Thursday, November 10, 2011

The UBXV Has Gone Blind


For two days now the XVer has been cruising and watching along the Italian coast from Barletta to Brindisi. We have wonderful March weather. The sun is already much warmer here and when the Bora does not blow it is quite comfortable. In the morning we dive and go 5-6 miles closer to the coast and then it goes either north or southwards, usually in battle mode. We do not want to be seen by the Italians.

Our most difficult task is "looking out' and constantly observing the coast. The sea-side is watched by another man. Every movement has to be reported but we can leisurely smoke a cigarette while doing it. Once in a while a plane comes around so we quickly disappear under the water. There is little danger that he will see our wake even with the sea being this calm. Sometimes a motorboat darts out, makes a few rounds and vanishes again.

No torpedo boats, no cruisers, South of Monopoli it gets somewhat livelier and near Brindisi we have to run a little further out to sea. In the evening when it gets dark we come up and distance ourselves a bit more from the coast. First we charge the battery and then go back to searching along the coast, cruising above water. It is somewhat busy around Monopoli but only small stuff is running around.

We can see their oil storage tanks clearly through the binoculars and the Second says to the Commander, "If we had a more decent cannon we could help them with the tapping of the oil," and after a pause, "but with this tiny spitter they will only laugh at us." The Commander to that in reply, "This is not our duty. We have been chosen for a higher task." As the Torpedo Master descends he mumbles to himself, "Oh Yea, the old man has been smoking a bad one."

When we get up to Bari we see smoke and soon after two planes, so we dive. The face of the Commander brightens up. Looks like it will be a while before we are ready to attack, something seems to be wrong up there. The Commander is getting more and more restless at the periscope and mentions to the Second, "The devil! I think they noticed us. Two torpedo boats are veering around up there in close proximity...or is it something else? Someone forgot his cap up there and now they fished it out!" A nice mess. The Commander calls down, "Whoever is missing his cap, report it now." Finally Lehar comes around. He puts on his most innocent face and reports, "Commander, Sir! I humbly report that I ...I threw it away before noon because it was too ruined anyway and I did not believe it would float this long." To that suggests the Commander, "Here, look through!" Lehar looks through the periscope but right away jumps aside with the words, "Ich Magaraz!" - "I'm a dumb-ass!" He is all red in the face. The Commander scorns him, "Weren't you just on furlough?" "Yes Sir!" replied Lehar. "Just go back down" advises the annoyed Commander.

Lehar comes down and hits his head hard on the iron ladder that goes up to the tower. It was a hard bump. "Stupid guy" the Torpedo Master chides him. " Do you feel better now with a bump on your head?"

The planes had probably seen the cap and warned the torpedo boats. They fished it out and one of them informed the steamer which promptly turned around and disappeared into Monopoli. "Was there a ribbon (ID) on your cap?" asks the Commander from the tower. "I most obediently report, No!" replies Lehar. With the torpedo boats still searching we turn around and set course for Monopoli.

Now it looks like hell is breaking loose. Planes and motorboats are darting about. The torpedo boats are approaching too. "Because of one Austrian crew cap they don't need to make such a fuss." says the Second after looking through the periscope. "That steamer has been lost for us." the Commander answers.

Now we change course and aim for Brindisi. We surface as the sky had clouded over and it started to rain. Stronger and stronger it pours while a cold North-westerly wind blows in. The next morning we arrived near Brindisi with the rain still coming down in sheets. We catch sight of smoke to the Southeast and because of the poor visibility the smoke suddenly turns out to be a French destroyer. He is coming in our direction and is fast approaching so we dive. The Commander runs the periscope up and down a few times and suddenly cries out, "What is this? I cannot see a thing anymore!" He cleans the lens a few times but it does not help. Through the large panorama lens you could not see anything either. It was all evenly gray.

"Down to 30 meters." the Commander orders. He was beside himself with rage and frustration. He doesn't say anything but we know him too well. When he shoves his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other then we know he is boiling inside. No matter how good a superior he is, when he gets angry, he can be awful.

We steer out to sea. The destroyer had long since passed over us. We surfaced carefully but only high enough to open the hatch and unscrew the outer lens of the periscope. It was a troublesoe task to unscrew the capsule with the fine thread. After we cleaned the lens, we installed a new gasket in the capsule and screwed it back on. We let it dry out and it seemed like the problem had been fixed. But after a half-hour diving it was the same thing again. We had no choice but to head for home to our station.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

These are great stories for a couple of reasons. They are the personal accounts of a very young man's experiences in war time - even in submarine duty almost 100 years ago. And they are HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS that need to be exposed and preserved. When Franz Strobl was writing this, he was doing it for the future generations. I think he understood that as bright as he was.