(Story) U-104

[Navy_Mech2]

Awesome story! I spent 40min on the toilet at work this morning reading the whole thread! This is darn near tom Clancy material

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 28th February 1941, 21:03, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km northwest of Vigo.

“Current depth 25.”
“All stop. Hear anything?” I look for Max at the hydrophones.
“Nothing, sir.”
“We’ll wait. They should be here any minute.”

Minute. Two. Three.
I hear Jürgen walking around the control room, calming down the rookies: “Keep your mouth shut, eyes on your work. You’re safe now. If you want to remain safe, do exactly what I tell you to do.”
Rookies. Scared even when there is nothing out there. I scratch my chin. They should be here, we are exactly where we need to be. Another few minutes pass by.

“Max?”
“Nothing,” he replies.
Maybe we aren’t where we need to be. I go back to our notes, check the calculations, but nothing new comes up – we did these calculations like never before. They should be right here, right now.

“Max?”
“Still nothing, sir.”
“Dammit. Well, we will wait here for at least an hour, maybe they slo-“ Ping! Ping! Ping!
Surprise, fear and panic overwhelm my mind for a fraction of a second, then my brain starts working again: “Ahead flank! Dive!” “Sound contact! 20 degrees, closing fast!” “Don’t panic! Keep doing your work!” “What? How?!” “All men forward! Where the hell are you?!” And all the time, the loud pinging reminds us that death is coming for us.

Every men in the U-boat looks at exactly the same time upwards. The pinging stopped, only to be replaced by the screws of a passing ship.
“Hard to starboard!”
We can hear depth charges entering our underwater world. Then – Bam! Bam! Bam!

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 28th February 1941, 21:41, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km northwest of Vigo.

“The ship is leaving north,” Max whispers.

Finally it ended. The enemy didn’t waste too much depth charges – the first 15, which were close, but not really on the mark. And then the other few just minutes ago, as their sonar showed something which wasn’t there, pretty far away from us. But beside the first attack, there were no pings. Maybe their sonar broke or something. I don’t know, I don’t care. We all now wait for the next explosion – the captain’s face was getting darker and darker since the surprise, and we know what is going to happen. He is going to get very angry at somebody. And… here we go…

“What the hell was that, Max!! Before we dived there was nothing miles around!! How comes that minutes later, a destroyer falls from the sky right in front of us!! Explain!”
“I-I-I don’t know, s-sir. I just didn’t hear it,” poor Max replies. There is a feeling within me that I should defend my comrade. But he did nearly kill us all.
“I figured you didn’t hear it! But how?! It was right in front of us and it had to be doing God’s speed to be at us that fast!”
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know.”
“Dammit, man. You nearly killed us!”
“I am sorry, sir.”
“Sure you are!!”
The first watch officer interrupts the fight: “Captain, what now?”
The captain calms down a bit, and with a lot of focus, you could manage to detect a faint smile on his face: “They let us live. Let’s catch up and repay the favor.”

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 28th February 1941, 23:17, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km west of El Ferrol.

We picked up a message from BdU about a single ship trailing close to us. Captain decided to intercept it, just to reveal that this single ship has its own destroyer escort. Anyway, the first attack failed miserably – we fired four torpedoes, but none hit the destroyer. The captain claims two of them were duds. Two hours later we tried to reengage, but we were surprised by the escort, which kept hunting us for half an hour. Luckily for us, these men seemed to have little experience with their anti-submarine equipment. Anyone more experienced would send us to the bottom of the ocean.

There was a fight between the captain and Max, but I didn’t hear it as I was helping to secure food which escaped from its net and spilled on the bow torpedo room floor. Anyway, we are hunting this odd pair again. I hope for more luck with torpedoes for the Lucky Halibut.



Note – I repaired some spacing problems and punctuation throughout the story. I also changed “feint” to “faint” on several occasions. Educational gaps everywhere

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Max Wermuth, 28th February 1941, 23:55, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km west of El Ferrol.

