Chapter 265: Top-Secret Mission

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Beneath the quiet surface of the water, a few fish were swimming leisurely. Suddenly, they seemed to be startled by something and scattered in a flash. About a few dozen seconds later, a huge black shadow appeared, slow and silent, exuding a dangerous aura like a ferocious great white shark.

Compared to the pilots of the air force, the life of a submariner was a completely different world. A pilot’s mission lasted a few hours at most, and then they could relax and rest. But a submarine’s officers and men had to face any situation on their own for more than a month each time they went on a mission.

Perhaps after reading the description of learning to become a submarine commander, you would be particularly keen on becoming a ruthless submarine commander, hidden in the dark depths of the sea. But if you truly understood this job, you would absolutely not associate it with romance or coolness. All that awaits you is a suffocating wait, the cold seawater, and loneliness and claustrophobia.

For a full month, the only things accompanying every soldier on the submarine were the mechanical roar of the machinery and the terrifyingly small spaces. If you really miss the life inside a submarine, you can just live in your own toilet for three consecutive days without flushing it.

There were two lavatories on the submarine, one in the forward torpedo room and one in the aft torpedo room. And often, the one in the forward torpedo room was used as a storage room piled high with food when the submarine set out on a mission. So the entire submarine usually had to queue for the toilet.

But for technical reasons, when the submarine was cruising in the deep sea below 80 feet, the toilets could not be used. Therefore, if the people inside wanted to go to the toilet, they could only use a bucket with a lid to solve the problem—a method the Chinese had used until the Qing Dynasty. If it weren’t for the somewhat pungent smell, it wouldn’t be so bad.

The submarine’s aft torpedo room had two torpedo tubes, but it was indeed an important rest area and dormitory for the submarine’s officers and men. Apart from an auxiliary helm, which was used to manually operate the submarine if the helm in the control room malfunctioned, the rest of the space was basically for people to sleep.

But even with this multi-level bunk bed arrangement, it could ultimately only accommodate ten people sleeping—and two of them had to sleep in hammocks slung from the ceiling. These positions did not belong to a single soldier, but two people shared one bunk, which also meant that half the people on the entire submarine were always unable to rest.

In fact, living in such a small space was a very depressing thing. Most of the time, the sailors were standing on the floor, because when the submarine was sailing on the stormy North Atlantic, it would shake violently from front to back, left to right. Unless you tied yourself to your bunk, you would find yourself sleeping in the same bunk as your comrade from the opposite side when you woke up.

Under the moonlight, the German U-boat U-211 was slowly approaching its target. The young submarine commander was carefully checking the landmarks on his route with his periscope. His submarine was advancing silently. Due to the tension, he could almost feel the sweat in his palms soaking the grips of the periscope.

This young submarine commander was the 29-year-old Günther Prien. Prien was one of the first submarine commanders to serve in Germany and was now a captain with nine years of combat experience. Prien had joined the German Navy in 1929 and had participated in the Spanish Civil War. His composure, calmness, and seasoned steadiness had left a deep impression on Dönitz.

In Dönitz’s personal evaluation, he had recorded a special affirmation of Prien: “He is the most suitable commander I can find. His age is the oldest among all the commanders in my hand, which allows him to maintain a clear mind to analyze problems. His steadiness and experience are exactly what I need. In my opinion, he fully possesses the personal qualities and professional skills required to carry out the mission. He seems to be the most suitable.”

So on December 26, 1937, Dönitz had given Prien 48 hours to study the secret operational plan he had drawn up and to make a decision. That night, Prien had taken the operational plan home and studied it carefully late into the night. The next day, he had decided to accept this combat mission, because he was fully confident of successfully completing it. The date of the attack was set for the night of January 3rd or 4th, because oceanographers believed that the sea currents at this time were relatively calm compared to other times.

God knows why I took this mission at the time, he thought. Maybe it was to seize the chance to become a hero or in hopes of getting a promotion. In any case, he had agreed, and had come to this godforsaken place. The silence and boredom made him recall the situation when they had set out. He still remembered that it had been snowing that day, and the sky had been foggy.

On December 28, 1937, the U-boat U-211, fully loaded with torpedoes, had slowly left the port of Kiel and, following a carefully planned route, had sailed via Wilhelmshaven to the North Sea. There, it had changed course to the south and submerged to avoid being detected by surface ships. This combat mission was codenamed “Operation P.” The route had been planned under conditions of high secrecy and had then been personally dictated by Dönitz to the Führer of the Reich, Akado. When the submarine left port, there had not even been any departure ceremony at the dock.

