Musings from the Bathtub

[Capt Bathtub]

February 25th 1941

We've been assigned to Brest now for about 6 months.

I am sitting at the deck gun, early in the evening while the boat heads out to its patrol area. The crew have gotten used to the fact that their captain sometimes needs to sit out here, on his own, watching the sun go down and at the moment the weather in the Bay is favourable.

The crew of the U-1 is quite an odd bunch, most of us have been together since the start of the war when we roamed the east coast of England in a type II, affectionately known as "The Bathtub". They have a few quirks which I am willing to allow, as long as they keep sending Britisher ships to the bottom.

For instance, the chief engineer, O. Totenhagen, he never seems to walk anywhere. He just glides, somewhat disconcerting and not altogether uncomical. And, there have been moments when I have ducked into the command room only to see him and the three seaman on duty hurriedly resuming their stations from what looked like a rather compromising clinch. That and his lack of sense of propriety whereas I have ordered the boat to silent running notsomuch to avoid detection but more to put a dampener on his incessant shouting. He has realised this and we have a laugh about it, especially when I order flank and he whispers "Yes sir", then shouts "AHEAD FLANK!"

And the Forward Dive Planesman, W. Barsch, has an annoying habit of constantly looking over his shoulder at me. This behaviour earned him several reprimands, but to no avail. If it wasn't for his uncanny ability to provide the boat with the finest French champagne, I would send him off to the Infantry.

The First Watch Officer, A. Mayer, also has shifty eyes that never look at you. At first I thought he was perhaps having deeply profound thoughts, the way he would look into the distance at nothing in particular but alas no, he is unfashionably stupid and tends to lack concentration. Several times in the past I have ventured to the bridge and asked him, "What is that?" to which he diligently replies "SHIP SPOTTED!". Genius.

But we do have a laugh though, such as yesterday when we reminisced about our very first patrol up the west coast of Norway. I allow a fair amount of discussion amongst the officers about tactics and procedures, though it irks the rest of us that A. Carlewitz is always the first to quote from "The Handbook", so we had a fine time cruising north practising various procedures. Then we surfaced on the fifth night at our patrol area to fog thicker than a panzer driver, heavy rains and waves that made going forward more of an up and down thing.

The running gag went something like this-
"But this is a coastal boat, we shouldn't even be here."
"Yes but we are off a coast'"
"Where?"
"Apparently there's one over there, might even be Norwegian"
"Ship spotted!"
"Where?"
"On the forward deck!"
"Well get them off, don't they know there's a war on"
"Sir, BdU says we should be more aggressive!"
"Right, number one, plot a solution, attack that wave"

Good times. It wasn't all rain and no ships though, we still talk about other stand-out patrols such as the Hartlepool Raid, the first convoy we ran into off the north coast of Ireland, the foggy convoy and the English Channel transfer which can best be summed up with the exchange I had with the chief -
"How fast should we make our run through the channel, cap'n?"
"We should run like we stole something"

For the last few months we have been interdicting the shipping lanes off Portugal where we have had alot of success albeit with a fair amount of dashes at flank speed over several hundred miles in response to ship reports from our fellow uboats. I do have to say though that boredom is our worst enemy at the moment. The English aren't very active, they must be regrouping, building up their forces, having cups of tea. Or perhaps our attacks on the mercantile fleet is proving costly and we could be home by Christmas...

[bigboywooly]

Nice one
Looking forward to more bathtub musings

[Jimbuna]

Good reading...another budding novelist in the community

[DanBiddle]

Good stuff! I enjoyed reading that.

Cheers,
Dan

[Capt Bathtub]

We have discovered that most of the watch crew tend to display a nervous disposition, such as whenever anyone should so happen to venture near the forward deck gun, or even the AA gun. I will usually find them cowering somewhere down the back of the boat. Admittedly as a crew, we aren't very proficient at gunnery but we still get a childish kick out of things that go bang and it is more exciting than watching a stopwatch in a "will they, won't they hit it" kind of way.

