Schlitt’s Creak

This week we continue our occasional series about famous sea craptains. For our more sensitive readers please note this entry contains salty language, such as that typically employed by sailors – and plumbers…

Position: 57°21’00.0″N 1°39’00.0″W

April 1945 – off the coast of Scotland

Turning to his first lieutenant, Captain Karl-Adolf Schlitt muttered, “Depth?”

“50 metres Captain.”

“Good. Trim her and maintain this depth and heading for the next 30 minutes. Take the conn, I’m going to take a crap.”

“Will you need the sanitation safety engineer, Captain?”

“Lieutenant, I have been taking a dump for the past 27 years. I haven’t needed help for the past 25 of those years. I’m sure that I can figure out how the new shitter works.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Carry on, Lieutenant.”

Making his way aft towards the head, Captain Schlitt moved briskly, but deftly. The cramped quarters of the submarine were familiar to him, and he had long since stopped banging his head on stray valve handles or the low angles of the watertight doors. At the door of the head, he paused momentarily, took a breath, then went in.

Aside from a few extra valves in the room, there was nothing peculiar about this toilet. It was much like those on the other U-boats he had served on. The only difference was this one could send his turds directly overboard at any depth. There was no need to surface and pump out the holding tank. That gave him a great deal of tactical flexibility. After all, there was nothing like the scent of battle to send the men scuttling towards the head. Once the holding tank was full, the men had to wait until the ship surfaced and it was emptied. And surfacing was not always an option. Yes, sending his poop directly overboard was a small, but very important advancement for the Kriegsmarine. After all, with a clear mind and a clear colon, torpedoes always sailed straighter.

Dropping his trousers, Schlitt settled down to take care of business. It was, he mused, the one thing that unites us humans. Taking a crap. We all do it. And we all do it the same way. Despite what the Führer might tell us about a German master race, we all have to squeeze one out at least once a day. Schlitt kept such thoughts to himself, of course. But now he was done. He wiped and stood up, then reached down to pull up his trousers. He smiled wryly as he buckled his belt with its “Gott Mit Uns” and swastika, then let the thought go as quickly as it had entered his head. Turning back, it was time to flush his new toilet.

He had been in the room as the Obergruppenscheiße Engineer had explained how the system worked: in what order to turn the valves to initiate a high-pressure sluicing of the system. It was, Schlitt thought, very similar to loading a torpedo, closing the hatch and firing it at the enemy. Although, in this case it was a turdpedo fired at an enema. Schlitt smiled again at his eight-year-old’s sense of humour. He then reached up and turned the first valve 90 degrees to the right. A loud hiss came through the wall and then stopped. The water in the bowl drained out. Taking hold of the second valve, he again turned it 90 degrees to the right. This time, instead of a hiss, he heard a creak and then gurgle. Then a blurp. He looked down in horror as the toilet began filling up with a thick brown watery stench. Dammit! He spun both valves back to their starting positions stopping the foul liquid just below the rim of the bowl.

Embarrassed as he was, the captain realised he had misremembered the directions. Rather than carry on, perhaps it would be better, he thought, to wake the sanitation engineer and get him down here to sort this out. Schlitt opened the cap on the speaking tube and calmly asked his lieutenant to send the engineer. Within a couple of minutes, a blond-haired boy of about 16 warily stuck his head into the head and asked if the captain needed help?

The younger man listened carefully as the captain explained what he had done. “Ah”, said the lad, “You should have closed the first valve before opening the second one. Here let me show you.” History isn’t clear if the engineer was left-handed, dyslexic or simply nervous, but instead of reaching for the first valve, he reached for the second and turned it through 360 degrees. The toilet instantly overflowed in a torrent of turds and raw sewage. In the small space both men gagged, then leapt back as the brown and yellow muck flowed around their feet staining their white plimsoles orange.

In seconds, the wastewater flowed over the sill and made its way into the hall and down every nook and cranny it could find. Directly underneath the head sat the long rows of lead acid batteries that powered the ship while it was underwater. As soon as that tsunami of piss water hit the electrical anodes all hell broke loose. Hell in this case coming in the form of a violent chemical reaction resulting in a toxic cloud of chlorine gas.

With no other choice, the captain ordered all ballast tanks be blown and to surface immediately. Survivors would recall in that moment, “the Schlitt had really hit the fan…” Minutes later, on the surface, the U-1206 met its ultimate fate at the hands of the RAF’s submarine patrols. In rough seas under heavy bombardment and gunfire, Schlitt gave the order to man the lifeboats and scuttle the ship. Of her 50 crew, one died on board, three drowned abandoning ship, and the remaining 46, including Schlitt were captured.

Kapitänleutnant Karl-Adolf Schlitt lived a full life. After the war he took a degree in law at the University of Kiel and held several positions in regional administration. Later he joined the Kieler Nachrichten and retired as its publishing director. He passed away in April 2009 at the age of 91. Unfortunately, his memory is preserved only for its inglorious place in the history of the Turd Reich.

The Battle for the Atlantic

We have written about U-boats (Unterzeebooten) in the not-so-distant past. Germany’s most deadly weapon against the Allies successfully plundered the North Atlantic for the first four years of the Second World War, sending millions of tonnes of shipping to the bottom of the sea. It wasn’t until a complete change in tactics and significant leaps in technology that the Americans and British finally stemmed their losses. Had things not turned out as they did, it is quite likely America would be voting for an aspiring dictator of German extraction in its upcoming election. Ah History! You are a cruel mistress with a devilish sense of humour!

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