“Current depth 50.”
“Max?”
“Destroyer at 145. Slow,” I whisper the answer.
“And the cargo?”
“Engines slowed down even more. Very weak, nearly doesn’t move.”
“Good.”

The captain seems a bit happier, now that we hit the cargo ship with a torpedo. The other torpedo we fired probably exploded prematurely. I still wonder if I am going to be punished when we return back to France. I just don’t know where did the destroyer come from back then. I am quite sure I checked everywhere.

I continue to listen for the ships: “I lost the sound of the cargo ship. The destroyer is going slow. Making its way back to the left.”
“Can you hear the cargo sinking?”
“No, sir.”

Time flies by. You get used to patient waiting for hours on a U-boat. There is usually a lot of waiting involved. I lost the destroyer at the same place the cargo ship’s engines stopped. Another ten minutes passed by. Then the destroyer left at high speed.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 29th February 1941, 01:49, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km west of El Ferrol.

I observe the damaged cargo ship through the periscope for the last time. We are some 500 meters away. The ship is tilted heavily to its right, its nose nearly entirely under water. No men, no lights. Abandoned gun on the stern deck. It has been like this for more than an hour. Exactly like this. It isn’t going to sink.

For a moment, I toy with the idea of boarding the ship, but I reject it soon. They wouldn’t leave any important documents behind and the ship doesn’t seem very stable. Let’s blow it up then. I take the periscope back down, thinking about the way to put this one under.

“Prepare to surface and man the deck gun. I want watch crews scanning air and sea. I also want five deck gun shots into its bridge as soon as possible.” Just to make sure it can’t radio our position.
“Ready? Take her up.”

We prepare inside the tower, me and Jürgen first, then the deck gun boys, the rest of the watch right behind them. We rush up, I immediately do a quick scan of the horizon.

Bam!
The first shot hits the bridge. I don’t even care to look what damage has the shot done. I should have.

Bam! There’s a bright flash on the edge of my vision. I instinctively fall down while the shockwave arrives to our boat. The sound of the explosion deafens me for a while. Everybody else on the tower was thrown down on the tower’s floor. After we stand back up, we can’t even look at the ship, the pillar of fire in the night is blinding. What we can see is four of our sailors trying to help two of their comrades who ended up in the freezing water.

“Get them inside and get them warm!” my first watch officer shouts. I wonder if they can hear him, I nearly didn’t myself. The men are carrying out the orders either way.
Jürgen frowns: “Did they set a trap for us with explosives?”
“It does look like it.” Good thing we’re all alive. Darkness reigns again – both the fire and the ship disappeared. It sank like stone.

[darqen27]

Keep it coming herr kapitain, I am on my toes constantly waiting for the next update on the ol' Lucky Halibut



Kapitänleutnant Justin Loehner

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 1st March 1941, 10:22, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, Vigo.

After finally sinking the target cargo ship, which managed to cost us quite a lot of trouble until it finally gave up and sank, we were ordered by the BdU to sail to Spain. This morning we arrived at the Spanish port of Vigo to resupply at a covert supply ship. We are now refilling our diesel tanks and we found out that there are only 2 torpedoes left on the supply ship. At least we can use its crane to help load our externals inside.

In the evening we will continue to our destination west of Gibraltar. We will depart the same way we arrived here – in the cover of the night. Spain may be neutral, but you can never be too safe. There is a lot of juicy traffic around Vigo, but the Spanish let us dock our supply ship in their ports only if we maintain peace in their waters, so we weren’t even looking for potential pray.




Note – Another quick revision of the story, found a few missing letters, fixed my sank/sunk problem. I can’t believe I actually did these mistakes. I have to read the posts after myself more thoroughly…

Historical note – Did some more research. None of the 8 working IXBs in 1941 ventured into the Mediterranean. The Lucky Halibut will enjoy the second happy time, providing it will survive long enough. The last IXBs were scuttled or used as training boats in 1944.

