Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Aug 21st. 1940 10:16 - patrol 9
Grid AM02 - large convoy approaching from North-west inbound Western approaches. A Flower class is leading them - presently at approx. 900 meters distance - closing.... 10:33: Aha.....what is that in the middle of the convoy.....? |
Let it be known that this 12th day of june, 1940 Oberleutenant zs Waldemar Gerking has turned over command of the Type ii U-8 to his second in command.
Gerking is hereby given command of the final Type VIIB to come out of the yards, the U-102. Welcome to the big boats Waldemar! (well medium sized anyways):up: |
Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Aug 25th. 1940 21:20 - patrol 9 |
well i've just picked SHIII back up after a long stint away playing twitch games and already i'm hooked.
i'm about to leave wil on my 3rd patrol in U-1 my plucky little Type II/A 1st patrol didn't go so well, managed to sing a coastal merchant with my 2nd Eel after the first missed (cursed myself for the loss of such precious resources) then managed to sneak into hartlepool and sink 3 torps into a C2 and a t1 unfortunatly neither were confirmed as kills :damn: so i had to settle for the knowledge that at least they were heavily damaged. 2nd patrol faired a little better, sent to an16 but by the time we got there the fog had rolled in and the rain was pelting, visibility down to perhaps 300 meters! after patroling hopelessly and not hearing a thing on my hydro checks i decided to make for scapa and see what i could see. apparently all i could see was rain and fog...:damn: i actually had a black swan pass my starboard side 400m off whilst i was surfaced in scapa and they didn't see me such was the silhouette of my diminuative craft! i thought prudence was in order so dived to p depth and ambled about. i decided to follow the handy lighthouses into scapa dock and sink something when all of a sudden there she was...:ping: 28000 GMT of Royal Oak! i almost ran into her to be fair! i backed off to get a good angle and lined up my first salvo, all three tubes 4degree spread slow and 6m deep. they spotted them as they were within the last few meters and actually tried to make steam, but their fate was sealed! i sat covered by the storm reloading my final 2 whilst Royal Oak took on a heavy list but stubbarnly remained afloat. used my final 2 for a salvo shot set at 8m and that was all she needed. she now stands as a permanent reminder that the Kriegsmarine will control the atlantic!:rock: Bit dicey getting out of scapa now that every single DD was under steam and looking for some payback, especially seeing as i had nothing to throw at them except Bernards socks! fortunatly we all made it home for promotions and medals all round ;) oh the party we had. of course then we learned that that upstart gunther prien had claimed he slipped his U-47 into scapa and sunk Royal Oak himself! oh the cheek!:rotfl: my chief engineer Ernst has said however "thats been taken care of" whatever that means?:arrgh!: Pete |
Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Aug 26th. 1940 05:11 - patrol 9 Should we sneak over there during the day or take a quick surfaced dash after dark. What do you guys think....? |
04:37:
Is this it...?....as we passed out of the Southern entrance 4 destroyers approached from the South. We turned westwards at minimum speed. They are now searching the area approx. 2500 meters behind us. We are lying dead silent close to the shore. If they discover us - very little space below, only 3 ready-to-fire torps in the aft. |
Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Nov 10th. 1940 10:11 - patrol 10
Back in Lorient after patrol 10. Patrol 9 ended well, we were able to distract ourselves from the 4 hunting destroyers outside Scapa. Never got credit for the Hood, though, even if it was marked as sunk. Probably too shallow water. Patrol 10 was rather exciting even if the tonnage wasn't that impressive. 23 days at sea. Plenty of small fry which was taken care of by the DG. Run into two aux. cruisers North of Scotland. The ASW trawler - HMS Arsenal - we finished with the DG by sneaking up behind it in the dark. Opened fire at 1300 meters. Then on our way back hit a large RN task force entering the Bristol Channel. BB's, several Didos and heaps of Tribals: Got a dido, hit HMS Renown, too - but had to go back after deep-diving to avoid escorts. Gave her our last aft torp but she wouldn't sink. Hung around for hours but to no avail. Couldn't well take her with the DG....we went home. She would at least have several months in the wharf. |
well after 4 reasonable patrols in my plucky Type IIA Oberleutenant zur see Richard Schultz has been given command of U-55! one of the new type VIIB's
we've loaded up on some new recruits who appear to be mixing well with the "veterens" and marvelling at the bronze u-boat badge they are all wearing and their casual at home manour in the boat. During patrol 3 in our IIA we managed to score two kills, a coastal merchant as we entered our patrol area which suprisingly took two Eels to send her to the bottom and a c2 cargo transport near the end of our patrol that took two to stop but didn't sink, so we had to surface and finish her with a final shot. patrol 4 was not particularly successful, we managed to sink one small merchant with two Eels and completely miss another small merchant with two more :damn: my final torpedo managed to annoy a C class DD which had aimlessly wandered into my path, perfect 90* aob, nice lineup excellent depth struck her just abaft her central stack but was a dud!:damn: spent the next hour at 15m manouvering away from him and a V&W who joined him shortly after they scored multiple kills on local marine life.... total tonnage to date is 44893. we're hoping U-55 will be a fresh start and with more torps we should be able to sink more ships!:rock: we launch on the 23rd of January 1940! (historically U-55 was sunk on the 30th of jan 1940 i'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself!) |
18th patrol for U-2548.
