by Clay Blair
Bicester found U-443 by sonar and attacked immediately, dropping a salvo of ten depth charges set for one hundred to 225 feet. Thereafter she crept back to the point of attack and saw some “wreckage.” Before she could recover it, Wheatland also got a sonar contact and attacked with a salvo of ten depth charges set for the same depths. Lamerton followed with five depth charges set for one hundred feet. For good measure, Bicester fired a second salvo of ten depth charges, bringing the number of missiles fired to thirty-five.
Bicester returned and stopped in the area where she had seen wreckage. Her crew fished out two locker lids, a big (26”-by-46”) cupboard door, other pieces of wood, and “possible human remains.” Aware from decrypts of naval Enigma that a U-boat had been lost on this date, the Admiralty credited Bicester with “major” credit for the kill, with “some share” to Wheatland and Lamerton.
• While patrolling the seas about eighty miles northeast of Oran oh March 4, a Hudson of Squadron 500, piloted by G. Jackimov, spotted a U-boat. This was the veteran U-83, commanded by Ulrich Wörishoffer. Jackimov attacked into flak from U-83 with three 100-pound ASW bombs, but these inflicted no damage. On a second attack run at thirty-five feet above the wave tops, with guns blazing, Jackimov dropped three shallow-set depth charges, which exploded close around U-83. The aircrew reported that the U-boat began to sink on an even keel, that about fifteen Germans floated free, and that they saw “at least twenty-five bodies” that rose to the surface in “large bubbles and oil.” Jackimov dropped two dinghies to the survivors, but these craft “appeared to sink” on impact. Nothing further was ever heard from U-83 or its survivors, if any. Based on Enigma decrypts, the Admiralty confirmed this remarkable kill.
• On the morning of March 28, a Hudson of Squadron 48, piloted by J. B. Harrop, found a U-boat off the east coast of Spain. She was the Mediterranean veteran JJ-77, commanded by Otto Hartmann, homebound from a successful patrol off Oran, where she sank one 5,200-ton British freighter and damaged another of similar size. The Hudson attacked out of cloud cover, dropping four shallow-set depth charges on the swirl U-77 created when she dived. Low on fuel, the Hudson was unable to loiter to assess the attack.
Later in the day, a Hudson of Squadron 233, piloted by Edgar F. Castell, relocated U-77 on the surface about thirty miles northeast of the first attack. When the plane dived to attack, it met a hot flak reception from U-77, which remained on the surface. The Hudson returned fire with machine guns (three thousand rounds), then braved the flak to mount two bombing attacks. On the first it dropped a single 100-pound bomb; on the second, four depth charges. This plane also had to break off because of a fuel shortage.
These attacks so badly savaged £7-77 that Hartmann was compelled to declare a dire emergency. The force commander, Leo Kreisch, told Hartmann that if possible he should head for Alicante, Spain, and exercise his right under international law to repair his ship. Meanwhile Kreisch requested Spanish authorities, via Berlin, to send a vessel to meet U-77 off that port and, if necessary, tow her the rest of the way. At the same time, Kreisch directed Josef Röther in the U-380 to rendezvous with U-77 and take off forty of her crew, leaving the rest to man the boat during the tow into Alicante.
On the next day, March 29, another Hudson of Squadron 48 found Ur77 on the surface in the narrow waters between Calo de San Antonia and the island of Ibiza. Upon sighting the Hudson, U-77 fired flak, until probably she ran out of ammo, then dived. Before the periscope was fully under, the Hudson dropped four shallow-set depth charges on the swirl. This attack destroyed the heavily damaged U-77, Nine German survivors drifted ashore near Denia, Spain, and were eventually repatriated to Germany. The rest of the crew, including Hartmann, died in the sinking.
• On April 23, a Hudson of Squadron 500, piloted by R. Obee, found a U-boat patrolling off Oran. Obee attacked into flak from an altitude of two hundred feet, dropping four shallow-set depth charges that fell close. Some flak exploded in the cockpit, killing Obee. Two other airmen, Alfred S. Kempster and A. F. Black- well, took over the controls and nursed the badly damaged plane back to its base at Tafaraouri, near Oran, where all hands bailed out and the plane crashed with Obee’s body still on board. Initially the Admiralty credited this Hudson with the kill of U-602, commanded by Philipp Schuler, but subsequently declared U-602 lost to unknown causes.
