The gun's the thing, as Arnauld de la Perrière has proved in the Mediterranean; but half the fellows won't follow his example, simply because they don't realize that it's no use employing the gun unless it is used accurately, and good shooting only comes after long drill.
I have impressed this fact on my gun crew, and particularly the two gun-layers, and I make Voigtman (my young First Lieutenant) take the crew through their loading drill twice a day, together with practice of rapid manning of the gun after a "surface" or rapid abandonment of the gun should the diving alarms sound in the middle of practice. I have also impressed on Voigtman that I consider that he is the gun control officer, and that I expect him to make the efficient working of the gun his main consideration.
As regards the crew, they are the usual mixed crowd that one gets nowadays: half of them are old sailors, the others recruits and new arrivals from the Fleet. My main business at the moment is to get the youngsters into shape, and for this purpose I have been doing a number of crash dives. It also gives me an opportunity of getting used to the boat's peculiarities under water. She seems to have a tendency to become tail-heavy, but this may be due to bad trimming.
Voigtman has been in U.B.43 for nine months, and seems a capable officer. Socially, I don't think he can boast of much descent, but he has no airs, and treats me with pleasing respect, apart from service considerations.
A very awkward accident took place this morning, which resulted in severe injury to Johann Wiener, my second coxswain.
A party of men under his direction were engaged in shifting the stern torpedo from its tube, in order to replace it with a spare torpedo, as I never allow any of my torpedoes to stay in the tube for more than a week at a time owing to corrosion. The torpedo which had been in the tube had been launched back and was on the floor plates.
The spare torpedo, destined for the vacant tube, was hanging overhead, when without any warning the hook on the lifting band fractured, and the 1,000 kilogrammes' mass of metal crashed down.
Wonderful to relate, no one was killed, but two men were badly bruised, and Wiener has been very seriously injured. He was standing astride the spare torpedo, and his right leg was extremely badly crushed, mostly below the knee.
Unfortunately it took about ten minutes to release him from his position of terrible agony. I should have expected him to faint, but he did not. His face went dead white, and he began to sweat freely, but otherwise endured his ordeal with praiseworthy fortitude.