(Story) U-104

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 4th January 1941, 7 AM, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

I hear the captain shouting orders in the command room. Anytime now we will breach the surface. I can almost feel the merchant some 200 meters behind this wall.

I look at Arnold sitting on the other torpedo: “How many do you reckon?” “Should be a small ship. About 30?” “I bet they can sink her in 20,” I say. Nothing to do for us torpedo loaders. We sneaked up upon a small merchant we met, took us an hour under water. In this darkness, we couldn’t be sure about their flag, so we ended up pretty close.

We hear a hatch open, many legs rushing up the ladder. The few of us without work to do remain still and listen for the action up there. Few others begin to feed rounds up to the conning tower.

Bam! “One.”

I can hear two pairs of feet running from the tower to the deck gun, each man with a huge round in their hands.

Bam! “Two.”

There is some kind of a commotion suddenly, everybody up there stops and hesitates for a moment. We can hear the captain shouting: “Don’t just stand there, get that spotlight!”

Bam! “Three.”

Arnold smiles: “I told you, 30 rounds. They gonna waste a few trying to knock out that light. They could make it in 20, if it wasn’t blinding them.” “20, if they can pack –“ Bam! “- them all under the waterline.” “No way.”

We didn’t fire a single torpedo this patrol. Just maintenance for a week now, kinda boring.

Bam! “Five.”

“You think the captain will have enough now and head home?” I ask. “No way, he won’t leave these ladies unused,” Arnold says while gently rubbing his chair-torpedo. I just want to head home now, we aren’t even doing anything.

Bam!




Note - I seriously had a nightmare last night, with car accidents and stuff. And suddenly, in the middle of it, some random guy pesking me for my terrible past tences in this story. I am really sorry if I ******* English up from time to time.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 5th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Finally, the captain has what he wanted. We are finally making for a large British convoy south of us. When I delivered the contact report to the command room, I briefly watched the Navigation Officer make a lot of weird lines and circles on the map. I asked how precise can he be with determining the intercept course. He probably didn’t hear me, because the captain answered for him – “Magically. Now get back to your work”

We sank a small merchant yesterday and a bigger one this morning. Both of them with same procedure – sneak up in the darkness below water, check their flag and armaments with our periscope… And then the deck gun. It is really being put to work this patrol, it is responsible for 22000 tons of merchants so far.

We are some 800 km east of Canada now. I hope that we can make a fast attack on the convoy and go finally home. We are even getting close to having just enough fuel to go home, although we still have food enough for some 2 or 3 weeks. Large and British – means a lot of prey with lot of escorts. Max is quite superstitious, he thinks that attacking a convoy with a nameless ship will bring us bad luck. Or a depth charge.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 6th January 1941, noon, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Here we go. Finally. Spent last two hours deep under water to slip under the escorts. Now we’re slowly making our way up. Any time now. If the hydrophones guys is any good, we will come up right on the middle of the convoy. Just a few meters now…

“Open tubes one and two.”

Come on, come up, come up. Now. Oh boy. There is a lot. I quickly check for any escorts around, then hastily observe the prey. All British, as I can see. Ahead, behind. This will go very well. Let’s do this…

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Max Wermuth, 6th January 1941, noon, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Even through the hydrophones on my ears, I can hear them, pinging. Very faintly. Then again, few explosions to our left. They definitely think we are somewhere else than we really are. 200 meters under. Listening. Waiting for the escorts to catch up to the convoy. They should fear for the now poorly protected convoy and leave us be.

We heard all 6 torpedoes explode, but the captain wasn’t very happy about the first two. They exploded too early, captain first thought that they went off prematurely. Then I heard the crushing of metal, pressures claiming a ship, squeezing it in the deep water. After telling the captain, he began laughing. He said he misjudged the first two forward torpedoes, and it probably hit the small merchant closest to us, instead of a large merchant that we were supposed to hit.

Another set of depth charges explode to our left. Then a few more behind us, but I can tell they’re somewhat different. I quickly turn the wheel to listen in that direction. There! Another ship, slowly making its way down to the ocean floor. Captain reeks happiness now – both stern torpedoes found its target – cargo ship, estimated 9000 tons.