These eight losses gradually whittled the Mediterranean U-boat force down to sixteen boats. In response to urgent requests from senior German and Italian authorities in the Mediterranean Basin, Berlin again directed that the Atlantic U-boat force reinforce the Mediterranean U-boat force, to assist Axis forces trapped in Tunisia by the closing Allied vise. Five boats set out but only four made it: U-303, commanded by Karl-Franz Heine, and U-414, commanded by Walther Huth, both of which entered the Mediterranean on April 9; U-410, commanded by Horst-Arno Fenski; and U-616, commanded by Siegfried Koitschka, which entered the Mediterranean on the night of May 6-7.
While patrolling west of the Strait of Gibraltar on the evening of May 7, two Hudsons of Gibraltar-based Squadron 233 sighted a U-boat on the surface. This was the fifth boat, U-447, commanded by Friedrich-Wilhelm Bothe, who was preparing to run the strait that night. The planes, piloted by J. V. Holland and J. W. McQueen, attacked, each dropping four shallow-set depth charges and strafing. Nothing further was ever heard from U-447.
Two of the four boats that got into the Mediterranean on April 9 were lost:
While patrolling off Toulon on May 21, the British submarine Sickle, commanded by J. R. Drummond (son of a vice admiral), hit and sank Heine’s U-303, which had sailed from Toulon for sea trials. Amazingly, Heine, his first watch officer, Erwin Coupette, and nine other Germans on board survived and were rescued by an Axis minesweeper.*
• While escorting the westbound convoy GTX 1 off Oran on May 25, the British corvette Vetch got a sonar contact. This was U-414, commanded by Walther Huth, age twenty-four, who had served as first watch officer of Horst Hamm’s U-562 for six months in the Mediterranean before getting command of his own boat. Five days earlier, May 18, Huth had sunk a 6,000-ton British freighter and damaged a 7,100-ton British freighter.
Unaware of Vetch, which had closed to about one hundred feet, Huth raised his periscope to shoot into the convoy. Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Vetch’s skipper, H. J. Beauly, quick fired a salvo of five depth charges set for fifty to 140 feet at point-blank range. When the first one exploded, Huth’s periscope was still visible. Very likely the charges closely straddled U-414, destroying the boat. For good measure, Beauly fired four more depth charges by eye. Other than huge air and oil bubbles and a deep explosion, Vetch had no evidence to substantiate a kill, but as was learned later, she had sunk U-414, for which she received sole credit. There were no survivors.
Another of the boats that had entered the Mediterranean in November to attack Torch forces was also sunk in late May. This was the U-755, commanded by Walter Göing. On the morning of May 28, a Hudson of British Squadron 608, based near Algiers and piloted by G.A.K. Ogilvie, found U-755 on the surface in the narrow waters between the Spanish coast and the island of Majorca. This Hudson carried the new air-to-surface rockets.
Göoing elected to stay on the surface and fight it out. Ogilvie came in low and fired a two-rocket salvo. One missile failed to release but the other performed perfectly, hitting the underside of the U-boat pressure hull dead center. Circling the damaged boat, Ogilvie came in for a second attack and fired a four-rocket salvo. Astonishingly, three of the four rockets hit the underside of the pressure hull.
When he saw that these hits had fatally holed U-755, Göing gave orders to abandon ship. As the crew rushed topside, the Hudson attacked the men and the U-boat, firing about seven thousand rounds from the machine guns. Nine minutes after it was first sighted, U-755 upended and sank stern first. The Spanish destroyer Churruca rescued nine Germans—all wounded—who were eventually repatriated to Germany. The rest of the crew of U-755, including Göing, perished in the sinking.
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These three losses in May reduced the Mediterranean force on June 1 to seventeen U-boats, including several undergoing battle-damage repairs. One other VII entered the Mediterranean on June 5, the U-409, commanded by Hans-Ferdinand Massmann, raising the force to eighteen boats. No others entered the Mediterranean during the summer of 1943.
In return for the thirty confirmed ships for about 110,000 tons and nine sailing vessels sunk during the five-month period from January 1 to June 1, 1943, the Mediterranean force lost eleven boats, plus U-447, sunk while preparing to run Gibraltar Strait. That was a ruinous “exchange rate” of 2.5 ships sunk for each U-boat lost. About five hundred men manning these boats perished.*
The sinkings amounted to no more than a pinprick in the dense Allied traffic in the Mediterranean. It failed to make any difference whatsoever in the climactic land battle in Tunisia. On May 13, the Allied vise finally clamped shut on the Axis forces, less Erwin Rommel and his staff who earlier had been evacuated by air. Rommel’s replacement, Jürgen von Arnim, and his Italian counterpart, Giovanni Messe, surrendered themselves and about 275,000 Axis soldiers. It was an Allied victory comparable to Stalingrad and thus another grave humiliation for Hitler and an unmitigated disaster for his erstwhile ally, Benito Mussolini.
