U-45 has had a few more successful patrols under her belt since last reported. While there were not many noteworthy sinkings, a convoy approach yielded a wonderful volley and line of explosions.

U-45 was patrolling a few areas outside of the entrance to the English channel, hoping for some sort of action. It had been a boring few days, with no ships or planes spotted. It was near dusk when the Kaleun gave the order to go to periscope depth for another of the periodic hydrophone listens.

Finally, success! A convoy no less! It was closing as well, what luck. U-45 waited to track the hydrophone contacts further, and began to adjust position. A quick peek from the periscope showed we had pulled into position on the starboard side of the convoy. There were quite a few large vessels as well as an enemy submarine (a prime target!) lining the rear row of the convoy. The boat was positioned facing the convoy so the torpedoes would strike as perpendicular to the hulls as possible. The weapons officer calculated firing solutions and the torpedoes were let loose. Two at a large merchant, one at a medium, and one at the S-class. We hoped that at least two of the ships would be successfully damaged. As the final fish left its tube, we swung the boat around and fired the rear torpedo, hoping for a hit in the chaos that would soon envelope the convoy. I pensively watched through the attack periscope, as if my will would guide the torpedoes to their targets. My watchful eye was soon rewarded as the large merchant, then enemy submarine, and finally, the medium merchant all took hits. The large merchant burst into flames, likely carrying oil or petrol to the UK. The S-class shuddered under the excessive force applied to its hull and began to slip beneath the waves. The most exciting hit, however, was the medium merchant, who was carrying ammunition or some sort of explosives, as she became a huge fireball and began to break apart.

(It was at this point I decided the cheater cam would make a great screenshot, so I went and nabbed one. You can see the large merchant burning brightly the furthest back, a small secondary explosion from where the medium merchant was, and the S-class in the foreground.)

U-45 then decided that it was time to leave. Crash dive orders were given, the boat ran silent, and slowly moved away as the escorts searched in vain. There's a certain security blanket feeling when you know the depth is 1000+ meters and the only thing limiting you is the strength of the hull. :)

Two more patrols and nothing quite so extraordinary. Lone ships were sunk with our deck guns or torpedoes, depending on the proximity to shore and weather.

U 802 had to be towed back to port...

We had suffered severe damage from patrol #12.
First to go was our brand new AA suite. A lucky DC hit from a destroyer caught us when we were only 20m down, and in one shot, crippled the quad mount and our wing AA guns. Grr...
Good thing I had the snorkel installed...
We sank 4 warships and 4 cargo ships (2 of them tankers) in the convoy we caught up with, including one corvette crewed by newbies. Our decoy confused them as they were going to make an attack run, and for some reason, they stopped dead. I used this interval to increase our range to 500m, and let him have a stern shot at 0 angle. Boom.
We managed to disengage from the convoy action and resume our patrol, but it seemed that from then on, every single encounter caused more damage to add up. By early October, we had completed our assigned patrol and since we had only a few torpedoes left, I decided to simply return to our base in Lorient. On the return trip, even more damage was taken. About 24 hours from base, with the battery running low I raised the snorkel to begin the charging process when a sneaky Sunderland spotted the mast. One good hit from him disabled both diesel engines, Grr...(again).
We got away on only 1 knot forward speed, (to save what little bit of battery power we had left) and had to wait for sunset before surfacing. We sent a distress call and were picked up by some friendly German minesweepers and were towed the rest of the way back to base, where we spent almost 8 weeks undergoing significant repairs to our battered boat.
Patrol #13 begins with me holding a serious grudge against coastal command...

Eight weeks! Sounds like a vacation for your crew! :)

Pretty much.
Every crewman who did not have a trade that was required to assist in repairs would have the time off (in rotation of course), and all those with technical skills would be kept nearby for that purpose. Such is war.

U-105 Final Patrol
 

Patrol 1
 

U-31
2/9/1939

Set out from Wilhelmshaven heading to AM23 along Norwegian coast, sighting 2 neutral ships, weather conditions perfect. Reached north of Scotland sighting small trawler 98 tons at AN12 sunk by deck gun followed by coastal freight 1871 tons grid AN13.

Sighted 2 destroyers with what appeared to be a large battleship far off in the distance... submerged and waited for the all clear.

Weather has turned choppy as we reached patrol grid, no contacts during 24hours, headed south to patrol SC convoy route, patrolled for 3 days in search pattern making a couple of contacts in rough seas.... unable to pursue effectively.

Decide to hunt east coast UK hoping for calmer seas.
Intercept ship north of Scotland 4000 ton ship, but due to either dud torpedoes or incorrect target solution, failed to connect with 4 torps (3rd & 4th fired in sheer frustration to score some tonnage)..... gave up pursuit.

