Life on a U-Boat

Now let us talk about life aboard a U-Boat, well it was crowded and living conditions poor, each war patrol could take anywhere between 3 weeks to 6 months. During this time the crew were not able to bathe, shave or change their clothes. So the smell would have been terrible as well.

The crew as made up of specialists and seamen, they needed a radioman, a torpedo man and a machine man these men were responsible for the operation and maintenance of the equipment. Then there were the general duty tasks such as loading the torpedoes, standing watch on the bridge and operating the deck guns. Their days were divided into three 8 hour shifts, one for sleeping, one for regular duties and one for other tasks.

The specialist crew had three 4 hour shifts between 8am and 8pm and two 6 hour shifts during the night. One of the worst duties was standing watch during a storm as the harsh North Atlantic environment meant that icy waves constantly swept over the conning tower completely submerging the boat at times. The crewman was secured by a safety line to prevent them being washed overboard.

Of course there was no privacy on board only the captain had any privacy with a simple curtain separating his quarters.

Food aboard a U-Boat was another interesting topic, at the start of a mission as much food as possible was cramped into every nook and cranny, including one of the toilets. They would have the best foods available to them including fresh meat, sausages, bead, fresh vegetables & fruit. However, because they only had a small refrigerators the food would spoil quickly especially in the damp environment.

The bread would sprout white fungi, which the crews nicknamed as “rabbits” due to the white fuzzy appearance. Canned goods supplemented by a soy based filler called Bratlingspulver, was issued by the military for U-Boat crews, the crew referred to it as diesel food due to the constant exposure of diesel exhaust which of course affected the taste.

Going to the toilet was no simple task, there was only one toilet until the food stored in the other was used up, and there was between forty to fifty crew sharing the only toilet. The flush system consisted of a hand pump where the contents of the waste was hand pumped into the ocean after each use. Using the toilet was prohibited when stalking an enemy as it was feared that the noise of clanking metal of floating debris would alert the enemy to the presence of a U-Boat.

The time spent on the submarines took its psychological toll with many crews painting a vision of emptiness. Months would pass and there were no trees, no hills and no landfill where one could place his feet, except on the deck of the U-Boat. The only excitement was when they were hunting an enemy ship, or when they were being hunted themselves, crews passed time by listening to a record-player built into the boat or by playing cards and organising some weird games to keep their minds occupied.

By the end of the war patrol, crews would emerge with long beards, soiled uniforms and an array of other obnoxious physical characteristic. It was after seeing the men returning from months of sea, Donitz when seeing his men returning said he knew what life aboard a U-Boat was like. As if I feel unless a person was there they really had no idea what life on a U-Boat was like.

A Door that won't close, and a new driver for Dawson

Good morning all it is a lovely wet kind of day here in my part of the world. I have been up about half and hour and done bugga all so far, not going to see nanna today mum has to take her car into the mechanics as on Sunday after leaving Dave's place their back passenger side door would not close. Dad had to tire it shut and even then a couple of times it came open a tad, scaring Temika a little. So today it goes in to have that problem fixed, then mum has to take Dad down to Belmont hospital for his weekly rehap appointment, then she will have to go and get Dave for lunch as she is taking him to work this morning so they can have use of his car of course at some point she will have to go and pick her car up again also. So mum's dad is too full to try and go see nanna, we will go tomorrow instead.

Yesterday Dawson had a new taxi driver pick him up and take him to school, the taxi picks up 4 boys and takes them to Wakefield school, now the old driver used to pick the boy up in Hamilton first than the others who are all around Gateshead area and go to Wakefield through Warners Bay and Teralba but this new woman did it all back to front and went out via Edgeworth and the boys ended up being late even though she picked Dawson up at 8.05am.

