U-2 War Journal

[Bosje]

'Bulkheads giving way, something is going down, Herr Kaleun.' I look at the clock, it says it's exactly midnight. 'We got one!' The word is spreading fast, but there is little time to celebrate as the escort's screws are getting louder once more. Hold on, boys! The familiar game. 'Warship closing in at 200.' 'Rudder 20 port, AK voraus!' 'Wasserbomben!' 'Schleichfahrt.' And yet another near miss. They keep it up for well over an hour but we are never in any real trouble, most of the boys are well used to it and before long, the boat is secure from action stations. While we pop back up to periscope depth, I finally get a chance to concern myself with Ringelmann. My First Officer joins me as we reach the nco quarters. Ringelmann is in his bunk, hands and feet tied to the bunk railing, his face and pillow soiled with vomit and a stained gag hangs around his neck, pulled down by the armed guard to keep him from choking. He had to endure the engagement without knowing what was going on, the overhead screws and the depthcharges must have been a horrible thing to endure. I start feeling sorry for him and the same sympathy registers on Hans' face. 'Are you alright, boy?' His eyes bulge as he snaps. 'YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS! You just wait till...' I put a premature end to the drama by looming over him, ignoring the stench of the vomit. I grab him by the chest and pull his upper body out of the bunk, putting us face to face. Fury is boiling within me, we were feeling sorry for him just seconds ago but now I can not control all the emotions which are flowing through me. This boy will be on the receiving end of a year's worth of frustrations and fears. Not many have ever seen me lose my temper and both the boy and Hans are taken aback. 'Don't even think about threatening me with your political connections, you swine. Do you understand your situation? I could execute you here and now on the grounds of sabotage and I would never hear another thing about it.'


His expression makes it clear that he does not understand it. He looks intimidated by my fury but underneath that, there is still a dangerous sense of indignant outrage, he still feels untouchable by an unpolitical lowlife such as me. Very well, 'You think about how much you value your life for another couple of hours, you idiot boy.' I put the gag back on and we leave him steaming in his own refuse. Hans and I make our way back to the control room and I am deeply troubled after that encounter. 'Hans, what the hell are we going to do with him?' 'Maybe he could have an 'accident' while out on the bridge.' 'No, I won't have that.' I had in fact been toying with that very idea but I dismissed it, it goes against everything I've been brought up to be. A stupid sense of honour and nobility still lingers inside me, in spite of everything. 'If we dispose of him, I will pull the trigger myself. I alone will be responsible, Hans, don't even think about doing anything stupid now.' He shrugs: 'It was just a suggestion, Becks.' I sigh and we enter the control room. The boys in there are oblivious to my troubles, they are simply glad to have struck the convoy and to be alive afterwards. Back to business. 'Periscope depth, I trust Albert is working on those torpedoes?' 'Yes, Herr Kaleun, tubes one and two already reloaded.' The convoy is sailing off to our northwest. We heard two ships going down with a third one struggling to keep up, we may get a shot at finishing her off. No escorts are heard anywhere nearby. The typical high pitch noise of the carrier is not heard anymore, I count it as sunk but we'll have to wait for BdU confirmation on that one. We came out on top, after all.

2 am and it is nowhere near dark. Damn this eternal Arctic twilight. The Liberty has no propulsion but she is still afloat, not 1500 meters away. Faint traces of smoke on the horizon are all that remains of the convoy. I move back from the observation periscope and make a few decisions. 'Hals, release that idiot boy and bring him here.' We don't have the facilities for keeping prisoners on board and I'm gonna set him loose. I drag the boy into my cabin before we go back to action stations. He cleaned himself somewhat up and put on a clean uniform. He has a different look on his face now, a quietly defiant expression, momentary resignation with a promise of payback. Despite this dangerous look, I still continue my plan: 'Ringelmann, you are demoted to ordinary seaman. You will serve as the cook's assistant for the remainder of this patrol and you are free to finish your account during your spare time, you're also free to go anywhere on the boat when off duty. I trust you learned not to get in anyone's way again?' 'Yes Sir, I will not compromise the boat again.' 'Good. Write whatever you want about me but if you diminish even one of my men I'll throw you overboard with all of your stuff. Consider yourself lucky for still being alive at this point. Do I make myself clear?' 'Jawohl, Herr Oberleutnant. I am sorry about my mistake and I apologize for speaking out against you and your officers, Herr Oberleutnant.' His reply is very correct and I don't believe a word of it. We stand opposite each other and I get an almost symbolic feeling of animosity between the old and the new, between military tradition and newfangled politics. The look in his eyes tells me that it won't end well, this little rat can probably pull a few strings and finish me with just one phone call to Berlin. But I am not interested, we are a long way from Berlin now, this is my territory and I won't be bullied by some snot nosed ignoramus with a handful of ideals. I have no ambitions anymore other than fighting the Battle of the Atlantic for as long as the war allows me. I'll worry about anything else when we are back in the Fjords. 'Get out of my sight, seaman Ringelmann.'


