A SOMERSAULT IN THE NORTH SEA
That night, during the darkest hours between eleven and one o'clock, I
had decided to travel submerged with the electric engines.
When we submerged in the twilight of the long summer night there had
been very little wind, but there was a heavy swell--a sure sign that
the wind would rise to a storm within a few hours. Towards two o'clock
I gave the order to rise to the surface, and soon noticed from the
increasingly wild movements of the boat that the storm had arisen, and
that a rougher sea must have set in with it.
At times we made regular springs, but continued steadily blowing out
from our tanks and came to the surface in good order.
From the lower end of the periscope I tried to get my bearings. It
was, however, almost impossible to see anything, as the periscope was
continually enveloped by the heavy breakers, the dim light causing the
huge waves to assume monstrous and uncanny proportions.
Now we had risen entirely to the surface, and I climbed into the
conning-tower to get a proper outlook over the wildly dancing sea. It
had become pleasant weather indeed! In the pale dim light was visible
a seething witch's cauldron of tossing, mountainous waves crowned with
foam, from which the wind tore away the spray and hurtled it through the
air. The boat struggled heavily against it and made little headway. The
entire deck was, of course, flooded, and every moment the sea dashed up
over the conning-tower and fell over me in showers of spray. I clung
on to the parapet of the "bath-tank" and scanned the horizon--a strange
outlook, one continually shifting scene of mountainous rollers.
I was just about to give the order to start the oil engines working
when--what is that over there?
That dark streak yonder--surely it is a line of smoke?...
Then the back of a wave blots it out for a moment from the pale grey
sky....
I wait, staring through the glass till my eyes ache....
There it is again, a dark line of smoke ... and there, there: a
masthead, thin as a needle, yet I can see it through my glasses; and
now ... my eyes are boring their way through the glasses ... that black
thing over there just visible in the valley of the waves ... the smoke
above it, four low funnels....
Good heavens! it is a destroyer!...
With one bound I spring into the conning-tower, close the hatch:
"Alarm!"
"Submerge quickly!"...
"Flood the tanks!"
"Diving rudder; eleven fathoms down."
The commands follow each other in rapid succession. But to carry them
out is a different matter!
To submerge head on to this sea will be from all experience sheer
madness....
But what am I to do?
The destroyer may have seen us already....
Down we must go, and as quickly as possible.
Below me, in the control-room, the crew are working in speechless haste.
The emergency air valves are opened, the compressed air hisses out of
the tanks--the submersion valves sing in all their scales....
I stand with compressed lips, looking through the tower window over the
tossing sea around me, waiting for the first sign of sinking....
But still I can see our deck, still the waves toss us up high into the
air.... We have no more time to lose.
I order more play to diving rudders, and give the command, "Both engines
full speed ahead!"
The whole boat trembles and sways under the increased engine power, and
gives a couple of springs; she staggers and reels. Is she never going
to sink?... Then with a jerk she dips suddenly under by the bow and
disappears rapidly at an ever-increasing angle beneath the waves.
The daylight which is just dawning in at the conning-tower window
disappears, the depth gauge shows in rapid succession one--one and a
half--three--five fathoms.... But still the angle of the boat increases.
We stagger, lean backwards, slip over, losing all grip on the floor
which is sinking forward ... I am still just able to hold on to the
eye-piece of the periscope ... and down below in the control-room the
men are holding fast on to the hand-wheels of the diving rudders....
This lasts for several terrible moments.
We are still wondering what on earth has happened, when suddenly there
comes a heavy blow; we are thrown to the ground in all directions, and
everything that is not nailed securely down is hurled around us.
We find ourselves in the strangest positions, look at each other, and
for a moment a deadly silence prevails. Then the first officer, Krapohl,
observes dryly: "Well, we've got there, anyway."
This broke the horrible tension.
We had all grown pretty pale, and now we began to try and face the
situation.
What had happened?
Why this unnatural angle of the boat? And why were the engines pounding
so madly above us that the whole boat quivered and shook?
Before any of us had time to think, however, our little Klees, the
steering engineer, had sprung from his cowering position, and quick as
lightning had pulled the telegraph round to "Stop."
As suddenly a deep silence followed.
Slowly we collected our various limbs together and considered: what had
happened?
The boat was standing on her head, so to speak, with her fore-part
sloping downwards at an angle of thirty-six; her bow must be touching
ground while the stern was obediently oscillating in the air above
water; the gauge meanwhile showed a depth of about eight fathoms.
I took a rapid stock of our situation; it was far from pleasant.
According to the map there should be here a depth of about seventeen
and a half fathoms; judging from the almost upright position of our long
boat our stern must be projecting a considerable way above water, making
thereby an admirable target for enemy destroyers. As long as the engines
continued working it followed that as the waves passed over us the
propeller lashing partly in the air was increasing our power of
attraction by causing fountains of leaping water and foaming whirlpools.
This Klees had realised through the mad pounding of the engines, and by
his presence of mind had removed the greatest danger.
All the same we had marked our resting-place with the strangest of
buoys, and expected every moment to hear bombs crashing through the stem
of our boat as it hung high in the air above us....
Moments of extreme tension followed....
But all was still. The screws could no longer betray us, and it was
probably still too dark above for them to be noticeable. The destroyer,
moreover, had no doubt enough to do in looking after herself in this
rough sea.
It will be understood, however, that we were particularly anxious to get
out of this absurd position as quickly as possible.
As the boat was still quite intact and had sustained the fearful shock
without the least damage, the rest of the programme was easy enough to
carry out.
The stern tanks which were not quite freed of air were quickly flooded,
and so gradually the boat attained a slightly more normal position.
Nevertheless, she still lay far from the horizontal. She had stuck her
nose too fast in the mud for that!
By this time, however, we were at least entirely under water, and could
finish the rest of our work in peace. Part of the water was forced out
from the fore ballast tanks, and for the rest we continued trimming the
boat with the tanks until the bow became loosened from the ground. Now
we began to rise, and were immediately obliged to check her in order
to counteract the immediate pendulum-like tendency of the over-weighted
stern to descend.
After some time, however, the balance was readjusted and the
"Deutschland" was firmly in hand again.
And now we had to consider what could have been the cause of this sudden
blunder on the part of our otherwise gallant boat.
A great many circumstances must have combined to produce it. Apart from
the fact that it is only possible in rare cases to submerge a heavy boat
in a rough sea, it is conceivable that owing to the haste enforced on us
by the destroyer the tanks had not been quite pumped out.
The chief reason, however, appeared to be the sudden dynamic working of
the diving rudders; this, in combination with full engine power and
the downward pressure of a particularly heavy sea, forced the fateful
gradient too suddenly. We found ourselves in the position of a dirigible
which steers too low before landing, and through a sudden downward
current of air is flattened and crushed to the ground by the double
weight.
Fortunately for us, the wonderful material of our steel body stood the
heavy blow undamaged. Only the bottom of the North Sea may have suffered
a little indentation at Latitude X° N. and Longitude Y° E.
One thing more strikes me as worth mentioning in connection with this
event.
When I look back in retrospect on my thoughts as we dived at full speed
through the deeps at an angle of 36 degrees, I must confess my first
thought was for the cargo! Was the cargo safely stored? Could it
possibly shoot overboard?
The thought came quite instinctively, strange though it seemed to me
afterwards.
I could not shake myself free of the old Adam as captain of a heavy
steamer, even on board a U-Boat.