So we spent the last patrol bravely shooting at the RAF whenever they appeared, which seemed to be as soon as we boarded the boat. This all went swimmingly, we'd watch those pretty little Fairey something-or-others light up the sky as they careered into the ocean thanks to the skill of one H. Richtoffen - no relation, I asked. But someone had to spoil the fun by bombing the conning tower killing our gunner and Lieut Snr K.Wurdemann. No more ack-ack for us now, so it's back to the basics of Uboat operations : safety, counter-detection and sinking merchants.

Patrol 18 sees us at periscope depth more than not as the RAF seems to be able to find our small boat regardless of the size of the ocean. Stuck as we are within the confines the ol' bathtub, I feel it's the obligation of the crew to entertain their captain and I don't mean some preverted version of a Die Grunderzeit cabaret number with unwashed submariners dressed in rough cut hemp negligees. No, I want quality. The forward torpedo section's abrigded recital of Henry V was the best I have yet seen, even if they did ride into Agincourt on their torpedos rather lewdly.

Unfortunately with morale at a low, all that can be mustered is the traditional jokes about girls in ports (and not very good ones either) -

"Have you seen the Head Mech's girl?"
"No. And neither has he!"
fa-doom-chi
"I hear she defies description"
"I heard she relies on description, she's that ugly"

Aaaand so on. We are heading past the Western Approaches to a patrol area between Iceland and Ireland and the traffic in the shipping lanes has been minimal. All that was spotted was a C class paddling along at about 12 knots, just after midnight. Outrageous. So much so that I broke with tradition and actually set up a solution to attack, partly to boost the morale of the crew and partly for want of something to do. It is immensly satisfying to have a British destroyer wander into the path of one of our torpedos and it actually detonates. I kept the scope up while the Britisher sank and let the watch crew ponder the futility of modern naval warfare as they each had a peek.

Onwards to our patrol area and a large merchant is discovered with the hydrophone and we unleash a two eel attack, one midships and one under the stack. As I am doing the usual watch through the periscope to determine if she's sinking I spot a plane one mile off the port bow. It seems that the British Bulldog has got new tricks learned.

[Jimbuna]

Careful now...them bulldogs can have a nasty bite !!

[Capt Bathtub]

Our arrival back at port was heralded with the usual parade of people with nothing better to do, those that only turn up for the free drinks, a band that couldn't get any other gig (probably because they only know one song) and the inevitable earnest reporter trying to get the "big story". Well today they might be in luck, I might have caused an international incident with that sinking of the US ship. Maybe started a war...

No such luck, they only chastised me and I know why. We had lost our top three commanders in the weeks gone. This war of attrition grinds onwards taking all under its weighty pestle and other such superlatives. Thankfully Markewitz, our artistic gunner, saved me from getting too maudelin for my memoirs and dragged me off to a public house where we drank, caroused and sang the national songs loudly. And in English. Nothing gets the locals more perplexed than than a group of drunken submariners singing "German, German overalls!" at the tops of their voices, I can tell you.

Of course, when we got back to our billet, most of the other fellows were full of stories about luscious French mademoiselles and the things they could do with caviar. Why, for the love of Der Fuehrer, don't they ever invite their Captain? Svinehunds! I suppose I shouldn't complain, I could be married to some sturmtrooper of a fraulein and have pretty children that all wear white laced petticoats and black socks, like a good Ubermensch should. Instead I joined the Kriegsmarine. And don't get to cheat on my non-existent wife.

We've been trying to come up with a new name for our boat as, lets face it, numbers are endearing only to mathematicians. The previous nom de familiar, if you will, was for the U-1 and that was the "Bathtub". But now she is amongst the nether regions of the Baltic teaching cadets to swim whilst shaking one hand with the Bolshevik and slapping him in the face with the other. So we have a new boat and no name. We're holding a competition of sorts that will last until we find a good name but my suggestion of the sort of optimistic names the Royal Navy use found no favour with the crew. What's wrong with calling your boat "Splendid" or "Unruffled"?

