north seas

You couldn’t hear any one speak over the sound in the engine room located in the bowels of the ship. Enormous shafts connected to the propellers drove the ship through the water as men shoveled coal into huge furnaces that heated the boilers. Gages on main steam lines gave pressure readings, and oil ports were located at the bearing and all moving parts.
The temperature was never under a hundred degrees, so the men wore no shirts, yet dripped with sweat.
Above on the bridge the captain scanned the ice encrusted windows for any sign of German U-boats.
He gave the order for sailors to start chipping the ice from the super structure so she would not become top heavy. Gale force winds buffeted the men and they were constantly sprayed by freezing north Atlantic waters.
The captain knew that many ships had been attacked by subs, even in such weather. As if to confirm the captains concern, the starboard lookout yelled, “boat low in the water at 60 degrees; five hundred yards.” Bells rang out as the captain called for full power and turned the boat hard to port. Then the dreaded call came; torpedoes in the water.
On the U-boat the men endured even worse conditions. There was no enclosed bridge. The captain and two lookouts had seen the ship well before launching torpedoes. But they had to see what type ship lay ahead so they could set the torpedo depths to strike well below the water line, yet not miss below the hull.

The conditions were so bad that during one rouge wave all three men on the bridge were swept away. The relief watch had come up to find no one there.
The captain of the U-boat and all the sailors waited for the call from below; “Two torpedoes running sound and true.”
They waited with anticipation for the sound of an explosion signifying a hit. The first torpedo passed by the stern and porpoised out of the water, undoubtedly caused by heavy waves, but the second struck amide ship with a great explosion that threw men to the deck. The engine room began to flood almost faster that the men could scramble up the ladders.
Immediately the radio operator began to put out a distress signal, but could not find a ship closer than seventy five miles. He relayed the news to the bridge: the captain knew that in these heavy seas they would all be dead by the time the ship arrived, she was already going down by the bow and listing. A man could sometimes die in minutes in these frigid waters.
Then a strange thing happened, the U-boat approached and began to throw out lines to the ship. They were going to bring the men aboard! The captain said, “There is a God in Heaven.” All these young men would live to see their mothers, wives and children.
The submariners packed the sailors in every part of the ship. Luckily the boat was bound for home port, so there was some extra space where food was stored, and they had fired their last two torpedoes, so there was some room there. Even then it was packed tight as a sardine can.
Soon the rescue ship arrived and they made radio contact so the other captain knew what had transpired.
As the captain was the last man to depart, the two captains shook hands and the sunken ships captain said; may you find grace in the eyes of the God I believe in, and to whom I pray every day for safety in these troubled waters.