Submarine Tales Of The Paranormal

In the student paper at Drexel University, they have a story about WWI German submarines and sea monsters that's a little... confusing -- that's probably the best word for it.

"According to the internet, that scourge of modern ethical reporting, the captain of the U-boat, a fellow by the name of Gunther Krech, told an amazing tale. The story goes that he claimed the U-boat had surfaced during the night to recharge her batteries and give the sailors a chance to have a smoke. While surfaced, an enormous sea serpent appeared and climbed onto the side of the ship. Then men, startled, began shooting at it with their sidearms, which apparently infuriated the beast and made it bite down on or grab hold of the forward gun. The sea monster was so massive that the U-boat began to slip to the side, and the captain feared that the open hatch might slip below the water level, flooding the interior of the boat and sinking her. The sailors continued firing away at the monster, who eventually grew tired of such things and left, swimming back into the mysterious depths from which it came, leaving behind only terrified sailors and a badly damaged submersible. In his little on-deck tap-dance, the monster supposedly damaged the forward deck plating. The U-boat would never dive underwater again!
"That is, supposedly, how the crew of the Coreopsis was able to take prisoner the entire crew of the UB-85. The captain is said to have described the sea monster as "This beast had large eyes, set in a horny sort of skull. It had a small head, but with teeth that could be seen glistening in the moonlight." Of course, because this is something involving the paranormal, it's not possible to trace the source that first reported these astonishing words. Just like supposed evidence proving the existence of UFOs, it's something a friend of a friend of a relative read on the internet somewhere one time."

The writer for the student newspaper doesn't link the story he's talking about, but it looks like this is one of the sources. (Gunther Krech, by the way, was a real U-boat skipper, but in WWII. Info about the WWI U-85 is here.)

Back to the story, though; there's nothing really wrong with it -- it just flows weirdly. Yes, you shouldn't believe everything you read on the Internet. Good advice. I'm glad there's someone at Drexel debunking the paranormal. I just don't understand the strange examples the author uses. Then again, I never really have understood college journalism, or web sites for that matter. Check out this very minimalistic website a student at Drexel made, for example. Maybe I'm just too old.

Anyway, not much else happening in the world of submarines today -- I was trying to track down info on this post at Rontini's BBS about Salt Lake City in the Arctic, but wasn't able to find anything else. I heard that she was heading to Portsmouth after inactivation via the Arctic, but this was the first time I've seen what was claimed to be a picture of the feat. (For those who aren't as familiar with 688s, it was always said that pre-751 LAs shouldn't surface through the ice because the fairwater planes couldn't go vertical. Maybe they decided to take the chance, since SLC won't be doing anything after this trip.)

Going deep...