He leaves for the aft compartments with a purposeful step. I shake any thoughts about him from my mind, it's time to do some more sinking now. 'Surface the boat! Volkmar, get your boys ready for the deckgun. Jakob, send off a contact report and status report as soon as we are surfaced.' U-735 comes up in an unfussed fashion. Everything is in shades of gray when I get up on the bridge: the boat, the sea, the sky, the faces of the men and the crippled merchant nearby. The only remotely colourful things are my dark blue woolen deck coat and white cap but even those are sallow after a year of hard service. We get into position and then it's all set: range on the freighter 1350 meters. Aim for the waterline. Volkmar and me are the only ones on the bridge while the boys are training the 88. Ringelmann is on the deck with his camera, it turns out he had a spare lens. Everyone simply ignores him, he is tolerated after I released him but the boys have taken to a scheme of acting like he isn't there at all. The boy reacts to this by having no expression on his face at all while still acting very deliberately and purposeful. It takes a lot of effort on my part to shake the worries from my mind. 'Open fire!' Volkmar goes to work on the merchant and I find myself startled by the crack of the gun. Dammit man, pull yourself together. I leave the Liberty to Volkmar while I scan the horizon, with special attention to where that convoy steamed away from us. A voice calls up through the hatch: 'Jakob reports an awful lot of chatter on the radio, Herr Kaleun, the merchant is calling for help.' That was to be expected, of course. 'Volkmar, get this over with quickly!'


A shell screams over my head and splashes into the sea behind us. This bastard is shooting back at us and he is shooting well. We only put two shells into her waterline so far and if this turns into a long gunfight, they will be at an advantage. As a gun platform, the drifting freighter is a lot more stable than our narrow decks. We should have just used a torpedo to finish her off. Another shell screams towards us, it throws up a fountain very close to our bow, showering all the boys on the the deck and throwing a few of them off their feet. This is getting too hairy. 'Secure the deck gun! Quickly, quickly!' The boys will need a few seconds to scramble back onto the bridge before we can open up the valves on the ballast tanks. 'Ahead flank, hard port rudder, prepare to dive!' I yell the orders through the tube for the benefit of Anton down below while the boys hurry back to the bridge. Then I see Ringelmann still by the gun, taking a last picture of the listing freighter as its two guns open up on us again. 'Verdammt noch mal, boy! Get back here now!' Two more shells scream in, one zips right past my head, causing a terrible ringing in my ears, and the other slams into the boat, in front of the conning tower, throwing the boat hard on her left flank. My head collides violently with the periscope housing as I lose my footing and a sharp pain erupts behind my eyes while Volkmar shouts 'FLOOD HER!' Someone drags me by my leg and I slide down through the open hatch, barely holding on to the ladder. Several bodies follow me down and the hatch is closed while the first gush of sea water already spills through it. The salt water stings uncomfortably on my head, I must have cut my head during the fall. I feel very hazy and dizzy, I'm only just able to keep myself standing on the the floor of the control room but I'm unable to take charge of things. Hans and Anton are shouting orders while the doc drags me off to my bunk. Warm liquid is flowing into my neck, I'm bleeding quite a lot and the pain behind my eyes is not going away. The doc spills alcohol into my wound, another violent sting and then I lose consciousness.


I awake with a start, bathed in sweat and with a great feeling of dread. I shiver and try to sit up straight but my body is not responding well and it turns into a slumped position, half leaning against the wood paneling. My head throbs so hard that my eyes fail to focus properly. Jakob is quick to get up from his seat and gently pushes me back down with a whispered 'We are alright, Herr Kaleun, but you must rest now.' I try to resist his push but I lack the strength. Instead, I whisper back: 'I am needed in the control room, man. Help me get up.' He smiles and says: 'Hans can handle things for a while, Sir. Doc says you have severe concussion and you need to rest.' 'I'm fine, help me get up. That's an order.' He smiles again but doesn't help me get up. Instead, he keeps talking. 'Two escorts came back from the convoy after we dived. Hans fired three eels at them from long range before diving. We have a bit of a hole in the outer hull but the pressure hull is still holding. Flooding was soon contained and we are fine up to 100 meters. The torpedoes didn't get them but the escorts didn't get us either. An hour ago, we finished off the freighter and we are now sitting still, licking our wounds and loading our last torpedoes into the tubes.' I need a minute to take all this information in. So the boat is still sort of in one piece and Hans nailed that Liberty with a torpedo. Good man. Then I remember the shooting. 'What about the gunners, Volkmar, Ringelmann?' Jakob smiles again. 'Volkmar got all the boys safely inside while the boat took a plunge down, they are fine, just some bruises. Your injuries are the worst we sustained, apart from Ringelmann. Volkmar says that the boy got swept away when that shell hit us. We dived without him, he is gone.' I feel a knot in my stomach, this is not how I wanted it to end: 'So Ringelmann is gone, is he?' 'Nothing could be done about it, Sir. We think it's for the best, don't you?' 'No, Jakob, I don't.'


The truth is that I was seeking a fight with the establishment, I wanted him to write about how one of Germany's more famous surviving commanders was an old-fashioned and bitter aristocrat, rather than a believer in the Party and the Final Victory. I wanted the people back home to read about how the war is lost on all fronts, starting here on the Atlantic. Of course, that was never going to happen. The truth is on nobody's list of priorities. I rest my head back onto the bloodstained pillow, the big bandage is not sufficient to stem the flow from the gasp in my head and I try to rest without much luck. The pain in my head, the fate of the boy and the urge to drink hard liquor keep me from falling asleep.



The Duke (sorry to have kept you so long)