U-2 War Journal

[Bosje]

hmm, four pages and i have yet to fire a shot

anyway, it's good to be back

special thanks to the GWX team, OLC and Thomsen for their mods, it's a great ride

Bosje

[Bosje]

'Kaleun?' I get up and cut the bootsmann off as he comes through the hatch from the control room. 'What is it?' - 'Smoke on the horizon, Sir!'
I rush up the ladder onto the bridge in too much of a hurry. This new boat is not yet fully accustomed to me, or the other way round. Either way, my right foot misses a rung and slips, my knee taking most of the impact as I collide with the rim of the open hatch. A most ungentlemanly curse echoes through the conning tower but I get back up on the ladder and finally scramble onto the bridge, trying to ignore the pain. 'Alright, show me that contact.'
There, the tell-tale trail of smoke far away. It is definitely a ship. No radar transmissions registered on our Biscay Cross yet. A lone merchant? I hope it is, and I hope it is flying an enemy flag. I myself can hardly see a thing through the binoculars though, my eyes are watering from the fierce pain in my knee. God that hurt. But even I can see that the smoketrail is moving slowly across our path. The hunt is finally on, after all those months.


Minutes later we dive, it was actually three ships in keel formation, coming more or less our way. We won't even have to spend half the day getting into position. Could be a trap, could be anything, really. But at first glance it's just a small and rather slow moving endeavour: two merchants and a corvette. The escort is circling carelessly around in front of the formation, we will try to stay quiet, letting it pass ahead and then we will be in position to launch some torpedoes at the flanks of those merchants, from around two thousand meters. The boat slips into position, I take very short peeks at my prey as they slowly get ever closer. My plan is working. I am muttering values, doing mental math after each peek. We have all bow tubes loaded with electric eels, relatively slow and un-sophisticated but perfect for this situation. It is broad daylight but the opportunity is too good to pass on. The mini-convoy is sailing at 5 knots on a course of roughly 300, they are all English. We are ready.


'Range 1900, bearing 351.'
A whisper: 'Fertig!'
'Einz los! Zwei los! Range 1800 bearing 8.' - 'Fertig!' - 'Drei los! Down scope.'
Rudi and I climb down from the conning tower. A periscope torpedo attack just before noon in perfect conditions. It was only three years ago but it seems like a lifetime since I last did anything like this. The first Happy Times. We will soon see what the corvette has to say about this. First, we will have to make the most of our headstart. The torpedoes will need a while to reach their targets, time we had better spend to make our escape.
'Heinz, ahead at 100 revolutions, rudder port 20, steep dive.'
Heinz is the chief engineer, the LI, taking the boat to where I want her to be. Gradually, we start to look for something to hold on to. The steep dive gets us to reasonable safety even at this slow speed but it's impossible to stand upright on the tilted floorboards. I hold on to the ladder while Kurt, the navigator, says: 'Twenty seconds for the first torpedo.' We pass 40 meters when the rumble reaches us through the hull. And immediately a second rumble. And a third. I allow myself one of my old grins: 'I hope that corvette commander just choked on his lunch. Number two, make a note for the log: Enemy contact while en route to patrol area. Fired three torpedoes at an ore carrier and a small merchant, detonations on all torpedoes...'
The ASDIC rudely interrupts and wipes the grin off my face.



I still love the rush of adrenaline as depth charges explode. Not even close, barely close enough to be felt at all inside the boat. As the corvette started its first run, we increased speed and let the boat slide down and away. Pretty standard tactics but the Tommies above us have so far acted like they are green as grass. I scratch my chin which is still relatively smooth, decide we are fine and casually order a reduction back to 100 rpm. But I have to remember that my men have not yet grown accustomed to the U-boat war, despite their training. They look quite impressed with the action. Excited but also nervous. For now, just being here and being calm is enough. I use the time we have to further our distance and depth. Then, as the last echoes of the depthcharges fade away, we go silent. Now we wait, while my body remembers it is in pain. Silly how you can ignore such discomforts in the tension of the hunt. Now it really starts to hurt like hell, I fear the joint is damaged. I try to crouch down to get in touch with the radio shack but my leg won't bend. Nothing to do but wait while the corvette tries to re-establish contact with us. 'Passing 100 meters.'



