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

by Clay Blair

  Emmermann in U-172 was first to make contact with Kuppisch. He surfaced close aboard with double lookouts posted and all flak guns manned. He was dismayed to find Kuppisch and his crew casually disposed. He requested that Kuppisch man his flak guns and double-time the refueling process. “He was from the earlier times when aircraft were not a great threat,” Emmermann said later. “He had not been to sea in almost two full years.” In two hours flat, Emmermann replenished and departed.

  Later that morning, as Maus in U-185 was approaching U-847 to refuel, aircraft from the “jeep” carrier Core, loosely escorting convoy UGS 15, were out searching for U-boats. A Wildcat-Avenger team, piloted by Martin G. O’Neill and Robert P. Williams, respectively, found U-185 and attacked. Diving out of cloud cover, O’Neill in the Wildcat strafed the bridge, wounding the entire watch, the second watch Officer fatally. Williams came next and accurately dropped two depth charges. The explosions wrecked and almost instantly flooded U-185, and chlorine gas seeped through the boat.

  A bizarre drama unfolded in the forward section of the boat. The skipper of the scuttled VII U-604, thirty-year-old Horst Höltring, still recovering from his wounds, leaped from his bunk, pistol in hand, and ran to the forward torpedo room, where two badly wounded men of his crew were confined to bunks. As the room filled with chlorine gas, the two crewmen begged Höltring to shoot them. He obliged, then killed himself with a shot to the head, survivors reported.

  After U-185 had been riddled by two more aircraft from Core, Maus ordered the crew to abandon ship and scuttle. When one of Core’s screen, the four-stack destroyer Barker, arrived at the scene a little later, she fished thirty-six Germans from the water, including Maus and his first watch officer, Hans Otto Rieve, age twenty-two. Nine of the men were survivors from Höltring’s U-604. Two Germans from U-185 died on Barker from the effects of chlorine gas: the engineer, Herbert Ackermann, and the ship’s doctor, Georg Rammler.

  On the voyage to France, Emmermann in (7-772 was hobbled by an epidemic of dysentery and was glad to have twenty-three men of U-604 as replacements for his own sick. After he arrived, on September 7—completing a miserable voyage of 102 days—he received his Oak Leaves from Hitler, then returned to France to command Combat Flotilla 6 in St. Nazaire.* Upon review of Maus’s arduous and outstanding patrol and hearing the stories from U-604 crewmen of Maus’s rescue of them, Dönitz awarded Maus a Ritterkreuz in abstentia. †

  Eventually Maus wound up in the POW camp in Papago Park, Arizona. On about September 1, 1944, he joined in an escape scheme with four other U-boat skippers: Fritz Guggenberger (from U-513), who wore a Ritterkreuz With Oak Leaves; Hans-Werner Kraus (from U-199), who wore the Ritterkreuz; Jürgen Quaet-Faslem (from U-595); and Jürgen Wattenberg (from U-162). As recounted by the American writer John H. Moore, Maus and these skippers and two dozen other U-boat POWs dug a 178-foot escape tunnel, part of it through rock. On December 23, two days after the tunnel was completed, twelve officers and thirteen enlisted men escaped, but not Maus, who developed a hernia and had to drop out. All twenty-five men were soon caught—the last, Jürgen Wattenberg on January 28, 1945, in Phoenix.

  Uphoff in the VIIB U-84, who had orders to refuel from the ill-fated U-117, then U-262 and/or U-760, then U-847, did not establish contact with Kuppisch in U-847 on that fateful August 24. It was believed that later that same day, an Avenger from Core, piloted by William A. Felter, found U-84 unalert on the surface about ten miles from the place U-185 had been sunk. Upon seeing Felter diving to attack, Uphoff unwisely dived himself. Realizing he had an excellent opportunity to use a Fido homing torpedo, Felter coolly dropped one in U-84’s swirl. Nothing further was ever heard from U-84. However, Niestlé doubts this kill and has listed U-84 as lost to unknown causes.

  Another VII returning from American waters, the U-134, commanded by Hans-Günther Brosin, who had shot down a blimp in the Florida Straits, also ran into fatal trouble. On August 21, a Wildcat-Avenger team from the “jeep” carrier Croatan, escorting convoy UGS 14, attacked U-134 but Brosin escaped. Three nights later, on August 24, a Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of British Squadron 179, piloted by a Canadian, Donald F. McRae, found and attacked U-134 in the face of heavy flak. McRae dropped six depth charges that destroyed U-134, but he was unable to provide positive evidence of a kill.

