CHAPTER 14 – LENDING A HELPING HAND
09:55 (New York Time)
Monday, March 16, 1942
Control room of the U-800
Cruising submerged at schnorchel depth off the Bay of Massachusetts
U.S. East Coast waters
Otto Kretschmer was having a nap in his cabin when the ship’s telephone fixed to the partition near the head of his bed rang. Accustomed to have his sleep interrupted frequently by his boat’s business, Otto took a deep breath to wake up, then grabbed the telephone’s handset and spoke in it.
‘’Captain speaking!’’
‘’This is Leutnant Spielberger, Herr Kapitän. We just intercepted a message from the U-503 to the U-Boote Command: it has been seriously damaged by a patrol aircraft and is in trouble off Cape Cod.’’
‘’I’m coming!’’ Replied at once Otto, who put down the receiver before swinging his legs out of his bed and starting to dress quickly. Less than two minutes later, he was joining Spielberger at the sides of their chart table, on which the young lieutenant pointed a location to the east of Cape Cod to Otto.
‘’This is the location given by the U-503, Herr Kapitän. According to the message we intercepted, the U-503 is now unable to dive and also can move on only one diesel engine. It is trying to sail to Lorient by itself but they are rating their own chances to arrive alone as minimal.’’
Grabbing a compass, Otto measured quickly the distance between the two submarines and made a mental calculation.
‘’We could be there in about eight hours, just before sunset, at our maximum schnorchel speed. We may encounter an hornets’ nest once there and I want us to arrive with a full battery charge. Steer a course for the U-503 at fourteen knots, Leutnant.’’
‘’Yes, Herr Kapitän!’’
Next, Otto grabbed a ship’s intercom microphone and switched it to ship-wide call.
‘’Attention all hands, this is the Captain speaking! We will now leave temporarily our patrol area to go lend a hand to our comrades of the U-503, who are in trouble off Cape Cod. Doctor List, be ready to receive possible combat casualties in about eight hours. We will go to battle stations in seven hours, or earlier if we encounter enemy ships or planes on the way.’’
Hooking back the microphone, Otto reviewed mentally what he knew about the U-503. It was a Type IXC long range submarine that had been commissioned less than a year ago. Its captain, Kapitänleutnant Otto Gericke, was a bit older than Otto but was a beginner as a submarine skipper, being presently on his first war patrol. Gericke and his crew had probably been taken by surprise by enemy patrol planes through lack of experience or vigilance, or both. A couple of years ago, Otto would have looked severely at such failings, but his years of combat experience had taught him that no human being was infallible, including himself. While still insistent about proper conduct and discipline, Otto was now ready to accept minor mistakes, as long as the culprit learned from the experience. He next thought about the kind of situation he was going to find when he would join up with the U-503. If the patrol plane that damaged it saw it stay on the surface, then it was a certainty that more planes and possibly some warships would come to try sinking for good the submarine. Either he was going to find a patch of sea covered with debris, or he would find one big pack of troubles.
17:50 (New York Time)
Control room of U-800, at schnorchel depth
East of Cape Cod, coast of Massachusetts
‘’HERR KAPITÄN, I HAVE BOTH SURFACE AND AIR CONTACTS!’’
Erik Junker’s call attracted at once Otto to his radar station, where a number of blips were showing on the operator’s PPI{14} display. Junker then pointed in succession at each of the five dots on his screen.
‘’This immobile dot ahead of us is most probably the U-503, Herr Kapitän: it is on the surface, is hardly moving and is trying to head East. The other surface dot, coming in at over thirty knots and presently nineteen kilometers from us, must be an American destroyer called in by a patrol aircraft. Of the three air contacts I have, two of them are probably patrol bombers heading for the U-503 to finish it off. The third one, a big and slow aircraft, seems to be circling overhead of the U-503. In fact, it is both very big and quite slow for a plane. I don’t know exactly how to classify it.’’
Otto thought about that for a moment while fixing the large blip on the radar screen. A smile then appeared on his face.
‘’A blimp! It must be a coastal patrol blimp. Their low speed and long endurance actually makes them ideal for anti-submarine work. If we don’t want it to trail us after this, we will have to shoot it down, if it proves low enough for our gunners to hit it. Those two patrol bombers, when will they arrive over the U-503, Herr Junkers?’’
‘’In maybe four minutes, well ahead of us, Herr Kapitän. The U-503 may well be sunk before we can get to it.’’