The maritime benefits of this land victory were incalculable. For the first time since 1941, Allied convoys, hugging the coast of North Africa and continuously protected by land-based aircraft, could sail the Mediterranean in relative safety from Gibraltar to the Suez Canal Merchant ships bound for Egypt or the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, Syria) or for India no longer had to go the long way via Cape Town, a savings of nine thousand sea miles and about forty-five days steaming per ship, as Churchill was wont to emphasize when enumerating the naval fruits of this victory. Moreover, the ensuing reduction of shipping via Freetown, Cape Town, and Durban made available convoy-escort vessels for use elsewhere.
Most of the remaining eighteen Mediterranean U-boats were based at La Spezia to facilitate patrols to the western Mediterranean against Torch shipping. Neither the OKM nor Leo Kreisch had ever been satisfied with the arrangements in La Spezia. The port was crowded with Italian ships and submarines; the facilities were overburdened; the Italians had not welcomed the Germans with open arms. The only real advantage of the base was its proximity to Germany.
With the fall of Tunisia, Berlin correctly sensed that the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel III, and the Fascist Grand Council might oust or assassinate Mussolini and defect or surrender Italy to the Allies. Berlin therefore directed Kreisch to move the German 29th Combat Flotilla from La Spezia to the magnificent French naval base at Toulon by August 1. At that time, Ritterkreuz holder Gunter Jahn, the outstanding commander of the veteran U-596, was to relieve Ritterkreuz holder Fritz Frauenheim as commander of the flotilla.
DIMINISHING RETURNS IN AMERICAN WATERS
The decision to divert a large number of Type IXs to convoy battles in the North and Middle Atlantic sharply reduced the number of this type available for patrols to the Americas.
In the first four months of 1943, U-boat Control sailed only thirteen Type IXs to the Americas: four in January, three in February, four in March, and two in early April. They confronted plentiful and well-organized ASW forces and convoying. Returns were thin and four of the thirteen were lost.
The first to sail in January was the U-518, commanded by Friedrich-Wilhelm Wissmann, making his second patrol. His maiden outing to Canadian waters had been outstanding: an agent landed safely, four ships for about 30,000 tons sunk, two tankers for about 15,000 tons damaged.
After a temporary diversion to the groups patrolling west of Gibraltar, Wissmann proceeded to Brazil. By that time few merchant ships sailed alone in Brazilian waters. Most were assigned to coastal convoys running between Trinidad and Bahia (Salvador) designated TB, or the reverse BT, with a stop at Recife. Brazilian naval forces provided escorts from Recife to Bahia and the reverse. American naval vessels and aircraft provided escort between Recife and Trinidad and the reverse. The U.S. Navy’s Fleet Air Wing 16, comprised of three patrol squadrons, VP 74, VP 83, and VP 94, equipped with Catalinas and the troublesome, lethal (to their aircrews) Mariners, covered the convoy route from Recife to Trinidad and the reverse.
Owing to the convoying, Wissmann found the seas nearly empty of loners. Finally on February 18, he sank the 6,000-ton Brazilian Brasiloide, which was sailing alone. Another ten long days passed with no sightings. Then on March 1 he found a submariner’s dream: convoy BT 6, northbound from Bahia (Salvador) to Recife en route to Trinidad. It was composed of twenty-nine merchant ships thinly escorted by three Brazilian warships.
Wissmann tracked and planned his attack with utmost care. Choosing several American Liberty ships for his first targets, he closed the convoy at night on the surface. In repeated attacks throughout the night, Wissmann fired fourteen electrics with Pi2 magnetic pistols. The result was a German fiasco. He sank one 7,200-ton American Liberty ship, the Fitz-John Porter, but, he reported, at least eight torpedoes ran too deep. Several others simply missed. As a consequence, this golden opportunity to decimate a convoy was lost.
Karl Neitzel in the U-510, who had sailed for Brazil five days after Wissmann, picked up the latter’s convoy report. He maneuvered his boat into a likely position to intercept convoy BT 6 farther north off the coast of French Guiana. Having sunk only two confirmed ships in two prior patrols, Neitzel was under the gun to produce. On the night of March 9, he found the convoy and, like Wissmann, he gazed in awe at this submariner’s dream.
