Two Hundred and Sixty-Five Confidential Missions

Under the quiet water surface, a few fish were swimming leisurely, suddenly they seemed to be frightened by something, and suddenly scattered and fled like lightning. ..A few tens of seconds later, a huge black shadow appeared slowly and quietly, exuding a dangerous aura like a ferocious white shark.

The life of a submariner is a different world than that of an Air Force pilot. Pilots fly missions for a few hours at most, then they can relax. The submarine officers and soldiers need to face any situation alone for more than a month every time they perform a mission.

Maybe after reading the description of becoming a submarine commander, you will yearn to be a ruthless submarine commander who hides in the dark and deep sea, but if you really understand this job, you will definitely not associate it with romance. Cool to connect. All that awaits you is the suffocating wait, the icy sea, loneliness and claustrophobia.

For a whole month, every soldier on the submarine was accompanied only by the roaring noise of the machinery, and those horrible small spaces. If you really miss the life in the submarine, you can spend days without flushing the toilet in your own toilet.

There are two lavatories on the submarine, one in the forward torpedo compartment and one in the aft torpedo compartment, and the toilet in the forward torpedo compartment is often used as a storage room full of food when the submarine is on mission. Therefore, the entire submarine generally needs to queue up to go to the toilet.

However, due to technical reasons, when the submarine is cruising in the deep sea below 80 feet, the toilet cannot be used. Therefore, if the people inside want to go to the toilet, they can only use a covered bucket to solve the problem-this method is Chinese It has been used until the Qing Dynasty. If it is not a bit pungent, there is nothing wrong with it.

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

But even with such a stack of beds arranged up and down several floors, only 10 people can be arranged to sleep in the end-including two people who have to sleep in hammocks tied to the ceiling. These positions do not belong to a certain soldier, but two people share a bed, which also means that half of the people on the entire submarine cannot always rest.

In fact, it is very frustrating to live in such a small space. In fact, most of the sailors are standing on the floor, because when the submarine sails in the rough North Atlantic sea, it will go crazy back and forth. shaking. Unless you strap yourself to a bunk, you'll wake up to find yourself sleeping in the same bunk as your comrades on the opposite bunk.

Borrowing the moonlight, the German u-211 submarine slowly approached its target. The young submarine commander carefully checked the markers on his line with the periscope. His submarine advanced silently. Because of tension,

He seemed to feel the sweat in his palm soaking the grip of the periscope.

The young submarine commander was Gunther Prien, then 29 years old. Prien was the first submarine commander to serve in Germany, and is now a captain with 9 years of combat experience. Prien joined the German Navy in 1929 and served in the Spanish Civil War. Dönitz was impressed by his poise and sophistication.

In Doenitz'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 among all the commanders in my hands, which makes He can analyze problems with a clear head. His poise and experience are exactly what I need. He has all the personality and professional skills required to carry out the task in my opinion, and he seems to be a perfect fit."

So on December 26, 1937, Doenitz gave Prien 48 hours to study his secret battle plan and make a decision. That night Prien took the battle plan home and studied it carefully until late at night. The next day, he decided to accept the combat mission because he was fully confident of successfully completing it. The date of the attack was set for the night of January 3 or 4 because currents were believed to be calmer than at other times.

The ghost knows why he himself took up this task at that time, maybe he wanted to catch up on becoming a hero or expect to be promoted. Anyway, he agreed and came to this ghost place. The silence and boredom reminded him of the time when he was out at sea. He still remembered that there were snowflakes and the sky was foggy that day.

On December 28, 1937, the u-211 submarine slowly left the port of Kiel with a full load of torpedoes, and sailed to the North Sea along a carefully planned route via Wilhelmshaven, where it diverted to the south and submerged to avoid being discovered by surface ships own position. This combat mission was code-named "p", and the formulation of the route was completed under high-secret circumstances, and then Doenitz personally dictated it to the Imperial Yuan Akado. When the submarine departed from the port, there was not even any launching ceremony on the pier.

