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

by Clay Blair

  • The Arctic veteran VII U-334, commanded by a new skipper, Heinz Ehrich, age twenty-three. She was sunk ten days out from Norway on June 14 southwest of Iceland by the frigate Jed and sloop Pelican, which were escorting convoy Outbound North (Slow) 10. In six attacks the two escorts dropped forty depth charges and fired two Hedgehog salvos. The U-334 surfaced twice during the attacks, but was destroyed with all hands. The Admiralty assessment committee wrote that the “terrible assortment of wreckage and fresh human remains, oil and bubbles [that] rose to the surface” was adequate proof of a kill,

  • The new VII U-388, commanded by Peter Sues, age twenty-three. She was sunk on June 20, merely thirteen days out from Kiel, by an Iceland-based Catalina of U.S. Navy Squadron VP 84, piloted by E. W. Wood, which was escorting convoy Outbound North 189. Wood drove the U-388 under with depth charges and machine-gun fire, then launched a Fido homing torpedo at the swirl. Wood reported that wreckage surfaced along with bubbles and oil and that he could see that the U-boat stern was split open and that a “10 to 15 foot” section of the after compartment was visible. There were no survivors. The Admiralty awarded Wood a British DFC. The U.S. Navy gave him an Air Medal.

  • The new IXD2 U-200, a U-cruiser assigned to a special mission, commanded by Heinrich Schonder, age thirty-two, who had won a Ritterkreuz while commanding the VII U-77 in the Mediterranean. After embarking a small contingent of “coastal troops” (Küstentruppe)* of the Brandenburg Division, the U-200 sailed from Kiel on June 12. Thirteen days out, as she was entering the Atlantic, a B-24 of the Iceland-based British Squadron 120, piloted by the Australian A. W. Fraser, sank her with the loss of all hands.

  • The new VII U-449, commanded by Hermann Otto, age twenty-nine. On June 14, a B-24 of British Squadron 120, piloted by Samuel E. Esler, which was escorting Outbound North (Slow) 10, inflicted “slight damage” to the boat. When Otto reported that he urgently required a doctor to tend his wounded, U-boat Control directed the veteran VII U-592, commanded by Carl Borm, age thirty-two, which, as related, had sailed from France in the last days of May with a doctor, to close U-449’s position at maximum speed. On the chance that this meeting might fail, Control ordered Otto in U-449 to abort to France at maximum speed and to join two other boats inbound to France, including the big Type XB minelayer U-119, commanded by Horst-Tessen von Kameke, age twenty-seven, who was returning from a mine-laying mission off Halifax and also had a doctor on board. The U-119 had just given the new tanker U-488, commanded by Erwin Bartke, all possible spare fuel and Otto in U-449 found U-119 before U-592 found him. Otto obtained the necessary medical assistance from U-119, then commenced a crossing of Biscay in company with her.

  As part of the saturation ASW campaign in the Bay of Biscay, the Admiralty had assigned Johnny Walker’s Support Group 2 to patrol the western edge of the Bay of Biscay, in cooperation with Coastal Command aircraft. Early on the morning of June 24, Walker in the sloop Starling got sonar contacts on U-119, while some other ships of the group got sonar contacts on U-449. Walker immediately attacked U-119, dropping ten depth charges that brought the U-boat to the surface with “dramatic suddenness.”

  All warships that could bring guns to bear opened fire, but after one friendly shell hit Starling in the bow, Walker ordered the others to cease fire while he rammed. He smashed into von Kameke’s U-119 solidly, riding up over her forward deck and capsizing her. The impact bent Starling’s bow 30 degrees off kilter, wiped off the sonar dome, and flooded the forward ammo magazine. For added insurance, Starling and the sloop Woodpecker each fired another salvo of depth charges. For proof of a kill, Starling’s whaleboat collected “locker doors and other floating wreckage marked in German, a burst tin of coffee and some walnuts.” There were no survivors of U-119.

  Thereafter four sloops of this group, Kite, Wild Goose, Woodpecker, and Wren, ganged up on Otto in U-449. Exchanging commands with D.E.G. (Dickie) Wemyss in Wild Goose, Walker led these four warships in renewed attacks. They hunted and depth-charged U-449 for six hours before wreckage and oil rose to the surface, giving proof of a kill. There were no survivors of U-449 either.

  Having sunk two confirmed U-boats in one day, Walker’s group followed the damaged Starling into Plymouth, where there was a stack of congratulatory letters from First Sea Lord Pound, Max Horton at Western Approaches, and others down the chain of command. For his part, Walker—undisputed king of the U-boat killers—sharply criticized the lack of cooperation the Coastal Command aircraft had shown his ships.

