Final Part Hope you enjoyed it
Rob
“Smoke clouds ahead!” ......
When the masts are visible, the steamer has a course which more or less takes it away from us, and also lies in a position in relation to us that will make the greatest demands on our engines. It is worthwhile trying to overtake the tanker and attain a more advantageous position without being seen. This manoeuvre is carried out with both engines flat out. It is now, when the power of the engines is fully unfolded and reaches its highest power, that the man on the engines experiences the greatest delight. He knows that everything depends on him, and that only the performance of his engines can guarantee success. This is why he is always busy with his machine, which he sees now strained to the utmost, and his own insides swing round in sympathy with the pistons and valves. He knows too that it is his own carefulness and attention that will enable him to win the game.
The boat has reached a good position. We dive so as to let the steamer approach us. In the meantime it had been recognized as a tanker. Just at the critical moment it tacks away, and after positioning ourselves afresh it is rather far off for a shot. Nevertheless the torpedo is despatched. After its running time there is an explosion, and with the terrible effects of the torpedo the steamer breaks up. It sinks very fast. That part of the crew that has been able to get away is in the lifeboat, and is either making for land or hoping that a warship from somewhere will save them.
It is not the business of a U-boat to pick up the crews of ships they have sunk, as long as they have a lifeboat or a raft under their feet. If anyone is at risk of drowning, then of course he is helped. Responsibility for him ceases as soon as he is out of the water and packed into a lifeboat. If anything further can be done for the welfare of the people in lifeboat once it is packed full, that is a gesture of humanity over and above the generally accepted practice in the U-boat war.
Steamer crews knew what the effect of being torpedoed would be. They should have stayed at home, for it was certainly not necessity that had driven them to sea; what enticed them was the extra pay for travelling in the blockade area. Along with the extra pay they had to accept difficulties and at the worst death and destruction as part of the bargain. They knew what it was like at sea. We took prisoner captains who had lost their ships a second or third time through torpedoing, but kept travelling, since the extra pay enticed them. There was another way of preventing this, and that was also tried: it became an important measure for us to fish out the captains and engineers of sunken steamers. That however stopped with the forming of convoys.
Our course takes us homewards now. We steer around the Shetlands, ‘fly over’ the minefield and travel comfortably on a southeasterly course in the Skagerrak. Before we close the door on the trip, an incident, almost a disaster happens to us, that once again reminds us strongly of U-boat traps and of peculiarly underhand methods of attack. Out of the Skagerrak comes a U-boat, travelling west flat out towards us. Our bridge watch recognizes it immediately as one of our boats. Assuming that it is approaching us in order to exchange information, (such an exchange often took place between ingoing and outgoing boats) we didn’t pay the boat any particular attention. Suddenly – “Torpedo tracks coming towards us!” This shout from the bridge watch brought us in an instant to a state of emergency. Two torpedoes are on course for our boat, and only at the last minute are we able to avoid them. The torpedoes shot past us. The attacking boat, an English one, had cleared off, and after firing had dived immediately. This mistake was possible because the boat had approached us from dead ahead, and because the English had built their boat up to look like one of ours. So we escaped destruction only just before arriving back at our base.
Journeys through minefields, too, are not among the most pleasant things of life. When the kommandant of a boat is faced with the choice of whether to travel through minefields on the surface or below it, (that is, when they lie on the outward route and there is no way round them,) it is in most cases best to choose to travel underwater. This has the advantage because it is likely that the mines were not placed as a protection against boats travelling underwater, in other words at a series of graduated depths. This consideration was decisive for the kommandant of my boat too, since the boat had once received orders to leave on a mission with a sister-boat. Since the mined area was known to them, it was agreed with the sister-boat to dive at dusk at ‘quadrant x’ in front of where the obstacle was supposed to be; they would then traverse the minefield underwater and surface at a certain time when it grew light to continue their journey together. But right at the beginning of the mission a bitter taste was mixed with our cup of joy. At dusk both boats went to travel by night underwater. We started travelling at a depth of 30m. In view of the dangers of the situation the watertight doors were all closed. The crew who were not needed at that moment, settled down to sleep. After travelling for a hour or so we began to notice noises outside, starting at the bow, growing loudest amidships, and fading out astern. It is clear that we are now among the mines, and the wires with which the mines are anchored are scraping past the body of the boat. My mind keeps dwelling on the question ‘Is everything in order on the hull of the boat, has everything been checked regarding precautions against mines, so that the wires scraping past us cannot get hooked up?’. Suddenly an explosion booms out above the boat; a wire must have got caught up, and somehow or other a mine must have gone off. The boat shudders, but stays in one piece. Here too one can speak of Fortune, and the hand of God interposed, in that the wire caught by the boat just released itself in time, and we didn’t drag the mine down onto the boat with it. Soon afterwards we hear an explosion in the direction of the sister boat that was travelling on the same route as us. We thought of our comrades, and prayed that all might be well with them.