Submarine u-211 entered the North Sea along the Danish peninsula. On the way, in order to ensure the secrecy of the mission, Prien actually kept his mouth shut and never revealed anything about the combat mission to the crew. During most of the voyage, the submarine is submerged underwater, only occasionally surfacing during the day. Knowing nothing about the mission they were about to perform, the crew often looked at Prien suspiciously, but said nothing. There was no doubt that they had complete confidence in Prien.

U-211 submarine is an old-fashioned German ocean-going submarine with a displacement of 950 tons. The unique design of the saddle-shaped water tank in the midship of the submarine enables the submarine to have a range of 8,700 miles, which is enough to sail as far as the UK and even the mid-Atlantic. . The surface speed of the boat is 16 knots, the underwater speed is 7 knots, and the maximum submerged depth is 100 meters. The boat is equipped with four 21-inch torpedo tubes and one at the stern. An 88mm deck gun is installed in front of the deck, and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun is installed behind the conning tower enclosure.

As for why such a submarine, which is not the main force, was chosen to carry out combat missions, Dönitz had his own careful consideration. At this moment, the tonnage of German submarines has generally exceeded 1,000 tons. Ocean-going submarines of this level are not suitable for sneaking into military ports for sneak attack operations. So in order to ensure that the mission could be completed, Dönitz found the u-211 submarine that he had already looked down upon.

The sky gradually darkened, and at night, u-211, which had sailed underwater for almost a whole day relying on sonar and blind estimation, surfaced and began to correct its course. The sailors stepped out of the submarine one by one for a short briefing. At this time, the weather was completely different from when they went to sea. There was no heavy snow on the sea, but the dense clouds made the stars invisible, making it difficult to distinguish the course and direction.

"What the hell is this weather!" Looking up at the sky, Prien whispered with a cigarette in his mouth. This is the last time he surfaced to rest during this mission, and the rest of the voyage will be completed in dangerous water.

Several days of voyages had left him with a beard all over his face, and the precious fresh water at sea could not be used for such boring things as shaving. His navy uniform was covered with oil stains that could no longer be cleaned, and the golden rank stripes on the cuffs had been dyed much darker.

In any case, his image has nothing to do with the elegance and romance of a naval ship commander. A few days of submersion made Prien look more like a hydraulic plumber.

"Sir! We don't know where we are going to carry out the mission yet! But judging by the heading, we are getting closer and closer to the mainland of Britain." His first officer had binoculars on his neck, leaning against the hatch around the control tower. On an armrest, he spoke with a strong nasal voice.

"Yes! We are going to the British mainland! What? Are you scared?" Prien looked at the coast on one side with his binoculars. Prien was sure, by the lights on the coast, that he was not far from Orkney. In fact, they did reach a location less than 1.8 nautical miles from Orkney. Prien's estimate is quite accurate, and his superb sailing experience in front of Dönitz is beyond doubt.

"What are you afraid of? We are the best!" The first mate smiled and replied: "The more difficult the task, the easier it is to get promoted and raise the salary. Captain, I know this task is very difficult, otherwise you wouldn't I didn't say anything at first. So I know that our day of becoming famous all over the world is not far away."

"Forget it! If you can go back alive, you will have these things." Prien was amused by the first officer's words: "I just got crazy and wanted to help Yuan complete this almost impossible task."

"When the time comes, we will naturally know about this task." The first officer looked at the distant sea and said, "No matter what the task is, we will complete it."

Several crew members are playing around on the deck of the submarine. This is their rarest leisure time. Although they still couldn't see the sky, they could see the sea in the distance, which was already happier than those brothers who were on duty in the submarine.

Even at night, the North Atlantic Ocean was still not calm. The submarine swayed from side to side with the waves, and the salty sea water splashed to the corner of the mouth with a foul smell. After all, this is a warship with only a few tons, and it cannot have the seaworthiness of a surface warship with tens of thousands of tons. At least at this stage, a submarine is just a diving boat, not a potentially underwater boat.

A moment later, a sonar crew climbed up the conning tower and asked Prien, "Bet you guys, wondering if we're going to visit Orkney?"

Prien sighed, threw the cigarette butt on his mouth into the sea, and replied: "Don't guess, it's not a leak now, our goal is Scapa Flow."

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