The Duke

[nikbear]

Glad to have this story back and in the thick of the actionGreat stuff Bosje

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by nikbear

Glad to have this story back and in the thick of the actionGreat stuff Bosje

Ditto

[Bosje]

An hour later we are sure he has lost us. We are quietly sneaking away from the scene at a depth of 220 meters and at 1300 hours my sonar operator can no longer hear the corvette's screws. They never got close to damaging us, they must have been very green indeed. I almost feel sorry for the commander who now has to explain why he lost the two ships under his charge. But we have 10.000 tons in the log after just two days at sea. The men are high spirited and apart from my knee which is twice as thick as usual, life is good.


The next day we are constantly forced to dive away from air patrols. During one of those dives, Erhard reports several fast screws. That has to be a taskforce of warships, possibly a hunter-killer group. But they are moving away from us and I am quite happy to let them sail on to wherever they are going. We keep being troubled by aircraft all day, more often than not they do not register on our Biscay cross. Which means they are already in visual range by the time we start our crash dive. One of the bombers drops his bombs even after we went down and they explode so close that the glass on the depth gauge shatters. But that is the only damage we take. The constant air attacks convince me to stay submerged for the rest of the day, something which I hate to do because you can't intercept the enemy when you crawl around at one knot submerged. That evening, still submerged, we slip into position in our patrol area.


Surface, air attack, down for a few hours, surface again, air attack again, down again, on and on and on. No sign of any ships though. At noon on the second day we are hit by a small and fast fighterplane. He strafes us with his cannons before we even get a chance to dive. He does not drop any bombs though and the boat and crew are all still fine but that is down to pure luck. I decide to leave this area to look for more favourable hunting grounds. That evening Walter, my radio operator, excitedly reports to me: 'Contact report, Herr Kaleun!'
We decode the message and Kurt relinquishes his charts to me. Slow moving convoy, heading our way, we can be there in six hours which means interception just after midnight, not far south of Sicily. Convoys are extremely well protected these days and we are probably better off looking for easier targets, like the ones we found two days ago. But I figure we can at least have a look.

Midnight, we are hunting for a convoy as 1943 draws to a close. We are in the bottleneck between Sicily and Tunis but there is still plenty water below the keel. At 1:15 local time we get a hydrophone contact and at 1:50 we receive radar transmissions on the Biscay cross. Weather conditions are perfect, not in our favour but we still slip a little bit closer, I want to have a look at the convoy before I make my decision.


'Do you see any other escorts, Rudi?' - 'No Sir, just that picket and the frigate on this flank. There will be more though.' - 'Hmm.'
Erhard simply lacks the experience to pick up every single screw in the cacophony of noise being produced by the convoy as it stretches out across the calm seas. So here we are, five kilometers away from the prize. They are moving south-east at no more than five knots, we could get into an excellent attack position or we could simply sneak away. I take another look through the attack periscope and flip through the ship silhouettes in the recognition manual. 'That looks suspiciously like an 8000 ton troop ship in the second column. And a 7000 ton tanker just behind it.' - 'Fat targets, Herr Kaleun.' - 'Indeed, Number One.'
I don't need to think about it too long. 'Ahead at four knots, course 210, action stations.' We turn south by south-west, into their path.


The Duke

[bookworm_020]

Prepare for fireworks!

[Bosje]

well I was going to give it my best shot to write things down in the way which you have become accustomed to and which many of you seemed to like. life got in the way though. so here it is.

Two months ago I continued the patrol into the med, we sank two ships without bother from the escorting corvette and we received a contact report on a convoy. interception was expected and acquired just south of Sicily. We engaged at night, some torpedo hits were observed and we went down into the deep. As I was anticipating an exciting cat and mouse game which would no doubt give ample writing material I watched the depth gauge creep down. At around 120 meters the boat took a terrible blow and everything stopped. Nothing vital was destroyed and the crew soon got all the holes plugged but we had hit the ocean floor. Two hours of terrible struggle followed, trying to keep the depthcharges as far away as possible but in the end, I was not up to the task, 120 meters was not enough for me.