  The new VII U-420, commanded by Hans-Jürgen Reese, age twenty-five. On July 3, one of the newly acquired, Newfoundland-based B-24s of Canadian Squadron 10 escorting Slow Convoy 135* found U-420 on the surface. In three low-level attacks, the pilot, R. R. Stevenson, dropped his entire load of ten depth charges close to U-420. The machine-gun fire and depth charges in these attacks killed two Germans, badly wounded a third, and savaged the boat, but Reese dived and escaped. Upon receipt of his SOS, U-boat Control directed three inbound VIIs that had sailed to the North Atlantic in late May to assist U-420: U-271, commanded by Kurt Barleben, age thirty-four; U-669, commanded by Kurt Kohl, age thirty-one; and Carl Borm in U-592, who still had the doctor on board. Although a British submarine fired six torpedoes at U-592, ail missed and the four boats reached France from July 14 to July 16.

  • The new IXC40 U-194, commanded by Hermann Hesse, age thirty-four. She was assigned to plant weather balloons in the Atlantic before proceeding to antiship operations near the Azores. On June 24, a veteran Iceland-based Catalina of U.S. Navy Squadron VP 84, piloted by J. W. Beach, spotted U-194 on the surface. Beach attacked immediately into flak, but his depth charges failed to release. In a second run, the aircrew dropped two depth charges manually. One fell wide, one fell close. Nothing further was heard from U-194.

  This was the fourth attack on a U-boat in which Beach had participated in one capacity or another. The Navy awarded the Air Medal to him and to his copilot, E. T. Allen, who was usually a first pilot and who had also participated in four attacks on U-boats. The Admiralty awarded both men the DFC.

  •The new IXC40 U-536, commanded by Rolf Schauenburg, age thirty. Owing to the loss or aborts of U-tankers, U-boat Control was compelled to assign U-536 to a provisional refueling role, along with two other new IXC40s that had sailed from Kiel in late May: the U-170, commanded by Günther Pfeffer, age twenty-eight, and U-535, commanded by Helmut Ellmenreich, age twenty-nine.

  The skippers of these three new IXC40s were directed to abort war patrols and to give all possible fuel to Erwin Bartke’s new Type XIV tanker U-488. This added fuel enabled Bartke to refuel ten more VIIs near the Azores.

  After giving U-488 as much fuel as they could, the three new IXC40s set off for France in company. While they were crossing the Bay of Biscay on July 5 with flak guns manned, a B-24 of British Squadron 53, piloted by the New Zealander W. Anderson on Musketry/Seaslug patrol, found and attacked all three boats. On the plane’s first attach run, the boats put up a wall of flak, dodged wildly, and escaped undamaged. On the second attack in the face of more heavy flak, the depth charges failed to release, but the plane machine-gunned Schauenburg’s U-536. On the third run, all three boats dived and Anderson dropped eight shallow-set depth charges on Ellmenreich’s U-535, which sank with the loss of all hands. Anderson nursed the badly damaged B-24 back to base.

  Partly as a result of the new orders to stay on the surface and fight enemy aircraft with flak guns, the boats sailing from France in June into the Bay of Biscay also incurred heavy losses and battle damage. Some others were crippled with mechanical problems. The outbound boats also sailed in small groups where possible, in order to increase flak firepower. Four newly sailed boats, including, as related, the veteran VII U-135, which joined group Trutz, were sunk and eight were forced to abort. Less U-135, these eleven boats were:

  • A Type XIV (“Milk Cow”) tanker, U-462, commanded by Bruno Vowe, age thirty-eight, which sailed from Bordeaux on June 19. When she was three da
ys out, four twin-engine Mosquitos of British Squadrons 151 and 456 on anti-JU-88 patrol attacked her, killing one flak gunner and wounding four. Compelled to abort, Vowe returned to Bordeaux on June 23. The slight structural damage to U-462 was quickly repaired and Vowe resailed on June 28. In a near replication of her prior aborted patrol, U-462 again incurred damage from an aircraft that forced the tanker to return to Bordeaux on July 6. This plane was a B-24 of British Squadron 224, piloted by E.JJ. Spiller. The U-tanker did not resail until late July, another serious setback to U-boat operations that forced Control to divert more Type IXs to refueling roles.

