Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Commander Hung Up On The Periscope

We have been cruising around the Strait of Otranto for four days already. It is a real game of hide-and-seek. During the night we charge the battery and ventilate, during the day we are in battle mode or stay completely submerged. A few times we prepared for attack but never got to fire. We were too slow. Not much showed up but fishing boats, torpedo boats and sometimes a destroyer but they were too fast for us.

What a heat inside the boat. Even though we sit in our bathing suits we are all dripping with sweat. When the boat is ventilated at night then it is comfortable but after we dive for a few hours it is the same again. We suffer dreadfully from thirst. Everyone has the feeling that he can't open his mouth anymore from all the eating of lemons. When the cook comes around with the water supply everyone tries to obtain a little extra swallow. As a result of the heat even the air is hard to breathe and we all gasp.

The other day a thunder storm comes up. Thank God for some cool relief! When it was still raining at night we all went up on deck. How we enjoyed that shower bath. The air inside the boat improved quickly as well. The next day the weather is nice again but the sea is a little agitated. Suddenly some smoke comes into view.

We run in battle mode. It is still to early to dive. Anyway comes the order "Ready to dive!" We all go to our dive stations and wait for what will come next. There, what's going on? The boat suddenly sinks. The Commander has just enough time to slam the hatch cover closed and the Torpedo-Master, who is the command relay in the tower, quickly bolts it tight. We instantly blow the dive tanks and come up again fast.

But during this unexpected maneuver the Commander, observing the smoke, was not aware of the boat sinking until the water ran into his shoes. After he had nudged the hatch shut he held tightly onto the periscope while the Second, not watching too closely, quickly raised up the periscope. Now the Commander was hanging onto the periscope five meters up in the air!

After we had surfaced again we eagerly searched for the cause of the unwanted dive. It took a while until Drmicek discovered that one of the regulator valves was slightly open. Apparently, when the crewmen jumped to man their dive stations, one of them bumped into the valve and nudged it open a quarter turn without noticing. That was enough to make us sink so unexpectedly.

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