by Clay Blair
Friedrich reported this long chase to U-boat Control on July 10, adding “no casualties.” It was to be the last communication from U-759. According to a reassessment by Alex Niestlé, in the early hours of July 15, another Mariner of Navy Squadron VP 32, piloted by Robert C. Mayo, which was escorting yet another convoy, TAG 74, found U-759 on the surface. Mayo’s depth charges sent U-759 to the bottom with the loss of all hands. Friedrich was one of only two VIIs of this foray to sink ships inside the Caribbean. His total of two for 12,800 tons and a sailing vessel made him the top scorer.
The U-359, commanded by Heinz Förster, age thirty-four, who with the U-466 had repelled an aircraft in Biscay and may have shot it down, patrolled inside the Caribbean south of the island of Hispaniola. On July 26, yet another Mariner of Navy Squadron VP 32, piloted by Ralph W. Rawson, found U-359 and attacked through heavy flak, dropping four depth charges.
When Rawson returned to Puerto Rico, authorities merely credited him with “probable damage” to a U-boat. But in fact, U-359 did not survive this attack. She was the third U-boat to be sunk within two weeks by the unsatisfactory PBM-3 Mariners of Navy Squadron VP 32, a record not exceeded by any other land-based ASW squadron in the war and a tribute to the courage of the aircrews.
On the night before she sailed from France, the U-615, commanded by Ralph Kapitzky, who was to celebrate his twenty-seventh birthday en route, took aboard secret cargo and received special orders. The secret cargo was alleged to be a new ship-detection device, Nachtfernrohr (Night Telescope), which only Kapitzky was permitted to remove from its locked box. Having gained a reputation for excellent convoy shadowing, his orders were to lie south of the Windward Passage and, presumably, to find and track convoys for other boats, with the help of the secret telescope. He was not to attack ships unless the “circumstances were entirely favorable.”
Kapitzky sailed from Brest on June 12 and crossed the Bay of Biscay with five other boats. Allied aircraft attacked the group on June 14. One plane hit Kapitzky’s U-615, killing one of his 20mm gunners. In return, he claimed he shot down a plane, but the kill was also claimed by Bernhard Zurmühlen in the outbound U-600. Kapitzky (and six other VIIs sailing to American waters) refueled on June 28 from the Type XIV (“Milk Cow”) U-tanker, Erwin Bartke’s U-488.
Kapitzky entered the Caribbean via the Anegada Passage and patrolled for many days and nights carrying out his secret orders, apparently to no purpose. Finally released from this assignment, he cruised southwest to the islands of Curasao and Aruba. On July 12 he found and chased a “tanker” but lost it. Two and a half weeks later, on July 28, he sank with two torpedoes the 3,200-ton Dutch tanker Rosalia, en route from Lake Maracaibo. The sinking—and DFing of Kapitzky’s report to Control—set in motion one of the most relentless U-boat hunts of the war.
An Army B-18, based at Aruba and flown by T. L. Merrill, first found and attacked U-615 on July 29. During the ensuing week, as Kapitzky limped toward the Atlantic, Army and Navy aircraft and an ASW blimp, K-68, based at Curasao, Trinidad, and other islands, as well as submarine chasers (SCs) and patrol craft (PCs), joined in the hunt. Kapitzky fought off the swarms of aircraft with his flak guns. He shot down a PBM-3 Mariner of U.S. Navy Squadron VP 205, piloted by A, R. Matuski, killing all eleven men aboard. His flak killed the pilot of another Mariner of Navy Squadron VP 204, John W. Dresbach, and wounded four other crew. The copilot, Oren R. Christian, nursed the wrecked plane back to base. While tracking U-615, the blimp K-68, piloted by Wallace A. Wydeen, ran low on fuel and had to abort. Unable to reach Trinidad, Wydeen put down on the desolate island of Blanquilla. On the following day, high winds tore K-68 from her makeshift moorings and destroyed her, but the crew survived.*
The Navy and Army aircraft carried out at least a dozen depth-charge, bomb, and strafing attacks that wrecked U-615. Although Kapitzky was mortally wounded, he insisted that his flak gunners keep up defensive fire in order to buy time so the crew could make repairs. Finally, on August 6-7, six Mariners, a Navy Harpoon (a souped-up Ventura), and an Army B-18 delivered the coup de grace. A new American destroyer, Walker, which was near Trinidad on workup, rescued forty-three Germans. American authorities credited Venturas and Mariners of Navy Squadrons 130, 204, 205, and Army Squadron 10 with the kill. Navy pilots Crockett, Christian, and Dresbach won the DFC, the last named posthumously.
