Kaptain Hans Wolf....U-45 5th patrol report

[Kaptain Hans Wolf]

greetings fellow kaptains. after my previous patrol, the crew painted a questionable impression of a laughing swordfish on U-45's conning tower, and she has since become known as the laughing swordfish.

our patrol grid was BE-93, and we decided to do something we had not yet done, head through the dover straight. it wasnt as bad as we thought, we simply headed thorugh at periscope depth, at around midnight, with our engines at ahead slow. we made it through without a single run in with a destroyer, even though we encounterd plenty on the hydrophone.

as we steamed towards our patrol zone, we managed to sink several ships, we torpedo'd a small merchant, we managed to sink a destroyer from a torpedo out of our stern tube, we sunk a small merchant with our deck gun, easily sunk an armed trawler with our deck gun, however we suffered some damage to our conning tower. our biggest grab around the exit of the dover straight was a c3 cargo ship, which took 3 torpedos to sink.

with 9 torpedo's left, we arrived at BE93. patroling around BE-93, our first contact was a fishing boat. we put some holes in her with the deck gun, however she was still afloat and we had expended all of our deck gun rounds. determined not to waste all of our effort, our only option was to ram her. we suffered minimal damage, and she sunk like a stone. our next big contact was a C2 cargo, which we sunk with 3 torpedo's. our next contact was a small merchant, wich we sunk with one torpedo. a destroyer soon picked up on us and started shooting with its main gun. we had no choice but to dive. we suffered a battering at the hands of the destroyer, and we had a couple of minor injuries onboard. we surfaced, and our next contact was a group of 2 small merchants, and we used 3 torpedos to sink them.

i decided to head for home, and on the way, we engaged a C2 cargo, hitting her with our last two torpedos. she did not sink, and we had no more deck gun ammunition to finish her off. we had to let her go. we slipped back through the dover straight and made our way back to base.

a good patrol, we had managed to sink 10 ships, some may have only been small coastel vessles, but we had racked up 26,670 tons, and i was finnaly awarded with the knights cross.

good hunting out there kaptains, i hope to see you at the officers club and buy a couple of rounds.

cheers.

[harzfeld]

Kewl, I am commanding U-45 too, and I am heading to BE91 in VIIC for 12th patrol, maybe we could run into each other. :rotfl:
But I am in different time, currently March 19, 1941. Right now, its nap time for me. Maybe your time will be already ahead of my time when I wake up

[Kaptain Hans Wolf]

:rotfl: well you never know kaptain.

good hunting out there.