Also when mum walked him out to the car as the woman wanted to meet mum, mum mentions that some days she isn't there but her husband is and if they are not going to be home when he gets dropped off in the afternoon her daughter who only lives 4 doors away will be there to meet Dawson. Well the woman went on and on that she would not be able to pick Dawson up if mum wasn't there and she wouldn't be able to drop him off if mum wasn't there as mum is the only one on the list. Now I will explain that it is the house not people in it that she has to go by as long as and adult over 21 is there that is all that matters as the boys are all teenagers and considered old enough to know if the person there is someone they know. However, mum had to make a number of phone calls to arrange for dad and Sandra's names to be added to the list and it was while she was making these calls that it was mentioned that the women didn't need their names on any list as long as someone was there to see Dawson off and greet him in the afternoon.

This is the first new driver they have had in 3 years, also when mum asked her for her phone number she goes you should have it didn't it come up when I rang last night mum said it may have but she didn't take notice, she didn't give it to mum though. However, she rang mum a bit later to give it to her and to tell mum that she now had dad and Sandra on her list.

Dawson told mum that when they dropped his friend off his older brother came out to greet him and the woman wouldn't leave him there as the boys mother wasn't home, she had gone to pick up his younger siblings from school, the woman rang her boss to get permission to leave him there.

It must be the first time the woman has driven teenagers, as the rule she was so worried about are more in place for younger children. Mum said she understood that the woman was only doing what she thought was right but still it was a pain in the bum.

Also when she picked the boys up in the afternoon she drove back via Teralba and Warners Bay which is a lot faster than the way she went in the morning. Dawson didn't like her much but that may change Dawson does at times take a while to get used to people. 

A Bit About My Back

Now for a post about my back, many years ago a neighbour of mine commented that I had a sway back I had not heard the term before and wondered at first what she meant but I used my common sense to figure it out and now with the help of the internet I can check if I guessed right and of course I did.

Now back then I wasn't overweight or anything and it was just the way I was, I knew that some things would make my bum poke out and look bigger than it was so I would try and stay away from those clothes.

I was never told by my a doctor or anyone that it was due to bad posture although now that it is more noticeable because I am a bigger woman I have been told I need to change my posture which is not easy to do after 50 years.

Also my back has had the same curvature all my life so I reckon I have had this condition all my life, it is only now that it is a problem and I know it is because of my weight but that isn't something that is going to change overnight.

Looking on the internet I have discovered that it has a name lordosis which refers to the normal inward curvature of the lumbar and cervical regions of the spine but in some people the can be excessive or hyperlordosis and this is a swayback. Everything I have read says that treatment for hyperlordosis is not easy and involves months of physio and that doesn't always work if the condition has been present since childhood, also the longer you have had the condition it is harder to correct.

In fact no doctor has ever mentions lumbar hyperlordosis to me, I can tell you what I do know, I need pillows to support my back while I am sitting here writing my blog posts or using my laptop and I need back support when I am out shopping and I can only walk a short distance if I am carrying stuff before the back pain starts.

I also know that when I am wearing dresses and some pairs of pants I need a belt to pull everything in and make what I am wearing look nice.

So have you heard of a sway back?

Maybe you have a sway back. 

Clocks forward and hour, washing on the line and a sleep over at nanna's house

Good morning all it is a lovely looking Sunday morning here in my part of the world, hope everyone is well and having a great day/night whichever hope it's great. As you may be able to tell I am in a good mood, why you ask, no reason I just am as I sit here typing I can hear Tim snoring in the bedroom and the bedroom door is closed, yes he snores that loudly.

Later this morning I am going out to my brothers with Tim, Tim is going out to try Dave's home brew, he made some black beer and Tim likes black beer so he going out to give it a try and I am going with him because mum asked me to. Also while we are out I am going to see if I can get Tim to pick up the washing machine that mum said Jessica could have at the start of the year.

I am going to ask Tim for some money to go and buy myself some knew pants for summer I need some shorts and would like some harem pants I am going to ask for $100 and let's see what he says he may say ok or he may say why so much and don't you have enough clothes, really can a woman have too many clothes or shoes............lol I will remind him that a few pairs tore while we were in Hawaii and I am in need of replacements and hope for the best. Sometimes he can be good and not complain about these things so who knows I will, however, tell you all what he says.