The night came to an end, and the order to surface was given. Thank God; the relief shows on everyone’s faces. We greet the fresh breeze, the blue sea and the beautiful morning as symbols of re-birth. But we were never to see our comrades in our sister boat again. They had fallen prey to the mine whose detonation we heard during the night. After waiting for quite a while at the meeting-place we set off for our operational area alone, and even after our return from the northern Arctic sea no sign of life had reached our home base from our sister boat. The boat with its brave crew never returned. Those comrades are no longer with us to whom we were so tightly bound by our earlier experiences and with whom we had exchanged farewells on the day we left Helgoland –“Have a successful trip; see you back home”.
Pleasant as our patrol was in the Arctic and off the coast of Murmansk, no lucky star was in the ascendancy over us. It was one of those missions where success was denied us, however often we came close to seizing it.
After these extracts from my war years I will now bring my talk to an end, and hope that you have found it interesting. You should give every encouragement to young people to consider whether the vocation of seaman is not the most worthwhile to aim at for a young man with a true sense of adventure, and encourage them to find a desire within them to become seaman themselves and to become contestants in the struggle for Germany’s sea power. A career as a seaman offers a great deal, more than any other career.
Go to it; open up the doors to the world, that England today still keeps locked.
Branscheid.
(Obering. on SM U-54 and U-118)
Bremen April 1942
Rob
“Smoke clouds ahead!” ......
When the masts are visible, the steamer has a course which more or less takes it away from us, and also lies in a position in relation to us that will make the greatest demands on our engines. It is worthwhile trying to overtake the tanker and attain a more advantageous position without being seen. This manoeuvre is carried out with both engines flat out. It is now, when the power of the engines is fully unfolded and reaches its highest power, that the man on the engines experiences the greatest delight. He knows that everything depends on him, and that only the performance of his engines can guarantee success. This is why he is always busy with his machine, which he sees now strained to the utmost, and his own insides swing round in sympathy with the pistons and valves. He knows too that it is his own carefulness and attention that will enable him to win the game.
The boat has reached a good position. We dive so as to let the steamer approach us. In the meantime it had been recognized as a tanker. Just at the critical moment it tacks away, and after positioning ourselves afresh it is rather far off for a shot. Nevertheless the torpedo is despatched. After its running time there is an explosion, and with the terrible effects of the torpedo the steamer breaks up. It sinks very fast. That part of the crew that has been able to get away is in the lifeboat, and is either making for land or hoping that a warship from somewhere will save them.
It is not the business of a U-boat to pick up the crews of ships they have sunk, as long as they have a lifeboat or a raft under their feet. If anyone is at risk of drowning, then of course he is helped. Responsibility for him ceases as soon as he is out of the water and packed into a lifeboat. If anything further can be done for the welfare of the people in lifeboat once it is packed full, that is a gesture of humanity over and above the generally accepted practice in the U-boat war.
Steamer crews knew what the effect of being torpedoed would be. They should have stayed at home, for it was certainly not necessity that had driven them to sea; what enticed them was the extra pay for travelling in the blockade area. Along with the extra pay they had to accept difficulties and at the worst death and destruction as part of the bargain. They knew what it was like at sea. We took prisoner captains who had lost their ships a second or third time through torpedoing, but kept travelling, since the extra pay enticed them. There was another way of preventing this, and that was also tried: it became an important measure for us to fish out the captains and engineers of sunken steamers. That however stopped with the forming of convoys.
