From U-Boat to Pulpit

Excerpt:

III. To the Salonica Front

 

At last those eight days come to an end—we are off to-night! That is, if the mine pump does not let us down! It keeps ' packing up' and neither the coaxing of laymen nor the expert attention of the engineer officer, has any effect on it. From 8 p.m. we stand by ' booted and spurred,' i.e., in leather jackets and gauntlets, ready to cast off and get under weigh. Nine and ten o'clock passes and the engineer officer keeps bobbing up out of the engine-room hatchway, with tousled hair, his frowning countenance liberally splashed with oil and a fid of cotton waste in his hand. " Another half-hour! " A second and third passes. Patience!—how does that beautiful and all too true verse run, " Half of his life ..."

We join our friends of UC20 for a little while in the wardroom of S.M.S. Gaea over a bottle of beer and give vent to our annoyance at the delay. Midnight! Thank goodness! At 1 a.m. Francksen reports the pump in working order and off we go! " All clear! " One more handshake and a dash down the gangway! " Cast off! "—" Bear out, forrard! "— " Slow ahead both! " From the Gaea someone calls out " May you break your mast and ensign staff! Good luck and good hunting! " U73 slowly creeps away into the night.

We can just make out the wake of the Austrian torpedo boat which is piloting us through the minefields, and an hour later we are all clear, off Punta d'Ostro. " Full speed ahead both! " The watch below turn in and away we steam southwards to the Straits of Otranto.

A man must have luck, particularly in wartime. The Otranto patrols appear to have gone on leave! Twenty-four hours after leaving Cattaro we are in the open Mediterranean and hold up the first enemy sailing ship. She is a Greek, with no hostile intent, so we let her run and feel sure she must feel bucked at being allowed to do so!

We were after bigger game than Greek three-masted schooners, as our objective was the laying of mines in the Gulf of Salonica and in the Aegean generally, which it was intended to render unsafe for enemy shipping.

A couple of days later, we pass through the Straits of Karpathos, east of Crete, into the Aegean, and enter classical waters. We do not feel too happy over it, steaming into a stiff nor'-wester, with a pale yellow evening sky, which makes the strange silhouettes of the South Aegean islands appear dark and menacing.

Sure enough! Report to captain: " Mine pump is short-circuited. Defect cannot be made good by ship's staff! " Now we are in the soup! Half the voyage completed and to turn back with nothing done ? But the engineer officer has an idea: " What about a drop of compressed air! " We can but try it and—it works! It makes a bit of noise and is mighty slow, but still . . . On we go then!

 

We steam nor'-nor'-west for two days, frequently diving to avoid patrolling destroyers, in the region of the Gulf of Salonica. At dawn on the 31st July we pass through the channel between Pelagos and Antipelagos and at 4.30 p.m. we surface in the Gulf of Salonica for—as usual in those days —half an hour in order to get the boat ventilated. In view of the great visibility and the proximity of the land, we always keep submerged by daylight.

At 7 p.m. we come up again to find our bearings. Fortune smiles on us! Two steamers are making for Salonica on our course and we contrive to follow in the wake of one of them up to the entrance through the minefield at Apanomi-Huk, although not without trepidation, as our exhaust is distinctly smoky and inclined to throw out showers of most objectionable sparks every few minutes. At midnight we have to dive to avoid being seen by a destroyer, and a quarter of an hour later we are up again and able to take note, in the grey dawn, of the course taken by our steamers, while being led through the minefields by a pilot vessel.

The captain had his operation plans ready by the morning. At 5 a.m. we quietly dive and at 8.30 a.m. we drop the first mine. By ten o'clock, a total of 18 mines are laid off the entrance, without exciting the suspicion of the British destroyer on patrol.

It is true that we have to keep submerged all day long and the atmosphere in the boat gets very thick and foul, the temperature rising to 86° F. and even to 104°  F. in the engine room, so that we have to release oxygen during the afternoon, as the numerous patrol vessels and small craft on the surface put any idea of coming up during daylight hours out of the question.

Towards evening a French airship strikes a fresh note in our scheme of things. It steers a south-easterly course from Salonica to the distantly illuminated Mount Olympus and returns an hour and a half later. When it disappears in the mist over Salonica our hour of release is at hand. " Surface! "

The first breath of fresh air, the open conning-tower hatch and the springing into life of the Diesels, after 15 hours on the bottom, is an experience to be lived through. Everything comes to life and not a soul thinks of sleep. All hands seek a breath of air and a cigarette under shelter of the bridge screen. By this time we have the place to ourselves, so we all get our fill.

