18th February 1941
Left St. Nazaire at 1:23pm after a long refit and repair of U-707. Much of its internal equipment had to be replaced due to damage sustained on the previous patrol. Several of the other U-Boat captains commented about how damned lucky we were to get our boat back in one piece. We'd been told that an overall estimate of the hull damage placed it at about 60% of the total structure.
This time, we will be much more cautious of potentially armed merchants, as will the other U-Boat captains we had told our story to.The grid we have been assigned to is DR23 which is over 5,500km away from our base and will take approximately 300 hours ( 12 days ) to arrive travelling at 1/3.DR23 is located past Gibraltar and 2,500km west of the Canary Islands. At least the weather should be warmer than the North Atlantic.
