by Clay Blair
The story was not yet over. The entanglement with U-405 had flooded Borie’s engine rooms. In reporting his victory to Buster Isbell in Card, Hutchins added: “May have to abandon ship.” However, this message was garbled and Card did not realize Borie was in serious trouble until Hutchins radioed: “Commenced sinking.” Six hours later Hutchins ordered his crew to abandon ship. Bedeviled by fog, the Card group was slow to mount a rescue and twenty-seven of Borie’s crew died in the water. Finally, the four-stack destroyers Barry and Goff rescued 127 Borie survivors. The Barry and an Avenger sank the abandoned hulk on November 2. Hutchins, his senior engineer Morrison R. Brown, and a machinist, Irving R. Saum, Jr., each won a Navy Cross for this battle and for keeping the damaged Borie afloat for as long as possible.
The inability of B-dienst and the Luftwaffe to provide precise information on Allied convoys in October and the apparent ability of the Allies to locate and avoid U-boat patrol lines led Dönitz and U-boat Control to make several important tactical changes. Notwithstanding the upgrades, the standard group or “wolf pack” U-boat operations versus convoys were finally deemed to be no longer feasible. The U-boat campaign against the North Atlantic run was to continue but the boats waging it were to be much more widely deployed in a variety of experimental formations and to remain fully submerged in daytime to avoid detection. Owing to the inadequacy of the Wanze radar detector and the quad and twin 20mm flak guns, the “fight back” policy against Allied aircraft was rescinded until all boats could be fitted with the rapid-fire 37mm gun and the new Naxos radar detectors, which could detect centimetric-wavelength radar. On November 11, Control ordered that the eight flak U-boats be reconverted to normal boats. All U-boats were to remain submerged at all times in daytime to hide from enemy aircraft and attack enemy ships only at night.
The result was a dispersion of the boats on the North Atlantic run in November and thereafter. First, the boats of the luckless group Siegfried were divided into three subgroups {Siegfried 1 to 3), then into two large subgroups (John and Korner), then into five subgroups (Tirpitz 1 to 5), and then, finally, into ten subgroups (Eisenhart 1 to 10). Aware from Enigma decrypts of these dispersions, Allied authorities routed convoys around the U-boats or took advantage of harsh winter weather and poor visibility to sail right through some of the thinly manned lines.
The destruction of U-boats on the North Atlantic run tapered off sharply in the month of November. On November 6, Johnny Walker’s British Support Group 2— five sloops plus the “jeep” carrier Tracker—sank two:
• In the early hours of that day, the sloop Kite, commanded by W.E.R. Sea-grave, got a radar contact on U-226, a VII of Tirpitz 4 from France, commanded by a new skipper, Albrecht Gange, age twenty-four. Kite fired star shells and depth charges, forcing Gange to dive. Meanwhile, Walker in the sloop Starling and C. Gwinner in the sloop Woodcock raced up to help Kite. In a dogged hunt, the three sloops trapped and sank U-226. There were no survivors.
• Responding to a Huff Duff contact a few hours later, a Swordfish from Tracker found and drove under the new IXC40 U-842 of Tirpitz 5, commanded by Wolfgang Heller, age thirty-three, who, contrary to new and specific orders, was running on the surface in daylight. Walker in Starling raced to the scene with the sloops Magpie and Wild Goose. Directing the three sloops, Walker soon trapped and sank U-842 with the loss of all hands. The kill was confirmed with the recovery of “human remains” and wreckage. Starling and Wild Goose, commanded by D.E.G. Wemyss, got credit for the kill.
Thereafter Walker’s support group and Tracker encountered severe winter gales and mountainous seas. In such foul conditions, Walker deemed Tracker more trouble than she was worth. She could not launch aircraft, and Walker had constantly to screen her from U-boat attack. Furthermore, Walker reported on arrival in Argentia on November 12 that his sloops were not built stoutly enough. All had suffered heavy sea damage, Woodcock so much so that she had to return to England in noncombatant status with an eastbound convoy.
Walker’s deep concerns about screening Tracker were not unfounded. On November 8, the U-648, SL VII of subgroup Tirpitz 5 commanded by Peter-Arthur Stahl, came upon Tracker and fired three torpedoes at her from a range of two thousand yards. These torpedoes missed, as did a T-5 Zaunkönig (Wren) homing torpedo that Stahl fired at Starling or another of Walker’s sloops. Tracker and her screen escaped behind a smoke screen and rain squalls, but the incident was too close for comfort.
