U-21
We ran blindly under water for a while without daring to show our periscope. I did not like the idea of showing any asparagus again in that neighbourhood for the present. Our course lay north from the tip of the peninsula, toward Ga-Tepe. There the periscope showed another battleship in front of the northern beaches. My reference showed the vessel to be of the Triumph class. Again the inevitable swarm of patrol boats and destroyers circling around to protect it from submarine attack, like pigmies guarding a giant.
“In periscope!” And we dived to seventy feet and headed toward the monster, passing far below the lines of patrol craft. Their propellers, as they ran above us, sounded a steady hum. For four and a half hours after I caught sight of the ship, which was in fact H.M.S. Triumph itself, I maneuvered the U-21 for a torpedo shot, moving here and there and showing the asparagus on the smooth surface of the sea for only the briefest moments.
In the conning tower my watch officer and I stood with bated breath. We were groping toward a deadly position—deadly for the magnificent giant of war on the surface above.
“Out periscope!” H.M.S. Triumph stood in formidable majesty, broadside to us, and only three hundred yards away. Never had an under-sea craft such a target. “Torpedo—fire!” My heart gave a great leap as I called the command.
And now one of those fearfully still, eventless moments. Suspense and eagerness held me in an iron grip. Heedless of all else, I left the periscope out. There! And I saw the telltale streak of white foam darting through the water. It headed swiftly away from the point where we lay, and headed-straight—yes, straight and true. It streaked its way swiftly to the bow of our mammoth adversary. A huge cloud of smoke leaped out of the sea. In the conning tower we heard first a dry, metallic concussion and then a terrible, reverberating explosion.
It was a fascinating and appalling sight to see, and I yearned with every fibre to keep on watching the fearful picture; but I had already seen just about enough to cost us our lives. The moment that dread white wake of the torpedo was seen on the surface of the water, the destroyers were after me. They came rushing from every direction.
“In periscope!” And down we went. I could hear nothing but the sound of propellers above me, on the right and on the left. Why hadn’t I dived the moment after the torpedo left? The two seconds I had lost were like years now. With that swarm converging right over our heads, it surely seemed as if we were doomed. Then a flash crossed my brain.
“Full speed ahead,” I called, and ahead we went right along the course the torpedo had taken, straight toward the huge craft we had hit.
It was foolhardy, I admit, but I had to risk it. Diving as deeply as we dared, we shot right under the sinking battleship. It might have come roaring down on our heads—the torpedo had hit so fair that I rather expected it would. And then the U-boat and its huge prey would have gone down together in an embrace of death. That crazy maneuver saved us. I could hear the propellers of destroyers whirring above us, but they were hurrying to the place where we had been. Our maneuver of ducking under the sinking battleship was so unexpected that no hint of it ever occurred to the enemy. We were left in tranquil safety. Keeping as deep as possible and showing no tip of periscope, we stole blindly but securely away. When I ventured to take a look through the asparagus, we were far from the place where the Triumph had met her disaster.
May 25, 1915, account by German captain Hersing, recalling the May 25, 1915, action by Germany’s U-21 in the sinking of the Triumph, as quoted in Lowell Thomas, Raiders of the Deep, pp. 64–65.