Tonight Sydney-May is going to have her first sleep over at nanna & papa's house I am so excited, I said to Tim yesterday that at least she won't take up as much room in the bed as the boys and you know what he said, he thought we would put her in the spare room to sleep, I'm like no if the boys can sleep with us than Sydney-May can sleep with us.

Daylight saving started here last night, I like daylight saving but now days it goes too long for me it starts the beginning of October and goes through to to April and for me that is too long. I remember as a child it would start at the end of October and go through to the end of February and that was good.

I remember also when my sister Sandra didn't get why at times I had a love/hate relationship with daylight saving, loved the extra daylight, and hated it as well when it came time to put the girls to bed at night and it was still light outside and the girls would say they wanted to stay up and go outside to play as it was still light out and I would be like no it's time for bed. Of course now that Sandra is a mum herself she gets it.

I just pegged the clothes on the line and that made me think of the conversation with Tasha the other day about how I like my clothes pegged out in a certain way starting with the small clothes and working out to the large stuff and all the pegs have to be the same colour well I have to use all the say blue pegs then move onto the red ones and such you can't mix and match the pegs I don't like that, as a child none of my girls got why I am so fussy with clothes but now Tasha is the same and she only has one colour pegs she doesn't like different colours on the line and the clothes have to be folded a certain way.

Ok that is all my dribble for this post.

It's Five Things Friday Again

Well here we are at Friday once more, well it is Friday for me maybe not for you though. Anyway here are my five things for this Friday.

Vacation Care

A long weekend

Happiness

Sunday lunch here this weekend

TV shows about the World Wars

Submarines

Guess what I did this morning, something I rarely do, I slept in till nearly 9am what the hell is with that. I don't sleep that late I must have needed the sleep anyway it is now 9.50am and I am at last getting around to writing something after spending the last hour wasting time on good ole Facebook.

I am going to write a little this morning about another first of the First World War this time I think I will write about the submarine do you know anything about submarines, I don't and I didn't know they were first used during WW1 but now I do.

Ok that is not completely true there are mentions of submarines dating as far back as 1620 when a Dutchman by the name of Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel invented the first submarine, but back then submarines were used to explore under the water.

Let's move on to say 1776 when the first military submarine was built it was called the “turtle” and was a hand-powered egg shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell, it held only 1 man. A few years later in around 1800 the French Navy built a human-powered submarine it was called the “Nautilus”it also had a sail for use on the surface and so was the first known dual propulsion submarine. It was capable of using mines to destroy warships and did so during demonstrations. However, the French and the British gave up with the experiment of submarines in 1804.

Before we leave the history of the submarines and move onto their use during the First World War I will tell you a little about their use during the American Civil War because I have so many American followers. The Union was first to use a submarine, they used the French-designed Alligator it was the first U S Navy sub and was also the first to have compressed air and an air filtration system. It was the first to carry a diver lock allowing the diver to plant mines on enemy ships.

Of course the Confederate States of America also had submarines one of the first was the CSS H.L.Hunley named for it's designer and chief financier Horace Lawson Hunley. However, the first was a 30 foot long Pioneer which sank a target schooner using a towed mine during tests on Lake Pontchartrain but it was not used in combat. It was scuttled after New Orleans was captured and in 1868 was sold for scrap, however, the similar Bayou St John Confederate Submarine is preserved in the Louisiana State Museum.

I could go on but this is not a post about the American Civil War so I won't.

So let's move onto the First World War the first submarines the first submarines were the U-Boats the U stood for “ Unterzeeboot” which means undersea boat the first U-boat was the U1 is was built in 1906 and the second was the U2 built in 1908 by this time the French had a submarine force of 60 boats and the British almost as many so Germany finally took notice.

At the start of the war Germany had 48 submarines either in service or under construction but only 29 were operational. In the first 10 weeks of the the conflict they sank five British cruisers and between October 1916 and January1917 1.4 million tons of allied shipping was lost to the U-Boats. However, the loses diminished when the allies started escorting their convoys with merchant ships surrounded by military vessels. During the war Germany built 360 U-Boats of which 178 were lost.

