Post by A moment of glory in black 44 on Apr 17, 2005 20:15:17 GMT
As the days slowly crept towards spring the Germany`s prospect of wining the war grew ever more distant. We were anxiously waiting for our boat to be fitted with snorkel, needless to say, no one in our crew expected us to be more victorious because of it.
Every single one of us looked upon this latest addition as some sort of a sentinel. My first watch oficer probably hit the nail on the head when he said with utter sarcasm:
"Well this will help us die between tommorow and the day after instead of today".
When the time and situation permitted I summoned
him to my quarters and asked him to reconsider this sort of behaviour infront of the crew. Just before he drew a curtain I felt I should make myself more severe than I usually was and said to him: "Burckhart...this kind of talk will certainly not get us killed tommorow, nor the day after, but yesterday".
After we set sail from Bergen and sailed around Scottland without being harassed by aircrafts, our Radar operator reported not one but two contacts. Shortly after we spoted two merchants, working their way westwards on glassy sea, un escorted and allmost oblivious to a carnage that was taking place all around.
Just before I ordered our eels on their path of destruction I paused for a while and observed this surreal moment of tranquility.
Within a minute the war was back with all brutallity and those Tommys paid dearly for this lovely day they enjoyed so briefly.
There were no survivors.
After we left the scene we headed north where we hoped to find some more food for our hunger struck torpedos.
As if the sun got sad and angry by our recent deeds it withdrew beyond the horizon and with darknes slowly setting in, the wind picked up its lonesome tune.
The sea rose in anger.
After midnight we were engulfed by heavy snow, visibility dropped to few hundred meters and what seemed to be a perfect noth Atlantic storm had suddenly become a chase.
We recieved a message from BdU of a convoy in a collision course with us, just 250 miles East.
We immediately raised our snorkel picked up speed and dissapeared beneath mountainous waves.
It seemed impossible to hold the boat leveled at this shallow depth.
One moment we were thrown completely out of the water, the next out ear drums were about to explode and our faithfull diesels were suffocated to a stall, only to be thrown out of the water again in ever bigger loops.
This is crazy, I said to myself. In this fog we need to get in the middle of a convoy in order to have a slightest chance, how on earth are we going to do it without being detected by radar.
In that moment Burckhart whispered:
"We will trick them herr Kaleun, they don`t expect us to come in flying".
As I turned towards him in disbelif I realised he had heard me although I could have sworn I didn`t even whispered it.
I felt slightly guilty for the harshness with which I treated him back in Bergen. But here he was just letting me know that I made a same error. Good old Burckhart.
At that moment the fog dissapeared as if someone would wipe a window. First I saw a north Atlantic storm in all of its glory with caps of the waves being blown horizontaly across the boiling sea. The next thing I saw stopped my heart.
A convoy struggling through a storm, with a lone destroyer way up ahead. But this was not ordinary convoy. It was made entirely of tankers or at least it appeared to be so.
As I walked my periscope across the horizon, shouting my orders to Burckhart I noticed someting I have never seen before trough a periscope.
A cruiser.
There she was the last ship in the left column, riding trough the waves with the same pace as other ships, some 6 knots. Unacquainted of such a slow speed she was swaying, rolling and jumping to a ridiculous extent.
I ordered our schnorkel to be lowered and then we plowed into a convoy, draining our batteries at full speed. The next few minutes passed in a state of automation as I only remember calling out angles, depths, speeds and wild wrestling with the handles of my periscope.
After we were done with committing our deadly cargo to its one way journey I shouted down through a hatch:
"Starboard full rudder, take us to 30 meters chief"!
I couldn`t belive my luck. We haven`t been discovered. As I took the boat along second and third column to give us chance to reload, we heard three loud explosions. A sence of jubilation temporarily eclipsed the anxiety and encouraging reports from bow and stern quarters in form of "Tube three loaded", only enhanced the feeling of power we were once again experiencing.
We were deprived of this for too long now.
"Hard starboard, periscope depth chief" I shouted and just when I was about to press my face to a damp stinky rubbery eyepiece of the periscope I cought a glimpse of Burckhart smiling at me through his eyes in his everlasting confidence and serenity.
I thought to my self, and this time I made sure I didn`t make a sound, "you old bugger...you were right. We flew in."
As I pressed my eyes to a periscope I coudn`t contain my feelings towards this great fellow anylonger thus resulting with a big grin on my face.
As I raised the scope and took a brief look around I saw a sinking tanker behind us and when I started counting the ships around I saw that three 10.000 tonners were missing. There was no time for celebration just yet and I quickly focused on the Fiji class light cruiser, barked my orders and another salvo of deadly steel was on its way through choppy seas.
As we were about to descend to a comfortable depth we were thrown to a surface by a rogue wave. In that very instance the entire length of the cruiser erupted with salvoes of her secondary guns. The sea boiled all around us and I was curseing my decision to take on the cruiser in such a rough sea.
Once again a Burckhart`s face flashed before my eyes only to be eclipsed by huge explosion that tore the cruiser apart from stem to stern.
We were saved.
I couldn`t look at the sinking cruiser anymore without sharing the view with my trustworthy Burckhart so I relinquished my place behind a periscope to him.
After all the commotion died out we surfaced and we saw a distant speck of smoke in the horizon. It was that sinking tanker which wasn`t sinking after all. Left behind as her luckier sisters picked up a pace, she seemed to be doomed. We decided once again to push our luck a little further, but the sea intervened with faith and decided that the carnage must stop.
