U-202 — 14 hours under the hunt

Günter Poser was not worried. On the morning of 1 June 1943, located by direction-finding, he had taken U-202 down without haste: 5 attacks already dodged on this patrol alone, and the quiet conviction that a good commander always slips through the net. He had no idea who had just found him.

The sloops ringing him would not let go. Their sonar — Asdic — clung to the hull, its pulses echoing right into the control room; the depth charges fell ever closer, and the 76 hydrogen-bubble decoys he released to scramble the echo made no difference. Hour after hour the group came back, methodical, as if guided by an ear that could tell a true echo from a false one.

14 hours on, the air is foul, the batteries failing, and the hull groans more than 200 metres down, at the edge of being crushed. 3 doors remain to Poser, all of them narrow: stay deep and silent, betting the hunters lose contact or run low on fuel; surface under cover of night to recharge the batteries and flee on the surface; or surface to scuttle and surrender, and at least save his men.