The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

23
The End in France
AT 8 A.M. EXACTLY ON the morning of 6 June, three airmen, scanning the
dark, grey-green waters of the North Atlantic from their inflatable dinghy,
suddenly saw the outline of a low shape emerge through the heavy haze.
Immediately, they took their flare pistol and fired a white star into the sky,
then began waving and shouting madly. It was forty hours since they had
sent a wireless signal that they had been attacked by a British Blenheim,
that their pilot was badly wounded in the head, and that they were going to
ditch their Dornier 18 flying boat and take to the rubber life-dinghy. Since
then, the pilot had died, but another of the crew, Unteroffizier Stökinger,
was also wounded. The three survivors were hungry and parched with
thirst. They were exhausted too, having first smashed the floats on their
aircraft to make it sink, and then having paddled east for nearly two days in
a vain attempt to reach the Shetland Islands. But in all that time they had
seen nothing but an empty grey sea, and now all hope had begun to slip
away. Now, however, it appeared that salvation was at hand.
It was only a few minutes later that the grey vessel, scything gracefully
through the mist, drew towards them. At first they thought it must be a
British submarine, but then a voice – a German voice – called out to them.
The men, overjoyed with relief, watched as the 220-foot-long boat drew
alongside them. A couple of men were clambering down on to the deck,
while above, on the bridge, stood the captain. He was easily identifiable
with his white-top cap, battered leather jacket, black woollen scarf and the
pair of massive 7 x 50 Zeiss binoculars. Painted on to the conning tower
was a picture of a white snorting bull. This was U-47, the single best-known
submarine in all of Germany, and its skipper, Germany’s most famous
submariner, the 32-year-old Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien. The first man in
the Kriegsmarine to win the Knight’s Cross.
Günther had been delighted to find the men. The signal to all U-boats in
the area to look for the men had reached them at four o’clock the previous
afternoon, and since then they had been searching hard, wasting precious
time and fuel. That morning, there was hardly a breeze so the water was