Before you hunt the sheep, you must kill the dogs...

[maillemaker]

It was February of 1942. Our designated grid was just off the coast of Miami, Florida. We were enroute, perhaps a day's sail west of the tip of Spain, when we came across a convoy at night. The convoy was tracking east by northeast, at about 7 knots. We were approaching from the south. It was a perfect setup, and we had maneuvered past the outer line of small pickets in the convoy.

I raised the scope to cut loose our foward tubes, when, as I usually do, I spun the scope to check the surroundings to make sure we were not about to be run over by one of the convoy ships. It was then that I noticed a Black Swan cruising alongside the convoy behind us, perhaps 700 meters away. A perfect firing solution for the rear tubes.

So I set up one of the rear tubes for a magnetic shot, and sent it on its way. I then targeted a heavy transport and a large merchant for the foward tubes, and sent them on their way, also.

Very shortly we were rewarded with five explosions, the first being the unaware Black Swan, which had her screws blown away. She pitifully scanned the sea with her searchlights for a minute or two, when they winked out and the ship slipped beneath the waves.

We marked time with the convoy while the men reloaded the tubes. But suddenly there was pinging! A Flower class had found us! Since they were on to us anyway, I went to flank speed, bearing dead away from the Flower, and raised the scope. I sent the remaining stern tube right down his throat, and scored another magnetic shot that sent her straight to the bottom! Two escorts down.

By now the convoy had moved over us and, as we still had no torpedoes loaded yet, I decided to continue to move away from the convoy, passing behind it, where I intended to surface. I was going to radio in the contact report and begin an end-around maneuver while the crew brought in fresh eels from the external stores.

The water rumbled off of the tower as we broke the surface. But very shortly thereafter we came under attack by gunfire. "Warship Spotted!" the lookouts cried!. Another Flower class. Down to the depths we headed, this time to evade. But as we were heading below the waves the weapons officer reported that tube one was ready! The question was, would I be able to bring our boat around to point our nose at the Flower before she ran us down? I decided to risk it.

Slowly, agonizingly our nose came around to point northeast. I raised to scope and looked for our hunter, and to my astonishment, she was still a good 1700 meters off. I suspect that she got tangled up in the lines of convoy ships which slowed down her rush to greet us. I ordered flank speed and headed straight for her, as she headed straight for us. I left the scope up - I didn't want them to lose us and change course! I even considered having the cook dash his pans to the decking to be sure they heard us, but I restrained myself. I held off until 600 meters, and sent a magnetic-primed torpedo towards our aggressor. Once again we were rewarded with a gutted Flower!

I scanned the convoy and made out only one more escort, quite some distance away, an S&T class. With that, I reversed our course once again, surfaced, reported the convoy over the wireless, and then set a course at flank speed to end-around the convoy. We would overtake them by morning with all of our internal stores replenished.

It was a long night, and the crews struggled on the deck to pull the eels in. Even though the seas were calm it was treacherous work as we cut through the night at nearly 20 knots. Finally, by 8am the sun was up and we were in position well ahead of the convoy. We lied in wait with all engines stopped, drifting at 14 meters beneath the surface.

And along came the S&T class, proudly leading the herd. I let her come on, and waited until she spun about to come back to the convoy she had gotten too far ahead of. Caught in a turn and nearly broadside at 800 meters, I cut loose two tubes at her - I wanted to be sure this last escort was finished. It turns out it was a waste. The first eel tore her bottom out, its magnetic primer functioning perfectly and that would have been enough. But then the second torpedo sailed under and vented its blast under her again. It was too much for her. Not only did the second blast blow her in two, but the rear half of the ship seemed to blow quite out of the water before settling back in place and joining the front half on a quick trip to the bottom.

This left the rest of the convoy completely defenseless. Well, nearly so. Most of the merchants had a deck gun of some kind mounted, which meant no ripe pickings for the deck gun crew. Nonetheless, we were far enough out in front of the convoy yet that I thought perhaps our experienced war crew could inflict some damage with our gun before those merchies could figure out how to load theirs. We blew balast, and the deck gunners sprang to their station, eager to play with their little-used toy on the foredeck.

We took a couple of hits on the way in, but it was nothing the damage control crew could not handle. And I was not too concerned for the boat, as I knew we would be heading home after this with no torpedoes left. The gun crew took down an ammunition ship, with quite a display of fireworks, and then the splashes all around us began to get a little too close for comfort. We went to periscope depth.

With no escorts to harass us, it was a pleasure cruise as we literally drove into the heart of the convoy, moving between the rows of ships in search of the juiciest targets. In the end we took down a whale factory and a couple large merchants, and wounded a couple more before we were out of torpedoes. I took us down to 25 meters and we sailed out the rear of the convoy, where the wounded ships were lagging, unable to keep up with their friends.

We continued on, until we were out of range of their guns, at least accurate gunnery, and then I ordered us to the surface and our course reversed. We bore down on the happless wounded merchants, and once again their pathetic gunfire was no match for ours. It was not long before both of the wounded ships were finished off, as the rest of the sheep hastily beat a retreat away from us while throwing the ocassional shell at us, far wide of the mark.

U-103

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As an aside, on the last attack run I noticed at least 4 ships in the convoy "sailing" on with the convoy with their decks awash. And if you got near them, they were "screaming" with the "sinking ship" sound. I don't know who wounded them, and I don't know how they stayed afloat, but it was odd. Maybe someone responded to my radio contact report and came in and beat them up in the night while I was doing an end-around?