Neitzel reported the convoy to U-boat Control, which authorized him to attack immediately. After a series of wild night-surface shots, Neitzel reported that he sank six ships for 70,000 tons, left another ship of 5,000 tons sinking, and hit yet another of 6,000 tons (81,000 tons sunk or damaged). This electrifying report drew high praise from U-boat Control and, on March 27, a Ritterkreuz for Neitzel. But Neitzel’s claims were much too rosy. His confirmed score was three ships for 18,300 tons sunk: two 7,200-ton American Liberty ships, James K. Polk and Thomas Ruffin, and one British freighter of 3,900 tons. In addition, he hit five other American Liberty ships for 36,000 tons, but all of these made port.*
Wissmann and Neitzel continued to patrol Brazilian waters but Neitzel soon headed home with an oil leak. Upon arrival in France, he left the boat to command Flotilla 25 in the Training Command. Wissmann sank two more ships in Brazilian waters, a 7,700-ton Dutchman and a 1,700-ton Swede, then returned to France via the Canary Islands where, as related, he picked up a part of the crew of the scuttled U-167 and refueled from the XB minelayer U-117.
The other two boats that sailed to the Americas in January were the U-156, commanded by the Ritterkreuz holder Werner Hartenstein (who sank Laconia and initiated the famous rescue), and the U-183, commanded by Heinrich Schüfer, making his second patrol. Hartenstein was sent to Trinidad; Schüfer was to enter the Caribbean Sea via the Windward Passage.
By the time Hartenstein in U-156 reached Trinidad it was, like Iceland, an ASW stronghold. Army and Navy aircraft equipped with centimetric-wavelength radar patrolled the area nearly continuously, escorting convoys converging on the island from numerous points and leaving for Guantánamo, Cuba, and other destinations. Harassed by these aircraft, Hartenstein informed U-boat Control that the Allies were employing a “new radar” that Metox could not detect. The proof of that important assertion was that he had been subjected to “precise” night attacks by aircraft without searchlights.
U-boat Control notified Hartenstein of the oncoming convoy BT 6, which Wissmann and Neitzel had attacked. Accordingly, Hartenstein proceeded to an area southeast of Trinidad to attempt to intercept. Doubtless Allied Huff Duff stations picked up Hartenstein’s transmissions and fixed his position. On March 8, a Catalina of Navy Squadron VP 53, a part of Fleet Air Wing 11, based on Trinidad, found U-156 on ASV radar about 270 miles east of Barbados. Ghosting silently out of the clouds, the Catalina descended to one hundred feet a
nd caught U-156 completely unawares. The pilot, J. E. Dryden, dropped four 350-pound Torpex depth charges. Two straddled the conning tower and broke the boat into three pieces that sank quickly, one by one. The airmen counted eleven survivors in the water clinging to wreckage. They dropped a raft and emergency supplies, but notwithstanding a prolonged search over the ensuing days, not one of the survivors of U-156 was ever found.
The three IXs that sailed in February joined Schäfer in U-183 to enter the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico for a loosely coordinated and timed four-boat “surprise attack.” These were the famous U-68, commanded by a new skipper, Albert Lauzemis, age twenty-five, the Ritterkreuz holder Adolf-Cornelius Piening in the veteran U-155, and August Maus in U-185, making his second patrol.
The four boats reached their assigned areas in the first week of March. On March 10, Maus in U-185 opened the campaign by attacking in the Windward Passage a convoy, KG 123, southbound from Key West to Güantanamo. He sank two American ships, the 6,200-ton tanker Virginia Sinclair and the 7,200-ton Liberty ship James Sprunt. Tenacious escorts diverted from a nearby convoy northbound to Key West thwarted a second attack and heavily depth-charged Maus, forcing him to withdraw. In the Yucatan Channel on March 11, Schäfer in U-183 sank what he claimed to be a 7,000-ton freighter but what in reality was the 2,500-ton Honduran banana boat Olancho. South of the Windward Passage on March 13, Lauzemis in U-68 found a Güantanamo-Aruba-Trinidad convoy, GAT 49, and sank two ships from it, a 2,700-ton Dutch freighter and the 7,500-ton American tanker Cities Service Missouri. Entering the Gulf of Mexico via the Straits of Florida, Piening in U-155 found no targets to kick off this “surprise attack.”