Made way down the coast heading for Blyth harbour looking for cheap targets, heavy rain at night allowed me to get 3.5km from dockside, submerged and waited for weather to clear, which never did rain persisted so fired in the dark at stationary targets somehow registering on hydrophones including a warship spotted 600m to our starboard.... Impact with magnetic on warship but failed to sink even after another hit.

Made way further down coast further offshore intercepting small freighter and scoring direct hit with last torpedo, followed for 90 mins failed to sink unable to use deck gun due to bad weather.

Spent 4 days waiting for deck gun weather and finally admitted defeat, heading home.

Returned: 12/10/1939

Abysmal patrol, better look next time!

Patrol 2
 

U-31 VIIB

Just made my longest shot of 7900 mts during early hours of the morning, released 2 fish, time till impact 9:09 minutes one....... 4 minutes into the torpedo run lights were observed on ship, 1 hit and turned out to be neutral for 5000 tons! Still im happy with the shot using the RAOB attack discs :smug:

Patrol 2
 

U-31, VIIB U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Left at: October 21, 1939, 19:12 From: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid AN13

Ship sunk!|Grid AN 59|Coastal Freighter, 1869 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 58|Coastal Freighter, 1870 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 52|Pelagic Trawler, 888 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 52|Coastal Tanker, 961 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 52|Passenger/Cargo, 1870 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 47|Medium Cargo, 5076 tons
Neutral ship incident caused by morning light obscuring visibility of ships lights at long range, no action taken by BDU.
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 13|Granville-type Freighter, 4710 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 13|Large Merchant, 10200 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AM 36|Large Merchant, 10201 tons

Patrol results|Crew losses: 0|Ships sunk: 9|Aircraft destroyed: 0|Patrol tonnage: 37645 tons

Patrol went without any major event.
Good weather throughout patrol until return passage through north sea.
Six 8.8 cm deck gun rounds remaining 0 bow torpedoes 3 stern remaining.
Promotion to Oberleutnant z.s.
3 crew promotions + U-Boat war medals and one iron cross 2nd class to be issued out.

Returned November 9th 1939

Patrol 3
 

U-31, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Left at: November 23, 1939, 00:10 From: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid BF47

Ship sunk!|Grid AM 1|Large Merchant, 10863 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AM 42|Small Freighter, 2220 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid BF 47|Coastal Freighter, 1872 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid BF 47|Large Merchant, 10864 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid BE 39|Medium Tanker, 7286 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AM 1|Medium Cargo, 4476 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 56|Small Merchant, 1844 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 56|Small Freighter, 2221 tons
Ship sunk!|Grid AN 47|Passenger/Cargo, 2439 tons

2 Stern Torpedoes remaining and 2 8.8 cm shells

Patrol results|Crew losses: 0|Ships sunk: 9|Aircraft destroyed: 0|Patrol tonnage: 44085 tons

Returned: 1/22/1940

U-53
 

The story begins with our intrepid underwater heroes in probably the most dire of all states as they've ever been in.

Our 14th patrol had been cut short for reasons of severe battle damage...

A faulty repair on the port-side rudder had caused some steering problems, making the helmsmen work harder to stay on course.