  On the morning of August 27, Kuppisch in the IXC40 U-847 refueled six more homebound boats. These were Paul Siegmann in the VII U-230, returning from a mine-laying mission off Norfolk; Kurt Neide in the VII U-415, returning from a barren patrol in the Trinidad area; Eberhard Dahlhaus in the VII U-634, returning from a fruitless patrol in the Caribbean; Gerhard Feiler in the VII U-653, also returning from a luckless patrol in the Caribbean; Heinz Rahe in the VII U-257, returning from a barren patrol to the Freetown area; and the new Ritterkreuz winner Georg Staats in the IXC U-508, returning from the Freetown and Gulf of Guinea areas. Like Emmermann in U-172, the first watch officer on U-230, Herbert Werner, believed that Kuppisch was insufficiently prepared to cope with enemy air.

  Several days later, the “jeep” carrier Card relieved the “jeep” carrier Core, which had developed turbine-vibration problems. On the morning of August 27, two Wildcats and an Avenger from Card found Kuppisch in U-847. The two Wildcats, piloted by Jack H. Stewart and Frederick M. Rountree, strafed and forced the boat to dive. Pilot Ralph W. Long in the Avenger dropped a Fido just ahead of the swirl. Nothing further was ever heard from U-847. She was the sixth IXD2 U-cruiser to be lost, the fifth within the 104-day period from May 16 to August 27.*

  One of the six boats that Kuppisch refueled on August 27 did not make it home. She was the VII U-634, commanded by Eberhard Dahlhaus. On August 30, while U-634 was sailing north in company with Siegmann in U-230, she found a convoy, Sierra Leone 135, and maneuvered close to shoot. Two British escorts of the convoy, the sloop Stork (G.W.E. Casteus) and the corvette Stonecrop (J. Patrick Smythe), sank U-634 with the loss of all hands.

  One of the myths of the Battle of the Atlantic is that when the Allies finally broke into four-rotor Enigma in the summer of 1943, they then launched a concerted attack on the German U-tanker force and wiped it out, thereby crippling the operations of the Type VIIs. As related, the Allies did indeed inflict a heavy blow on the U-tanker force in the summer of 1943, sinking nine of twelve refuelers at the front (including three XBs), but apparently Enigma decrypts relating to refueling rendezvous played only a modest role in this slaughter.

  According to a top-secret postwar study, † Enigma decrypts were useful in only two of the nine sinkings. Both of these were Type XB minelayers serving as provisional refuelers. The “very good” Enigma decrypts enabled aircraft of the American “jeep” carrier Bogue to sink U-118 on May 25. The “good” Enigma decrypts enabled aircraft of the American “jeep” carrier Card to sink U-117 on August 7. Enigma decrypts were of no help in the sinking of the other seven U-tankers, the XB U-119 and six Type XIV “Milk Cows.” ‡

  Six of the seven U-tanker sinkings carried out with no help from Engima decrypts were accounted for by Commonwealth aircraft and surface forces engaged in the Bay of Biscay offensive. The American “jeep” carrier Core got the seventh, U-487. Many of the U-tanker losses resulted from the ill-advised German decision to sail U-boats in groups on the surface and to fight enemy aircraft with flak guns.

  PETROLS TO WEST AFRICA

  Eight boats sailed from France to West Africa in July. All confronted the fury of the Allied Biscay ASW offensive, Musketry/Seaslug. Half of the number did not reach West Africa: One aborted, three were sunk. Owing to the inability to refuel, the other four (all VIIs) conducted inconsequential patrols.

  • The VII U-709, commanded by Karl-Otto Weber, age twenty-eight, which sailed on July 5 from Brest. It was Weber’s third patrol. Eight days out, on July 12, excessive hydrogen accumulated and exploded in the forward battery, killing two men and severely injuring a third. Weber aborted and limped back to Brest, arriving on July 20. The boat did not sail again until Octob
er.

  • The VII U-468, commanded by Klemens Schamong, age twenty-six, which sailed from La Pallice on July 7. Alerted by a Catalina, a B-24 of British Squadron 200, flown by Lloyd Allan Trigg, found U-468 on August 11 and attacked. In response, Schamong threw up a heavy curtain of flak with his new quad 20mm and other weapons. The flak hit and set the B-24 on fire but Trigg pressed on to drop about six shallow-set depth charges in a near-perfect straddle.

  The explosions mortally holed U-468 and caused chlorine gas and panic belowdecks, but Schamong and six other Germans launched a raft and survived. The B-24 crashed in flames with no survivors. Two days later, a Sunderland spotted the seven Germans in the raft, dropped another raft, and directed the British corvette Clarkia to the rescue. Based on the laudatory testimony of Schamong and his first watch officer, the Admiralty awarded pilot Trigg a posthumous Victoria Cross, the first such high honor to be bestowed on a British ASW pilot.