  • The veteran VII U-564, made famous by Reinhard Suhren, which sailed from Bordeaux on June 9 on her third patrol under command of Hans Fiedler, age twenty-eight, who had yet to sink a ship. In keeping with the new policy, Fiedler linked up with four other boats for the trip across the Bay of Biscay. On the evening of June 13, a Sunderland of British Squadron 228, piloted by Leonard Bertrand Lee, found the group and attacked U-564 with depth charges. The group shot back en masse and brought down the plane with the loss of all hands, but U-564 was severely damaged. U-boat Control directed another boat of the group, the IXC40 U-185, commanded by August Maus, age twenty-eight, to escort U-564 to a port on the north coast of Spain where the boat could make repairs.

  On the next morning, June 14, one of nine Whitleys of OTU 10 on patrol spotted the two U-boats. The pilot and copilot, Australians Arthur J. Benson and Robert L. Rennick, shadowed and radioed for reinforcements, to no avail. After two long hours, Benson attacked the two boats, concentrating his depth charges on the damaged U-564, which sank. But Maus in U-185 had riddled the Whitley with flak and it had to ditch. Maus rescued Fiedler and seventeen other Germans from U-564; twenty-eight other crew died in the sinking. Maus transferred the survivors to the German destroyer Z-24, then continued his outward voyage to the Americas. Fiedler returned to Germany to commission a new VII. A French fishing trawler, Jazz Band, rescued the five Allied airmen of the Whitley and landed them in France, where they were captured.

  • The veteran IXC U-68, commanded by Albert Lauzemis, age twenty-five, which sailed from Lorient on June 12 with two other IXs, U-155 and U-159. On June 14 a flight of four Coastal Command Mosquito aircraft, three from Polish Squadron 307 and one from British Squadron 410, found the three boats. Fire from a Mosquito, piloted by Stanislaw Szablowski, killed one man and wounded four others on U-68: Lauzemis, the second watch officer, the quartermaster, and a seaman. Hit in the jaw and unable to carry on, Lauzemis aborted to Lorient, where he was hospitalized but retained command of U-68.

  • The IXC U-155, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Adolf-Cornelius Piening, age thirty-two, which sailed from Lorient with U-68 on June 12. Also hit by Szablowski’s fire, five men on U-155 incurred serious wounds. As a result, Piening aborted and returned to Lorient in company with U-68. Upon completion of repairs and after obtaining crew replacements, Piening resailed for the Americas on June 30. However, owing to the acute U-tanker shortage, U-boat Control directed U-155 to cancel the voyage to the Americas and to replenish several other boats.*

  • The VII U-338, commanded by Manfred Kinzel, age twenty-eight, which sailed from Bordeaux on June 15 on his second patrol. On the first, from Kiel, Kinzel had shot down an attacking Halifax and captured one survivor. This time a B-17 of British Squadron 206, piloted by Leslie G. Clark on Musketry patrol, attacked U-338 with seven depth charges on June 17. The attack killed one man and wounded three, and severely damaged the boat. Kinzel aborted and reached St. Nazaire on June 22. He did not sail again until late August. Earlier, pilot Les Clark and five of this aircrew had sunk U-384 and had been erroneously credited with sinking U-337.

  • The veteran IXC U-518, commanded by Friedrich-Wilhelm Wissmann, age twenty-seven, which sailed from Lorient on June 24 for the Americas. Four days later, on June 27, a Sunderland of British Squadron 201 on Seaslug patrol, piloted by the New Zealander Brian E. H. Layne, hit her, inflicting “heavy” damage and forcing Wissmann to abort. He put about for France but on June 30, a Sunderland of Australian Squadron 10, piloted by H. W. Skinner, hit the U-518 again. She finally arrived in Bordeaux on July 2, in company with Werner Musenberg in the defective IXD1 U-cruiser U-180 (which, as related, was carrying some Japanese officers and a cargo of gold) and Kurt Lange in the IXC40 U-530, a provisional refueler. After repairs, Wissmann resailed U-518 in August.

  • The VII U-270, commanded by Paul-Friedrich Otto, age twenty-six, which sailed from St. Nazaire on June 26 for a mission off the Iberian Peninsula with four other newly sailed VIIs. Owing to “damage to the oil-pressure leads,” she was forced to abort. Having been out only seven days, she returned to St. Nazaire on July 2 and did not sail again until September.

  • The VII U-386, which sailed from St. Nazaire on June 29, commanded by a new skipper, Fritz Albrecht, age twenty-three, who came from a year of service on the IX U-43. For reasons that are not noted in the war diary of U-boat Control, Albrecht aborted the patrol and returned to St. Nazaire on July 8, after a voyage of merely ten days.