As the boat slowly filled up with water from endless leaks caused by both depthcharges and collisions with the ocean floor I realised what was happening: Freiherr Beckman was about to meet his maker.

Thus it ended, death by stupidity. I failed to check the depth before engaging the convoy and I paid a price. I would say the ultimate price except, as I said, life got in the way.

The next day, while I was contemplating fitting words to end the story, my brother in law (this is real life) lost his life in a tragic accident, leaving my sister a widow after having been married for only 8 months. both of them not even thirty years old.

Needless to say, things like computer games and related forum tales become instantly irrelevant and I haven't been around since. I always wanted to pick this up again and finish it in style but I just realised, after an evening of drinking and contemplation, that I can't be arsed.

And so this is where I regret to leave you all. Freiherr Beckman is dead but I fail to care all that much and thus this forum thread comes to a brutal and sloppy end.

Some parting words are in order though, for I wish to dedicate the tale to this amazing community. Special thanks go the the modding community for improving an already immersive game. GWX deserve a distinct appreciation because they made me physically sweat, swear and cheer as I commanded my boat throughout the war years. You people really are something special.

Those who followed this story, supplying me with positive comments, are the ones who kept it going by inspiring me to write the next chapter. I thank you all for your support.

It is easy and tempting to say: dedicated to those who lost their lives in the real thing but I feel I dont have any right to go there. You may disagree but this is all entertainment based on their suffering. My character died and I have the luxury to proceed on to the pub with my mates. I get my kicks from wargames but something happened to me during the events described in this journal. I felt increasing guilt when sinking ships, increasing pain when losing men. In short, it got personal.

This made the gaming experience that much more intense but it also made me realise, and the real life events since then have only made me realise this even more; young people losing their lives is something awful. war really does suck. badly.
It is this highly personal emotional lesson which I dedicate or even owe to those who lost their lives at sea.

All events described in the journal are pretty much exactly as they happened in-game, bar some errors which I probably made in the dates and names and worldly events. The conversations, crewmember character traits and other peripherals are obviously fictional but I hope I did a decent enough job with them. Sailing the boat, playing the parts of both Kaleuns and then writing about it has been a great experience overall but for now, I am thorougly done with it.

Again, thank you all and maybe, some day, we'll see another Journal as GWX meets SH4. For I still find myself drawn to this community.

Bosje

[sharkbit]

My heartfelt condolences.

Being there for your sister is more important right now. Games pale to insignificance when things like this happen.

In time, the desire to write more may come and you'll know when you are ready. Until then, know our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

[nikbear]

How awful,My deepest heartfelt condolences to you and your family Bosje.

[Dönitz_18]

You have my sincerest condolences, and my heart goes out to you and your family during this difficult time for you. Losing a loved one is so hard, especially when it is so suddenly.

Try to remain positive and think of the memories you have of him.


My Condolences,

-- Dönitz_18

[bookworm_020]

Sorry to hear of the passing

Thanks for the memories

[Bosje]

Well, Freiherr Beckman is resting peacefully at the bottom of the Med, just south off Sicily. I am back, addicted again to SH3 with GWX3 and thompsen's soundmod. I can't resist the urge to write more about the great adventures provided by the game and mods, so I'll leave this thread alone and start a new one, starring one of Beckman's old first officers.

Thank you all for your continued support and heartwarming sympathies, I hope to entertain you again through written accounts.

(-the duke, signing off)

bosje, saluting

[nikbear]

Its nice to have you back BosjeHope things are ok with you and your family,It will be nice to have you writing again

[Kermit the Frog]

Good to hear that You're back Bosje. I like Your stories very much. I was reading them since the begining. They're very, very good. You shouldn't stop.

[Melonfish]

sincerely looking forward to more tales m8, welcome back!