All countries wanted submarines but Germany was a head of the game and their U-Boats carried 6 torpedos and a powerful deck gun as well.

The British need a countermeasure against the U-Boat, sound detection and gear and depth charges were still in their infancy and this mean the only way to sink a submarine was by either gunfire or ramming it. This meant that he U-Boat had to be on the surface, the solution to this problem was the the

Q-Ship, it was one of the closest guarded secrets of the war. The Q-Ship was also known as a “U-Boot-Falle” (U-Boat trap)it was an old looking tramp steamer with hidden guns and torpedoes.

It was close to unsinkable due to the load of wooden caskets and wood or cork, it's job was too lure the U-Boat into attack when the U-Boat surfaced the Q-Ships hidden weapons were deployed and the White Ensign would be hoisted.

I could go on but this post has taken a bloody long time to write due to me having to stop and go over to Natasha's to take over some Ritalin for Leo then I had to got to the shops and get some Voltaren tablets for Kathy and take them to her at work, then I stopped to have something to eat and now I am going to post,

A Post About My Life.............So Not Much

Good morning world it is another lovely day here in my part of the world, I am starting this as I wait for mum to pick me up we are going to see nanna today as it is Wednesday that is all I have planned for today.

So it the first of October today and I am expecting to see a lot of Christmas stuff in the stores from this week, I love Christmas but really it annoys me when we see Christmas stuff in the stores so early I think from the start of November would be early enough, what do others think.

So I just went and unpacked the dishwasher because it was bugging me that I hadn't done it yet, it is one of the first things I do when I get up of a morning, just like mum one of the first things she does is unpack the dishwasher.

I posted a photo last night on Facebook of my mum's biological father just to see if anyone knew who it was my daughter Natasha got it right and my sister Sandra thought it might be Merve too but my cousins didn't know they thought it was their dad who I must say does look a lot like his father so not a bad guess. This is the photo in question.

I might post a few more old photos just so see who knows who they are, I like old photos, I scanned a number of them onto my computer but would love to have more of them I will have to ask mum if she has more that I can have to scan onto the computer.

Oh yeah on Friday I bought myself a pair of Harem pants and guess what, they don't fit too small so I will be giving them to someone as a present I wasn't sure if they would fit but I got the largest size and I was unable to try them on first so just took a chance. I will have to keep looking for some that will fit me.

While Blain was over the other night he brought his Xbox with him and Tasha set it up in Tim's office for him to use as we only have two tv's now the one in the loungeroom and the one in Tim's office, anyway Tim came home from work saw him playing it and told me to move it to the spare room I reminded him that we don't have a tv in the spare room anymore. So yesterday morning he tells me that he would like to go and by another tv for the his room and the tv in there can be moved to the spare room and that way the boys can watch telly in there. I felt like saying well you will need to get Foxtel in that room if you want the boys to watch telly in there but I didn't I know Tim he would say let them watch DVD's which they won't but no point in arguing over it.

The other night a photo fell off the wall the hook bit at the back broke so now I have to find a way to repair it or get another frame. Tim would say just get another frame and I will if I can't fix this frame but it is nice frame and I would rather fix it than toss it.

Yes another rambling post about nothing much at all I will write more interesting posts again but don't ask me when as I don't know.............lol

The other day while she was here Jessica looked around the loungeroom and says that this stuff animal and that stuffed animal are hers, I said yes your point well she had no point she just wanted to point out they were hers. I have a number of stuffed animals hanging around the loungeroom why well because it is better than having them stored away in a box somewhere. Well I think it is and it is my house and if I want to hang stuffed toys around the place I will.

Oh yeah when Blain was here the other night he says to me you have photos of Leo when he was a baby but not me, so I had to take him around and point out all the photos of him as a baby, he didn't realise I had so many and liked that I had one of him and his parents as a newborn. The one I don't have many baby photos of is Summer but I am working on it.

So been to see nanna she was well, while we where there the physio came around and rubbed her arms and hands and did some arm exercises to loosen up her joints.

Now to post this