Sunny hoochie-woochie Boom-boom (BALZ)

[Brag]

Lt Hegeman writes:

Our time in port was uneventful. With only one Iron Cross 2nd. Class, Balz refused to leave his room. "How am I supposed to strut down the streets and be admired by passerby's with just one piece of iron?" He complained.

We sent meals from the officers' mess to his room, where he wrote long letters to his mother.

On 15 March 1941, we left Lorient for U-104's second combat foray with orders to patrol CG73. We transited the Bay of Biscay without problems and on 18 March, 210 kms. West of Vigo we got a sound contact

"A splendid day for gunnery hoochie-woochie," Balz said. "Auftauchen."
"All merchants are armed, Herr Kaleun," I reminded him.
Balz turned, gave me a piercing squint and sang, "It's a sunny hoochie woochie daaaay."
The boat surfaced on the calm, sparkling sea. At flank speed, U-104 sliced the calm water at an exhilarating 19 knots. Within twenty minutes we sighted a Granville freighter heading north.

Two minutes later, a shell hit the water about 500 meters from our boat.

"Shall we dive?" I said, hoping that Balz would see reason.

"No, today I feel hoochie- woochie." Bring out my bowler hat." Balz lowered his glasses. "New heading one seven zero. Gun crew, hold your fire."
Bernard brought Balz's bowler, which he had used to beat some eggs in earlier that morning.

The shelling from the freighter stopped as the ship's superstructure masked its stern gun.
"He's zigging." I warned
"Then, we'll zag." Balz ordered a ten degree course correction. "Zig-zag, einz, zwei, hoochie-woochie."
We were rapidly closing on the British merchant. I expected a shell to rip our boat apart any second. Now it seemed we were going to collide. We were less than a thousand meters apart. "Open fire, Herr Kaleun?"
"Nein, Mensch. We don't want to upset them."
Five hundred meters. We were going to crash at a combined speed of nearly thirty knots.
"Wassebomben," Bernard said.
"You idiot. We're on the surface."
"It's more U-boatish to say wasserbomben before we die," Bernard said.
Balz took his bowler off and waved it a the British, showering me with remains of egg yolk. "Gut morninckz to you, Englishmen. It's Balz here."
We were a hundred meters from the Granville.
"Aim at the armament." Balz placed his bowler on his head.
"We can't see it!"
"New heading, ten degrees starboard. Boom-boom fire at will!"
The freighter's gun came into view.
Our gun fired.
The British gun disintegrated. Debris splashed dangerously close to our boat.
"Hard to port."
Our gun fired three more shells and a series of explosions racked the Granville. Balz lit a cigar. "Bernard, go clean that gun, I want it gleaming when we surface. Hoochie woochie boom-boom, glug-glug."