1/9/1939
Outbreak of hostilites following a punitive German invasion of Poland due to Polish attacks on the border which led to declarations of war against Germany by the United Kingdom and France.
BdU intends to carry out a commerce raiding campaign to isolate the United Kingdom, as such u-boat operations will be focused on the Western Approaches of the British Isles, with long range boats patrolling further afield to the Spanish and West African Coasts. Primary targets are individual merchant ships travelling alone.
Allied aircrews are few and inexperienced and should not pose a major threat against u-boats.
Crews are warned that the new G7e Electric torpedoes are still suffering from a number of teething problems hindering their effectiveness, and these should be used with caution.
Significant number of u-boats already at sea on combat patrols.
Assigned patrol duty on the Western Approaches of the British Isles. To depart within the next 48 hours.
3/9/1939
Depart port at Wilhelmshaven.
5/9/1939
Uneventful outbound passage across North Sea
8/9/1939
Uneventful transit into North Atlantic proper following route between Orkeys and Shetlands
12/9/1939
Arrive in patrol area. Conduct search pattern. No contacts to report
16/9/1939
U-34 reported nighttime contact of a Royal Navy aicraft carrier under escort and made approach to engage.
No further contact received from U-34.
B-Dienst intercepts report that Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Courageous was operating in this area at the time. Radio communication indicates that a u-boat was engaged.
All hands presumed lost.
HMS Courageous spotted, 16 September 1939
Full salvo of four G7a Steam torpedoes
Veteran escort chases U-34 down
Historical Notes
When Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 using the alleged
Gleiwitz incident as a pretext, the Kriegsmarine, and especially the ubootwaffe was not ready for a long maritime war. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz had argued for years that Germany would need hundreds of submarines to strangle Britain. He had fewer than sixty operational boats, and barely two dozen capable of Atlantic patrols.
Many boats were still working up. Crews were incomplete, torpedo issues were numerous and not yet fully understood. Boats already at sea were hurriedly reassigned patrol zones. Others were rushed out before provisions, charts and parts were fully settled.
In spite of the chaos and confusion, the long campaign of the Atlantic had begun.
The
HMS Courageous and her escorts were formed into a hunter-killer group immediately following the outbreak of hostilities. She departed Plymouth on the evening of 3 September 1939 on anti-submarine duties in the Western Approaches, along with four destroyers. On the evening of 17 September 1939, while two of her escorts had been aiding a merchant ship under attack, she was struck by torpedoes from
U-29 (Type VIIA) under
Kapitänleutnant Otto Schuhart. She capsized and sunk in under 20 minutes and took all 519 of her crew with her. Schuhart would receive the Iron Cross, 1st Class for his efforts.
HMS Courages under way in 1935
Commentary
Our war got off to a very inauspicious start. I got close to scrappig this and restarting but the coincidences I saw were far too uncanny. I used a little bit of random number generation to track the amount of days my boat spends in each of the transit and patrol zones and it was just too weird that on 16 September, I encountered the HMS Courageous (1 day before it was sunk historically).
I wish I could say the rest of the encounter was as exciting. I was lucky enough to roll for Night time from the get-go which gives us some advantages in targeting due to also allowing us to approach on the surface, something you can't normally do at daytime (unless engaging unarmed merchantmen).
From there I fired four fore G7a Steam torpedoes. Three of them missed and the fourth hit, detonated and caused three points of damage against Courageous. I rolled very poorly on Escort Detection and Attacks. Natural 12s in both cases. Due to the modifiers of combatting a Capital Ship, the fact that I rolled for a 'Veteran' level escort and the reduced depth of my submarine during evasion due to the Night Surface Attack, it resulted in an instant sinking of our boat.
Given this rather odd coincidence I figured I'll keep this patrol in our series. I'll put together a new (random) crew and boat to continue the war from October 1939.
Cheers!