It was futile.
Every single one of us looked upon this latest addition as some sort of a sentinel. My first watch oficer probably hit the nail on the head when he said with utter sarcasm:
"Well this will help us die between tommorow and the day after instead of today".
When the time and situation permitted I summoned
him to my quarters and asked him to reconsider this sort of behaviour infront of the crew. Just before he drew a curtain I felt I should make myself more severe than I usually was and said to him: "Burckhart...this kind of talk will certainly not get us killed tommorow, nor the day after, but yesterday".
After we set sail from Bergen and sailed around Scottland without being harassed by aircrafts, our Radar operator reported not one but two contacts. Shortly after we spoted two merchants, working their way westwards on glassy sea, un escorted and allmost oblivious to a carnage that was taking place all around.
Just before I ordered our eels on their path of destruction I paused for a while and observed this surreal moment of tranquility.
Within a minute the war was back with all brutallity and those Tommys paid dearly for this lovely day they enjoyed so briefly.
There were no survivors.
After we left the scene we headed north where we hoped to find some more food for our hunger struck torpedos.
As if the sun got sad and angry by our recent deeds it withdrew beyond the horizon and with darknes slowly setting in, the wind picked up its lonesome tune.
The sea rose in anger.
After midnight we were engulfed by heavy snow, visibility dropped to few hundred meters and what seemed to be a perfect noth Atlantic storm had suddenly become a chase.
We recieved a message from BdU of a convoy in a collision course with us, just 250 miles East.
We immediately raised our snorkel picked up speed and dissapeared beneath mountainous waves.
It seemed impossible to hold the boat leveled at this shallow depth.
One moment we were thrown completely out of the water, the next out ear drums were about to explode and our faithfull diesels were suffocated to a stall, only to be thrown out of the water again in ever bigger loops.
This is crazy, I said to myself. In this fog we need to get in the middle of a convoy in order to have a slightest chance, how on earth are we going to do it without being detected by radar.
In that moment Burckhart whispered:
"We will trick them herr Kaleun, they don`t expect us to come in flying".
As I turned towards him in disbelif I realised he had heard me although I could have sworn I didn`t even whispered it.
I felt slightly guilty for the harshness with which I treated him back in Bergen. But here he was just letting me know that I made a same error. Good old Burckhart.
At that moment the fog dissapeared as if someone would wipe a window. First I saw a north Atlantic storm in all of its glory with caps of the waves being blown horizontaly across the boiling sea. The next thing I saw stopped my heart.
A convoy struggling through a storm, with a lone destroyer way up ahead. But this was not ordinary convoy. It was made entirely of tankers or at least it appeared to be so.
As I walked my periscope across the horizon, shouting my orders to Burckhart I noticed someting I have never seen before trough a periscope.
A cruiser.
There she was the last ship in the left column, riding trough the waves with the same pace as other ships, some 6 knots. Unacquainted of such a slow speed she was swaying, rolling and jumping to a ridiculous extent.
I ordered our schnorkel to be lowered and then we plowed into a convoy, draining our batteries at full speed. The next few minutes passed in a state of automation as I only remember calling out angles, depths, speeds and wild wrestling with the handles of my periscope.
After we were done with committing our deadly cargo to its one way journey I shouted down through a hatch:
"Starboard full rudder, take us to 30 meters chief"!
I couldn`t belive my luck. We haven`t been discovered. As I took the boat along second and third column to give us chance to reload, we heard three loud explosions. A sence of jubilation temporarily eclipsed the anxiety and encouraging reports from bow and stern quarters in form of "Tube three loaded", only enhanced the feeling of power we were once again experiencing.
We were deprived of this for too long now.
"Hard starboard, periscope depth chief" I shouted and just when I was about to press my face to a damp stinky rubbery eyepiece of the periscope I cought a glimpse of Burckhart smiling at me through his eyes in his everlasting confidence and serenity.
I thought to my self, and this time I made sure I didn`t make a sound, "you old bugger...you were right. We flew in."
As I pressed my eyes to a periscope I coudn`t contain my feelings towards this great fellow anylonger thus resulting with a big grin on my face.
As I raised the scope and took a brief look around I saw a sinking tanker behind us and when I started counting the ships around I saw that three 10.000 tonners were missing. There was no time for celebration just yet and I quickly focused on the Fiji class light cruiser, barked my orders and another salvo of deadly steel was on its way through choppy seas.
As we were about to descend to a comfortable depth we were thrown to a surface by a rogue wave. In that very instance the entire length of the cruiser erupted with salvoes of her secondary guns. The sea boiled all around us and I was curseing my decision to take on the cruiser in such a rough sea.
Once again a Burckhart`s face flashed before my eyes only to be eclipsed by huge explosion that tore the cruiser apart from stem to stern.
We were saved.
I couldn`t look at the sinking cruiser anymore without sharing the view with my trustworthy Burckhart so I relinquished my place behind a periscope to him.
After all the commotion died out we surfaced and we saw a distant speck of smoke in the horizon. It was that sinking tanker which wasn`t sinking after all. Left behind as her luckier sisters picked up a pace, she seemed to be doomed. We decided once again to push our luck a little further, but the sea intervened with faith and decided that the carnage must stop.
It was futile.