The following night finds us off Mount Athos, where a heavy thunderstorm, with pouring rain, brings the visibility down to less than half a cable. Then all is quiet and we make for the Gulf of Orfano, in a flat calm, with a phosphorescent sea. Many white lights shine ahead and the occasional shadow of a darkened ship creeps past us. We stop at dawn and thoroughly air the boat, after which we dive and continue on our course submerged.

Daylight reveals a vivid picture. A large number of ships are anchored in the bay, including a British cruiser, a monitor with a tall tripod mast, a transport and many small craft and lighters. One can see hutments and hangars ashore.

It seems wonderful to have approached within torpedo range in such an oily sea. We only dare to expose the periscope for a few seconds at a time. No. i torpedo tube is ready to fire, as we slowly come to within about two to three cables of the cruiser. " No. i tube, stand by! "—" Up periscope! " —" Stop! "—" No. i tube ... fire! "—" Down periscope! " We turn to starboard and shape a course for the entrance, counting the seconds after firing: 30 ... 31 ... 32 . . . Crash! The explosion! The boat shivers at every frame. A hit! "Up periscope! " There she lies, with a slight list to starboard in a cloud of white steam. Meanwhile, shells are exploding all round. "Down periscope! " We are heavily shelled and go down to 80 feet, while the propellers of our pursuers whirr over us and the utmost confusion prevails among them.

" Stand by to lay mines! " While we steam out of the bay on a south-east course, we quickly drop another little batch of six mines right across our course. Hardly have we done so, when we hear another explosion astern of us. Aeroplanes? We go down to 130 feet and feel a little safer.

" Hello! What's up? " The boat gets visibly heavier and down by the stern. " Start the bilge pump! " What rotten luck! No. 2 tank is leaking, water is trickling steadily into the boat and we have to keep pumping it out. A most unfortunate occurrence, as the water we are pumping out is, of course, oily and forms a conspicuous patch on the surface, making our pursuers' task very much easier!

At 4 p.m. we venture to come up and take a quick look round through the periscope. A destroyer is cheerfully following a cable's length astern of us. We feel distinctly queasy and quickly drop to 100 feet. Whether it is accidental Or otherwise, but at 6 p.m. we have, apparently, shaken off our unwelcome follower and we bob up for a few moments' fresh air, finally surfacing for the night at 8 p.m. Next morning we lay two more mine barrages off Mudros Bay and then, having got rid of all mines, we make for home.

It turned out to be a regular obstacle race. On the following day, in the South Aegean, the thrust bearing of the port propeller shaft fractured and we had to carry on with one engine till the next day, south of Crete, the starboard engine broke down. A cylinder gland had to be repacked in, as usual, the worst possible weather, which made it hard enough for us to keep our feet! We were all completely fed up and upset by the prolonged underwater trip. Added to this came the unpleasant thought that we still had to get through the Straits of Otranto with the half-disabled boat!

We were lucky to get there at all, as, just before dawn on the 9th August, a destroyer suddenly appeared on our starboard quarter and made for us at full speed. Owing to the screening effect of our exhaust smoke, the lookout only spotted her a bare half-mile away. " Action stations! "

Even now I loathe bells that ring like our alarm bell in U73! Whenever it shrilled through the boat, it might well have sounded our last hour. This time our crash dive was particularly successful, but we were scarcely down to 60 feet when our pursuer rushed over us and we clearly heard his propellers overhead, even without putting our ears to the boat's side.

Revenge is sweet! The following evening a small Italian skooner, the Lorenzo Donato, fell athwart our course. She was even slower than our groggy boat and thereby met her fate.

Then we dodged half-a-dozen drifters patrolling the barrage in the Straits of Otranto, diving frequently to do so, taking 12 hours to reach the open Adriatic. We left Cattaro on our starboard beam and steered north straight for Pola. There was plenty to be done in the dockyard—mine pump, No. 2 tank, port propeller shaft, and a host of minor defects.
The general feeling was not one of confidence, but we were heartily congratulated on our arrival. A troop transport had run into our minefield off Salonica; the armed boarding steamer Clacton had been sunk by our torpedo in the Gulf of Orfano; while an old British cruiser and another troop transport had fallen victims to our mines off Mudros.