Quote:
Originally Posted by Leandros
U47 - Lt.z.S. Willi Hartmann - 4th patrol - Dec. 1939 061902 - approaching the Orkney/Shetland gap homebound
Another disappointing patrol with much small frey. Finally bumped into a large convoy in the North-West Approaches but the largest ship was a medium cargo. Wasted two torps on it, the third did it. In the meantime the 2 Black Swan escorts made themselves felt. Both were sunk with fast G7's on magnetic fuze. Very short distance. The magnetic fuzes have a nasty habit of going off on long distances. Particularly in heavy seas.
The weather has been quite bad the last few days. Too bad since I planned to use up some deck gun ammo in the gap. We shall see how it turns out. I am not gong to sit here for very long to wait for better weather. Only have two aft torps left. Need to keep them for self-defense.
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U47 - Lt.z.S. Willi Hartmann - 4th patrol - Dec. 1939 121600 - in Wilhelmshafen
Back in Wilhelmshafen after an exhausting and hectic patrol. Only the day after the first report here the weather turned to calm seas with sunny sky and we got the opportunity to use the deck gun plenty. After some sinkings in the Orkney gap we proceeded south along the British East Coast. Experienced for the first time some enemy air patrols - none came near us. Used one of the last torps to bag a Large Merchant after having gunned it first.
In the Thames Estuary we had the boat's first real unfortunate incident. Another Large Merchant approached us on an eastbound course out of London. I decided to use the last torpedo on it. Let it come quite close and sent a magnetic-fuzed torpedo under it on very short range. It worked excellently but the ship proceeded towards North-East with little loss of speed. We followed it for a while. A couple of MTB's turned up and hung around. As it seemed they were gone we surfaced and gave the victim the last gun shell and started to perforate its bows with the 20 mm FLAK gun. Suddenly one of the MTB's turned up and before we could dive it had killed one of the observer crews in the tower. The Merchant pressed on. After that I decided to pull out and proceed home, so we never saw the Large Merchant sink.
Page 1 Patrol Report 4
Page 2 Patrol Report 4
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