Oddly, U-boat Control directed the oldest VII with the least range to the most distant area in the Caribbean. She was the U-84, a type VIIB, commanded by Horst Uphoff, age twenty-six, who had commissioned the boat in April 1941 at age twenty-four and had commanded her ever since. In two years of combat Uphoff had sunk six ships for about 30,000 tons, two of them in the Straits of Florida exactly one year earlier.
Uphoff entered the Caribbean on July 10 via the Windward Passage in company with Claus-Peter Carlsen, age twenty-three, in U-732, who was making his second patrol. Uphoff followed a course along the south coast of Cuba westward to the Yucatan Channel. On July 16 he claimed hits on a 6,000-ton freighter that he “left burning” but the encounter has not been confirmed in Allied records. About ten days later, while withdrawing through the Straits of Florida, he reported a single and a double miss on a 7,000-ton ship and, on July 28, the futile chase of a tanker owing to a diesel-engine failure. Low on fuel, Uphoff welcomed an order from Control to return to France, but, as shall be told, he did not make it there.
Carlsen in U-732 first patrolled in the area immediately south of the Windward Passage and east of Jamaica. On July 12, two Navy OS2U Kingfisher scout planes attacked Carlsen, but the boat survived with only slight damage. Two weeks later on July 28, while off the eastern tip of Cuba, Cape Maisi, Carlsen found three naval repair ships escorted by three destroyers, but the destroyers thwarted an attack with a persistent depth-charge hunt.
Going north through the Windward Passage, Carlsen loitered in the Old Bahama Channel. On August 1 he came upon a prime target: the New York to Guantánamo convoy NG 376, consisting of twenty-seven merchant ships and five escorts. Carlsen boldly attacked this formation all alone on the night of August 1-2. He claimed one 7,000-ton freighter sunk, another hit, and thought he heard two other hits. One of the escorts, Navy gunboat 89 (Brisk), thwarted any further attacks. The sinkings and hits could not be confirmed in Allied records. After a protracted voyage home, U-732 reached France on the last day of August.
Inbound to the Caribbean on July 8, the second oldest of the VIIs, the U-134, commanded by Hans-Günther Brosin, age twenty-six, was hit by a Bermuda-based aircraft of U.S. Navy Squadron VP 201 southeast of the island. The plane, piloted by John T Hitchcock, strafed and dropped “6 to 8” depth charges but, Brosin reported, U-134 survived. Embarked on his second patrol, Brosin hunted in the Straits of Florida near Havana. While carrying out this mission, near midnight on July 18 the radar operator on Navy blimp K-74, commanded by Nelson G. Grills, which was patrolling near two big ships, spotted U-134. It was against Navy doctrine for lone blimps to attack U-boats, but two weeks earlier Grills’s commander had exhorted his blimp pilots to take “more aggressive” action versus U-boats in order to prove his belief that blimps were good for something besides escort, reconnaissance, and rescue.
Accordingly, Grills headed directly for U-134 at forty-seven knots to attack with depth charges. Doubtless astonished, Brosin manned his flak guns and hurled a barrage at this huge target. The bullets punctured the balloon and lit a fire in the gondola, but onward Grills came. Before the blimp dropped into the sea with the loss of one of the eleven-man aircrew,* Brills toggled the depth-charge release. Long unused, the release failed and no charges fell; the U-134 dived and escaped. The four-stack destroyer Dahlgren and the SC 657 rescued ten survivors of the blimp.
American authorities in the Florida area closed the straits to shipping and mounted an all-out hunt for U-134. On the night following, July 19, a Ventura piloted by John C. Lawrence found the U-boat and dropped three depth charges that caused extensive damage to U-1349s forward battery. Brosin
notified U-boat Control of his victory over the blimp—another submarine “first”—and of his heavy damage from the Ventura’s attack. In response, Control directed U-134 to withdraw from the strait and retreat one thousand miles to the east to effect repairs. Brosin was proceeding to that remote area, low on fuel, when he received orders to return to France at once due to the acute refueling difficulties. He did not make it either.
While outbound in the Bay of Biscay, an unidentified Leigh Light-equipped Wellington drove under the U-634, commanded by Eberhard Dahlhaus, age twenty-three, who had made several patrols to American waters on another boat. He was originally assigned to patrol off Aruba and Curasao, but after refueling, the boat was diverted to hunt for convoys between Bermuda and Hispaniola. The hunt produced no sinkings and because of this long diversion, her orders to patrol Aruba and Curasao had to be canceled. In late July, Dahlhaus entered the Caribbean via the Windward Passage to patrol just south of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, in effect replacing U-615, which, as related, went on to Aruba and Curasao—and destruction. Dahlhaus had scarcely arrived at his area when he received orders to return to France. Thus he had no opportunity to shoot at shipping in Caribbean waters. After refueling on the homebound voyage, U-634 came to grief in the Bay of Biscay.