Edit - Just so you know: From the begging of this patrol to leaving Vigo, it was an hour of gameplay. One hour and 4 minutes, to be precise.

[Navy_Mech2]

Originally Posted by MantiBrutalis

Edit - Just so you know: From the begging of this patrol to leaving Vigo, it was an hour of gameplay. One hour and 4 minutes, to be precise.

Gotta love time compression haha

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 6th March 1941, 02:36, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

Nothing. Since Vigo, nothing. Just boredom. We arrived at our patrol coordinates two days ago. During the cruise here, nothing happened. Not a single ship, plane, living creature. Nothing. We are supposed to ambush a British convoy from Freetown. It should be here… yesterday. BdU had confirmed information that the convoy should be on its way, so we are to remain in position for some time longer. The convoy is probably somewhere completely else by this time.

The sea grew harsher over the last night. It will be even worse than it was until now. The sea has been at least very helpful with not rocking our boat like it is a toy. Not anymore. Since the sudden change in weather, we cherish every moment we spend under the water listening for an imaginary convoy. Just a few hours of peace, silence and stability every now and then. It is tiresome.

Things between the captain and Max got even worse (since there is nothing else to do). The captain doesn’t trust Max anymore. He supervises any listening we do under water. This undermines the crew’s morale even more than this weather and the feeling of uselessness.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 7th March 1941, 05:08, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

Yet again babysitting this useless guy. I just can’t trust his skills anymore, I am responsible for this entire boat and its every single sailor. I can’t let him kill us all. I even listen through the hydrophones myself half the time, just to be sure. But there is not a single ship around here. We need to find something. I hope the BdU lets us sail somewhere else or this patrol could be a waste of time.

“Take her up. We need fresh air,” I order while going back to the control room.
Exciting whisper stops me before I get there: “Wait! Contact, 135. Slow.”
I hastily return to Max’s side while ordering to maintain our depth and take one of the headphones for myself. 5 seconds… 10 seconds…

“But I don’t hear –“ I start to speak just to be interrupted.
“Shh! The waves. You can hear it for a few seconds when it dips lower in the waves,” he whispers with his eyes closed.

I close my eyes too, but it doesn’t help. I don’t hear anything. I open my eyes again and watch Max’s hand indicating the engines rotations. Four times… Then nothing for a few seconds. Then again, five more engine revs and nothing. I can see his hands, yet I don’t hear anything. But he seems sure of it.

I start to leave, when Max adds: “It is quite far away. But I am sure it is there.”

Let’s test his skills then: “Full ahead, surface the boat. Course 250.”

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 7th March 1941, 07:44, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

“So we carry these stupid useless things just to see them fail,” Arnold complains as we’re preparing the last torpedo for loading.
“Maybe we should name these things too, for the luck in it,” I suggest ironically.
“Yeah… Sure… Let this one be named Platypus. And let it fail like the rest. What next, you want to name every round for the deck gun?”
Everybody laughs at that. The truth is that we weren’t exactly lucky with our shots this patrol. Starting with those four misses and duds against a destroyer. Then one of the pair against its charge detonated prematurely.

We start to fetch the Platypus into the tube.

And now these failures. First torpedo we fired today detonated appallingly soon after we let it go. The second one bumped the ship so hard even we could tell. Then the third exploded prematurely too, just the fourth made it. That makes 10 torpedoes, 2 hits. That’s bad.

“Shh!” someone stops our loading with the Platypus half inside. All eyes turn up and we listen. Nothing. Then the distinctive sound of metal screeching and moaning under the pressure of water, but this time it isn’t our boat doing it. The target is going down. 10 torpedoes, 2 ships. Still bad. We finish loading the Platypus. The captain will want to check what’s left of the ship.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 7th March 1941, 07:58, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

The ship is gone. It vanished somewhere down there and there isn’t that much left up here. Some floating debris, shattered wooden crates here and there is all we can see from our tower. The ship went down pretty fast, and with this weather on top of that, its crew went probably with it. At least some of it did, one of the watchboys is pointing somewhere ahead of our boat.

