Beneath the quiet water, a few fish were swimming leisurely, and suddenly they seemed to be startled by something, and suddenly they scattered and fled like lightning. After about a few tens of seconds, a huge black shadow appeared slowly and quietly, like a vicious white shark with a dangerous aura.

Compared to those pilots in the Air Force, the life of a submariner is another world entirely. Pilots perform missions for a maximum of a few hours, and then they can relax. And the officers and men of the submarine need to face any situation alone for more than a month every time they carry out a mission.

You may yearn to be a ruthless submarine commander hidden in the dark depths of the sea after reading the description of learning to be a submarine commander, but if you really know the job, you will never associate it with romance and coolness. All that awaits you is suffocating waiting, the cold waters, and loneliness and claustrophobia.

For a whole month, every soldier on the submarine was accompanied by the roar of machinery and the terrible cramped spaces. If you really miss life in a submarine, you can spend three days in your own toilet without flushing the toilet.

There are two lavatories on the submarine, one in the forward torpedo compartment and one in the aft torpedo compartment, and often the lavatory in the front torpedo compartment is used as a storage room full of food when the submarine departs for a mission. So the entire submarine generally needs to queue up to go to the toilet.

But for technical reasons, when the submarine is cruising in the deep sea below 80 feet, the toilet is unusable, so if the people inside want to go to the toilet, they can only use a bucket with a lid to solve the problem - this method was used by the Chinese until the Qing Dynasty, if not the taste is somewhat pungent, in fact, there is nothing bad.

The rear torpedo room of the submarine has two torpedo tubes, but it is indeed an important rest area and dormitory for the officers and men of the submarine. Except for an auxiliary steering wheel, which is used to manually operate the submarine when the steering wheel in the control room fails, the rest of the place is basically for people to sleep.

But even with this arrangement of beds, only 10 people could sleep – two of them in hammocks tied to the ceiling. These positions do not belong to a single soldier, but two people share a bed, which also means that half of the entire submarine is always unable to rest.

It's very frustrating to live in such a small space, and in fact most of the time the sailors are standing on the floor, because the submarine will rock wildly from side to side as it sails through the rough waters of the North Atlantic. Unless you tie yourself to your bed, you wake up to find yourself sleeping in the same bunk as your comrade in the opposite bunk.

By moonlight, the German U-211 was slowly touching its target, and the young submarine commander carefully checked the markers on his route with his periscope. His submarine moved silently. Because of his nervousness, he seemed to feel the sweat in his palms soaking the grip of the periscope.

The young submarine commander was 29-year-old Gonse Prien. Prien was one of the first German submarine commanders to enter service and is now a captain with nine years of combat experience. Prien joined the German Navy in 1929 and fought in the Spanish Civil War. His composure and sophistication impressed Dönitz.

In Dönitz's personal assessment, he recorded a special affirmation of Prien: "He was the most suitable commander I could find, and he was the oldest of all the commanders in my possession, which allowed him to maintain a clear mind and analyze the problem." His poise and experience is exactly what I need. It seemed to me that he had the personal qualities and professional skills required to carry out the task, and it seemed like a perfect fit. ”

So on December 26, 1937, Dönitz gave Prien 48 hours to study and make a decision on the secret battle plan he had drawn up. That night, Prien took the battle plan home and studied it until late at night. The next day, he decided to accept this combat mission, because he was fully confident that it would be successfully completed. The date of the attack was set for the night of January 3 or 4 because current scholars believe that the currents at this time were relatively gentle compared to other times.

The devil knows why he took on this task at the time, maybe he wanted to become a hero or expect to get promoted. Anyway, he agreed, and came to this place of the hell. The silence and boredom reminded him of the time when he went out to sea, and he remembered that it was snowflakes and the sky was foggy.

On 28 December 1937, the U-211 slowly departed the port of Kiel laden with torpedoes, and sailed along a carefully planned route to the North Sea via Wilhelmshaven, where it diverted to the south and submerged to avoid being discovered by surface vessels. The combat mission, codenamed "P", was carried out in the guise of a highly confidential manner, and then dictated by Dönitz himself to the Reich Führer Accardo. When the submarine departed from the port, there was not even any ceremony on the pier.

