First Career, a Crazy Patrol

[jazman]

I finally got up to a VIIB, it's May, 1940. I'm assigned a grid AN97 (I think), just on the West of England. Being the dutiful officer, I obey, and decide to run the Channel. It wasn't too hard, a few cans here and there but easily dodged.

The weather turned _really_ bad, so bad my watch (I had three watch-qualified men on the bridge, so my watch was ace) spotted a T3 Tanker at short range. When I say short, I mean I have to take evasive action. I have to submerge three times to track this ship, because it keeps disappearing on me.

Eventually I get a decent shot. I send a couple of eels, one passes under the thing! Yeesh. I'm turning, so I get a perfect stern shot. Somehow it misses. After turning around I manage to send another eel, it blows up before it gets to the ship. My last loaded eel I send in, it hits, but the ship keeps on. So I have to shadow the thing while I reload, which means I'm basically tailgating. So far 5 eels. Maybe the thing will sink?

I slowly work my way to a great final shot, waiting for the thing to sink, but it doesn't, so I'm just lining up, setting the torps, when the bridge calls out another ship! I look and it's a can, right behind me, starting to fire. ALAARM.

I dive and run silent. It looks like the tanker is sitting still, so I work around to the other side, where I aim to resurface and finish that thing off. Six torpedoes! What a waste, next time I won't try in such bad weather, eh?

Well, next time comes a lot sooner than I think. As I'm surfacing, HARD LOCK. Saved from an excess waste of eels by Microsoft.