Greatest "Sinking an Enemy Ship"

[SinStar87]

What's your greatest? In as much detail as you care to give.

[Tango589]

Not long on our first patrol off SW Ireland, we were hanging around at PD listening for contacts, whilst I was laying on my bunk day-dreaming of my girlfriend in Bonn. 'Contact spotted' called the Hydrophone operator, so I leapt off the bunk and raised the Obs scope to have a butchers at what we had. It's only a British small merchant, roughly 2k tonnes, so I order the boat to surface, man the deck gun and give the ship a taste of German lead. I am plotting our course with the Nav Officer, whilst listening to the deep, satisfying booms of our gun, along with the harsh metallic clangs of reloading, when I hear an almighty racket and screams from the deck! I rush up the ladder in a panic, to find the body of my WO draped over the side of the turm, killed instantly by gunfire from the merchants' gun on it's fan-tail. I'm briefly numbed with shock, I had known Kurt Meuller since school, and was glad to have him onboard my boat. Further shots hit the side of my boat, i'm not sure how much damage they were causing. I ran down to the deck gun, took command and proceeded to vent my rage at this damned British minnow who took the life of my friend. My first lucky shot destroyed their armament, then I ordered the boat to pull alongside the merchant at 800 meters range, whilst I pepppered their waterline. After 5 or 6 shots, I must have hit something vital, because the ship was rent by a huge explosion that broke her back and she sunk in a matter of minutes. With ears stil ringing from the gunfire and expolsion, I ordered the ship to return to course, not interested in helping survivors. Later we had a brief but poignant ceremony to bury my WO and friend Kurt at sea. The crews' morale was low but it did improve when we sunk more British shipping.

[SinStar87]

Heck of a tale, sorry for the loss.

[Tango589]

Thank you. Now we just wait for more tales of derring-do from the high seas!

[HW3]

Sailing out of Lorient in early 1941, heading towards the BE grids by way of the Southern part of the Biscay Bay to minimize the threat of detection by aircraft. As we approached the BE grids at night, a lookout reported sighting a warship closing fast. A quick look revealed a destroyer coming from the North, and while he was quite a ways off yet, he was coming fast. I was sure we hadn't been spotted, yet why was he coming South so fast? Another look revealed that while he was closing, and would pass close to us, he wasn't headed directly towards us, a most puzzling question I could not answer at the moment. I ordered a sound check dive and soon had my answer. There was a whole task force up there with several heavy units being heard in it. I plotted their course as due South and saw we had a chance of a long range intercept with the main column if we stayed hidden at periscope depth. We pressed onward while I checked the scope. They soon popped into view, and what a shock to see, a Bogue class carrier was leading the center column, followed by an Illustrious class carrier, and a Southhampton class cruiser. I could not believe what I was seeing! Shaking off the shock, I quickly decided to try and damage both carriers enough that I could finish them off once the escorts left the area, provided I survived the pounding that was sure to follow the attack. I targeted one eel for the Bogue, and three for the Illustrious, hoping to get at least one hit on both, and fired. Being outside the destroyer screen, gave enough time to go into reverse and put a little distance between the firing point, and our position. Being as the Task Force was moving fast, they evidently never picked up the sound of our torpedoes, because they never reacted to them till the first one hit on the Bogue minutes later. There was a huge explosion after the hit, and the Bogue went dead in the water. I turned my attention to the Illustrious and saw she was starting to turn. Thinking there was not much of a chance of a hit on her, I almost ordered the scope down when boom, boom, boom, three hits on her near the bow, luck was with us this time! Long story short, both carriers went down, the escorts never found us, and we survived the patrol.

[Tango589]

Great tale and a quality bit of sinking!