6/22/1943
Oblt. Henne, U-507, type: IXC
we departed Lorient on the 4/6/1943 and are now cruising in FP47 on our way back home after patrolling our assigned grid GR91 (Capetown). we've never been assigned that far away from Europe and until now we only had little success. 5 lone merchants were downed (we still have 8eels left), but all our usual tactics don't work anymore (sneaking into a convoy between lead escort and first side-escort), because detection abilities have greatly improved. we must adapt and stay outside of convoys and shoot from longer ranges which harms our hit-rates. the times when we sank 10ships or even more a patrol are gone forever. last weeks' radio-messages were even worse than our current situation: many of our Kameraden were lost at sea by escorts and planes. the fate of war has turned against us.
yesterday we even lost our skilled flak-gunner (Gefreiter Endelmann) due to an air-attack by a catalina which we assumed to take down. bad, very bad decision made by me. I'm now obliged to explain my misjudging to his parents in a personal letter. very sad task!
cruising into sunset
my U-boot, she is perfect!