  • The venerable IX U-43—the oldest boat in the Atlantic force—commanded by Hans-Joachim Schwantke, age twenty-four, which left Lorient on July 13. Her assignment was to lay twelve TMB mines off Lagos, Nigeria, in the Gulf of Guinea. She negotiated the Bay of Biscay, where Schwantke claimed he probably shot down an aircraft, but she did not get far beyond. On July 30, a Wildcat-Avenger team from the carrier Santee, which was loosely escorting convoy GUS 10, found U-43 on the surface, preparing to give some fuel oil to the VII U-403, commanded by a new skipper, Karl-Franz Heine, age twenty-seven, who was also bound for West Africa.

  The two aircraft attacked the two U-boats. Piloted by Edward Van Vranken, the Wildcat came first, strafing. Immediately behind came R. F. Richmond in the Avenger. Contrary to policy, both U-boats dived. Richmond dropped two shallow-set depth charges close to U-403 and a Fido near U-43. The U-403 escaped, but apparently the Fido worked as designed and destroyed U-43. Nothing further was ever heard from her.

  Two and a half weeks later, on August 17, while U-403 patrolled directly off Dakar, Senegal, searching for convoy Sierra Leone 135, a Wellington of Free French Squadron 697 from Dakar teamed up and attacked her with machine guns and depth charges. In September, when U-403 failed to report in, U-boat Control assumed correctly that she was lost. There were no survivors.

  Four VIIs sailing in July reached the Freetown area but achieved little. Only one sank a ship: Friedrich Deetz, age twenty-six, in U-757, who torpedoed the 4,116-ton Norwegian freighter Fernhill west of Freetown on August 7 and took one prisoner. On August 11, Heinz-Konrad Fenn in the U-445, who had celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday on July 20, reported ironically that the physician he carried was desperately ill. U-boat Control directed Fenn to rendezvous with Walter Schug, age thirty-two, in the aged VIIB U-86, who also had a doctor on board. Before the boats met, however, Fenn signaled that the doctor on U-445 had died.

  On the return to France, all four boats had a difficult time obtaining enough fuel to complete the voyage, but all got home. While hugging the coast of Portugal, the U-340, commanded by Hans-Joachim Klaus, age twenty-five, rescued five German airmen but was hit by Allied aircraft and sustained “several” casualties. However, Klaus reached France on September 2, completing a patrol of fifty-nine days. The other three VIIs returned to France from September 4 to 15, completing patrols of sixty to sixty-six days.

  Excluding the ten big U-boats assigned to the Indian Ocean foray, group Mon-sun, the thirty-eight U-boats that sailed in July achieved almost nothing. The attack boats of this group sank two ships; one convoy escort, the 1,500-ton American yacht Plymouth in American waters, and the 4,116-ton Norwegian motorship Fern-hill off Freetown. In return, a ruinous twenty-one U-boats of those sailing in July were lost, including the three VIIs sunk en route to the Mediterranean.*

  The Luftwaffe aircraft based in France achieved better results against Allied shipping in July than the U-boats. The most notable success occurred on July 11 when a flight of HE-177 four-engine bombers, armed with a new type of radio-controlled bomb, the HS 293, found and attacked a British troopship convoy three hundred miles west of Portugal. These “smart bombs” sank the 22,000-ton liner Duchess of York, the 16,792-ton liner California, and damaged the 8,337-ton liner Port Fairy, which limped into Casablanca. Owing to excellent seamanship on the part of three escorts (the Canadian destroyer Iroquois, British destroyer Douglas, and British frigate Moyola) only fifty-seven troops perished in this little-known British troopship disaster. Returning to England with 628 Allied survivors, the Iroquois found and rescued three survivors of the U-506, which was sunk July 12, as related.

  GROUP MONSUN

  The most ambitious U-boat operation undertaken by the Atlantic force in July was a new foray to the Indian Ocean, Monsun, so named because the boats were to arrive in the Indian Ocean toward the end of the rainy summer monsoon season. As originally planned, the foray was to consist of eleven boats, two IXD2 U-cruisers on maiden patrols from Kiel, six Type IXC40s, and three Type IXCs. As related, Allied forces sank one of the U-cruisers in the Iceland-Faeroes gap, U-200, which was supposed to land “coastal troops” in South Africa to foment trouble. The other, U-847, sailed from Kiel on July 6 via the Denmark Strait, where she struck an iceberg and aborted to Norway, resailed later, was diverted to be a provisional tanker, and was lost.

