their previous course opening the field of attack and bringing him into a direct line of fire with HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney. Rodney was the lead ship of the convoy and Zahn decided to wait until it passed and concentrated his sights on Nelson. The U-boat came within the point-blank range of 800 metres of the ship and Zahn's chances of striking and sinking it were high. He fired three G7e(TII) torpedoes from U-56's three torpedo tubes toward the flagship. No detonations occurred but two torpedoes allegedly struck the hull of the Nelson: one of the sonar operators of U-56 claimed to have heard sound of impact with Nelson's hull. The third torpedo subsequently exploded at sea without causing damage. The incident has been described as the "most important non-sinking" of the conflict. After the attack Zahn became widely known as the "Man who almost killed Churchill" amongst the U-boat submariner corps. It is often claimed that First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Forbes, and admiral Sir Dudley Pound who was the First Sea Lord at the time were on board HMS Nelson. However, Nelson's ship log point to them visiting HMS Nelson on Greenock on 31 October 1939. Still, some Internet sources claim Churchill was on board HMS Nelson. After the attack Zahn ordered the U-boat to descend to a deeper level to avoid depth charges, since the destroyers had by now detected its presence. In the evening Zahn ordered U-56 to surface and subsequently sent a radio report to Berlin listing the targets in the group including HMS Rodney. The delay in the transmission of the information was caused by Zahn's depression caused by missing his target. Had this delay in Zahn's report not happened, the German command could have sent U-58, which was in the area at the time, to renew the attack on the British targets. Because of his failure to destroy the Nelson, Zahn became depressed and Karl Dönitz felt obliged to relieve him of his U-56 command and sent him back to Germany to become an instructor. Later, in his memoirs, Dönitz called the failed attack by U-56 "an exceptionally serious failure" but did not blame Zahn whose daring, in the presence of the destroyers, he praised, saying "The commander who had delivered the attack with great daring when surrounded by twelve escorting destroyers, was so