‘’Then, at the least, we will be able to save its crew. Let’s hope that those bombers will prove lousy at bomb aiming.’’
Not believing himself his own pious wish, Otto then returned to the tactical plot table, where he marked the location of the U-503 and of the oncoming American destroyer on the situation plot. Next, he grabbed an intercom microphone and switched it to ship-wide broadcasting.
‘’Attention all hands, this is the Captain! We are soon going to engage in combat against both an incoming destroyer and against enemy airplanes. Gunners are to make themselves ready now to man their guns, both our deck gun and our anti-aircraft guns, as soon as we surface. I also want the rescue team ready to get on the open deck as soon as we are up. We may have only minutes to recuperate and save our comrades from the U-503, so you will have to work fast. I am however confident that all of you will perform your duties in the competent, professional manner that I have come to expect from you. Captain out!’’
Going next to the electronic warfare section, aft of the control room, Otto bent over the operator manning the radio listening station, Josef Knocke.
‘’Can you hear the American planes heading for the U-503, Herr Knocke?’’
‘’I sure can, Herr Kapitän!’’ Replied Knocke, smiling while looking up at Otto. ‘’Two of them keep babbling all the time on the radio like a couple of busybodies. They just sighted visually the U-503 and say that visibility is fair to poor. The third aircraft present has a rather unusual call sign: ZNP-K-4. It is communicating on the radio in a rather more disciplined manner with the American destroyer rushing towards the U-503.’’
‘’ZNP-K-4… That must be the coastal patrol blimp we have presently on radar above the U-503. Do your best to jam its radio transmissions from now on, along with those of the two American bombers.’’
‘’Will do, Herr Kapitän!’’
With that taken care of, Otto took a few steps to stand near the passive hydrophone station’s operator.
‘’Can you hear that incoming American destroyer, Hartmann?’’
‘’Hell yes, sir! It must be pushing its engines to the limit. On the other hand, it will be impossible for him to hear anything with his sonar until he slows down drastically.’’
‘’Good! That should give us the element of surprise for the engagement to come.’’
Michel Hartmann raised an eyebrow at those last words: for a submarine commander to plan to attack a destroyer while enemy planes were overhead would have been described by many German submariners as ‘suicidal’. However, they were here to try to help comrade submariners in difficulty, while Otto Kretschmer’s legendary tactical prowess made him one of the rare submarine commanders who could possibly pull such a stunt and survive it.
Otto, returning inside the control room, waited another few minutes, until Erik Junker announced that the two American bombers were now heading back towards the coast after attacking the U-503. Once they were at a safe distance, Otto raised his watch periscope, hoping fervently that the U-503 had survived the aerial attack. He felt some relief on seeing in the distance the low silhouette of the Type IXC submarine still floating on the surface. However, it had a definite list to port and seemed to be slowly sinking by the stern. Cranking up the optical lens of the periscope to survey the sky, he saw at first only a thick, low cloud cover. On his second tour of the horizon, a big gray mass suddenly appeared in his field of view, floating just below the cloud cover.
‘’I HAVE AN AMERICAN PATROL BLIMP TO OUR TWO O’CLOCK, FLYING AT AN ALTITUDE OF AT MOST 2,000 METERS. I WANT OUR GUNNERS TO SHOOT IT DOWN AS SOON AS WE ARE ON THE SURFACE. HELM, PULL UP ON THE DIVE PLANES! BLOW THE BALLASTS! SURFACE! SURFACE!’’
The crew of the control room obeyed at once quickly but also methodically and efficiently, soon making the 4,300 ton submarine burst through the surface of the sea.
Some 1,700 meters above the waves, the crew of the U.S. Navy patrol blimp ZNP-K-4 were watching intently the German submarine they had first discovered and then hunted down, when one of the observers shouted out a surprised warning.
‘’ANOTHER SUBMARINE JUST CAME UP ON THE SURFACE TO OUR SEVEN O’CLOCK, MAYBE HALF A MILE FROM THE FIRST SUBMARINE.’’
The pilot of the ZNP-K-4, Lieutenant-Commander John Bisset, twisted his neck to look at the newcomer and couldn’t help let out an exclamation.
‘’Holy shit! Look at that mother! It is like nothing I have seen before. Reynolds, grab your camera quickly and start taking picture of this baby. I bet that Navy Intelligence will want to learn about it.’’
