Building for Battle: U-Boat Pens of the Atlantic Battle by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2018-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

U-BOAT ROUTINE

The life of a U-boat man at sea consisted of two parts—on watch and off watch. The duration of these phases depended on his trade: a technician stood two watches of six hours each, and a seaman three of four hours—from midnight to four o’clock, and so on through the day. Only the cook was excused the watch, and that was with good reason: he had to produce three meals a day for each of the watches, and that important duty, constantly interrupted by the movement of his crew mates through the narrow galley, was enough to keep him busy for every waking hour.

The First and Second Lieutenants, and the navigator or quartermaster (usually a Chief Petty Officer) each stood a watch in turn, accompanied by a Petty Officer and two seamen. The four-hour deck-watch would probably be halved in the very worst of weather, when big seas swept the decks in solid sheets of water, and the rain came at the bridge horizontally, vertically and diagonally. In these conditions no amount of clothing—neither oilskin coats and leather trousers, sou’westers over Balaclava helmets, double pairs of socks inside the sea-boots, nor sweaters with towels wrapped round the neck—could prevent a man from being frozen to the marrow and soaked to the skin within minutes of taking up his post. It was in that sort of weather, aided by a sudden gale, that the entire deck-watch of U-106 was swept away by a monster wave. No one was aware of it until a control room hand had cause to go aloft.

Kriegsmarine lookouts on a routine Atlantic convoy patrol.

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