As a result of that, we stumbled across a moderately guarded small convoy. Two corvettes and two Hunt I destroyers, with 1 Clemson class destroyer on sweep patrol (must have been the training fleet!). Also, a few of the cargo ships were sailing in differing directions, and kept falling out of line.
Puzzled, I had my radio officer check into the surface frequency. His english language skills are above average, and through him we were able to learn that the Clemson's Asdic was not working. Plus one for me, I thought. Also that some of the ships had suffered damage on the trip over in a bad NA storm, and that was why they kept steering in funny directions, it wasn't intentional.
Another plus one for me.
The first shot hit a corvette coming up the port flank. Had to wait for the calm to return before turning my attention to the convoy. Two shots on a troop ship, 1 on a small merchant and one on a tanker. All hits, although there was some time passed between the sinking of the small merch and the sinking of the tanker. I got to play with the escorts in the meantime, but their general inexperience and faulty equipment kept us from serious harm. Through our radio officer, we learned the name of our feared underwater weapon. They called it "the hedgehog" I thought "porcupine", either way...
We sank the second corvette with our tube 6 loaded seeker, as he was making an attack run on our bold canister, it ran up and blew the rudder and props off, causing it to slowly but deliberately tilt downwards....
The shame of the attack was the Clemson (which also took a torpedo from us) managed to score several close calls. Not enough to bust the pressure hull, but enough to destroy our port rudder and jam our diveplanes. Not too serious yet, as long as we don't need to change depth.
One of the two remaining Hunt destroyers came up to assist, further seeding the area with charges. A lucky hit near to the forward end damaged the outer bow caps on all four tubes, the worst was that the shockwave blew all four inner doors off the tubes, thus letting in a steady flow of water...
Damage control parties getting to work trying to repair 4 bow tubes as water gushes in, it's almost impossible, but somehow they work. U-802 has now more ballast forward of the control room, with water, men and tools, but this kind of damage must be repaired... I check the manometer, depth now 90m and still descending. All ahead slow, in fact, forget that order, all ahead 1 knot. Bad situation captain. Another depth charge near to the boat causing a severe pitching. The battery bilge is open for damage control in a previous attack. I had the forward bulkhead between the crew/torpedo section closed to contain the flooding, but the water is starting to advance anyway.
Then another explosion causes the lights to flicker and the boat to pitch hard to the right. I look through the control room hatch (still open) into the officer's section, in time to see my framed photograph of me with the Admiral, at my Knight's cross award ceremony, fall off the hook and hit the floor, where the glass shatters, spilling my photo out, and down into the battery bilge, where the escaped acids from some of the damaged cells quickly go to work, destroying a fond memory.
"There, you see! This is why I can't have nice things!" I blurt out to the surprise of the control room crew.
"Sir?" "New depth 120m". Still at one knot, crew working forward have repaired the battery and power is flowing better now, but the crew hatch is still sealed and we (presume) that they are still working on fixing the inner tube hatches. The downward tilt is about 35 degrees and we are now at 150m and still descending. Soon, the creaking in the beams, sort of like satan's fingernails down a blackboard...sets all our teeth on edge...
Blow ballast!, get us back up. The hydroplanes are out of action, too much water and other ballast forward, one knot and getting deeper, the emergency lights click on after a few minutes of darkness...water, running, dripping, splishing, splashing... we are so screwed.
Blow ballast!!
"I am blowing sir, look!" The compressed air gauge is running down at a frightening rate and it doesn't seem to be having the smallest effect...
"Both engines full speed, reverse" I order the engineer, in what I hoped was a calm sounding voice.
"Both engines full speed, reverse" He quickly, too quickly, repeats.
"Continue blowing ballast but watch our depth, we are only going to get one shot at this".
Very soon the bow compartment is clear, the crew has managed to restore all four inner caps and the water is being drained into the bilge for pumping out. Now that the are not needed forward, I order excess crew around to redistribute the balance.
To calm myself, I close my eyes and try to picture what it looks like outside the boat. Put myself in tune with the machine and the water to feel if my tactic is having any effect. No doubt the crew probably thought I was panicking, but whatever, I could sense it! We are rising! I open my eyes and see the depth guage now says "80m" "75"..."70"..."65"...
Whoa, better slow down, I don't want to breach the surface ass first!
We managed to get away from the convoy, with hardly any escorts left, the two Hunt destroyers had more important work than killing a U boat. They could hear the underwater calamity and probably assumed it was the pressure, crushing our hull.
Unfortunately, with our damaged hydroplanes we could not get above 89 meters. I had slowed our ascent, but we sank back down into the deeps again before I could level off. We managed to do so about 80-odd meters, but without functioning dive planes, and about as much compressed air as to blow out a candle, we were stuck. Then came our second stroke of brilliance. I had all the crew pile into the aft sections to over come our trim through sheer manpower alone. Gradually, by 1 meter per minute, we managed to ever slowly inch our way back to the surface, and to fresh air.
U-802 made it back to the world above, but our patrol was over. With no dive planes and a left rudder destroyed, our boat was helpless. We could only make left hand turns by differential thrust. By underpowering the port engine and over powering the the starboard one, along with the remaining rudder hard over, was the way we turned back to base. Stuck on the surface.
Lucky was the U-802 when it showed up in Lorient about 8 days later, along the way having shot down no less than 18 short sunderlands.
Put yourself in that situation, no diving, can barely turn, AA ammo running low, airplanes all over...
Somehow, through it all, the pressure hull maintained integrity, it was our exterior surfaces that took the kicking.
Patrol 15 begins in Feb. of 1944...

U-45 is now U-101, as the Kriegsmarine decided the Kaleun was deserving of a new boat. We now sail in an IX(B), one of Germany's newer wondrous submarine technologies. The Kaleun requested the enlarged conning tower to hold two flak guns. Not realizing it at the time, this was quite a prescient choice.
The new boat was ready in late October, 1941.


