Hitler’s U-Boat War- The Hunted 1942-45

by Clay Blair

  At that specific time, Allied codebreakers could not read naval Enigma effectively, but DFs of the U-boat radio chatter gave Giles Short in Bogue a good idea of the Trutz assembly area. He maneuvered Bogue and her screen to that general area in such manner as to provide cover not only for UGS 9 but also for two other convoys passing east and west close by, UGS 7A and Flight 10, a special formation of nineteen eastbound British Landing Craft Infantry (LCI). On June 4, Bogue’s aircraft saw and attacked three Trutz VIIs on the surface, all formerly of group Mosel on second patrols: Erwin Christophersen, age twenty-eight, in U-228; Rudolf Baltz in U-603; and Horst Rendtel, age twenty-six, in U-64L Baltz and Rendtel fought back with flak guns, fouling the aim of the bombardiers, and all three boats escaped with only slight damage.

  On the day following, June 5, two Bogue aircraft on patrol found another Trutz boat on the surface. She was the clumsy VIID minelayer U-217, commanded by Kurt Reichenbach-Klinke, age twenty-six. Pilot Richard S. Rogers, flying a Wildcat, dived and strafed the boat, knocking six Germans into the sea. After Rogers had made two more strafing runs, pilot Alexander C. McAuslan in an Avenger dropped four depth charges on U-217 from an altitude of one hundred feet. The U-boat disappeared with the loss of all hands.*

  Control was not pleased with the performance of group Trutz, the sole remaining U-boat group in the Atlantic Ocean. In view of the carrier aircraft in the vicinity of the convoys and fuel shortages, Control ordered Trutz to break off operations and go northward to refuel from the new Type XIV “Milk Cow” U-tanker, U-488, commanded by Erwin Bartke, age thirty-four. Afterward the group, less U-92, which was to go home by way of the Azores, but reinforced by the new IXC40 U-193, commanded by Hans Pauckstadt, age thirty-six, was to return to the United States-Gibraltar convoy route to look for other UG convoys and/or the opposite-sailing homebound GU convoys.

  Meanwhile, in compliance with orders from Dönitz, a number of VIIs and IXs sailed for the Caribbean Sea, South America, and the areas near Freetown, as will be described later. With these sailed the big Type XB minelayer U-118, commanded by Werner Czygan, age thirty-eight, which was serving provisionally as a U-tanker. She was assigned to refuel about nine boats.

  One of the VIIs scheduled for refueling by U-118 was the U-758, commanded by Helmut Manseck, age twenty-eight, outbound to Trinidad on the boat’s second patrol. She was the first U-boat to enter combat with a quad 20mm mounted on a bandstand aft of the bridge. While proceeding to the rendezvous with U-118 on June 8, Manseck came upon convoy UGS 9, which group Trutz had failed to locate.

  Unknown to Manseck, the Bogue support group was still in the vicinity. Running down a Huff Duff contact, two of Bogue’s Avengers found U-758 on the surface. The first plane, piloted by Letson S. Balliett, dropped four close depth charges. The second, piloted by W. S. Fowler, dropped three. The seven explosions utterly savaged U-758 and injured eleven men, four gravely. In keeping with the new “fight back” policy, Manseck remained on the surface, blazing away. Praising the quad 20mm, he later claimed eight Bogue aircraft attacked him and that he shot down one and damaged four, but in fact only four aircraft attacked him and only one was damaged.

  By dint of sharp seamanship and great luck, Manseck got away and that night reported his desperate situation to Control. Believing the smashed-up U-758 might very well sink, Control directed two nearby boats to proceed to Manseck’s position at maximum speed: the nearly dry XIV U-tanker U-460, commanded by Ebe Schnoor, and Werner Czygan’s provisional tanker U-118. Both tankers reached U-758 the following day. The doctor on U-118 attended Manseck’s wounded, transferring several of the men to U-118 for close attention. Schnoor in U-460 gave Czygan in U-118 a few tons of surplus fuel then escorted U-758 back to France, where both boats arrived on June 25. The U-758 was in repair and further modification until September. To help build confidence in the new quad 20mm, U-boat Control passed along to all boats Manseck’s exaggerated claims.