Our course takes us homewards now. We steer around the Shetlands, ‘fly over’ the minefield and travel comfortably on a southeasterly course in the Skagerrak. Before we close the door on the trip, an incident, almost a disaster happens to us, that once again reminds us strongly of U-boat traps and of peculiarly underhand methods of attack. Out of the Skagerrak comes a U-boat, travelling west flat out towards us. Our bridge watch recognizes it immediately as one of our boats. Assuming that it is approaching us in order to exchange information, (such an exchange often took place between ingoing and outgoing boats) we didn’t pay the boat any particular attention. Suddenly – “Torpedo tracks coming towards us!” This shout from the bridge watch brought us in an instant to a state of emergency. Two torpedoes are on course for our boat, and only at the last minute are we able to avoid them. The torpedoes shot past us. The attacking boat, an English one, had cleared off, and after firing had dived immediately. This mistake was possible because the boat had approached us from dead ahead, and because the English had built their boat up to look like one of ours. So we escaped destruction only just before arriving back at our base.
Journeys through minefields, too, are not among the most pleasant things of life. When the kommandant of a boat is faced with the choice of whether to travel through minefields on the surface or below it, (that is, when they lie on the outward route and there is no way round them,) it is in most cases best to choose to travel underwater. This has the advantage because it is likely that the mines were not placed as a protection against boats travelling underwater, in other words at a series of graduated depths. This consideration was decisive for the kommandant of my boat too, since the boat had once received orders to leave on a mission with a sister-boat. Since the mined area was known to them, it was agreed with the sister-boat to dive at dusk at ‘quadrant x’ in front of where the obstacle was supposed to be; they would then traverse the minefield underwater and surface at a certain time when it grew light to continue their journey together. But right at the beginning of the mission a bitter taste was mixed with our cup of joy. At dusk both boats went to travel by night underwater. We started travelling at a depth of 30m. In view of the dangers of the situation the watertight doors were all closed. The crew who were not needed at that moment, settled down to sleep. After travelling for a hour or so we began to notice noises outside, starting at the bow, growing loudest amidships, and fading out astern. It is clear that we are now among the mines, and the wires with which the mines are anchored are scraping past the body of the boat. My mind keeps dwelling on the question ‘Is everything in order on the hull of the boat, has everything been checked regarding precautions against mines, so that the wires scraping past us cannot get hooked up?’. Suddenly an explosion booms out above the boat; a wire must have got caught up, and somehow or other a mine must have gone off. The boat shudders, but stays in one piece. Here too one can speak of Fortune, and the hand of God interposed, in that the wire caught by the boat just released itself in time, and we didn’t drag the mine down onto the boat with it. Soon afterwards we hear an explosion in the direction of the sister boat that was travelling on the same route as us. We thought of our comrades, and prayed that all might be well with them.
The night came to an end, and the order to surface was given. Thank God; the relief shows on everyone’s faces. We greet the fresh breeze, the blue sea and the beautiful morning as symbols of re-birth. But we were never to see our comrades in our sister boat again. They had fallen prey to the mine whose detonation we heard during the night. After waiting for quite a while at the meeting-place we set off for our operational area alone, and even after our return from the northern Arctic sea no sign of life had reached our home base from our sister boat. The boat with its brave crew never returned. Those comrades are no longer with us to whom we were so tightly bound by our earlier experiences and with whom we had exchanged farewells on the day we left Helgoland –“Have a successful trip; see you back home”.
Pleasant as our patrol was in the Arctic and off the coast of Murmansk, no lucky star was in the ascendancy over us. It was one of those missions where success was denied us, however often we came close to seizing it.
After these extracts from my war years I will now bring my talk to an end, and hope that you have found it interesting. You should give every encouragement to young people to consider whether the vocation of seaman is not the most worthwhile to aim at for a young man with a true sense of adventure, and encourage them to find a desire within them to become seaman themselves and to become contestants in the struggle for Germany’s sea power. A career as a seaman offers a great deal, more than any other career.
Go to it; open up the doors to the world, that England today still keeps locked.
Branscheid.
(Obering. on SM U-54 and U-118)
Bremen April 1942