Chapter 33 Reflection

  Two hours had passed since the previous commotion, and Zhang Haino, leaning against the submarine's cabin wall, felt a sense of physical exhaustion, as if his close-fitting clothes were also drenched in sweat.

  Why is it like this? Did I make a mistake?

  Zhang Hainuo's mind kept repeating the question, He Xun was able to sink a large number of enemy ships with ease, but he himself almost lost his life on his first try!

  Edwin came from the direction of the torpedo room at the bow of the boat, he didn't speak but sat down beside Zhang Hainuo and leaned against the hard cabin wall shoulder to shoulder with him.

  "Do you think I'm a qualified submarine commander?" Zhang Haino asked somewhat dejectedly.

  "Of course, you saved this submarine at its most critical moment, saving the lives of all of us!" Edwin replied firmly to him.

  "It was also me who led you into this crisis! If I wasn't so arrogant, maybe we could have avoided the British attack like they did!" The "they" Zhang Haino referred to were the commanders of U-89 and U-145. Given the situation earlier, their decision to evade was entirely justified, as submarines were not technically superior when facing enemy destroyers head-on, let alone in a one-to-many situation!

  As for Zhang Hainuo's self-blame, Edwin did not directly comment on it but instead asked him:

  "Haino, do you think the Battle of Dogger Bank was a mistake?"

  "Dogger Bank Battle?" Zhang Hainuo raised his head, it was a medium-sized naval battle that took place before the Battle of Jutland, the two sides were the British cruiser fleet commanded by Beatty and the German cruiser fleet commanded by Hipper, the battlefield was in Heligoland Bay, very close to the German mainland. The process was somewhat tortuous, and the final result was a British victory, but the Germans did not completely fail, they at least preserved most of their participating ships under the circumstances of inferior strength.

  "Maybe you've forgotten, but our instructor once told us that sometimes the occurrence of a battle is beyond your control, however, you can change the outcome through your efforts! What you had me do earlier sounded like nonsense, but I trusted you, Haino! So I did it, and succeeded!"

  After a long time, Zhang Hainuo nodded and looked at Edwin:

  "Yes! We succeeded! We weren't sunk by those British destroyers and their mighty weapons, that's already a good result!"

  Edwin's face broke into a calm smile.

  Zhang Hainuo looked at the others in the command cabin, including First Mate Simon, Communications Officer Storm, Gunnery Officer Hackett, Operations Staff Officer Cook and a few others, who also showed relaxed expressions.

  This scene swept away the heaviness in Zhang Hainuo's heart, he stood up and said loudly:

  "Alright, mates! The worst is over. Now let's check out the damage to the submarine and then surface!"

  Although the previous battle was completely one-sided, what made Zhang Haino feel fortunate was that the crew members were at most only slightly injured due to the intense shaking, and no one was seriously hurt or killed in action. If nothing unexpected happened, the damage to the submarine itself should not be too great either.

  Before long, all compartments reported everything normal, even the engine room which had previously experienced pipe leakage completely eliminated mechanical failures, which greatly boosted the morale of the crew.

  "Rise to periscope depth!" Zhang Hainuo's emotions also rose a lot.

  After raising the periscope, Zhang Hainuo found that there was no sign of enemy ships on the surface, but he still kept a watchful eye. First, he let the submarine float up to half-submerged state, with only the conning tower exposed above the water and most of the hull still submerged. Then, carrying binoculars, he went up to the conning tower for observation, and after confirming that the British seaplane had also flown away, he finally gave the order to surface the submarine.

  The two diesel engines on the boat restarted quickly, and the sound was even more beautiful than the celestial music in Zhang Hainuo's ears. The crew members also crawled out of the cabin to breathe in the fresh air on the sea surface, and some people simply lay down on the deck with their bellies exposed to the sun.

  At this moment, everyone is sighing "it's great to be alive"!

  Indeed, thinking of the previous close call with the destroyer, Zhang Haino's heart was still a bit fearful. At this time, he couldn't help but wonder what those powerful explosives were - sea mines or depth charges? The U-171 had almost been shaken apart, yet its hull hadn't suffered any direct damage. All of this seemed to be vastly different from his impression of anti-submarine warfare.

  "Storm!" Zhang Hainuo once again called out to the communication soldier on the boat.

  "Send a coded telegram to the submarine command in Wilhelmshaven, telling them that we were attacked by British warships two hours ago in the northern North Sea. The British used a very powerful underwater bomb and were able to track our boat's position with considerable accuracy. Our boat dived to 40 meters depth but was still unable to shake off the pursuit, and only managed to escape through cunning! Ask them if they have any intelligence on this British weapon, and request that they warn other submarines navigating in the North Sea to be careful of British aircraft and those British light cruisers!"

  Zhang Hainuo said a lot in one breath, but he was still worried that if the submarine command did not take this report seriously, other German submarines might not be able to escape British attacks when they encountered similar situations!

  More than an hour after the encrypted telegram was sent, U-171 received a reply from Wilhelmshaven with a laconic and encouraging response that confirmed Zhang Hainuo's worries - the command had indeed taken his report as an exaggeration of the battle by a novice commander. As for whether the British had any new weapons, there was no mention in the telegram.

  This time, Zhang Hainuo really lost his temper.

  After all this commotion, night fell quickly, and visibility on the surface of the sea became extremely limited. The outline of the submarine, close to the surface and completely black, obviously had an advantage in concealment over ordinary warships. Therefore, U-171, commanded by Zhang Haino, continued to sail on the surface, and navigator Peter Strasser carefully calculated that U-171 would pass through the British warning line at the exit of the North Sea in 6 hours.

  Based on past experience, 2 o'clock in the morning was when the British guards were relatively more lax.

  There was Simon on the command tower observing, Zhang Hainuo could finally calm down to have a late dinner, but while eating, his mind was still filled with the questions he thought of during the day. Summing up, there were mainly two: one was how the British managed to accurately track U-171 when it dived underwater, and the other was what kind of weapon that explosive device was that made such a huge noise but had little destructive power.

  Historically, the British invented passive sonar in 1906, but as Zhang Haino knew, that sonar was initially used to detect underwater icebergs rather than submarines. At the beginning of World War I, most British warships were not equipped with specialized equipment for detecting underwater submarines, and it wasn't until later in the war that various immature underwater listening devices, such as hydrophones and primitive sonars, were developed and installed. As for how far the British sonar technology had developed by 1917, he was at a loss!