It hurts to lose a boat after 16 patrols. Yeah, I'm not as good as everyone else out there, but hey, I had a pretty good career going.
Last partol started like any other. My Type IX was moored in Lorient and we had just completed fitting out at around midnight. We cast off and started for the mouth of the English Channel. It was early 1940 and we had already snagged a few unescorted convoys in the general area. My patrol region was northwest of Ireland and out of the shipping lanes, but I figured if I didn't find anything on the way up there I'd get something on the way back.
Most of my crew were seasoned vets. I had one new petty officer aboard to assist with the engines but other than that it was the same crew I'd had the previous patrols. A lot of them wore decorations and a few had been promoted. Life was generally good. We guided our ship from the harbor and started for our patrol region.
Ship traffic on the way was light. My watch officer informed me of two or three German vessels sailing into Lorient, but other than that we encountered nothing. The day dragged on, my ship cruising on the surface at standard. The skies were clear and everything was going peachy.
Just before we reached the Channel, I got a radio message from the BDu. Apparently, a British task force had just been spotted leaving the Gibraltar Strait. They were heading north at 21 knots, which put them directly at my beam heading toward me. I shrugged off the message, as the task force was very far south of me and I didn't believe they were after me. We continued northwest, my watch officer eerily quiet.
It was two days later at three in the morning when we recieved another radio message from the BDu. A convoy had been spotted heading east at about 6 knots, most likely heading for England. What luck! The position indicated was just south of my current position. I forwent my partol and turned around, heading to intercept at full speed.
At about noon, I got my first glimpse of the convoy in my attack periscope. The vessels were still quite a ways off, but I could tell there were a lot of them, and they were unescorted.
Or so I thought.
I did a quick sweep with the scope to gather data from the convoy when my watch officer frantically shouted down the hatch.
"Warship! Medium range! Moving away at bearing 300!"
I swing the scope around and spotted the vessel in question. It was traveling abeam to us and rather slowly, it seemed. I could make out the features and noticed it was a British ship. After consulting my book, I determined it was a Flower Corvette. She had charges and would be a very bad thing to encounter now.
I pondered what to do. The sun was high and we would be easily spotted, if we weren't already. I clambered to the bridge and scanned with binocs I stole from my watch officer. We'd be in range of the convoy in ten minutes, if we held where we were. I looked at the Corvette and watched her for a moment. The spray behind her intensified and she swung her bow to meet us.
I ordered everyone inside and we dove to 14 meters. My sonar man kept track of the Corvette as I slowed the engines to 1/3. She was still closing and closing fast. I ordeed 70 meters and we started for the deep.
At 30 meters, we heard the charges enter the water. The exploded harmlessly above us. I stopped the dive at 43 meters and we adoted a course to intercept the convoy again. I planned to pop up, fire off a two spread, then dive out and away. Later that night, we'd surface, rearm and give chase if we had to. The Corvette would be sweeping behind us by that time.
We sailed on, more charges entering the water behind and away from us. After a few more minutes, I ordered 13 meters still at 1/3. We rose to the new depth, the Corvette sailing away from us charging empty ocean. We reached 13 and up went the scope.
A C3 cargo vessel, flying the British flag, loomed 500 meters in front of us directly abeam. I plotted a qucik snapshot and opened the the doors for 1 and 4. We were running too short on time and I only fired one shot, using the magnetic pistol and a depth set for the C3. Once the fish was away, I turned to match course and watched.
It only took a few seconds.
My fish exploded, thankfully. Hit right underneath the keel of the mammoth cargo vessel. She rocked with the explosion, breaking in half within the first few seconds and starting to go down. Chalk up another one and one more round for the boys when we get home! I steered my sub away from the sinking ship and started my dive. One last sweep and we're out of here.
The Corvette's coming, and she's not happy. 1,500 meters and closing.
I ordered a crash dive. Alarm bells rang and we dove straight for hell. We leveled at 70 and listened as charges exploded above us. I ordered the engines to "Slow" and we went to silent running. The torpedo loading was halted and everyone fell silent. We waited, and again charges entered the water. Once more, they exploded over us. I felt cocky and laughed to myself. We might just get away. Ten more minutes passed and again we heard charges enter the water.
This time...we weren't so lucky.
The first charge missed us, but the second exploded off our aft port side. It wasn't close, but close enough to rock the ehole ship. I ordered flank speed. Perhaps we can still run.
The third charge exploded right next to us. My guess it was only five meters away.
The entire ship rocked vioently, my crew rushing about screaming of flooding. Another charge exploded to our right, too far away to add to the damage. We were flooding in the aft torpedo room and electric engine room. It wasn't bad, but if we lost the engines we'd be in big trouble. I ordered damage control to the flooding areas. My sonar man was deaf, as we'd also lost hte brand new sonar I'd installed just last night. I wasn;t concerned with it, as it could be fixed later. After a few minutes, my crews got the flooding under control in both areas. We just may make it.
That's when one more charge exploded right against the hull. The result was catastrophic. The pressure hull gave way under the blast and the command room and stern barracks were destroyed almost instantly. I don't know what happened after that.
So ends another career. And things were going so well, too.
BTW, RUB is an awesome mod.
