If conditions below decks were terrible, those encountered on the bridge were even worse. On their maiden patrols, S-18 and 5-23 made no verifiable contacts with the enemy. The submariners standing bridge watch saw little more than ice-glaze and reeling water. Much of the time they could see no farther than the bow of the boat. When the islands were not imbedded in wintry fog they were whipped by the polar Williwaws (sudden, unpredictable blasts of wind) which scourged the area. Even when the weather cleared, which was seldom, the hours of daylight were short and the horizon was engloomed. Snow-capped breakers showered the conning tower with brine that stung like shot salt, and the wind stabbed into a man's lungs like an icicle. In anything like a gale the bridge was almost untenable. Here is the log entry of S-23 of 13 Feb. 1942:

"Shipped heavy sea over bridge. All hands on bridge bruised and battered. Officer of the Deck suffered broken nose. Solid stream of water down the hatch for 65 seconds. Put high pressure pump on control room bilges; dry after two hours. Barometer 29.60; thirty knot wind from northwest."

EDITOR'S NOTE - We remember reading the memories of ERICH TOPP (118-LIFE-1985) in which he told that he was forced to dive U-552 every few hours when he patrolled the Arctic because the boat was becoming top-heavy with the build up of ice and stood the very real possibility of rolling over. He had to dive to melt the build up of ice on his superstructure.

Also in the memories of OTTO GIESE (45-1984) we learned that one of the men on bridge watch of U-405 had all his lower teeth broken out and his jawbone broken inwards from a heavy wave smashing his face into the railing.

The Arctic was not kind to anyone, whether on the Pacific or the Atlantic side.

Submarine navigation in this area demanded skill of the highest degree. Off Unalaska, Kiska and Attu the water lies in strata of varying density - a phenomenon which made every dive a problem in unpredictables. Radio reception was eccentric; sonar sometimes behaved quite queerly. On her first patrol, .5-23 encountered a continuous series of barometric lows, at one to three day intervals, accompanied by foul weather moving rapidly from west to east. Typical Aleutian weather. Shooting the sun was a feat comparable to shooting a sea lion in a blizzard. When the sun did appear, it loomed in the oceanic mist as dim and opaque as a cataract blinded eye. Celestial navigation at night was practically impossible.

Other operational problems were introduced by the S-boats themselves - engine breakdowns, battery trouble, malfunctioning gear of all kinds. S-23 had seen two decades of undersea service & age was in her frame. But 5-23 & the other old-timers that came after her from Dutch Harbor on war patrol, kept on plugging.