U-101 was commanded to sail to a region a few zones West of the straight of Gibraltar. She sailed there without incident, aside from a few Spanish ships traversing the area. When the patrol zone was reached, the navigation pattern was drawn up and U-101 set to it, intermittently diving for hydrophone listens for long distance contacts. Nothing. Drills commenced to alleviate boredom and confirm the seaworthiness of the U-101. Diving felt a bit slower, but the additional 6 torpedoes in the external bays are sure to come in handy.

The Kaleun radioed HQ in a request to find more favorable waters. HQ confirmed and directed U-101 closer to the strait. We set patrols in the deeper waters that fed into the Strait, taking care to stay away from the dangerous bottleneck that the actual Strait is. We have seen a lot of traffic feeding into the strait in prior months and hoped it would be the same. There would be plenty.

Initial contacts were a few unescorted merchants, plodding along with seemingly little regard for submarines. The first, an MX10b(?), went to the bottom quickly and without struggle. The second, a medium merchant, also ate its fish without an argument. However, the crew was able to send a distress call and the first of many run ins with the RAF occurred within 20 minutes of sinking. Fortunately, the RAF encounter was a pair of Hurricanes who only strafed the tower with their machine guns on their initial pass. Before they could turn and reorient themselves, the crash dive had taken U-101 deep enough to avoid reproach. Bombs were heard on the surface, too far to make a difference. Perhaps the pilots were rookies, or perhaps they had hoped to deal with any flak gunners in their initial pass, but the decision to hold their bombs saved the U-101 a great deal of trouble. :doh:

The hurricanes would prove to be only the first of a number of sorties during the next few days. The boat performed admirably, with crash dives taking the boat out of danger each time. Kingfishers, hurricanes, catalinas - all were seen during the patrol, and fortunately, avoided.

A few days later, a contact report flagged an enemy convoy coming out of the straight with an easy intercept to boot! U-101 was moved into position at periscope depth and waited. *Warship, bearing 87! Closing!" was the report from the man on the hydrophone. Then, other reports, at least 20 merchants. The Kaleun waited a bit longer, then extended the periscope to take a look in the wee morning hours. A large convoy was poised to trail in front of her forward tubes, with the destroyer escort zigzagging along in front.

The boat was silent except for sounds of the ocean around us and the statistics being communicated to the weapons officer. Two salvos were prepped, one for an ore carrier, and one for a far off empire freighter. When they were plotted, both salves were fired with minimal spreads. Once the fish had swum, the U-101 promptly turned 180 degrees to fire her rear tubes and then make her escape. The initial salvos now struck home, causing the convoy to begin its haphazard zigzagging. Two electric eels in the rear were fitted with magnetic contacts, shallow drag, and sent on a course towards to nearest merchant (MX10?) as it turned to face towards the U-101. My hope was that the proximity detonation caused by the magnetic pistons would be useful in near misses that ran along the hull of a boat. Once those eels had left, we crash dove to 180m and began our slow, silent exit. Another explosion sounded, followed by secondary explosions. Then the pings started. U-101 jockeyed with two destroyers for the following hour, with hard 90 degree turns when the boats passed overhead, then returning to slow moving and gentle turns. A few charges were enough to shake the ship, but no external damage was done and eventually we slipped away.

Following these successes (and few torpedoes), the U-101 decided to return home. We made for the Spanish coast and then sailed back to Lorient, hoping that the RAF patrols would lack areas to launch from in the neutral country. Our maneuver at least showed a correlation between these things, as the air attacks dropped off significantly and a safe voyage brought us home.

*One of the magnetic torpedoes had managed a hit on what appeared to be a munitions carrier, as the merchant broke apart quickly and violently. The ore carrier had eaten two eels and began to sink. The salvo intended for the empire freighter had been cut off by a smaller boat in an earlier convoy line! One of these torpedos went off, the other was unaccounted for (dud/miss?) *

I am going to keep this short, this time, except to say that Patrols 15 and 16 were both duds.

The term "Auf Knieschreiben und brustwarzen zurück kriechen" is becoming all to familiar.

We suspect that the diesels were not properly repaired when we were drydocked in Lorient. The boys and I are suspecting French sabotage.

In any case, we have requested and been approved for transfer to the 11th flotilla out of Bergen, Norway, where patrol #17 begins. U-802 is becoming the bad luck boat. No more crew being killed, not since patrol 3 or 4, just, an inability to reach the operational area before serious battle damage (often scored through a lucky hit), has forced us back to base for repairs.

Maybe the change of scenery will do us good...

U-53