  Owing to the inclusion of nine Type IXs in such distant waters, the Monsun foray had a complex refueling plan. First, the IXC40s and IXCs were to refuel on the outbound leg from the Type XIV U-tanker U-462, which sailed from France on June 19. Second, all boats, including the two U-cruisers, were to replenish from the German tanker Brake in the Indian Ocean on September 8, then proceed to patrol areas. On the return voyage, the boats were to refuel again from Brake in the Indian Ocean and from another XIV U-tanker near the Azores on the final leg.

  As related, the Type XIV U-tanker U-462, commanded by Bruno Vowe, was twice forced to abort in June with battle damage and therefore could not refuel the Monsun boats. Instead that vital task was reassigned to the Type XIV U-tanker U-487, commanded by Helmut Metz, which sailed from France on June 15 on her second combat mission.

  The nine Type IXs of group Monsun sailed from France in the first week of July. All were fitted with new, heavy flak arrays and all remained on the surface in groups. Three of these nine were lost shortly after sailing:

  • The IXC U-514, commanded by Hans-Jürgen Auffermann, age twenty-eight, which sailed from Lorient on July 3. On the sixth day out, July 8, a B-24 piloted by the renowned U-boat slayer Terence Bulloch, temporarily attached to British Squadron 224, sighted U-514 on the surface amid a flotilla of Spanish fishing vessels near Cape Finisterre. Bulloch fired three rocket salvos. Contrary to doctrine, Auffermann dived, whereupon Bulloch dropped a Fido homing torpedo that apparently went astray. Looking down at the roiled water, Bulloch thought the U-boat might be surfacing and dropped a brace of shallow-set depth charges. These may have hit the errant Fido or the U-boat or both. In the event, nothing further was ever heard from U-514.

  • The IXC U-506, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Erich Würdemann, age twenty-nine, which sailed from Lorient on July 6. Six days later, on July 12, a B-24 of U.S. Army Air Forces ASW Squadron 1 from Port Lyautey, piloted by Ernest Salm on his first mission as aircraft commander, found U-506 on radar about three hundred miles west of Cape Finisterre. Diving out of a low cloud cover, Salm toggled seven depth charges and destroyed the boat. Würdemann and forty-eight other Germans perished in the sinking. British destroyers rescued and captured six other Germans on a raft on July 15.

  • The IXC U-509, commanded by Werner Witte, age twenty-eight, which sailed from Lorient on July 3. Twelve days out, on July 15, a Wildcat-Avenger team from the carrier Santee found U-509 near the Madeira Islands. Pilot Jack D. Anderson in the Wildcat strafed and when U-509 dived, pilot Claude N. Barton in the Avenger dropped a Fido. The Fido apparently worked as designed. Nothing further was heard from U-509.

  The Type XIV U-tanker U-487, commanded by Helmut Metz, assigned to refuel the Monsun boats, fi
rst refueled seven Type VIIs that sailed in June to American waters* and the aborting IXDl U-cruiser U-195; inbound from Cape Town. On o July 12, Control directed Metz to shift two hundred miles southeast to refuel the VII U-648, outbound to American waters and the IXC40 U-527, inbound from American waters. Thereafter, Metz was to refuel the six surviving IXC40s of outbound group Monsun on July 23, about 350 miles farther south yet, then come home.

  Metz was unable to carry out these orders. About noon on July 13, two aircraft from the “jeep” carrier Core, a Wildcat piloted by Earl H. Steiger and an Avenger flown by Robert P. Williams, spotted U-487 on the surface with some crew topside sunbathing and some playing with a bale of cotton found in the water. Steiger attacked, strafing U-487. Williams followed, dropping four Torpex depth charges that fell close.

  In response to a call for help, Core sent six more aircraft, two Wildcats and four Avengers. By the time they arrived, Metz on U-487 had manned his quad 20mm and other flak guns and his gunners shot down and killed Steiger in his Wildcat. The other six planes strafed and depth-charged U-487 until, finally, she sank steeply by the bow. One of Core’s screen, the four-stack destroyer Barker, fished out three officers and thirty men, but not Metz, who was killed by one of the strafing Wildcats. Twenty-six other Germans perished in the sinking. Williams, Steiger, and another Wildcat pilot, Charles W. Brewer, were credited with the kill

  Owing to the weight of the tasks assigned to Metz’s tanker, U-487, Control directed the IXC U-160, which sailed from Bordeaux on June 28, commanded by a new skipper, Gerd von Pommer-Esche, age twenty-five, to “help out” the U-487. Therefore the U-160 was en route to meet U-487 when the latter was sunk.