Thanks to David Stevens, who wrote the U-Boat Far from Home published by Allen and Unwin in 1997. Stevens writes much from the view of the German Crew using the personal log of the first officer as a guide.
In June of 1944 the U-Boat left Bergen, Norway and headed North along the coast but tied up in Trondhiem to fix an oil leak. The boat then left a second time north to skirt the Arctic ice pack and sortie through the Denmark straits. She gradually made her way down the center of the Atlantic under orders to avoid contact. Captain Timm took the boat South past the equator, and found its first victim Robin Goodfellow. By August U-862 was in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and African mainland where four more mechant ships were sent to the bottom. Thence the U-862 after an encounter with a Catalina aircraft, Captain Timm decided to head directly to the base at Penang in Malaya.
The U862 next patrol was to taken it down past Western Australia and thence through the Bight and to the Sydney area where it sank the Liberty ship Robert Weaver. Timm next headed around New Zealand and then retracing its outward path back to Penang. Unfortunately it encounter one more ship the Liberty ship Peter Silvester (Peter Silvester was a New York Congressman from 1847-1851).
To the liberty ship Peter Silvester fell the dubious privilege of being the last allied ship sunk by enemy action in the Indian Ocean. The night of the attack was dark. The ship’s crew of 42, 26 USN Armed Guard, and 106 servicemen as passenger had no warning. About 2140 the first salvo of two torpedoes struck starboard in Number 3 hold putting out all lights and communication out of order. The second attack was a half an hour after the first when two more torpedoes struck. The ship was ordered abandoned, but while this activity was starting a final fifth torpedo his the bow, breaking the ship in two, with the bow sinking immediately. In all 32 men were lost in the sinking and from wounds.
The first officer’s journal final entry “Secure in Shonan. End of war cruise in East Asia. We Live.” "We live" might well be the motto for all that survived