. Saw a DD closing fast so I dove down to 30 meters and went to silent running, (after I fired off and missed with some torpedos.) I snuck around for a bit, went back to parascope depth and low and behold, two DD's were circling were they thought I was.

So I lined up again, and fired at the cargo. Alas the fish bounced off. Damn electrics. Fired another one and bingo. A qiuck scan showed me that one of the DDs had left and the other was heading that direction. Problem for him was, he was 700 meters away and lined up at my stern. Open Torpedo door! I had set the depth to 3.1 meters and speed to fast. Fired and counted the seconds. The Destroyer saw it coming and expectivly turned. Bad Idea, it put my fish under the aft magazine and sperated the ship in the middle. I then qiuckly sped away towards my patrol point.

Half past Midnight at grid AN-79. My watchman spotted any enemy Corvette...after it fired at us! Crash dive was odered to Perascope depth and began targeting and tracking. The Corvette was zig-zag and I only had my stern towards. I crossed my fingers and fired. Missed. I dove to 28 Meters. My sonor man reported several contacts and all warships. I went through them all with the >. button and here was the count: A DD and moving at full steam, 2 PT boats and an extra Corvette. They all arived in my area and began depth charging. Luckly I was far away and running silent...Until!

0046: I struck a MINE! It wrecked the conning tower, but that was the least of my worries. My Chief Enginneer reported flooding in all Compartments and we were sinking. Secured from silent running and manned everyone I could for damage control. As soon as I got them on the first compartment we ran aground on the bottom. More leaking and damage insued. Emergence Blow was ordered. It took us a full minuet to get to the surface.

Full power then was given, but we didn't get far. That second Corvette was firing it's main deck gun and the PT boats were on their way. I would love to have engaged the Corvette if it wasn't for the bad seas. Crash dive to perascope depth was given.

We got to parascope depth, and went passed it. I realized my crew hadn't stopped the leaks yet. Emergancy blow was given again. We got to the surface again, and againthe corvette was bearing down on us. Then came the report that flooding was stopped and we were pumping out the water. Just in time we took a round in the stern and damaged the port screw shaft. Down we went to 20 meters.

We went slow ahead and had all compartments getting repaired. At 0057 the Port shaft was repaired, just in time for a depth charging. Nice thing was it only tossed the boat around.

I scanned ahead for mines with the free look this time. I spotted real close to us but we passed it by a hair. I turned to the right a little to avoid another. I then went to parascope depth to look around. All enemy warships were just circling around and away from me. But to keep it safe I dove down 28 Meters.

0106, struck another mine. I saw it coming but didn't have time to react. This one only did minor damage. Some flooding but that was contained. But I still blew the ballast to recharge the batters and regain the compressed air. I figure I was far enough out from the searching combatents and the seas were rough enough to hopefully concele me. I also set a course out of the English channel, figured it was all mined between Dunkirk and Dover. Well, the Mine idea was correct but not the earlier idea.

At 0116, a Corvette got right on top of us. Literally! I ordered crash dive when I spotted him (damn time compressor.) His bow met my stern and conning tower. Both observation and attack scope were wrecked, along with the flack gun. I don't think he saw us before it was too late. I didn't hear a shot go off. Most of the time my watchmen were swimming thanks to the previous flooding.

To add insult to injury, the SOB depth charged us.

We past 20 meters with I orderZero bubble and level dive plans, but to the efforts of my crew they couldn't get us out of the dive.

We ran aground bow first and 10 meters and Hour and at 36 meters deep. I ordered all stop and to blow ballast. Damage reports were coming everywhere. Then another flooding problem. But this was easliy taken care of.

During the impact my radioman was killed. One of the recievers lossened and came down on his head. He was killed instantly.

We got loose from the bottom and was rising. I ordered us to 33 Meters and ahead slow. Damage was fixed in two minuets and then silent running was ordered.

At 0127, order of ahead 1/3 was given and we increased the gap.

At 0201 we surfaced and repaired the conning tower.

Later we finished our 24 hour patrol with no engagements and returned to Kiel.

Trasnfer was made to the 7th Flotilla and side emblem relplaced back from Black Heart to 4 Aces. Moral improved greatly afterwards. Petty Officer Kurk was given to the Sea on Enternal Patrol.

Patrol after this saw 5 merchants sunk with over 14000 tons.

[Paajtor]

Nice story, thx for sharing...to bad about the crew-loss.