Worst patrol ever(a story of U-755)

[Deimos01]

1st patrol of Janos Ferenzy (not to be confused with the late great Janos Ferenzy of the same name who was lost in action in june 1942, or his cousin Janosh Ferenzy who was taken prisoner after being depth bombed for 18 hours and forced to the surface in sept 1941)

Aug 1942. The patrol started out uneventfully. We left St Naz early on a crisp late summer morning on our way to patrol grid BE 36. After traversing the Bay of Biscay and suffering no Allied air attacks we arrived in our patrol grid. Due to the uneventfull crossing of the bay and spectacular weather we were having, I began to feel quite optimistic that this would be a great 1st patrol.

This feeling of optimism was further bolstered when my First Watch officer reported sighting a large task force. There were more ships than in a normal hunter/killer group so I decided to move in closer to see if we could make any identifications. As it turned out, it was just a seven group task force consisting of various classes of destroyers. There went my hopes of bagging a capital ship on my first time out. I reported the convoy to BDU and was ordered to shadow it at a discrete distance and report on its movements. I ordered up full speed and plotted a course that would take us to exteme visual range. The Tommies must have some real eagle eyes on their ships because it wasnt long before the trailing destroyer turned onto an obvious pursuit heading. We turned away from the DD at flank speed, however, she was gaining fast. Her Captain must have been hungry for a kill as he bore straight down on us and failed to use any kind of evasive manuvers. This turned out to be our saving grace. I lined up my boat for a zero angle stern shot and waited for him to get within 7000m then fired off a fish set to magnetically detonate under his keel. The plan worked perfectly and my erstwhile hunter soon found his ship blown out from under him. This turned out to be the only bit of good fortune that came to myself and the crew of U-755.

After patroling my grid for some days we finally recieved orders from BDU to take up station in the western approaches in the area of grid AM 51. I knew from the talk around the nightclub that this was an especially heavy convoy route and my hopes began to soar that we would finally get some real action. It wasnt long before we recieved our first report of an inbound convoy. I made my navigational computations. In 5 hours we would begin operations against the convoy.

CONTACT! 1200hrs. We had managed to get ahead of the convoy and were in a good postion to penetrate the escort screen from ahead right of the convoy. Under cover of darkness we slowly crept in on the surface. A shadow dead ahead and 2 more to port turned out to be the convoy escorts. We moved withing 7000m of the convoy and 4000m of the lead escort with no sign that they were aware of our presense. However, the escorts to port were moving up fast. Trapped between the lead and flank escorts I was hesitant to order up more speed as we were already at 2/3rds. I ordered decks awash and hoped for the best. The lead escort must have seen something because he made an abrupt turn in our direction. I ordered the boat to dive to periscope depth. The lead escort returned to his original course. All was well except that I was still to far out to engage the convoy and there was no way I could close while submerged. I orderd us up to decks awash once more. It was only a few minuts before the lead escort turned in our direction again. This was no random sweep. He was coming right for us! I ordered us down once again. The escort must not have seen me but he knew something was out there and preceeded to depth bomb the last area where I was on the surface. It did not take long for the 2 flankers to join in. They did not have me however and I was now between them and the convoy.

With the search lights from the escorts flashing across the veiw from my periscope I picked out my targets. I knew I only had seconds! 2 fish for a transport and 1 each for a couple merchants then I ordered crash dive! As we sank into the depths we were more than disappointed to only here 2 of the torpedoes hit. "Stinking torpedoes! When will command give us ones that work!"

The escorts were on us know. There could be no doubt. The ASDIC pings reverberated through the hull and we knew it was time for the pay-off. I will not go into the whole 6 hour ordeal in which the escorts continually lost and regained contact. (Which I played in real time BTW ) Suffice to say that as dawn broke over the Atlantic and with my boat heavily damaged, the decoy launcher and both periscopes out of action, we began to despair for our lives, much less regaining contact with the convoy. At 0800 hrs it finally became evident that we had eluded our pursuers and began to think that, at least we would get away with our lives. I ordered the boat to surface but no sooner than we came up, we came under attack by two aircraft. The convoy must've had an escort carrier. Low on batteries and compressed air I ordered us to dive and decided to stay under till dark again.

At 2200hrs I ordered the boat to surface. With the damage we had sustained I decided to return to St Naz. We hadnt even managed to seriously damage any of the ships we hit.

So it was that we limped back into port with 1700 tons, a badly damaged u-boat and a seriuosly demoralized crew to face the wrath of Adm Donitz. Needless to say there were no medals.

And thus ended my worst ever patrol.

[HunterICX]

Sometimes they give you hell...

I had a plane atack last patrol 1 pesky plane that blew my HI down to 69%. 1 bomb run...

on the other hand be happy to see another day.
and get some revenge by giving them hell..

[Ducimus]

Sounds like radar is biting you in the buttocks. In 42, you can forget all about night surface attacks, it just aint happening anymore. Bad run out, but it could be alot worse.