As one of the observers hurried to get his camera, Bisset examined avidly the submarine that was now approaching the U-503. Its hull shape was completely different from those of other known submarines, being well rounded and streamlined, like the body of a killer whale or of a sperm whale. Its conning tower was also finely streamlined and was quite larger and longer than usual, giving a racy silhouette to the submarine. A tall vertical rudder fin stuck out of the water at the stern, completing a very unusual shape he had never seen before. At first, Bisset saw no guns on the deck of the submarine, but that changed soon…for the worst.
‘’What the hell? I can see two gun mounts now appearing on the decks of that sub, apparently coming up from under deck wells.’’
His copilot, who had grabbed binoculars and was looking down at the newcomer, suddenly swore out loud.
‘’SHIT, THOSE MOUNTS ARE ANTI-AIRCRAFT CANNONS! WE BETTER GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!’’
Bisset, knowing full well how vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire his big, lumbering blimp was at low altitude, didn’t argue with that and started at once a turn to the right, while pushing his two radial piston engines to maximum power. Despite his best efforts, however, a thick stream of tracer shells bracketed his blimp, followed by a second burst that hit its target. A number of shells pierced the gas envelope of the blimp, making helium gas escape from holes and rips, while more shells hit the command and control nacelle suspended under the sausage-shaped gas balloon. Two sharp explosions and a scream of pain told Bisset at once that he had been seriously hit. A third burst then hit his port side engine, on top of piercing more holes in the balloon. With one engine on fire and with his blimp starting to slowly lose altitude, Bisset realized that he would never make it all the way back to the coast. That left him only one viable option.
‘’WE’RE GOING DOWN, GUYS! I’M GOING TO STEER TOWARDS THE U.S.S. MAYO, WHICH IS NOW ONLY FIVE MILES AWAY. REYNOLDS, WHATEVER HAPPEN, MAKE SURE THAT YOUR CAMERA AND ITS FILMS ARE NOT LOST. SEAL THEM IN A WATER-TIGHT BAG!’’
‘’ON IT, SIR!’’
‘’CLARK, CHECK ON THE CREW! WHO WAS WOUNDED AND HOW BAD?’’
‘’IT’S MARANZANO, SIR: HE’S DEAD!’’
Tightening his jaws, Bisset had a last look at the mystery submarine, which had stopped firing at him and was now nearly side by side with the first German submarine.
‘’You will pay for this one day, you kraut, I promise!’’
On the surface, Otto didn’t waste time celebrating his latest victory: the hard part of this job was still ahead. While the weather was relatively fair for a March day in the North Atlantic, the waves were still quite strong and the wind, presently blowing at maybe thirty kilometers per hour, gave signs that it was picking up strength, with dark clouds on the horizon. To make things even harder, the Sun was about to set and would force him very soon to work in the dark, in a moonless night. Adding the fact that an American destroyer would soon show up, it all promised a frantic, risky rescue work. He would probably have clapped hands if he had known that the American blimp he had shot up was going to delay by precious minutes the arrival of the said destroyer by ditching beside it in the sea, forcing the destroyer to stop in order to retrieve the crew of the blimp. Climbing up to the open bridge of the U-800, Otto grabbed a signal lamp and started sending a visual message to the U-503.
‘To U-503, from U-800: state status and prepare to transfer your crew to me.’
Thankfully, someone occupied the kiosk of the damaged submarine and he got a lamp message response after less than a minute.
‘From U-503: am sinking slowly by the stern. Batteries leaking toxic vapors and diesel room flooding. Have number of wounded men. My men will start coming on deck for evacuation. Thank you for coming, U-800.’
Knowing that time was now counted, Otto didn’t take the time to reply to that, instead giving orders via the bridge intercom system.
‘’Attention all hands! Secure from gunnery stations! All rescue teams on deck! Prepare to put our row boat and one inflatable boat in the water: we will use ropes to run a ferry operation between the two submarines. Make it quick, men: time is short.’’
