U-1164, Jester of St Nazaire

[Jimbuna]

Yes...well worth reading Bosje

[Bosje]

Her Asdic pinging like mad, the frigate charged at them and furiously pounded them with depthcharges. The boat was rocked violently left and right and Hans assumed that they were taking some additional damage. 'Deeper.' - 'We are passing critical depth, Herr Kaleun.' - 'Yes, yes, fine. Deeper!'
The boat had not yet succumbed to the pressure and he gambled that the hull would hold a little longer. Heinz was tracking the warship above them and now he gave the report which the commander had been dreading: 'Maintaining distance, slow screws.' Hedgehogs again. Hans Bremer tried his new trick once more: 'Emergency reverse, rudder zero!' And when the boat started moving backwards: 'Hard to starboard!' The trick failed and they were clipped by a hedgehog bomb. And immediately afterwards by a vicious depthcharge cluster again. Verdammt noch mal! His curse was lost amidst the urgent rush of the incoming water all throughout the control room.


And again the frigate came round. And again he tried his trick, this time it worked. And again.


The duel lasted for an hour while the boys were desperately trying to contain the flooding. It was an impossible struggle and eventually, the water would win. Hans Bremer knew he was running out of time, even if they managed to keep evading the frigate's weapons, they would soon start to sink and then there was no going back. He had to do something, he had to at least try to save his boat and what was left of his men. They went up to periscope depth, evading yet another attackrun on their way up. If he failed now, they would be doomed. They would have to surface and hope that the frigate would accept their surrender instead of blowing them into oblivion.


He fired all four of his bow tubes in a hurriedly aimed spread. The warship's bow was blown out of the water by one of the torpedoes, he had no idea which one. But it mattered not, he had done it. The frigate stopped dead in the water and, breathlessly, he looked on through the attack periscope. Slowly, obstinately, it went down. He had really done it. He got back down in the control room and looked at his men. 'All clear, boys. Prepare to surface, we shall run the hell away from here.' Erich, you're in command. I need to lie down for a little while. He stumbled to his bunk, the water reached his ankles when he sat down on his bed, but now they could at least pump it all out while on the surface. He still bled from a gasp on his forehead but he didn't care and he buried his face into his pillow. 'It's over,' he thought. How wrong he was.

[Bosje]

I'm back, lets see if i can actually finish this patrol story for once

[Kermit the Frog]

I'm very glad to see you back Bosje. Seems I'm not the only one who didn't trade his SH3 to SH5... It's late 1940 in my campaign... Again
I'm chasing a convoy, waiting till dark and waiting for another part of story. I hope that U-1164 will be a lucky boat, and survive this madness till snorkels appears

[Bosje]

He woke up at five 'o clock. It was July 1st and it was a wonderful morning outside. That was the only good thing to report, though. The boat was still taking on bucket loads of water and, although they were still not sinking, the bow was now getting increasingly heavy as the strained pumps started to fail. The engines had been repaired, the batteries and compressed air reserves had been recharged, much of the system damage had been repaired, but they were still not able to fix those damn leaks in the forward compartments which had been troubling them right from the start of last night's onslaught, seemingly a century ago.

Some god had seen to it that the RAF had left them unmolested during the early hours but Hans Bremer suspected that wouldn't last. They had some speed, they were somewhat operational but any dive could be their last one with all that water inside. He took advantage of the current calm and smoked a cigarette on the bridge, to go with his morning coffee and to rid himself of the taste of blood in his mouth. Half the boys were resting, the other half were working to keep the boat floating. All of them had bruises or more severe injuries. But they were still alive, except the poor devils who were lost in last night's poorly judged gunnery duel.

'Incoming radar, Herr Kaleun.' - 'ALAAAAAARM!'
What else was there to do?
The commander stood nervously behind August. 'Level at 40 meters, right away!' It was no good, the boat kept going down despite their efforts. Too much water kept the bow pointing down. Emergency reverse was their best hope, it slowed the descent to a crawl but they were still not going back up. After half an hour they reached 150 meters and the boat groaned horribly. Hans hoped the aircraft were gone and they blew the ballast tanks. It worked, the boat popped back up and the skies were clear. For a couple of minutes, anyway.

Airborne radar kept probing for them all through the morning and the compressor could not keep up, they were steadily draining their compressed air reserves because blowing was the only way to get the boat surfaced after diving. Progress on the repairs was slow, the flooding was stable now: they pumped out as much as they took in on the surface, diving made it worse again. In all, they could not really afford to dive anymore. Fighting the planes was pointless, their Flak was busted and it would end in drama anyway. Hans was unsure what to do. All they really needed was 4 or 5 hours to complete the hull repairs. Then they could try diving again. He explained it to his men: 'We can't dive anymore, we need to survive 5 hours on the surface. This will not be a lot of fun but we'll just have to ride it out, stay with me now, boys.'
Then he had a signal lamp brought up to the bridge and he put his white cap on his head in the most striking fashion he could manage.

The RAF only needed 15 minutes to get at him again and this time the bomber found the U-boat on the surface, ready to be slaughtered. 'This is it, hold on boys!' As the bomber came screaming in, Hans ordered evasive maneuvers while the bridgewatch ducked down low. The bomber passed overhead and roared away, no explosions, no nothing, just a lot of noise. Then it dawned on the commander: the same bomber had been hunting them all morning. It had bombed an empty patch of sea at every run and now it was out of bombs. His mouth contorted into an evil grin and he raised the signal lamp. 'No ammo?'

To the amazement of Erich who crouched beside him, somebody on the bomber signaled back: 'Indeed, you lucky bugger.' The German officers did not know what 'bugger' meant in this context but they could guess the gist of it. Hans immediately replied with a long string of morse code in his best English: 'Flak out – while we can not kill each other - please join us for breakfast and talk about this.'
The reply came after a while, : 'Thanks but no thanks – we'll get you soon though.'

And with that, the bomber took a wide turn and roared off into the distance. Undoubtedly in a hurry to get new ammunition while any other units in the area were being directed to the U-boat's position. The commander now realised that he had a shot: the bomber had tried to bluff them into diving, so they wouldn't be going anywhere. He had called their bluff, simply because they could not afford to dive and now they were free. It was possible: run like the wind and hopefully they would be a long way away and in better shape by the time the RAF came back to hunt them again.

They gave it a try and, against all hope, they made it. By the time the next radar came looking for them, all the flooding had been finally stopped. They dived and stayed submerged for the rest of the day. The boat held together well enough. Little streams were coming down the inside of the hull but it that was nothing to worry about. The crew made a habit of coming into the control room to look cheerfully at the instruments. The sight of those instruments somehow kept their spirits up: batteries still 1/2 full, depth steady at 60m, compressed air almost full. It was a great thing to behold. Slowly but surely they found their way back home to St. Nazaire. Diving all the time, using the night to run as much on the surface as they could. It was slow and it was nerve-wrecking, but they made it home.

The commander's little chat with the RAF air crew became gospel on board and as the French coast grew ever clearer and larger on the horizon, the men showed Hans Bremer their little surprise: a big jester was painted on the side of the conning tower, red hat and all. The Jester of St Nazaire.

They celebrated their return so violently that the commander was hungover for two straight days and many of his crew weren't any better. But every time his headache made him bury his head in his hands, he reminded himself: at least I'm still here.

[Obersteuermann]

Brilliant writing, really gripping stuff!

[StarLion45]

I am very proud to announce :

HERE IS THE NEXT LIVINGSTON

[Brag]

Very nice tale

[Alpha Von Burg]