  The Allies DFed numerous naval Enigma messages concerning the rescue of U-758 and refueling instructions to U-118. This Huff Duff information led Short in Bogue to think another group was forming up. Proceeding to the area on June 12, Bogue aircraft found U-118. About eight planes attacked U-118, dropping fourteen close depth charges arid firing over five thousand rounds from machine guns. This massive aerial assault destroyed U-118. Upon reaching the scene, one of Bogue’s screen, the four-stack destroyer Osmond Ingram, found twenty-one Germans in the water, four of them dead. The destroyermen fished out the seventeen living German survivors—all enlisted men—but one subsequently died of his wounds, Thirty-eight other crew and/or the retained wounded from U-758 died in the attack or the sinking. The loss left only the new XIV tanker U-488 at sea to supply the boats bound for distant southern Atlantic and Caribbean waters.* Low on fuel and again bedeviled by a faulty catapult, Bogue and screen returned to Norfolk on June 14 when U.S. Army Air Forces B-24s the 480th Group from Morocco arrived to escort the convoy.

  While the fifteen boats of group Trutz were refueling from U-488, Control worked out a plan to attack the next slow United States-Gibraltar convoy, UGS 10. The plan was that Trutz was to go well to the west to a point in mid-ocean (about nine hundred miles east of Bermuda) to intercept this convoy. Allied codebreakers decrypted these orders or DFed the assembly and diverted UGS 10 (seventy merchant ships, nine close escorts, and a support group built around the light carrier Santee) farther to the south than had been intended, and ordered the convoy to maintain continuous air patrols from Santee. Thus the Allies again outwitted group Trutz.

  By chance, another U-boat en route to the Trinidad area, the veteran VII U-572, commanded by Heinz Kummetat, age twenty-four, happened upon UGS 10 on June 22. Kummetat reported the contact and requested permission to attack. After Control calculated that group Trutz was beyond the range of Allied land-based air from Morocco, it granted U-572’s request. Kummetat boldly slipped submerged by the American aircraft from Santee and nine unalert warships of the close escort (seven destroyers, two minesweepers) and .sank the 4,200-ton Free French tanker Lot. Belatedly, the escort woke up and counterattacked U-572, but Kummetat evaded and continued his voyage to Trinidad.

  Control then directed group Trutz to reverse course and sail east at economical speed. The group was reinforced to sixteen boats by the veteran VII U-135, commanded by a new skipper, Otto Lüther, age twenty-four. Aware of this new formation and its orders from Enigma decrypts and Huff Duff, Allied authorities diverted two westbound convoys around Trutz. These were GUS 8, protected by a new American support group built around the “jeep” carrier Card, which had come over to Morocco in the role of aircraft ferry, and GUS 9, protected at first by the returning Santee group, then by another new support group built around the “jeep” carrier Core, that had come east with UGS 11.*

  Outwitted and frustrated, Control dissolved group Trutz at the end of June. Low on fuel, the U-666, commanded by Herbert Engel, age thirty-one, returned to France, leaving fifteen boats. Control assigned two veteran VIIs commanded by the Ritterkreuz holders Hans Trojer in U-221 and Günther Krech in U-558 to patrol the very dangerous waters close to the mouth of Gibraltar Strait and two of the last to join the group, the VII U-135 and the IXC40 U-193, both commanded by green skippers, to patrol west of Morocco. The other eleven Trutz boats, including Ritterkreuz holder Siegfried Strelow in the veteran U-435, were divided into three small subgroups (Geier, or Vulture, 1, 2, and 3) and directed to work slowly toward an area west of Lisbon. It was believed that most of these former Trutz boats were operating close enough to support one another, should one find a convoy.

  Five of these ex-Trutz boats were promptly sunk, four by Allied land-based ASW bombers.

  • The new VII U-951, commanded by Kurt Pressel, age thirty-two, making his first patrol. A B-24 of U.S. Army Air Forces ASW Squadron 1, based in Morocco and piloted by Walter S. McDonell, spotted her on July 7. Attacking into flak, McDonell toggled seven depth charges that destroyed U-951 and all forty-six crew. The flak
smashed into the cockpit area of the B-24, wounding four airmen, all of whom recovered.†

  • The new VII U-232, commanded by Ernst Ziehm, age twenty-eight, also on his first patrol. A B-24 of U.S. Army Air Forces ASW Squadron 2, based in Morocco and piloted by James H. Darden, spotted her on July 8. In three attacks into heavy flak, Darden dropped six depth charges that destroyed U-232 with the loss of all forty-six crew. The flak severely damaged the B-24 and slightly injured one gunner.

  • The veteran VII U-435, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Siegfried Strelow. A Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of Gibraltar-based British Squadron 179, piloted by E. J. Fisher, sank her with four depth charges on July 9. There were no survivors.

  • The veteran VII U-135, commanded by the new skipper Otto Lüther. Patrolling in the narrow waters between the Canaries and Morocco, Lüther found a convoy, Outbound South 51. He attacked on July 15, damaging the 4,800-ton British freighter Twickenham. The convoy escorts counterattacked and forced the boat to scuttle. The Admiralty credited the veteran British sloop Rochester and the British corvettes Balsam and Mignonette with the kill. The British rescued Lüther and forty other Germans.