His experienced crewmen went to work at once. First lowering back the two anti-aircraft quad 20mm cannon mounts back into their under deck storage wells, his sailors then pulled out on deck the four meter dinghy stored in an aft deck well, plus one large inflatable raft taken out of the forward access airlock room. Tying ropes to both ends of the dinghy and of the inflatable and holding the stern ropes, Otto’s men quickly put the two boats in the choppy, freezing waters beating against the flanks of the U-800. The men of the U-503 could have at the worst jumped into the sea with their life jackets and swim to the U-800, but the icy waters would more than probably claim a number of them through hypothermia, while the wounded would be nearly assured of dying. Otto thus wanted those men to stay as dry as possible by running his two boats like small ferries. With four men in each of the two boats paddling energetically, the boats quickly covered the twenty or so meters now separating the two submarines, with the rowers throwing to men on the deck of the U-503 the ropes attached to their bow. With strong pulling teams at each end and ready to run the boats back and forth between the two submarines, the first wounded men started loading up in the boats after less than six minutes. Here, another unusual feature of the masterfully designed U-800 helped in no little measure. Gustav Premingen, evidently bent on making the U-800 as easy to operate and as comfortable as possible, had added on each side sets of access stairs between the upper deck and the waterline of the submarine, stairs that were covered by hydrodynamic, streamlined covers when not in use. Those stairs, meant to facilitate the transfer of personnel and supplies arriving by small boats, now proved priceless, making the transfer of the wounded men from the U-503 so much more easy and saving precious minutes. Roundly conducted, the ferry operation succeeded in bringing aboard the U-800 a total of 41 men in less than twenty minutes. By the time that the last man from the U-503, its captain, arrived aboard the U-800, the U-503’s stern aft was completely under water. Otto went on the forward deck to personally greet the captain of the U-503, Kapitänleutnant Otto Gericke. Gericke, a man in his mid-thirties with a youthful face, saluted Otto as soon as he stepped on the deck to face him.
‘’Permission to come aboard, Herr Kapitän!’’
‘’Permission granted! Have you lost men in those air attacks? I counted only forty men, apart from you, who came aboard.’’
Gericke’s shoulders sagged and he lowered a bit his head before answering.
‘’Seven of my men were overcome by acid fumes from our damaged batteries inside the engines compartment. We tried to get them out but that resulted only in five more men being sickened by vapors before the incoming water forced us to seal the compartment.’’
‘’We will have time to mourn them later, after we leave: an American destroyer is approaching and should be here at any time now. In fact, I am surprised that it is not here yet. Have you secured or destroyed your codes and your Enigma{15} machine?’’
Otto, who had assumed that Gericke would have taken that elementary security precaution, tightened his jaw when he saw his fellow officer hesitate, his eyes becoming shifty.
‘’I...I gave the order to do so, but I didn’t actually see it being done.’’
Doing his best not to explode, Otto stared hard at Gericke for a moment, then twisted his head to shout an order at his men present on deck.
‘’MAN THE MAIN GUN! SCUTTLE THE U-503! QUICKLY!’’
Otto then returned his eyes on Gericke, who had stiffened on hearing him shout.
‘’Get inside, Kapitänleutnant Gericke: we will discuss this later.’’
Gericke saluted him again, then went to the opened forward access hatch of the conning tower. Temporarily taking his mind off that incident, Otto then looked on as his gunners manned their 10.5 centimeter deck gun and started pumping shells into the U-503 from a distance of twenty meters, aiming at the waterline. In the meantime, other crewmen stowed back into place the dinghy and the inflatable boat, readying the U-800 for a quick dive. After four shells, the sinking rate of the U-503 increased noticeably, but Otto ordered his men to fire more shells, wanting to insure that the Americans would have no chances of capturing the precious codes and Enigma machine aboard the U-503. The Type IX submarine finally shook for a last time after the seventh shell had hit it, then disappeared for good under the waves. Now satisfied, Otto motioned to his gunners with one arm.
‘’STOW BACK THE GUN UNDER THE DECK, THEN GET INSIDE AT THE DOUBLE!’’
By then, the Sun had set and Otto could hardly see anything around his submarine. A sudden flash of light from a distance on his starboard side made his head snap around as the last of his gunners was running inside the conning tower. That flash was followed a few seconds later by the scream of a shell passing overhead: that American destroyer was finally arriving and was probably shooting with the help of its radar. Otto ran inside the forward airlock compartment of the conning tower and closed and locked the heavy access hatch before slapping the intercom button located near the hatch.
‘’DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!’’
Letting a crewman who had been waiting by the interior hatch close it behind him, Otto ran to the control room and shouted more orders.
‘’DIVING PLANES FULL DOWN! ELECTRIC MOTORS TO MAXIMUM POWER! TURN NINETY DEGREES TO STARBOARD AS SOON AS WE ARE FULLY SUBMERGED!’’
