Chapter 265

Under the quiet water, a few fish are leisurely swimming, suddenly they seem to be frightened by something, and suddenly they scattered like lightning. After about a few seconds, a huge shadow appeared slowly and quietly, like a vicious white shark with a dangerous smell.

Compared with those pilots in the air force, the life of submarine soldiers is a completely different world. The pilot performs the mission for up to a few hours, and then they can relax. The submarine officers and soldiers need to face any situation alone for more than a month.

Maybe after reading the description of learning to be a submarine commander, you will especially yearn to be a ruthless submarine commander hiding in the dark deep sea, but if you really understand this job, you will never associate it with romance and cool. Waiting for you only suffocating waiting, as well as the cold water and loneliness and claustrophobia.

For a whole month, the only thing that accompanied every soldier on the submarine was the roar of machinery and the terrible small space. If you really miss life in the submarine, you can live three consecutive days without flushing the toilet in your own toilet.

There are two bathrooms on the submarine, one in the front torpedo cabin and the other in the rear torpedo cabin. The bathroom in the front torpedo cabin is often used as a storage room full of food when the submarine sets out for a mission. So the whole submarine usually needs to line up to go to the toilet.

However, due to technical reasons, the toilet can not be used when the submarine is cruising in the deep sea below 80 feet. Therefore, if the people inside want to go to the toilet, they can only use a bucket with a lid to solve the problem - this method has been used by the Chinese people in the Qing Dynasty. If it is not pungent, it is not bad.

There are two torpedo tubes in the rear torpedo room of the submarine, but this is really an important rest area and dormitory for submarine officers and soldiers. Except for an auxiliary steering wheel, which is used to operate the submarine manually when the steering wheel in the control room fails, the rest of the place is basically for people to sleep.

But even so, with a few layers of bunks, only 10 people could sleep in the end - two of them on hammocks tied to the ceiling. These positions don't belong to one soldier, but two people share a bed, which means that half of the people on the submarine can't rest.

In fact, living in such a small space is a very frustrating thing. In fact, most of the time, the sailors are standing on the floor, because when the submarine is sailing in the rough North Atlantic, it will shake around wildly. Unless you tie yourself to the bed, you will wake up and find yourself sleeping in the same bed as your comrades in arms in the opposite bed.

In the moonlight, the German u-211 submarine slowly reached its target. The young submarine commander carefully checked the marks on his route with his periscope. His submarine is advancing quietly. Because of nervousness, he seemed to be able to feel the sweat in his palm soaking the grip of the periscope.

The young submarine commander was Gunther, then 29? Prion. Prien was one of the first submarine commanders to serve in Germany. Up to now, he is a captain with nine years of combat experience. Prion joined the German Navy in 1929 and participated in the Spanish Civil War. Donitz was impressed by his calmness and tact.

In Donitz's personal evaluation, he recorded his special affirmation of prien: "he is the most suitable commander I can find, and his age is the oldest of all the commanders in my hands, which enables him to keep a clear mind to analyze problems. His stability and experience are just what I need. It seems to me that he has all the personal qualities and professional skills needed to carry out the task, and he can't be more suitable. "

So on December 26, 1937, dennitz gave prion 48 hours to study and make a decision on his secret combat plan. That night, prion took the battle plan home and studied it carefully into the night. The next day, he decided to accept the combat mission because he was fully confident that he would successfully complete it. The date of the attack was set for the night of January 3 or 4, because current scholars believe that the current at this time is relatively flat compared with other times.

Who knows why he took the task at that time? Maybe he wanted to become a hero or look forward to promotion. Anyway, he agreed, and came to this ghost place. The silence and boredom reminded him of the time when he went out to sea. He remembered the day when the snow was floating and the sky was foggy.

On December 28, 1937, u-211 left port Kiel with torpedoes and sailed along a carefully planned route to the North Sea via Port William, where it changed course to the South and dived to avoid being found by surface vessels. The combat mission was codenamed "P", and the route was formulated in a highly confidential way, which was then dictated to akkado, the head of the Empire, by Donitz himself. When the submarine left the port, there was not even any sea going ceremony on the dock.