Shortly after sinking an Empire Freighter at 21:40 July 7th 1941, she was detected by two British patrol boats in shallow waters near the Western entrance to the channel. Initial D/C attacks destroyed her aft batteries, and stb diesel engine, while also killing two of her crew. With her flank underwater speed reduced to just 10 knots, the captain raised her to schnorkel depth and attempted to out pace the patrol boats and head for deeper waters to the East. U-2548 is currently 2.5km ahead of the nearest patrol boat who is in hot pursuit, travelling at 16 knots, but still some way from water deep enough to evade. :down: |
Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Feb 25th. 1941 22:42 - patrol 12
Just back in Lorient after patrol 12. Some days are busier than others.... |
Entry VII
27 April 1943. 23h45. S.Afrika. Prior to submerging to attack Port Elizabeth, U-180 (U-198 now, thanks to the weird redesignate-my-boat-in-the-middle-of-a-patrol thing) came under intense air attack. This was presaged by the RWR, however the enemy was upon U-180 before the boat had a chance to dive. No damage was sustained, though many rounds of machinegun/autocannon fire were expended by the attacking Beaufighters. Oddly, no depth bombs were dropped in this attack. The lone ASW Trawler protecting the port was engaged with a single eto, exploding catastrophically. Inside the harbour, only two targets were worth sinking: a medium sized merchantman and a modern tanker. These were engaged with two gas-steam torpedoes each, with a fifth ato fired at a docked ASW vessel which opened fire with its forward mounting at the periscope, causing some damage to the conning tower. All torpedoes impacted, resulting in rapid sinking of all three targets. Exfiltration went without incident, surfaced 75km from the target area. Air activity high; subsequently forced to dive numerous times due to SAAF/RAF patrols. Some damage sustained to port propeller. Fully repaired. Entry VIII 28 April 1943. 23h45. S.Afrika. A convoy was sighted heading 165 at seven knots, time approx 21h00. Escorts equipped with surface search radar; radar warning receiver immediately signalled a contact and U-180 submerged posthaste. First sighting made through periscope, confirming hydrophone count of ten vessels; six merchant, four military. One Flower-class corvette rapidly approaching the boat, periscope lowered and U-180 descended to 25 metres. Turned onto an intercept course for the convoy but was immediately lashed by ASDIC from the corvette. First pass came shortly afterwards. As the corvette passed overhead, a kobold was deployed and a hard turn executed to stay in the enemy's baffles. Sprinted away from the Flower before running silent, attempting to keep the kobold between the boat and the corvette. No joy. Immediatey reacquired by the Flower-class corvette. As it made a second pass, U-180 went to ahead flank and dove to 120 metres, deploying several kobolds in its wake. By the third pass, the corvette was attacking the decoys, though had succeeded in driving U-180 away from the convoy and putting her in a position where she was unable to catch up to and intercept the remaining nine vessels of said convoy. 32 depth charges dropped by the corvette in total, fourteen of them on the second set of bold decoys. U-180 resurfaced once clear of the convoy and began heading at a leisurely pace towards Durban in an effort to conserve fuel oil. |
April 1944. We left Toulon and sailed towards the patrol grid, around the strait of Sicily. It was the maiden voyage for my brand new U-1151.
