[Leandros]

Originally Posted by Leandros

Patrol 2 - U-531 - IXC/40 - Leu z.S. Krause - Nov 171013 1943 - Bay of Biscay

Left Lorient early this morning for patrol area AN81. Well, this is on the other side of England so the choice is to go through the Channel or the long way around the British Isles. I have decided the last one. The Channel could be too much for my fresh crew even if the month in Lorient has been well spent with specialized training for most of it. I am not particularly happy with the assigned mission, going around we may well bump into som fat targets we can use our torps on. Has to concentrate on merchants now to build up some credit to have the boat improved upon. Love to have more homing torpedoes, too. This time we again only got one Falke.

Weather is nice, moderate sea and almost clear sky.

Hals und Beinbruch!

Nov. 222050

Position now in the sound between the Orkneys and Shetland Isles - submerged. Hope to find some unprotected merchants in this usually heavily trafficked sound. Not a ctc to be made on the way up here except for a couple of radar transmissions which we dodged by submerging and stopping. The weather is still dangerously nice!


Nov. 231550

At 1345 fired four torps at two fat targets, a medium cargo and an Empire-Type freighter. Both went down. Have since downloaded three torps from the deck. We were interrupted on the fourth because of an approaching radar-transmitting aircraft.

Patrol 2 - U-531 - IXC/40 - Leu z.S. Krause - Nov 270347 1943 - NE of The Rockalls

On our way back to Lorient now, still 5 torps left. The days between the Orkney and Shetland Isles were quite hectic, the score ended up with 6 merchants of various sizes (one by deck gun) and a whale factory ship of 12.000 tons. Two Hunt destroyers also crossed our sights, obviously looking for survivors. We are now NE of The Rockalls having just been informed of a large westbound convoy south of us. I have set up an intercepting course but we are constantly being disturbed by air patrols. If we catch up with it we need to be careful.

270900

The point escorts have just passed us with good margin. We are in the middle of the convoy's track.

In position:



271253

The attack on the convoy succeeded fairly well. We used four torpedoes, four hits. Two went down quickly, a large tanker and a large cargo. Started a dive to 160 meters immediately but an escort was immediately on us - seemingly a Flower corvette. However, it wasn't very agile. At one time I thought we had lost it but it acquired contact again. I decided to go to periscope depth and use the last aft torp on it. As it approached us from behind I released a bold at the same time turning hard to port while lowering the periscope. It veered off and when I had in in the sights again it was turning behind us, distance approx 450 meters. A TI on max. speed and magnetic fuze fixed the problem.

Two other escorts approached the area but never got contact with us. When they had left we surfaced and followed the convoy westwards to look for eventual stragglers. Oh, yes - a modern tanker was dead in the water far behind the convoy. No escorts in the vicinity. We are now continuing submerged to finish it off with the deck gun after dark. If it doesn't sink in the meantime.

Tanker dead in the water: