Springtime - part 2
March 21, 1940 Grid AN51
1342 No warship around, time to surface again. U48 will now leave this area and move south. I think we may go patrol the area off Hartlepool for a while. We have five torpedo left, all bow tubes ready and one reserve.
1421 Warship spotted! Long range! Let's take a look...she is very far away and sailing north...I think we need no dive. Seems alone...
1426 She is most likely the ASW Trawler that came to investigate earlier. Most likely this is her patrol area.
1529 Warship spotted, closing fast! Let's dive!
1533 A torpedo boat...two of them...Perhaps we are a bit too close to the coast. U48 will move east for a while.
1604 On the surface again. I think we may move away from the coast for the day and close in at night.
2021 We are diving. U48 was getting closer to the coast when our lookouts spotted a warship NW of us. We will use our sonar to check if she is alone or escorting something.
2024 By the sound of it seems we may have an ASW Trawler and perhaps something else. We will close the gap and see what's out there.
2027 There is a bigger shadow behind the leading escort. I believe we have an escort-cargo duo sailing SE at medium speed. We will intercept them.
2154 ASW Trawler in the lead keeps breaking off and doing patterns ahead of the cargo. We will get tube 1 ready for the Trawler and tubes 2 and 3 ready for the big cargo, which may be an Empire-Type freighter. We are in a good position and crawling at two knots.
2201 ASW Trawler is doing patterns again so I will not fire on her. Cargo is indeed an Empire-type freighter, British flag, she is going 8 knots. We will attack her port side. Tube 2 and 3 are set for high speed, impact pistol, depth 3 meters.
2203 Trawler is about 1000 ahead of target...time to fire...open tubes 2 and 3...range 800m...AoB 80° port side...spread 2,5°...fire!...torpedoes away and running...change course to 000! set speed 4 knots! Lower periscope!...I'll try to place the cargo between us and the Trawler...Impact!..Two impacts! Let's raise the periscope and a take a peek...there is a small fire on her forward deck...too dark to spot marks on the hull...Lower periscope.
2209 ASW Trawler is coming back but we are now north of the cargo and crawling at two knots. Empire-type freighter slowed down and started to zigzag, or at least trying to.
2214 Our target is almost stationary, U48 is now west of her while that ASW Trawler is on the other side. I'm increasing the gap so that there are less chances our periscope would be spotted when we raise it.
2239 Stubborn ship is still afloat. ASW Trawler still sniffing around in the wrong place. We are now about 1000m away from her. She is still burning and seems a bit lower than before.
2301 ASW Trawler is slowly leaving the area...weird! Empire-type freighter much lower on the water now. Once this warship is truly gone we may raise and use our deck gun to finish her off.
2331 We where getting ready to surface when she began to slip under the sea. Very slowly, but she is going down at last!. The only sonar contact we have right now is from that ASW Trawler, and it's quite faint. We will surface in a while and resume our plotted course.
Ship sunk! SS Corinaldo (Empire-type Freighter), 7235 tons. Cargo: Paper Products. Crew: 58. Crew lost: 26
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