Land-based aircraft accounted for three other boats in November:
• The new VII U-966, commanded by Eckehard Wolf, age twenty-five, which sailed from Trondheim on October 5. While inbound to France via the northern Spanish coast in the early hours of November 10, a Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of British Squadron 612, piloted by Ian D. Gunn, found and attacked U-966, dropping six depth charges, all of which fell short. After an exchange of gunfire, U-966 dived.
Later that morning, a B-24 of American Navy Squadron VB 103, piloted by Kenneth L. Wright, found U-966 near El Ferrol. Wright made two attacks, dropping six depth charges and killing some Germans by gunfire. A B-24 of U.S. Navy Squadron VB 105, piloted by Leonard E. Harmon, joined the attack. Soon there arrived yet another B-24 of American Navy Squadron VB 110 piloted by J. A. Parrish, who dropped six close depth charges in spite of the heavy flak. Lastly, a B-24 of Czech Squadron 311, piloted by Otakar Zanta, attacked U-966 with rockets about three miles off the Spanish coast.
These attacks killed eight Germans and wrecked the boat. Wolf ran her aground off Punta Estaca, then blew her up. He and forty-one other Germans reached shore in dinghies. The Spanish authorities allowed nine crewmen to be repatriated to Germany but interned thirty-three others for the duration of the war.*
• The veteran IXC U-508, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Georg Staats, which sailed from St. Nazaire to the North Atlantic on November 9. On the fourth day, November 12, Control logged, Staats reported that he was under attack by an aircraft. American naval authorities concluded that the attack had been carried out by a B-24 of American Navy Squadron VB 103, piloted by Ralph B. Brownell, who reported a U-boat contact at that time but failed to return to the new Fleet Air Wing 7 base in southwest England at; Dunkeswell. It was assumed that while carrying out the attack, the U-508 shot down Brownell’s B-24 with the loss of all hands, then was herself sunk by the B-24’s depth charges. The Navy awarded Brownell a posthumous Navy Cross, his copilot and navigator the DFC, and seven other crewmen the Air Medal.
• The new VII U-280, commanded by Walter Hungershausen, which had been assigned to the Tirpitz and Eisenhart groups. On November 16, a B-24 of British Squadron 86, piloted by an Australian, John H. Bookless, attacked U-280 with depth charges through intense flak that knocked out the outer engine on the port wing. The depth charges fell wide but on a second run, the depth-charge salvo fell close and the B-24 nose gunner raked the German gunners on the bridge and bandstands. Hungershausen got off an attack report to Control, but nothing further was heard from the boat. She most likely sank with the loss of all hands as a result of this attack.
Allied aircraft hit three other U-boats on the North Atlantic run in November, but all survived.
• On November 5, an unidentified aircraft attacked the new VII U-967, commanded by Herbert Loeder, age twenty-four. While inbound in the Bay of Biscay on November 30, the boat was again hit by an aircraft, also unidentified. She did not sail again until January 20, 1944.
• On November 8, an unidentified aircraft attacked the new U-714, commanded by Hans-Joachim Schwebcke, age twenty-five. The boat reported “no damage” and went on to complete a full patrol of fifty-one days.
• On November 15, an unidentified aircraft attacked the experienced U-709, commanded by Karl-Otto Weber. He, too, reported no damage and completed a full patrol of fifty-four days.
By early December, eleven new boats from Germany and three from the Arctic † had reinforced the Atlantic force. Control formed these boats, plus three from France and two others into group Cor
onel, which in turn was divided into three subgroups {Coronel 1, 2, and 3). Allied ASW forces hit one of the boats, the Arctic transfer U-269, commanded by Karl-Heinrich Harlfinger, age twenty-eight, inflicting such “extensive damage” that Harlfinger was forced to abort. That withdrawal left Coronel at a strength of eighteen boats.
Group Coronel represented in part a sort of “second wave” in the renewed campaign on the North Atlantic run. In conformity with orders from Dönitz, no boats could sail from France after December 1 or Germany after December 10 without the new 37mm flak gun and the new Naxos radar detector.* All boats carried T-5 homing torpedoes, but owing to lagging production of that weapon, boats of the Atlantic force were issued only four per patrol. †
At this time there was only one Type XIV U-tanker left in the Atlantic force, Bartke’s U-488. One other Type XIV, U-490, had been built but owing to her accidental sinking during workup, she was still in the Baltic. Bartke in U-488 was “sold out” and homebound to France for refit and Christmas leave. Therefore in the first half of December, only a provisional tanker, the XB minelayer U-219, was available to assist the VIIs of group Coronel and none at all in the second half of the month. As a result, Coronel was held to areas merely five hundred miles west of Ireland, well within range of Coastal Command’s heaviest concentration of ASW aircraft.