AYE, KAPITÄN!’’
As he went to the attack periscope, which was presently down in its storage well, Otto realized that Gericke was standing in the back of the control room, apparently unsure what to do. Ignoring him from the moment, Otto grabbed the tube of the attack periscope, using it to stay on his feet as his submarine quickly adopted a fifty degree nose-down angle while accelerating. The helmsman then turned hard to starboard, making the U-800 perform a tight diving turn that a dive bomber pilot would have applauded.
‘’CALL UP DEPTH AND SPEED AT TEN SECOND INTERVALS!’’
‘’PASSING 120 METERS! SPEED: TWELVE KNOTS!... NOW PASSING 230 METERS! SPEED: SEVENTEEN KNOTS!’’
‘’PULL UP FROM DIVE ONCE AT 300 METERS! CONTINUE ACCELERATING!’’
‘’AYE, KAPITÄN!... NOW PASSING 300 METERS, PULLING UP DIVING PLANES. SPEED: 21 KNOTS!... WE ARE NOW LEVEL AT 360 METERS. SPEED: 26 KNOTS!... SPEED: 31 KNOTS! WE ARE NOW AT OUR MAXIMUM SPEED, HERR KAPITÄN.’’
Otto Gericke, still standing in his corner and watching, opened his eyes wide in disbelief on hearing the last announcement from the helmsman.
‘’You can do 31 knots underwater? But…that’s incredible!’’
‘’Welcome aboard the U-800, Kapitänleutnant Gericke.’’ Said Otto, his tone sarcastic. He waited about two minutes as his submarine took its distances from its previous surface location, then gave more orders.
‘’SLOW DOWN TO THREE KNOTS! TURN TO HEADING 290! SONAR, START LISTENING ON PASSIVE MODE: TELL ME WHERE THAT DESTROYER IS NOW.’’
As if to answer him, a series of distant underwater explosions started reverberating through the hull of the U-800, with the senior sonar operator speaking up after a few more seconds.
‘’The enemy destroyer is dropping depth charges blind all over the zone where we were on the surface, Herr Kapitän. That destroyer is now at around our one o’clock and has lowered its speed considerably, probably in order to be able to use its sonar. Herr Kapitän, I am also picking up a distant group of ships coming our way from the South. From the power of their machinery and their speed, I would classify them as warships.’’
Otto raised an eyebrow on hearing those words, immediately interested.
‘’Concentrate on that group of warships, Herr Grote. Helm, take Heading 190, start rising gradually and as quietly as possible to periscope depth.’’
‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän!’’
Gericke gave Otto an alarmed look then: most U-boote commanders would have stayed away from an enemy flotilla, instead of getting near it.
‘’You are going to attack those warships?’’
Having grown quite annoyed at him by now, Otto nodded his head, then looked at Franz Streib.
‘’Leutnant Streib, please escort Kapitänleutnant Gericke and his officers to the officers’ wardroom, so that they can have some hot coffee. See also that the men of the U-503 are led to the cafeteria for some hot drinks and food.’’
‘’Right away, Herr Kapitän.’’
Soon, Otto found himself able to concentrate properly on his plan of attack as his submarine slowly rose towards the surface like a silent shark. The American destroyer that had dropped depth charges for many minutes had apparently abandoned its attacks by now, giving up after failing to make sonar contact with its prey. Otto however promised himself that this destroyer would soon become his prey. What his senior sonar operator said after a moment of concentrated listening to their ‘Gross Balkon’ hydrophone array lit up his mind at once.
‘’Herr Kapitän, I can now better identify those approaching warships. They are doing approximately fifteen knots and I can count over a dozen ship signatures, including machinery and screw noises from four heavy units.’’
‘’A surface battle group!’’ Said Otto, a ferocious grin appearing on his face. ‘’A perfect target to avenge the U-503. Torpedo officer, load all tubes with G7e eels, then flood the tubes in advance. Once the tubes will be emptied, reload with G7a eels: we will be dealing with a swarm of angry warships buzzing around or trying to escape.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän.’’