  • The veteran, battle-scarred IXC U-505, still commanded by twenty-four-year-old Peter Zschech, which had been undergoing battle-damage repairs and modifications for a full six months. She sailed from Lorient on June 30, but, it was discovered, she was still not yet combat-ready and had to return immediately to Lorient.

  In summary, of the forty-eight U-boats that sailed in June from Germany, Norway, and France, nineteen failed to carry out missions. Including U-135 (with Trutz), nine were sunk, eight aborted, and two, U-155 (which aborted but resailed) and U-536, carried out provisional refueling missions. All too many boats were knocked out as a result of the order to cross the Bay of Biscay in groups and remain on the surface and fight back if attacked by enemy aircraft.

  JUNE PATROLS TO DISTANT WATERS

  Of the boats that sailed in June, U-boat Control sent thirty-two to the Americas or the Freetown area, where Allied ASW measures were believed to be less threatening. Twenty-three sailed for the Americas. As related, three IXs did not get far: Piening in the U-155, who aborted, resailed, and was diverted to be a provisional tanker; Wissmann in the U-518, who was forced to abort with battle damage; and Zschech in U-505, who aborted on the second day with mechanical defects. These deletions reduced the foray to the Americas to twenty boats: seventeen VIIs and three IXs. Thirteen of these patrolled in the Caribbean or its approaches and seven went to Brazilian waters.

  All seventeen of the VIIs going to American waters refueled on the outbound leg from the XIV U-tankers U-487 and U-488 or a provisional tanker, the IXC40 U-530. The plan was to refuel these seventeen VIIs a second time on the home-bound leg. Even so, Dönitz issued explicit instructions that all boats were “duty bound” to conserve fuel for the operational areas. Hence the outbound VIIs ran on one diesel engine, making good only about 6 knots, a tedious, slow voyage in the nearly unbearable June and July heat of the southern waters.

  Although the flow of naval Enigma decrypts was irregular and thin in June and July, the submarine tracking rooms in London, Washington, and Ottawa, relying on all available sources, were able to give timely warning of this large U-boat foray to the Americas. Hence Allied DF stations and ASW forces, air squadrons in particular, in Caribbean and South American waters were on red alert. As a consequence they were able to sink half of the twenty boats in American waters, a terrible slaughter.

  The thirteen boats assigned to the Caribbean or its approaches consisted of one IXC, the U-159, commanded by a new skipper, Heinz Beckmann, who celebrated his thirtieth birthday en route, and twelve VIIs.

  All U.S. ASW aircraft patrolling the Caribbean Sea came under control of Fleet Air Wing (Fairwing) 11. Commanded by Adrian O. Rule, its headquarters was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, adjacent to that of Admiral John H, Hoover, commander of the Caribbean Sea Frontier. Aircraft of Fairwing 11 also patrolled from Trinidad southward to a line near the Amazon River, where the aircraft of the newly established Fairwing 1
6, headquartered at Recife, took over.*

  Beckmann in U-159 was to patrol the Panama Canal area, but he did not get there. He entered the Caribbean via the Anegada Passage. On July 28, while southeast of Haiti, a Mariner of U.S. Navy Squadron VP 32, piloted by D. C. Pinholster, caught U-159 on the surface. Pinholster dropped his depth charges from wavetop level, and the U-159 sank with the loss of all hands. U-boat Control had no clue to her loss, which the Navy incorrectly credited to another Mariner of VP 32, piloted by Robert C. Mayo.

  Seven VIIs patrolled “inside” the Caribbean.

  The VII U-759, commanded by Rudolf Friedrich, who celebrated his twenty-ninth birthday en route, entered via the Mona Passage on June 29. From a position south of the Windward Passage, he patrolled the Key West-Trinidad convoy route. On June 30 he imprudently sank a sailing vessel with his deck gun, but fortunately for U-759 this victim was unable to alert Allied forces. On July 5, Friedrich sank the 3,500-ton American freighter Maltran from a small convoy. Two days later he found convoy TAG 70† (eight freighters, six escorts) from which he sank the 9,300-ton Dutch cargo vessel Peolau Roebiah. An escort, the American four-stack destroyer Tattnall counterattacked U-759, but Friedrich evaded and slipped away. A Navy scout plane found him again on July 8 and dropped depth charges and summoned surface ships, but in a seven-hour cat-and-mouse game, Friedrich eluded these warships as well.