The three Coronel groups took up positions in stormy winter weather, but the Allies knew their positions from Enigma decrypts and with great success diverted the convoys to avoid them. By German reckoning, three convoys that they had specifically targeted evaded the U-boats: Outbound North (Slow) 24, Outbound North 215, and the eastbound Halifax 268. Two Coronel boats incurred severe mechanical problems:
• On December 16, heavy seas caused so much damage to the VII U-284, commanded by Günther Scholz, age twenty-four, that he was forced to abort and call for help. When the Arctic transfer U-629, commanded by Hans-Helmut Bugs, answered the call on December 21, Scholz put his crew on U-629 and scuttled the wrecked U-284, Inbound to France on December 29 with about one hundred men on board, Bugs came upon a “small” convoy and shot a T-5 at a “destroyer.” He claimed it sank, but the claim was not confirmed.
• On December 17, the new VII U-761, commanded by Horst Geider,* age twenty-five, had an explosion in the forward battery. No one was seriously injured in the blast, but the new engineering officer, Karl Lendle, declared that battery unusable and U-761 had to abort. She limped into Brest on December 26.
After two futile weeks, Control dissolved the three Coronel lines and replaced them with three other lines, each of six boats: Sylt, Amrum, and Fohr. Owing to the mountainous seas, the boats were unable to use flak arrays, so Control directed these boats to remain submerged in daytime. Thus immobilized, their search capability was vastly limited and they could not find convoys which, in any case, were diverted south to avoid the boats and the terrible weather.
Having achieved nothing with these three new patrol lines, on December 22, Control dispersed the boats even more widely. It divided the eighteen boats of the three groups into six groups of three boats each, Rügen 1 to 6. The next day, one of the Rügen boats, the new U-471, commanded by Friedrich Kloevekorn, age twenty-five, came upon a troop or military, convoy, TU 5, en route from the British Isles to the States. This convoy was massively escorted by the battleship Nevada, which had survived the Pearl Harbor attack, and other warships. Kloevekorn boldly attacked alone on December 23 and claimed a hit on an 8,000-ton freighter, but, in actuality, he missed. An unidentified British B-24 escorting the convoy sighted and bombed U-471, wounding three men and inflicting “serious damage,” but Kloevekorn was able to doctor the wounded, make repairs, and continue the patrol.
Another Rügen boat, the new U-392, commanded by Henning Schumann, age twenty-four, found a convoy on the day after Christmas. It was Halifax 271 (fifty-four ships, eight escorts) partly scattered by heavy weather. Mistakenly reporting the formation as merely “three or four freighters” with a light escort, Schumann attacked with three FATs. One broached and prematured, he reported. One hit a destroyer “under the bridge,” and the third may have hit a freighter. None of the hits was confirmed. The destroyers and other escorts of the convoy drove U-392 down, and the convoy escaped with no damage.
On the penultimate day of December, two Rügen boats came upon separate elements of convoy Outbound North 217 (eighty ships, nine escorts) that had been scattered in a storm. Gert Mannesmann, age thirty-three, in the new IXC40 U-545, reported fifteen merchantmen. He fired four FATs and claimed four hits that sank one freighter, the 7,400-ton British Empire Housman, and damaged two freighters for 12,000 tons. However, he only damaged the Empire Housman and no other hits were confirmed. Heinz Blischke, age twenty-four, in the new VII U-744, came upon a single, straggling freighter and shot seven torpedoes at her, including one T-5, but all missed or malfunctioned. A few days later Blischke came upon the damaged Empire Housman and sank her, to share credit with Mannesmann, who further claimed a “destroyer” and another freighter, but these were never confirmed. The Allies made an effort to salvage Empire Housman, but it was futile. She was the only merchant ship sunk by U-boats on the North Atlantic run in December.
Owing to a decision by Hitler to resume Luftwaffe raids on London at the end of December, Dönitz diverted two VIIs and a IX from Rugen to weather-reporting duties. Because of the great increase in Allied carrier and land-based air patrols, this special duty was extremely hazardous. All three boats survived this assignment, but the IXC40 U-544 was later sunk while trying to refuel two boats inbound from the Americas, as will be described.