Along the way we sunk a few small merchant. During one night we spotted a small convoy escorted by Town class DD. It seamed that the escort wasn't equipped with a radar and we made a surface attack, something I haven't done for a long time. We reached our patrol zone. it was getting dark, and I was prepering to surface when my SO reported a convoy. There were two big troop ships, whale factory ship and large merchant, along with a large number of smaller merchants. It was heavily escorted. My plan was to sink troop ships in first attack, and large merchant and whaler in second, before the dawn. We were almost in position to fire when the Fletcher class DD got very near us, doing his regular sweep. She passed in front of our bow and steamed around us, to the starboard. I couldn't wait any longer and released 4 torpedoes, distance 5km. The Fletcher must have spotted the wakes because she suddenly increased speed, made a hard turn at us, and started to ping. I ordered a flank speed and dived, dodging the depth charges. A few exploded nearby, heavily shook the boat and caused some minor damage. We went very deep, 350m, and managed to lose the escorts. The attack was not successful, 3 torpedoes missed, but one hit a coastal freighter by accident and she sank. Just before the dawn I was ready to attack again, this time from greater distance, 7-8km. Having only 4 bow torpedoes, I decided to attack each of the big ships with one torpedo. At one moment the bloody Fletcher was getting dangerously near but luckily she turned away. I launched my eels, turned away, staying at periscope depth. Then I saw 4 explosions, and watched the ship slowly sinking. The escorts assumed that we were much closer to the ships and went searching in the wrong direction. With 60000t under my belt, I set my course for home. |
Hitting targets at 7-8 km. one can only hail the German torpedo technology - what gyros....!.....And, of course, the officers setting up the solutions....:salute:..... |
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Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Apr. 10th. 1941 00:55 - patrol 13
Grid CG44 - large convoy approaching on a North-Westerly course. The lead Black Swan has already passed us. First target ahead: Large Merchant.... |
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Hey, how did you get ship names to show up in your logs?? That's ace :D |
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I believe I ticked it off in the Commander..... |
Kaleu Georg Eckhardt - U-122 - Apr. 17th. 1941 00:38 - patrol 13
Out of torps again! We never seem to be able to get to the assigned patrol area (FF38) as there are large convoys all over the place. Now we are just hanging around to get credit for this one, too before we head for the base - he is truddling along at 1 kts. Or maybe call in at Las Palmas (Corrientes) for resupply. Problem is I do not like the torpedo load-out given at these stations. Many hours later and it is still afloat.......!....should we board it...?... |
September 1941
U-2548 back at sea in what are becoming increasingly worrying times for the fleet, but runs into two large merchants escorted by a A&B Class, and takes BDU advice, encouraging the destroyer in for the kill before landing two on her. :cool: The two merchants soon follow. After patrolling BE86 and starting to head north, she runs into a very large Southbound convoy protected by no less than seven escorts, but decides to attack anyway. After creeping in deep and low, she goes to flank and rises to periscope depth, and while the escorts slowly react, manages to get away a full salvo of torps before crash diving to try to evade. Four hits are recorded and after a brief spell at 260m evading, she rises again for a similar run, this time scoring a further three hits. Unfortunately, while attempting to crash dive she is rammed by a destroyer, rendering her torp tubes useless. After going deep though and turning north to sneak away, the hydrophone operator confirms the sounds of four ships slipping to their deaths. :arrgh!: |
Entry IX
30 April 1943. 06h00. S.Afrika. At 05h58 the first contact on the raid into Durban harbour was made. An ASW trawler was engaged and destroyed with one eto torpedo set to run at six metres depth with a magnetic pistol. The target exploded and sank within thirty seconds. No survivors seen. Entry X 30 April 1943. 07h45. S.Afrika. Inside Durban harbour there is a large troopship estimated at 24,000 GRT, and a modern tanker estimated at 10,500 GRT. These have been engaged with torpedoes, the troopship absorbing three atos before listing heavily to starboard and the tanker taking two atos before beginning to burn fiercely from bow to stern. IT is anticipated that the vessels will both sink shortly, whereupon we will attempt to exfiltrate the harbour. Entry XI 30 April 1943. 08h15. S.Afrika. The raid on Durban was highly successful. During the exfiltration, a Tribal-class destroyer and an ASW trawler were spotted moored in a vulnerable position outside Durban. Both were engaged with one torpedo each from the stern tubes, the Tribal breaking apart amidships while the ASW trawler sank more benignly. Two torpedoes remain. Fuel level good. The boat is commencing her return to Lorient. |
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