U-401 Reporting

[GoldenRivet]

We spent most of the return voyage submerged.

I continued envisioning what the words "Attacked. Sinking. ~Menhert" would look like as they came across the ticker at BdU. Fortunately, I didnt have to send such a message.

As luck would have it, the radar warning receiver was working after all - thankfully - though we narrowly escaped being bombed twice while en route to Brest, France. The allies have picked up a nasty habbit of sending in fast moving, low flying aircraft to hit us. They are much more difficult to spot and evade than the high flying lumbering liberators and PBYs.

We had a few close calls with some warship sound contacts en route but fortunately nothing ever came of the encounters. The stars were aligned for us on the return patrol, the weather conditions deteriorated rapidly which prevented the lads of coastal command from taking to the air and probably saved us from being spotted several times!

I can remember the happy times so clearly. Ha! they were not that long ago really. We never seemed to see an aircraft, and on the rare occasion that we did we were almost never spotted as long as we kept our wake to a minimum. And allied destroyer screens... and their ASDIC... a joke! We could slip past them at barely a hundred meters in some cases even less.

It's a different war out there these days. These destroyers are growing to be quite a seasoned group of veterans in the ASW trade. There seems to be more and more allied airplanes in the sky every day. Our FuMB metox is providing alerts almost continuously. Sometimes i wonder if there is even an aircraft on the other side of that warning. The little FuMB has either fooled us or saved our lives at least a hundred times.

This past patrol added years to my face. It is not an experience i care to repeat. That was as close as i have come to the end yet. Our boat was bombed no less than 7 times during the entire patrol... fortunately without results. Hopefully we are doing the Luftwaffe and the Wermacht a great service by sending these merchants to the bottom. I have to keep remindimg myself that there is a larger picture out there and we all have our contributions to make. Who knows? Maybe there is a whole squadron of Spitfires that will remain dormant on some english air base for just a few more days because of that large tanker we sent to the bottom!?

Next patrol out is on or around 22 July 1943. I have upgraded to the U-Flak conning tower, not that i intend on using it... but if push comes to shove i would rather have those three heavy flack emplacements out there belching fire into the sky.

I sent a letter to Korvkpt.. Wintergarten and KptLt. König regarding my recent experiences with allied advances in ASW as well as my encounters with aircraft and the appearance of ASW carrier groups. Hopefully they will make the necessary changes to Kriegsmarine U-boat training doctrine, so the new commanders know what to expect when they get out here on the front lines.