Thus it was that in addition to the IXC U-159, three of the seven Type VIIs (U-359, U-615, U-759) that entered the Caribbean were sunk there. As will be related, three other VIIs of this group (U-84, U-134, U-634) were sunk en route home. Only one of these seven VIIs, U-732, got back to France.
Five of the twelve VIIs assigned to the Caribbean offensive were held “outside” to patrol the area east of Trinidad and south to French Guiana on the “bauxite route” As related, while en route to this area, one of these four boats, the U-572, commanded by Heinz Kummetat, age twenty-four, sank the 4,200-ton French tanker Lot from convoy UGS 10. After refueling, Kummetat proceeded to the Americas, where on June 29, he met Müller-Stöckheim in the homebound IXC U-67 and gave him a Metox. He then patrolled an area east of Barbados and Trinidad. On July 14 and 15, he sank by gun two British sailing vessels southeast of the latter place, the 114-ton Harvard and the 176-ton Gilbert B. Walters. Returning to an area well to the east of Trinidad, Kummetat sought enemy shipping in vain. On July 31, he reported to Control “heavy air” and that U-572 had repelled an aircraft east of Trinidad.
About that same time, two of the other three “outside” boats that were also patrolling from Trinidad southward to French Guiana tangled with Allied aircraft: the U-406, commanded by Horst Dieterichs, age thirty-one, and the veteran U-653, commanded by Gerhard Feiler, age thirty-three. Both expended a great deal of ammo in these engagements. As a result, Dieterichs in U-406 requested a rendezvous with Kummetat in U-572 farther north, to take on ammo and gun grease.
The Allies learned of the proposed rendezvous from intelligence sources. On August 3, a PBM-3 Mariner of U.S. Navy Squadron VP 205, piloted by Clifford C. Cox, arrived at the rendezvous and attacked a U-boat, doubtless Kummetat in U-572. Apparently Cox sank U-572 and Kummetat shot down the Mariner because neither was heard from again. Dieterichs in U-406 reported to Control on August 5 that U-572 had failed to keep the rendezvous. When U-572 did not respond to repeated queries, Control presumed correctly that she was lost. Owing to the crash of the Mariner, a minor mystery remained and the details of U-572’$ last hours will never be known. It seemed somehow fitting that the U-boat upon which Heinz Hirsacker had brought so much disgrace—and his own condemnation to death—should disappear with no final history. Cox won a posthumous DFC.
Dieterichs in U-406 patrolled east of Trinidad for about two more weeks in vain. He then commenced a protracted voyage to France, seeing no targets worthy of a torpedo. On August 23, an unidentified aircraft found and attacked U-406, killing two men and wounding three, but the boat sustained only slight damage. She arrived in St. Nazaire on September 15 and did not sail again until January 1944.
A Navy B-24 and an Army Air Forces B-18 found and attacked the U-466t commanded by Gerhard Thäter, age twenty-six, on July 23. The next day an Army Air Forces B-24 hit U-466 with machine-gun fire and four depth charges. This attack “badly” wounded the first watch officer and a lookout and “slightly” wounded Thäter, the second watch officer, and a warrant quartermaster, and severely damaged the boat. Upon receiving Thäter’s report, U-boat Control directed him to return to France as quickly as possible and to report his location day and night so that Control might arrange a rendezvous with another U-boat that carried a doctor. Thäter reached France on August 16 without assistance, completing a fruitless and frustrating patrol of forty-nine days. The U-466 did not sail again until late October.
Kurt Neide in the U-415 patrolled an area east of Martinique south to Trinidad. He too had a frustrating time in the tropical heat and with ASW aircraft. He found two convoys off Trinidad. The first, located on July 24, was heavily escorted by surface ships as well as by “continuous land-based four-engine” aircraft (apparently B-24s). In spite of the heavy escort, Neide attacked the convoy, but the assault failed and prompted an intense ASW hunt. While attempting to mount a submerged attack on the second convoy on August 2, a “corvette” counterattacked with a barrage of depth charges that drove Neide off. As a result Neide sank no ships.
Like most of the other VIIs in American waters, Neide ran critically low on fuel and had to find a fuel source on the way home. Control directed him to refuel from a provisional tanker, the XB (minelayer) U-117. When it became evident that the latter was sunk on August 7, Control told Neide to refuel from a backup provisional tanker, the IXC40 U-525. Neide waited at the rendezvous for five days before he was told or realized that U-525 had been sunk as well. On August 14, Control assigned Neide to refuel from yet another provisional U-tanker, the IXD2 U-cruiser U-847, and he did so on about August 24. He reached France on September 8, after a nerve-racking homeward voyage of thirty-seven days.
