The Adventures of the U-202: An Actual NarrativeSpiegel, E. (Edgar), Freiherr von
History
The Adventures of the U-202: An Actual Narrative
Spiegel, E. (Edgar), Freiherr von
World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, German
I put my binoculars to the eye and looked for many seconds for the
light. The officer on guard was right. Besides the white lantern, one
could see a deep, red light. The ship therefore was traveling towards
the left and would cross our course.
A narrow strip of the moon had appeared from out of the sea and was
wrestling with the darkness of the night. The result was not much—the
strip of the moon was too small for that—still it was not so dark as
before.
“Don’t let it come too close to us!” I ordered. “And get clear in right
time. We must not under any circumstances be seen by it, because then
they would soon know in England from which direction to expect us. Now
nearly every steamer has a wireless.”
Gröning changed the course to port until he had the steamer completely
to the left.
“Too bad, we can’t take it with us,” he said.
“No, you know, for a night attack this is not the right place. Here so
many neutral steamers travel, and an error can easily be made.”
It was shortly after ten o’clock. At eleven-twenty, twelve forty,
one-ten, three-fifteen, and five o’clock I again heard the whistling
“Whee-e!” in the speaking-tube by my bunk. Each time I had to jump out
of some dream, realize within a fraction of a second that my presence
was desired up-stairs, grab my cap and gloves, and rush through the
boat’s long body up to the tower, not without several times bumping into
the aforementioned and often damned electric lamp.
After five o’clock in the morning I remained on deck, because dawn would
soon break with its treacherous light. The commander’s post is in the
tower at such a time because, just as easily as one perceives in the
pale gray light a ship, one is also visible from the steamer, which
could cause many unpleasant surprises if the two ships are not very
cordial towards each other—especially disagreeable to us because a
submarine is, as our name indicates, below the water, and the smallest
fragment of a shell can badly damage our heel of Achilles, the diving
machinery, so that we would be unable again to get into a position of
safety beneath the surface.
Shortly before six o’clock I had the entire crew at the diving stations.
Each took his place, ready at a given command to open or shut the valve,
crank, or bolt of which he had charge. Only the cook had no special duty
besides his own. He remained with the electric cooking apparatus
provided in the galley and had no other job besides taking care of our
bodily comfort. Now he was, in conformity with his duty, busy making
coffee as was proper at that time of day.
A fine, strong smell of coffee percolated through the whole ship, which
proved to be a great stimulant to our taut nerves and our empty
stomachs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account