At the end of the year, Dönitz issued a new order (No. 34) that radically modified the way U-boats were to attack convoys. Inasmuch as the radar of Allied air and sonar of surface escorts had made convoy attacks so very difficult, U-boats, upon gaining contact with a convoy were henceforth to shoot FATS and T-5s “blind” from submerged positions without any use of the periscope. All five (or six) tubes were to be emptied in the attack. After firing, the U-boats were to descend at least to 131 feet to avoid the possibility of a looping FAT hitting the boat.
This order effectively ended the so-called wolf pack or group tactics whereby a U-boat in contact with a convoy would call up or home in other U-boats. By firing blind and going deep to evade looping FATS and to reload, the U-boat was almost certain to lose contact with the convoy fairly quickly, and especially so if the convoy made a radical course change upon detecting the torpedoes, as was customary. Under this set of circumstances, the U-boat could not report the convoy course and speed reliably and consistently enough for Control to send in other boats, which were already more widely scattered than ever.
The resumption of U-boat operations against Allied shipping on the North Atlantic run in the four months from September through December 1943 proved to be another futile gesture. In 101 patrols mounted to that area during those four months, U-boats caused the loss of only fourteen vessels: six escorts and eight freighters. In turn, forty-nine U-boats*—and about 2,450 men—had been lost and twenty-two other boats were compelled to abort, most of them with battle damage and casualties inflicted by aircraft.
All the new and supposedly war-decisive weapons—the Wanze and Naxos radar detectors, the Aphrodite radar decoy, surface-search radar (Gema and Hohentwiel) and direction-finding gear, the T-5 Zaunkönig (Wren) homing torpedo, the quad and twin 20mm flak guns—proved to be wanting, and in some cases, worthless. Except for U-488 and U-490 (still in the Baltic), the Type XIV U-tankers had been wiped out. The Luftwaffe had failed to find and report convoys. The price for continuing the U-boat campaign on the North Atlantic ran was so high that Dönitz again ordered Control to cancel group operations and to scatter the boats at sea, singly, west of the British Isles and to shoot “blind,” while submerged, as instructed.
At the close of 1943, Washington, London, and Ottawa happily agreed to a cautious statement, to be released early in 1944, that significantly degraded the U-boat threa
t:
Total merchant shipping tonnage lost by U-boat action in December was again low.* Despite an extension of operating areas, fewer U-boats were destroyed during the month by our air and sea forces owing to several factors, including increased caution by the enemy. Our supply routes were, however, well secured against U-boat attack.
In 1943 U-boats sank but 40 percent of the merchant ship tonnage that they sank in 1942. On the other hand, United Nations merchant ship tonnage constructed in 1943 approximately doubled the tonnage delivered in 1942. Nearly half of our tonnage lost for :he year 1943 was during the first three months: 27 percent was lost during the second quarter of 1943, and only 26 percent was lost during the last six months.
FUTILE OPERATIONS AGAINST GIBRALTAR CONVOYS
The Anglo-Portuguese Agreement of August 18, 1943, opened the way for the British to establish airfields in the Azores on Faial and Terceira islands. On October 3, a naval task force departed the British Isles to carry out Alacrity, the first phase of the mission. It included the “jeep” carrier Fencer, three destroyers, and the troopship Franconia, crowded with RAF ground crews. The commander of Coastal Command’s 19 Group, Geoffrey Bromet, went along to make certain this delicate diplomatic maneuver proceeded according to plan.
The task force sighted Terceira Island on October 8. Fencer launched Seafire aircraft (a carrier version of the Spitfire) to patrol for hostile forces. The destroyers ran hither and yon searching for U-boats that might attempt to interfere. All went smoothly. Before nightfall, Bromet and other RAF personnel flew in Walrus seaplanes to the island capital, Angra do Heroismo.
This smooth operation suddenly went haywire. Unfavorable weather in the British Isles grounded the land-based bomber squadrons that were to base in the Azores. As a temporary stopgap, the Admiralty directed the Seafires and Swordfish on Fencer to fly ashore to establish a British presence at Lagens airport. Finally, on October 18, the first British land-based bomber, a B-17 Flying Fortress, arrived at Lagens. On October 24, Fencer collected her Seafires and Swordfish and sailed back to the British Isles to escort KM and MK convoys.