Thanks John. Here's how I fictionalized it in my book:

At 2100, shortly after the last light, the U-023 surfaced in the middle of the Gulf beneath a waxing gibbous moon and scattered stratocumulus clouds. Silver moonlight, intermittently breaking through the clouds, swept across the aft deck as four crewmen, commanded by Leutnant zur See Wolf, gently laid Engel’s body on the grating. Beneath a red Kriegsmarine ensign that bore both the swastika and iron cross, the shrouded body was weighted head and toe. At the railing behind the Flak antiaircraft gun, Rainer and Jäger stood on the platform known as the Wintergarten. Three lookouts on the bridge scanned the horizon.

Rainer’s voice rose above swells slapping against the hull. “Men. We’ve lost a valued comrade and the Fatherland has lost a loyal son. Mere words are inadequate to express our sorrow, so let’s pray. Der Herr ist mein Hirte. The Lord is my Shepherd…”

As the ceremony continued, Rainer found himself oddly detached from the scene, as if looking down from above. The crewmen murmured the Lord’s Prayer. Images of the Marienkirche in ruins flashed through Rainer’s mind. On the aft deck, a lone harmonica played the haunting melody Engel had sung last Christmas Eve. Rainer’s mother bowed her cello in a soaring Bach cantata. Wolf folded the Kriegsmarine ensign. Gisela laughed as a swan churned up the water on the river Trave. A dark cloud eclipsed the moonlight and Engel’s shrouded corpse slid over the side. Anneliese’s golden hair brushed across Rainer’s forehead. The crew began to sing the melancholic warriors’ lament Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden - I once had a comrade. Rainer looked up at the moon and recalled the poem he’d read Anneliese on their last night together in Travemünde. I think of you, when the moonbeams shimmer over the stream.