Heading out for our next patrol and it's sunrise over the Bay of Biscay. I keep telling the watch that it's worth risking a visit from the RAF just to glimpse this. They keep telling me that it's the same sun no matter where you are in the world. Fine. As revenge I yell out "Alaaaarm!" and smile to myself as they kick and fall on top of one another in the mad scramble below decks. Must keep the crew well drilled otherwise they degenerate into the whore-loving, opium-smoking bastards that they are. And I'm stuck in this boat with them.

As some British admiral sir sea lord type once said, "submarines are underhand, underwater and damned un-English...and no occupation for a gentleman".

[Capt Bathtub]

W of Cape Finisterre

I am impressed by the watch crew and how they maintain a vigil with their binoculars even though they can barely see the ends of the boat. This is the thickest fog, rain, cloud, end of civilisation weather we've yet seen. Worse than Norway. So most of tonight is spent submerged, training the crew on hydrophone techniques by listening and comparing results with periscope observations.

Just discovered that the Snr Warrant Officer Radioman's first name is Wolf. Who on earth would name their child Wolf? This country's gone mad. He has been with us since the beginning and I never knew his full name. Well he doesn't say much, but apparently he's very good at listening. Mein gott, I even awarded him an Iron Cross, without knowing his name. I need to spend more time down the aft end of the control room, where that "crew management" desk is, there could be other humourous names. Herbert Andersen!! And A.Goldbeck sounds like a small child when he talks.

Southbound and we intercept a large cargo, grid CG13, rough seas, clear skies. Send 2 eels in deep, one aimed below stack detonates true, second aimed for midships duds on hull (assume pistol error, never mine), enemy ship comes to stop and lists to the starboard and stern. Come about for stern shot, impact on hull midships. Ship state remains at 0604. Will wait for sinking, sunrise, seas too rough for deck gun! 0828 and the aft gun on the cargo starts taking shots at our position when we round the ship, spots us due to visibilty of conning tower in rough seas. Might stay away from that end of the cargo. 0947 and the ship still shoots at the periscope when I leave it up long enough for them to spot, so they haven't fully abandoned ship yet. 1029 no change, too dangerous with weather, daylight and possible assistance heading this way for them, so will send an electric, impact pistol 4m depth, into their portside. They won't see it coming...impact at 1054 she finally splits and sinks beautifully. The only shadow over this action was that during the wait whenever I popped back into the command room for a check via the Observation periscope, Totenhagen would hurriedly step back from the earshot of Barsch. I know they're up to something. Put the junior lieutenant, F.Kaeding, the officer with no hat, on duty in his stead.

Same happened next day at 1822, picked up merchant on hydrophone, went to investigate. Found a large cargo, sent 2 eels in usual spread 1841, fires on deck and heavy list dead in water, set up for another shot and lo and behold she sinks at 1856. Surface the boat at 1915 due to stunning aspect of quarter moon and sunset. Maintaining station south half of BE90, been given freedom of action by BdU, heavy storm lasts for 2 days, seas still too rough for loading external stores - may set course for Spanish coastal waters if seas don't abate.

Pick up C3, two shot salvo long range 2000m+, rough seas, 1027, third shot needed as ship still managing 5 knot speed. Third eel under the stack brings to a halt. Observe ship sink at 1040 stern first then performs death roll at 45deg. Awe inspiring! Maintaining station at BE99, 2 forward torpedoes remain plus external stores awaiting suitable weather.

Heading now to Cape Finisterre for external reload leeside, according to the Britannica there's a suitable area called Punta da Insua, unless seas abate beforehand. Hmmmm, cerveza anyone? The leeside has a port near to a town called Laxe, so naturally gunners will be sent out to requisition as much of this cerveza as they can carry. Within an hour. Good luck gentlemen. Land sighted at 0130. 0245 we drop anchor in shallow waters and send our intrepid gunners on their way. External reload commences. Raiding party consists of gunners B.Kettner and K.Vogler with rating H.Ebert all led by Snr Warrant Officer P.Hessler. Neutral Spain must not be made aware of our presence.

[IRONxMortlock]

:rotfl:
Great stories and very funny!
________
OrientalCherry live