The U-boat U-211 had entered the North Sea along the Danish peninsula. Along the way, to ensure the secrecy of the mission, Prien had actually kept his mouth shut and had never revealed any of the contents of this combat mission to his crew. For most of the voyage, the submarine had been submerged, only occasionally surfacing during the day. Unaware of the mission they were about to carry out, the crew often looked at Prien with suspicion but said nothing. Undoubtedly, they trusted Prien completely.

The U-boat U-211 was an old-style German ocean-going submarine with a displacement of 950 tons. The unique saddle tank design at the midship of this type of submarine gave it a range of 8,700 miles, which was sufficient for long voyages to Britain and even the central Atlantic. The boat had a surface speed of 16 knots, a submerged speed of 7 knots, and a maximum diving depth of 100 meters. It was equipped with four 21-inch torpedo tubes at the bow and one at the stern. An 88mm deck gun was installed in front of the deck, and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun was installed behind the conning tower fairwater.

As for why such a non-mainstream submarine was chosen to carry out this combat mission, Dönitz had his own careful considerations. At this time, the tonnage of German submarines had generally exceeded 1,000 tons, and this level of ocean-going submarine was not suitable for sneaking into a naval port to carry out a surprise attack. Therefore, to ensure that the mission could be completed, Dönitz had gone through a great deal of trouble to find the U-211, a submarine he had already come to look down on.

The sky gradually darkened. At night, the U-211, which had been sailing submerged for almost a whole day, relying on sonar and dead reckoning, surfaced and began to correct its course. The sailors came out of the submarine one by one to get some fresh air. At this time, the weather was completely different from when they had set out. There was no heavy snow at sea, but the thick clouds made the starlight disappear, making it extremely difficult to distinguish the course and bearing.

“What the hell is this weather!” Prien muttered, looking up at the sky with a cigarette in his mouth. This was the last time he would surface to rest on this mission. The rest of the voyage would have to be completed underwater, in danger.

Several days of sailing had left his face covered with a beard. The precious fresh water at sea could not be used for such a boring thing as shaving. His navy uniform was covered in oil stains and could no longer be cleaned. The golden rank stripes on his cuffs had been stained so much that they had darkened considerably.

In any case, his image had not the slightest connection with the elegant romance of a naval ship commander. Several days of submerged sailing had made Prien look more like a hydraulic pipe worker.

“Sir! We still don’t know where we are going for our mission! But judging by the course, we are getting closer and closer to the British mainland,” his first mate said, his voice thick with a nasal tone, a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck as he leaned against a handrail around the conning tower hatch.

“That’s right! We are going to Britain! What, are you scared?” Prien asked, holding his binoculars and looking at the coast to one side. Based on the lights from the coast, Prien was sure that he was not far from the Orkney Islands. In fact, they had indeed reached a position less than 1.8 nautical miles from the Orkney Islands. Prien’s estimation was quite accurate. The superb navigation experience he had shown in front of Dönitz was beyond doubt.

“Scared of what? We are the best!” the first mate replied with a smile. “The more difficult the mission, the easier it is to get promoted and get a raise. Captain, I know this mission is very difficult, otherwise you wouldn’t have said nothing all this way. So I know that the day we become famous is not far off.”

“Forget it! We’ll only have all that if we can get back alive,” Prien was amused by his first mate’s words. “I was just hot-headed and wanted to help the Führer complete this almost impossible mission.”

“When the time comes, we will naturally know what the mission is,” the first mate said, looking at the sea in the distance. “No matter what the mission is, we will complete it.”

Several crew members were fooling around on the submarine’s deck. This was their most precious leisure time. Although they still couldn’t see the sky, they could see the distant seawater, which was already much better than the brothers who were on duty inside the submarine.

Even at night, the North Atlantic was not calm. The submarine swayed from side to side with the waves, and the salty seawater that splashed onto the corner of his mouth had a fishy smell. After all, this was only a warship of a few hundred tons. It could not have the seaworthiness of a surface warship of thousands upon thousands of tons. At least at this stage, a submarine was just a boat that could dive, not a boat that could stay underwater.

After a while, a crew member in charge of the sonar climbed up to the conning tower and asked Prien, “The brothers are making a bet. They want to know if we are going to visit the Orkney Islands.”

Prien sighed, threw the cigarette butt in his mouth toward the sea, and replied, “Stop guessing. It’s not a breach of secrecy to say it now. Our target is Scapa Flow.”