[the dark knight]

U-552 December 20th, 1940

Grid AM 34

First patrol with our new U-boat, and it was a great one! We encountered an outbound enemy convoy on the way to our patrol grid, south of Ireland, and sank 3 merchants. 1 whale factory ship, 1 large merchant, and 1 medium cargo. The convoy was escorted by 3 black swans. It also looked like the convoy had been attacked a short while before, 2 merchants were on fire, as well as one of the swans. Once again, the swans came looking for me, but they never found me. We escaped to the north, and north of Ireland we ran across a coastal freighter, which we dispatched with our deck gun. Once in our patrol grid, there was one lonely A&B class destroyer. We closed on him, and put a torpedo into his engine room from 900m. He exploded in a huge fireball. There has been nothing for a week, then we get a radio report of a convoy due south of our location! We can make it if we run at flank speed, but this will leave us running on fumes to get home. I decide it is worth the risk. 10 hours later, at midnight, we come upon the convoy. We get in front, dive and wait. This one is escorted by 1 black swan, and 2 hunt I's. We pick out two targets, an Empire freighter, and a medium cargo. We manage to sink both, and once again, slip away unscathed. The allies are horrible with ASW currently, I wonder how many U-boats they are claiming to kill, but are letting slip away. This will not continue much longer I fear.

We are headed home. No torpedo's left, just deck gun ammo and heavy seas. Hopefully the trip home will be uneventful.