The u-211 entered the North Sea along the Danish peninsula. On the way, because of the need to keep the mission secret, prien held his mouth and never disclosed anything about the combat mission to the crew. Most of the time during the voyage, submarines are underwater, only occasionally surfaced in the daytime. As they knew nothing about the task they were going to perform, the sailors often looked at Prynne suspiciously, but they didn't say a word. There is no doubt that they have full confidence in prion.

The u-211 submarine is an old-fashioned German submarine with a displacement of 950 tons. The unique design of saddle shaped water tank in the middle of the hull of the submarine enables the submarine to reach a range of 8700 miles, which is enough to sail to Britain and even the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The speed of the boat is 16 knots on the surface, 7 knots underwater, and the maximum diving depth is 100 meters. The bow of the boat is equipped with four 21 inch torpedo launching tubes, and the stern of the boat is equipped with one. 88 mm deck gun is installed in front of the deck and 20 mm anti-aircraft gun is installed behind the command tower enclosure. As for why to choose such a submarine which is not the main force to carry out the combat mission, Donitz has his own careful consideration. At this moment, the tonnage of German submarines has generally exceeded 1000 tons, which is not suitable for sneaking into military ports. So in order to ensure that the mission can be completed, Donitz found the u-211 submarine that he had despised. It was getting dark. At night, u-211, which had been sailing underwater for almost a whole day by sonar and blind estimation, came out of the sea and began to revise its course. The sailors came out of the submarine in turn for a brief air release. At this time, the weather was completely different from when they went out to sea. There was no heavy snow on the sea, but the thick clouds made the stars disappear. It was very difficult to distinguish the course and direction“ What the hell is this weather Looking up at the sky, prion whispered with his cigarette in his mouth. This is the last time he surfaced in this mission, and the rest of the voyage will be completed under dangerous water. The voyage for several days has made his face full of beard. The precious fresh water at sea can't be used to do such boring things as shaving. His navy uniform was full of oil stains that could not be cleaned, and the golden rank stripes on his cuffs had been darkened. In any case, his image has nothing to do with the elegant romance of the naval ship commander. A few days of diving made prion more like a plumber“ Sir! We don't know where we're going yet! But judging by the course, we are getting closer and closer to the British mainland. " His first mate, with a telescope around his neck, leaned against an armrest around the hatch of the command tower and spoke in a strong nasal voice“ yes! We're going to Britain! Yes? Are you afraid? " Prion, with his telescope, looked to one side of the coast. Based on the lights from the coast, prion was sure he was not far from Orkney. In fact, they did arrive less than a mile from Orkney county. Eight nautical miles. Prion's estimation is quite accurate, and his superb sailing experience in front of Donitz is beyond doubt“ What are you afraid of? We are the best The chief officer replied with a smile: "the harder the task is, the easier it is to be promoted and raised. Captain, I know the task is very difficult, otherwise you would not say nothing all the way. So I know that our days of fame are not far away. "“ forget it! If you can go back alive, that's all Prion was amused by the chief mate's words: "I just want to help the head of state accomplish this almost impossible task."“ When the time comes, we will know the task naturally. " The chief officer looked at the distant sea and said, "no matter what task it is, we will complete it." Several crew members are fighting on the submarine deck, which is their most rare leisure time. Although they still can't see the sky, they can see the sea in the distance, which is happier than those brothers on duty in the submarine. Even at night, the North Atlantic is still not calm, the submarine sways with the waves, salty water splashes to the mouth, with a smell of fishy smell. After all, this is a warship with only a few hundred tons. It can't have the airworthiness of a surface warship with thousands of tons. At least at this stage, the submarine is just a diving ship, not a potential underwater ship. After a while, a sonar crew member climbed up the command tower and asked Prynne, "brothers are betting, want to know if we're going to visit Orkney county?" Prion sighed, threw his cigarette butt to the sea, and answered, "don't guess. It's not a leak now. Our target is Scarpa Bay.".