Hi Kristoff,

The crew bunked ashore. The bedding in the boat stunk after a patrol of hot bunking and had to be cleaned and aired out while in port.

There was only one cook while at sea and he prepared all the meals and snacks. He was one of the few that didn’t have to hot bunk. Off watch crew performed the usual KP duties so the cook didn’t have to do them – he just prepared the meals. The galley area was tiny & most U-boats had very little refrigeration. The cook had to be able to make tasty meals out of food that was starting to rot & when that ran out after about 2 weeks, canned food was all that was left & he had to make that tasty too. It also wasn't unusual for the labels on some of the canned food to be wrong either. If he wasn’t any good at it, he had the whole crew mad at him & it affected the boat’s moral. It was a very demanding job.

When the patrol was over, the remaining food was supposed to be turned in but sometimes the crew was allowed to take some of it home on leave with them as food was scarce at home and U-boat food was better than civilian rations.

Regards,

Ken Dunn