Patrol 5 (11/24 - 12/13) aka "It was a dark and stormy night"
Patrol grid BF17
While U-27 was initially quite happy to draw a grid right in the heart of the western approaches the tone for this patrol would be set quite early and decisively as a gale with heavy rain moved into the North Sea 3 days out of port. With visibility limited to next to nothing U-27 barely even slowed down while transiting the shipping lanes between Norway and Scotland. This continued as we rounded north of Scotland. West of the Hebrides, during a routine dive to periscope depth to check for surrounding traffic we picked up a lone C&D class destroyer whose track would take him almost exactly 2km astern. U-27 barely even had to move for a G7e to send him to the bottom. Fortunately it was during one of the rare moments when the rain stopped, so we could actually see him. I figured if he was going to be that obliging about it, it would have been rude not to sink him.
Continuing south past the west coast of Ireland we again only intermittently checked for traffic as the torrential rains returned. Reaching BF17 the seas were still too heavy to use the deck gun. This would be the first time that U-27 would actually reach its hunting grounds without having expended a single round of deck gun ammo.
Feeling that the crew was getting antsy after a week without any appreciable action I did decide to sink 2 smaller vessels with torpedoes rather than let them go. Fortunately later that afternoon Bdu radioed about a convoy contact in BF15. It was a fairly easy intercept though visibility was fairly poor. The convoy only had 2 escorts one leading and one astern so it was fairly simple work to close in during the night and start picking out the higher value targets. A pair of whale factory ships were the highlight, though annoyingly both refused to sink until a 2nd torpedo was put into them. Same for a large merchant and ore carrier. U-27 would fire 13 torpedoes by 8 am the next morning and claim 8 victims leaving only a handful of small ships to comprise the convoy.
Turning back to BF17 we hoped for the weather to break so the deck gun could be put to use. For three days U-27 experienced alternating weather states such as gale, storm, monsoon, and "Where did my hands go?!". Figuring that the storm had to break eventually U-27 turned north. Hopefully better weather would arrive while U-27 headed for the northern reaches of the Irish Sea. Finally, the seas calmed to the point where the deck gunners could atleast work even if they were drenched by the swells. In these challenging conditions (7 m/s swells). A single merchantman was tracked down and sunk by gunfire. It was an auspicious change of fortunes. Atleast until the next morning when the next gale arrived just as the boat was nearing another target.
The Captain was observed uttering some choice words at the situation. Alas defeated for the moment U-27 made the east bound trip north of Scotland hoping fair weather would return...it would...with U-27 less than 200km from home. And thus a 2nd first for the U-27 occurred as it returned to base with almost all its deck gun ammo.
Still 63,700 GRT. 9 merchants, 1 destroyer.
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