Another set of depth charges. The captain is good – he doesn’t believe in the reliability of electric torpedoes, but uses them for the stern tubes – so the escorts don’t have such an easy time to guess our position. They can’t find us even in this calm sea.

Time passes by. Still, I can hear three engines operating to our left, although they stopped with the charges. They should catch up to the convoy any time now. Then we maybe could go home…

[RustySubmarine]

Good account of a typical patrol. You may have given others, the idea to set up a diary. I like the way you involve different members of the crew. Great idea and interesting reading.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 6th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

This morning we attacked the convoy. All went well, we sank two ships immediately, and a Greek merchant with no engines, which was left behind by the convoy. After the escort left us, captain ordered to take external torpedoes inside, three for forward tubes, two for stern. We are now in pursuit of the convoy – it sails at 6 knots. The captain plans to overtake them and set another ambush in the morning.

The crew split up to two parts. Some of them think that we are really doing amazing and we should keep attacking the convoy and do some good for our country. I am with the others – we just want to survive the way home. Anyway, we have to do what the captain says – keep trashing the British.

I just hope that the enemy doesn’t adapt too fast to us. We could be in a world of trouble tomorrow. The BdU doesn’t respond to our contact reports. Nothing. It bothers me.

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Thank guys. I think now there are about enough individual sailors to talk about. Any more and it could become confusing. Also, I accidentally swapped the names of our medic and sonarman, I did make up a few other names, which were used for my different careers. I hope I won't mix them up...

Edit - also I started making up my own English words... Confusive my ass -.-

[MantiBrutalis]

Radio message 0817/07, 7th March 1941, 08:17.

To BdU: Clear sky, sea very harsh. Sank SS Wear (2228 tons), CF8919. 2 seamen second class picked up, interrogated. 10 torpedoes remaining, unable to load externals due to weather. Sea condition does not allow further operation. 8 out of 10 torpedoes failed. Requesting new orders. - U-104 -




Radio message 0841/07, 7th March 1941, 08:41.

To U-104: Proceed to Canary Islands for refitting. Increase torpedo maintenance rate. Non-officer prisoners unimportant, permission to let them go when possible granted. Report after 24 hours. - BdU -

[capten yian]

Good story. Keep it coming.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 18th January 1941, U-104, 150km south of Greenland.

This is our fifth day on the supply ship. Well not “on” the ship, but beside it. When we found it, we discovered a type VIIC U-81 “Sharkfin” waiting for two days already for the sea to calm down. The Sharkfin was damaged in the Atlantic, and like us, this supply ship was the only thing they could manage to get to. But unlike us, they can’t submerge to get a rest from the waves. The supply ship is freshly packed, so there isn’t all that much space, so the captain of the Sharkfin asked us if some of his crew could stay on our boat, until the storm passes.

Sometimes, the captain picked some of our crew to “visit” the supply ship, where the rest of Sharkfin’s crew and the supply ship’s crew were. Not anymore, captains of both U-boats had a huge argument, Sharkfin’s captain didn’t believe our captain the tonnage we sank so far and accused him of lying and faking patrol logs.

We spend our time playing cards, telling stories, and generally not doing anything useful what so ever. With our boat packed full with people, there is no space for maintenance duties. Despite the cold weather, it’s boiling hot in the boat, our medic has concerns about hygiene. Anyway, this storm has to pass someday. When that day comes, we have to part with Sharkfin. And possibly sail home. Finally.



Note 1 – With the manual targeting – I backed down a bit, I can now pretty reliably hit and sink stuff using almost exclusively the Map (F5) with Map Contact Update on. And I am angry with myself. The map has all the precise information already there, so I am only extracting the data from the map using basic geometry. Still feels like cheating. But when I try No Map Contact, I can’t even navigate to a place where I can get a decent 1,5km shot. Guessing AoB is f*ing hard and destroys all the work. Maybe if I could get to the point of shooting, things could go my way, since I think I understand what I am supposed to do. *sigh*

Note 2 – I installed SH3 Commander this morning, and so far I didn’t even launch the game. I spent the day screwing around with the settings, adding more cargo types and so on.