As his men worked feverishly to obey his orders, Otto felt at peace despite the fact that he was going into combat again: at least this time he was going to attack men able to defend themselves, contrary to merchant navy sailors, who were basically sitting ducks when faced with a submarine. Also, sinking more enemy warships meant that those warships would not be able anymore to fire at Germans in the future. Otto did understand full well how important it was for Germany to be able to strangle the economy of Great Britain by cutting its maritime lifelines, but sinking enemy warships, especially destroyers and other escort ships, would in turn make the job of other German submariners that much easier.
‘’Herr Kapitän, I can now tell that the enemy is approaching in three parallel columns, with the heavy units in the center column.’’
‘’Good! Guide Herr Schültz at the helm and help him position us to pass between two of the columns, with our nose pointing at the center column.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän.’’
Letting his men do their job without interference while watching attentively, Otto was soon able to hear by himself the noises from big propellers passing nearby and reverberating through the hull of the U-800. With the night on and with no Moon to illuminate the ships’ wakes, there was no point in going up to the forward underwater observation dome. He however had another mean to accurately fire his torpedoes, a mean that he had not used up to now since the U-800 had entered service.
‘’Herr Wittgenstein, use our ‘Nibelung’ fire control system to calculate solutions for our torpedoes. Launch eels as you finalize each solution. I want four eels each from the forward tubes against the two leading enemy heavy units and two eels each from the aft tubes against two of the destroyers of the eastern column.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän! Initiating Nibelung attack procedures!’’
Using the acoustic signatures detected by their Gross Balkon passive hydrophone array, Ulrich von Wittgenstein then used their S-Gerat active sonar, firing directional sound ‘pings’ to find the precise distance, heading, speed and direction of travel of each of his targets. Without raising a periscope mast once above the surface, the U-800 started firing volleys of torpedoes within a minute, with the enemy ships still apparently unaware of the presence of the submarine in their midst, less than 400 meters from the center column. That last point did not surprise Otto, though: the vaunted ASDIC used by the Allies became nearly useless when travelling at high speeds, with the screw and machinery noises blanketing any sounds it could have picked up. Thus, a well-handled diesel-electric submarine sitting in a silent ambush position would nearly always end up on top against a hunting surface ship. The key words were however ‘well-handled’, something that was not always the case. Twenty seconds after the first torpedo launches, a series of distant underwater explosions was heard through the hull of the submarine, making its crew cheer: they had marked the first hits against enemy ships tonight. Out of the twelve torpedoes of the first salvo, a satisfying total of eleven found their mark, distributed among four separate targets. As the men in both the bow and stern torpedo rooms worked frantically to reload the twelve torpedo tubes, Otto moved discreetly his submarine to aft of the second enemy heavy unit that had been hit. He soon had the hissing, sinking big hull of that enemy warship nearly on top of him, making in turn the U-800 nearly impossible to detect by ASDIC. Using fully that opportunity, Otto stayed in that position, reloading his torpedo tubes while the American destroyers went amok, speeding up and pinging their sonar sets like madmen all over the place. Some of them even threw depth charges in the water but were careful not to drop them close to where sailors from torpedoed ships were swimming in the frigid water. The operator manning the radio intercept/DF station of the electronic warfare section then called via intercom to give news that made Otto grin in triumph.
‘’Herr Kapitän, the enemy just sent a mayday message in clear on the radio. It said ‘U.S.S. WASHINGTON, U.S.S. WASP and two destroyers torpedoed by German submarine 26 miles south of Cape Cod. WASP sinking, WASHINGTON gravely damaged, destroyer LANG broken in two and destroyer MADISON dead in the water’.’’
‘’Gott und Himmel! We hit a battleship and a fleet carrier! Let’s make sure that they get to the bottom. Leutnant Spielberger, light up our infrared external projectors and check if you can then see our targets from our forward observation dome.’’
‘’I’m on it, Herr Kapitän!’’
The young lieutenant scrambled up the ladder leading up to the forward observation dome and reported less than a minute later via intercom, excitement in his voice.
‘’I can see clearly the hull bottom sections of the enemy ships through my infrared scope, Herr Kapitän. One large ship, possibly a cruiser, has left the central column in order to avoid the carrier and is going to pass by us, close to our stern.’’
‘’Excellent! He will be our next target. Herr Wittgenstein, how are we doing with the reloading of our tubes?’’
‘’We will need another four minutes before our first four bow tubes are reloaded, plus another twelve minutes until all tubes are reloaded, Herr Kapitän.’’
‘’Well, it will have to do. Reserve those four first bow tubes for that cruiser. Sonar, what do you hear on your hy