The submarine U-211 entered the North Sea along the Danish Peninsula. On the way, because he wanted to ensure the secrecy of the mission, Prion actually kept his mouth shut and never revealed anything about the combat mission to the crew. The submarine spent most of the time underwater during the voyage, only occasionally surfacing during the day. Ignorant of the mission they were about to perform, the crew often looked at Prien suspiciously, but said nothing. There is no doubt that they have complete trust in Prien.

The U-211 submarine is an old German ocean-going submarine with a displacement of 950 tons, and the unique design of the hull saddle tank allows the submarine to reach a range of 8,700 miles, which is enough to sail as far as Britain and even the middle of the Atlantic. The boat has a surface speed of 16 knots, 7 knots underwater, a maximum depth of 100 meters, and is equipped with four 21-inch torpedo tubes in the bow and one in the stern. 88-mm deck guns were installed in front of the deck, and 20-mm anti-aircraft guns were installed behind the conning tower enclosure.

As for why such a submarine was chosen to carry out combat missions, Dönitz had his own careful considerations. At this moment, the tonnage of German submarines has generally exceeded 1,000 tons, and ocean-going submarines of this class are not suitable for sneaking into military ports for sneak attack operations. So in order to ensure that the mission could be completed, Dönitz chose to find the U-211 submarine that he himself was already somewhat disdainful.

It was getting dark, and at night, the U-211, which had been underwater for almost a whole day with sonar and blind estimates, surfaced and began to correct its course. The sailors stepped out of the submarine in turn for a short release. The weather was completely different from when they went out to sea, there was no heavy snow on the sea, but the thick clouds made the starlight disappear, and it was extremely difficult to discern the course and bearing.

"What the hell is this weather!" Prien muttered as he looked up at the sky with a cigarette in his mouth. It was the last time he surfaced on this mission to rest, and the rest of the voyage had to be completed dangerously underwater.

Days on end had left him with a beard, and the precious fresh water at sea could not be used for such a frivolous thing as shaving. His navy uniform was covered with grease stains that could not be cleaned, and the golden rank stripes on the cuffs had been dyed much darker.

In any case, his image has nothing to do with the elegance and romance of the commander of a naval ship. A few days of diving made Prien more like a hydraulic plumber.

"Sir, we don't know where we're going yet! But judging by the course, we're getting closer and closer to the British mainland. His first mate, with a telescope around his neck, leaned against an armrest around the exit hatch of the conning tower, and spoke in a thick nasal voice.

"Yes, we're going to the English mainland! what's the matter?" Prion said, holding his binoculars, looking at the shore on one side. Based on the lights coming from the coast, Prion was convinced that he was not far from Orkneyshire. In fact, they did arrive at a location less than 1 from Orkneyshire. 8 nautical mile location. Prien's estimate was quite accurate, and there was no doubt about his superb seafaring experience in front of Dönitz.

"What are you afraid of, we are the best!" replied with a smile, "The more difficult the task, the easier it is to get a promotion and a raise." Captain, I know this is a very difficult task, otherwise you wouldn't have said nothing along the way. So I know that the day when we will be famous is not far off. ”

"Forget it, if you can go back alive, that's it. Prien was amused by the first mate's words: "I'm just hot-headed and want to help the Führer with this almost impossible task." ”

"When the time comes, we will naturally know about this task. The first mate looked at the sea in the distance and said, "No matter what the task is, we will complete it." ”

Several crew members were playing on the deck of the submarine, and this was their most rare leisure time. Although they still couldn't see the sky, they could see the sea in the distance, which was happier than the brothers who were on duty in the submarine.

Even at night in the North Atlantic, the sea is not calm, the submarine sways from side to side with the waves, and the salty sea water splashes to the corners of the mouth with a fishy smell. After all, this is a warship with only a few hundred tons, and it cannot have the seaworthiness of a surface warship of tens of thousands of tons. At least at this stage, a submarine is only a diving ship, not a potentially underwater one.

After a while, one of the sonar crew members climbed up the conning tower and asked Prien, "Are the brothers betting if we're going to visit Orkney County?"

Prien sighed, threw the cigarette butt from his mouth to the surface, and replied, "Don't guess, it's not a leak now, our goal is Scapa Bay."