  • The veteran VII U-558, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Günther Krech. Piloted by Charles F. Gallmeier, a B-24 of USAAF ASW Squadron 19 of the 479th Group, recently arrived in southwest England, devastated the boat with a salvo of seven depth charges on July 20. Flak from U-558 hit one of Gallmeier’s inboard engines, forcing him to abort. Fortuitously for the Allies, a British Halifax of Squadron 58, piloted by Geoffrey R. Sawtell, was also at the scene. Although the Germans were attempting to scuttle and to abandon ship, Sawtell in the Halifax attacked U-558 with eight depth charges, slaughtering the Germans on deck and in the water with machine guns and depth charges. Five of the forty-six Germans, including Krech, who was badly wounded in the spine and upper thigh, escaped in a raft and lived to tell the tale. They were rescued on July 24 by a passing vessel, the British (later Canadian) destroyer Athabaskan. All others perished.

  Six other ex-Trutz/Geier boats had close calls.

  • On July 5 an unidentified aircraft attacked the VII U-608, commanded by the experienced Rolf Struckmeier. He reported to Control that he “dived away” and avoided damage or casualties. While homebound in Biscay on July 14, he sighted an enemy submarine, but no attack occurred and the U-608 reached St. Nazaire on July 18, completing an unsuccessful patrol of sixty-five days. The boat did not sail again until October.

  • On July 6, an unidentified Allied aircraft hit the new IXC40 U-193, skippered by the old hand Hans Pauckstadt, age thirty-six, who had commanded a duck and two VIIs before the war. The damage included two men wounded and the loss of the Metox equipment. Pauckstadt linked up with the failed IXD1 U-cruiser U-195 returning from Cape Town, which had its Metox operational, and reached Bordeaux on July 23. He also did not resail until October.

  • On July 8, a Catalina of British Squadron 202, piloted by G. Powell, spotted the VII U-603, commanded by Rudolf Baltz, who had refueled from the XB U-119 and was still on his first patrol as skipper. Pilot Powell attacked with machine guns blazing and dropped depth charges that damaged the boat. Upon receiving Baltz’s report (bombed by a “Sunderland,” Control logged), Control authorized all Geier skippers that they could elect to come home if in their judgment Allied air was too intense. The U-603 reached Brest on July 16, concluding a patrol of seventy-three days, during which Baltz sank one ship, the 4,800-ton Dutchman Brand. He sailed again in September.

  • On July 9, an unidentified Allied aircraft attacked the new VII U-953, commanded by Karl-Heinz Marbach, who had celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday on July 5. He fought off the aircraft with flak guns, but one of his men was killed and two were wounded. Upon arrival in La Pallice, the boat underwent conversion to a “flak boat,” and it did not sail again until October.

  • That same day, July 9, an unidentified aircraft attempted to attack the U-228, commanded by Erwin Christophersen. He reported “no damage,” but by July 12, he too was homebound. He arrived in Lorient on July 19, completing a patrol of seventy-seven days. He did not sail again until the last days of October.

  • On July 10, an unidentified aircraft hit the U-336, commanded by Hans Hunger. Control logged that the aircraft was a “Sunderland” that caused only “slight damage.” Hunger sailed again in September.

  So ended the checkered story of group Trutz/Geier, the last and only group to operate in the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1943. Altogether, eighteen U-boats had been assigned to the group. Its only success was U-603’s freighter Brand and U-135’s damage to freighter Twickenham. Six of the eighteen boats were lost, along with about 250 men, plus forty-six captured. Owing to the assignment of four carrier support groups to the Middle Atlantic UG and GU convoys (Bogue, Card, Core, Santee), the extended coverage on both ends of the route by ever increasing numbers of land-based Allied ASW aircraft, and to the vast sea room available for evasive convoy routing, Dönitz decreed that no more groups were to operate against convoys in this Gibraltar-Azores zone until the boats had been upgraded with the new offensive and defensive weapons.

  MAY PATROLS TO THE AMERICAS

  Nine Type IXs sailed to American waters in May, including the new IXD2 cruiser U-199.* As related, an aircraft hit one IXC, the U-523, in Biscay, forcing her to abort. Five of the eight that reached American waters were commanded by Ritterkreuz holders. One of these, Friedrich Guggenberger, age twenty-eight, in U-513, who had sunk the carrier Ark Royal in the Mediterranean, wore Oak Leaves. Five boats were to patrol the waters of the United States East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean; the other three were to patrol off Brazil.