Feiler in U-653 had commanded that boat for two full years. In all that time and on many patrols, he had sunk but four confirmed ships for about 12,000 tons. Suffering from “tropical fever,” as were many of his crew, Feiler found no targets. While east of Trinidad on August 2, a B-24 attacked U-653, Feiler reported, and he shot back and hit the aircraft and escaped. Homebound, Feiler, like Neide, was to refuel from the provisional tanker U-117, and when she was lost, the backup provisional tanker U-525. When she, too, was lost, Feiler joined Neide at the refueling rendezvous with the IXD2 U-847. After a full two weeks in the refueling area, Feiler, like Neide, finally got enough oil to reach France on September 11. Upon arrival, Feiler went on to other duty.
These five VIIs that patrolled “outside” the Caribbean achieved almost nothing: two sailing vessels for about 300 tons sunk and probably a Mariner shot down by Kummetat in U-572. Aircraft of Fairwing 11 relentlessly hounded all five boats in their patrol zones, sinking U-572 and forcing U-466 to abort early in the patrol. The other three boats (U-406, U-415, U-653) sank no ships either, but like U-466, they managed to survive.
Altogether, one IX and twelve VIIs of the June group patrolled “inside” and “outside” the Caribbean. Five were sunk in patrol areas. Three were sunk on the way home. In return for the catastrophic loss of eight of their number, these thirteen boats sank in these distant waters two ships for 12,800 tons and three sailing vessels, plus one ship of 4,200 tons from convoy UGS 10.
U-BOAT PATROLS TO OR BEYOND THE EQUATOR
Seven June boats sailed to Brazilian waters: two IXC40s and five VIIs. One of the IXs and two of the VIIs were commanded by new skippers. The VIIs refueled from the XIV (“Milk Cow”) tanker U-487. As directed, all boats cruised to Brazil on one diesel in order to husband fuel for the operating area. The equatorial heat and humidity made life unspeakably miserable on all seven boats.
The IXC40 U-185 and the IXC U-510 sailed early in the month and went directly to South America without refueling. Within a period of about twenty-four hours, both found convoys and sank ship
s.
Commanded by August Maus, age twenty-eight, the U-185 crossed the equator and traveled about 250 miles south to an area between Fortaleza and Natal. On July 7, Maus came upon a convoy en route from Bahia to Trinidad, BT 18. It was comprised of twenty merchant ships, thinly escorted by three gunboats and a patrol craft. In a classic attack, Maus hit four American merchant ships: the 7,000-ton tanker William Boyce Thompson, the 6,800-ton tanker S. B. Hunt, and the 7,200-ton Liberty ships James Robertson and Thomas Sinnickson. Three of these ships sank or had to be sunk. The fourth, the tanker S. B. Hunt, limped into port and was later repaired and returned to service.
Maus then sailed farther southward to an area below Recife. On the night of July 12, a radar-equipped Catalina found U-185 on the surface and attacked with her landing lights turned on. Maus’s gunners returned fire and he claimed an aircraft kill, but according to American records the damaged aircraft limped back to its base.
The IXC U-510 was commanded by a new skipper, Alfred Eick, age twenty-seven. Eick had made a prior patrol to American waters as first watch officer of the IXC U-176, which was sunk in the Straits of Florida on May 15 on her next patrol. Eick believed her skipper, Reiner Dierksen, was simply “too aggressive” and that he, Eick, would be less so and survive.
En route to northern Brazil, Eick came upon southbound convoy TJ 1 off French Guiana, near Devils Island, on July 8. En route from Trinidad to Rio de Janeiro, it was comprised of twenty merchant ships, escorted by the modern (1937) American destroyer Somers, four patrol craft, and a Brazilian submarine chaser. Favored by rain and clouds that obscured the moon, Eick carried out two night surface attacks. In the first, he fired three torpedoes and claimed hits on a tanker and two freighters. In the second, he claimed hits on two freighters. Allied records confirmed two sinkings (10,300-ton Norwegian tanker B. P. Newton, 7,000-ton American freighter El-dena) and damage to the freighter Everaga, which was towed to Trinidad. Two days later, farther offshore, Eick sank by demolition the 1,600-ton Swede Scandinavia, which he stopped, boarded, and deemed to be carrying contraband. Homebound, Eick was to refuel from a provisional tanker, but it was sunk and he went on to France, arriving on August 29, completing a voyage of eighty-eight days.