It takes me a while to find two sailors trying to stay above the waves. They are visible always just for a moment on a top of a wave, before disappearing somewhere among the scarce debris. They didn’t see us yet. I had the weapons brought up when we surfaced, just in case we found a resisting lifeboat. These guys won’t resist – they are freezing right now.

I think about the situation for a second before stating my command: “Search for a usable lifeboat.”
“Sir, shouldn’t we pick them up first?” Jürgen asks.
“No. If there’s no lifeboat we can’t help them.”
“But –“
“What?! You want to rescue them just to throw them back in the ocean after an hour?!”
“We can’t leave them here in this weather with no lifeboat! That would be a death sentence!”
“We can’t help them! Somebody will pick them up anyway,” I start to get angry. Nobody will endanger my boat.
“And who would that be? We are here for a week now and this is the first ship we met. They won’t survive even for two days in this cold!”

He’s right. What am I thinking? What is wrong with me?! They will die here if we won’t help them. We have to, they are just from merchant navy. The cargo is lost, that is our target. Not murdering people.

“Ahead slow. Rudder 2 degrees starboard. Hook up yourselves with ropes, we’re going to pick them up.”
Jürgen is a bold man to stand up against me like this…



Note - Some repairing still underway, hopefully no more mistakes will occur. Mistakes in dates repaired for couple last posts.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Manfred Bollmann, 7th March 1941, 08:03, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

I’m patiently waiting for the party up there to finish their observations, so the captain can finally tell me what message to send to BdU. I can hear the hatch to the tower opening, followed by (as always in rough seas) a fair amount of water. Then the order comes.

“Prepare your weapons, two Tommies coming in!”
“Yes, si- wait what?” the surprised sailor replies.
“Two survivors coming down, take care of them.”
“Why down here? Don’t we do these things on the deck?”
“Didn’t you forget something, mate?”
“Sorry, captain. Will do, captain.”
“And bind their eyes, feet and hands. They might stay with us for a while, unless we can find a usable lifeboat. And treat them with respect.”
“Yes, sir,” the sailor responds, then saying more, apparently just to himself: “Well this is brilliant.”
“What did you say?” comes from above.
“Nothing, sir.”

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Richard Manfold, 7th March 1941, probably just before noon, in a U-boat God knows where.

Well, Lord help us both. In a German submarine, somewhere in the ocean. This tin can is much less stable than our ship is (or rather was), a thing I thought was impossible to achieve. On the other hand, the Germans seem to know what’s good for their little boat, so we spend most of the time underwater. Never in my life I thought I would share a metal coffin enclosed by water with a bunch of Jerries. And yet here I am. And when I say “I”, I mean “we”. Peter looks pretty horrified. He has probably not yet accepted this reality, unlike me.

Apparently there was only one free ticket left on this ride, so we have to share a bed together. Our hosts untied our eyes and feet after the first ten minutes of this trip; we kept falling off “our” bed due to the rather insane waves. Apart from the expected bruises, the Jerries are still taking care of us to some degree (if you pass over the fact that we can’t speak, move or go to toilet). We are even given regular meals and water. The only person who spoke to us in English was a guy named Manfred, explaining that they will find a way to get us out of the boat as soon as possible. I haven’t decided yet if it is good or bad news. Thinking back a bit, I believe we were given the better fate out of our ship’s crew…



Note - I just finished my English test, yaaaay! Well, I probably haven't passed it, my essay was pretty horrible in my opinion. Anyway, I have got some time to spare in the coming days, so you can expect more of the Lucky Halibut's story (before the main exam period comes). Also I am not sure what to do with this British scum on board of my beloved boat...