The Diary of a U-boat Commander | Page 5

Wilhelmshaven--curse it!
Yesterday morning, when about to start on a tour of the ammunition supply arrangements, I received an urgent wire recalling me at once!
There was nothing for it but to obey.
I was lucky enough to get a passage as far as Mons in an albatross scout which was taking dispatches to that place.
From there I managed to bluff a motor car out of the town commandant--a most obliging fellow. This took me to Aachen where I got an express.
The reason for my recall was that Witneisser went sick and Arnheim being away, this has left only two in the operations ciphering department.
My arrival has made us three. It is pretty strenuous work and, being of a clerical nature, suits me little. The only consolation is that many of the messages are most interesting. I was looking through the back files the other day and amongst other interesting information I came across the wireless report from the boat that had sunk the Lusitania.
It has always been a mystery to me why we sank her, as I do not believe those things pay.
* * * * *
Arnheim has come back, so I have got out of the ciphering department, to my great delight.
I have received official information that my application for U-boats has been received. Meanwhile all there is to do is to sit at this ---- hole and wait.

2nd June, 1916.
I have fought in the greatest sea battle of the ages; it has been a wonderful and terrible experience.
All the details of the battle will be history, but I feel that I must place on record my personal experiences.
We have not escaped without marks, and the good old K?nig brought 67 dead and 125 wounded into port as the price of the victory off Skajerack, but of the English there are thousands who slept their last sleep in the wrecked hulls of the battle cruisers which will rust for eternal ages upon the Jutland banks.
Sad as our losses are--and the gallant Lutzow has sunk in sight of home--I am filled with pride.
We have met that great armada the British Fleet, we have struck them with a hammer blow and we have returned. I was asleep in my cabin when the news came that Hipper was coming south with the British battle cruisers on his beam. In five minutes we were at our action stations. We made contact with Hipper at 5.30 p.m., [1] and Beatty turned north with his cruisers and fast battleships and we pursued.
[Footnote 1: This is 4.30 G.M.T.--Etienne]
Two of the great ships had been sunk by our battle cruisers, and we had hopes of destroying the remainder, when at 6.55 the mist on the northern horizon was pierced by the formidable line of the British Battle Fleet.
Jellicoe had arrived!
Three battle cruisers became involved between the lines, and in an instant one was blown up, and another crawled west in a sinking condition. Sudden and terrible are events in a modern sea-battle.
Confronted with the concentrated force of Britain's Battle Fleet we turned to east, and for twenty minutes our High Seas Fleet sustained the unequal contest.
It was during this period that we were hit seventeen times by heavy shell, though, in my position in the after torpedo control tower, I only realized one hit had taken place, which was when a shell plunged into the after turret and, blowing the roof off, killed every member of the turret's crew.
From my position, when the smoke and dust had blown away, I looked down into a mass of twisted machinery, amongst which I seemed to detect the charred remains of bodies.
At about 7.40 we turned, under cover of our smoke screen, and steered south-west.
Our position was not satisfactory, as the last information of the enemy reported them as turning to the southward; consequently they were between us and Heligoland.
At 11 p.m. we received a signal for divisions of battle fleets to steer independently for the Horn Reef swept channel.
Ten minutes later we underwent the first of five destroyer attacks.
The British destroyers, searching wide in the night, had located us, and with desperate gallantry pressed home the attack again and again. So close did they come that about 1.30 a.m. we rammed one, passing through her like a knife through a cheese.
It was a wonderful spectacle to see those sinister craft, rushing madly to their destruction down the bright beam of our powerful searchlights. It was an avenue of death for them, but to the credit of their Service it must stand that throughout the long nightmare they did not hesitate.
The surrounding darkness seemed to vomit forth flotilla after flotilla of these cavalry of the sea.
And they struck us once, a torpedo right forward, which will keep us in dock for a month, but did no vital injury.
When morning dawned, misty and