  Three of the first IXs to sail went to the Cape Hatteras area: Friedrich Mark-worth, age twenty-eight, in U-66; Max Wintermeyer, age twenty-nine, in the IXC40 U-190; and Ritterkreuz holder Klaus Bargsten, age thirty-five, in U-521, who had sunk the British destroyer Cossack earlier in the war while commanding U-563. Wintermeyer in U-190 was first to arrive, and the reception was rude. On May 28 a radar-equipped U.S. Army Air Forces B-24, piloted by J. M. Vivian, caught and bombed U-190, causing severe damage. Although the damage was repaired, thereafter Wintermeyer patrolled with extreme caution and sank no ships in a cruise of 111 days.

  Next on the Hatteras scene was Ritterkreuz holder Klaus Bargsten in the U-52L On May 30, he saw aircraft and two “destroyers” but was not himself seen, he reported. Three days later, on June 2, Bargsten cruised farther north to a position about ninety miles east of Chincoteague Bay, Virginia. Shortly after noon that day, one of the 173-foot American patrol craft, PC-565* commanded by a lawyer, Walter T. Flymn, which was escorting a large convoy from New York to Guantánamo (NG 365) got a good sonar contact on U-521 and immediately attacked with five shallow-set depth charges. These exploded close to the unalert U-boat that was cruising at a depth of about one hundred feet. Leaping from his bunk, Bargsten ran to the control room to assess the damage. In his judgment, it was so severe that he ordered the boat to surface. Upon breaking water Bargsten hurried to the bridge alone, to find PC-565 and another escort, the corvette Brisk (ex-Flax of the Royal Canadian Navy, designated U.S. Navy Gunboat 89), close by.

  Boldly turning the little PC-565 to ram, Flynn gave orders for his two main guns to open fire. Both failed. Number 1 gun misfired; the crew of number 2 was blinded by the PC’s own exhaust smoke. However, the starboard 20mm gun fired fifty-five rounds, scoring several hits on U-52Ts conning tower. The corvette Brisk got off one wild round from her 4” gun but had to cease shooting when the PC cruised into her line of fire.

  Hopelessly hemmed in, Bargsten gave the order to scuttle and abandon ship. Inexplicably, U-521 suddenly sank beneath his feet, leaving him alone in the water. He did not know whether or not the boat had survived. Nor did Flynn in PC-565, who threw over one more depth charge for good luck, then picked up Bargsten, splinters of freshly broken wood, and “a large piece of human flesh,” which, in his mind, confirmed the kill. Less
certain, the Eastern Sea Frontier sent the minesweeper Chickadee to the scene (in 7,200 feet of water) to mount another search, but other than an oil slick, no sign of U-521 was ever found.

  Markworth in the aging U-66 had better luck. He gave the hostile Cape Hatteras area a quick once-over, then proceeded farther south toward Savannah, keeping well off the coast. On June 10, he hit the fully loaded 10,200-ton American tanker Esso Gettysburg with two torpedoes, and she burst into flames and sank. Nearly twenty-four hours elapsed before an Army Air Forces B-25 on convoy escort saw fifteen wretched survivors who were subsequently rescued. About three weeks later, on July 2, Markworth attacked with torpedoes and his deck gun another big American tanker, the empty 10,200-ton Bloody Marsh, about forty miles from the scene of his first success. The Bloody Marsh returned gunfire, but U-66 carried the day and the tanker went down. Several days later, while making a submerged attack on a freighter, U-66 was rammed but sustained only slight damage. Upon receiving Markworth’s report, Dönitz awarded him a Ritterkreuz.*

  Homebound on July 22, Markworth encountered a third big American tanker, the 10,200-ton Cherry Valley, sailing in ballast. In his initial attack, Markworth claimed he saw two torpedo hits. In a second attack, he reported, he missed with three torpedoes, then attacked Cherry Valley with his 4.1” deck gun. However, the tanker’s Armed Guard crew drove U-66 off and saved the ship, which was repaired and returned to service. Resuming his homeward voyage by the “southern route,” where he was to meet a U-tanker, the newly decorated Markworth was to run into difficulties, as will be described later.

  The next two IXs to sail to American waters were Ritterkreuz holder Günther Müller-Stöckheim, age twenty-nine, in the IXC U-67 and Herbert Uhlig, age twenty-seven, in the IXC40 U-527. While leaving the Bay of Biscay on May 13, Uhlig in U-527 came upon a large storm-damaged freighter under tow by two tugs. He carried out a submerged attack on the freighter, but it failed. The attack drew a corvette escort, which counterattacked U-527 with about fifteen depth charges and drove the boat away.