by Clay Blair
Within the next week or two, about fifty British aircraft arrived in the Azores. These were thirty B-17s of British Squadrons 206 and 220, formerly based in the Hebrides, ten Hudsons of British Squadron 233 from Gibraltar, and six Leigh Light-equipped Wellingtons, part of British Squadron 179, also from Gibraltar. In the ensuing months, more and more Allied aircraft arrived, necessitating another airfield.
The importance of these new Allied air bases to the Battle of the Atlantic cannot be overstressed. For the British (and later, the Americans), the Azores became in the Middle Atlantic what Iceland was to the North Atlantic. The land-based ASW aircraft operating from the Azores closed the Middle Atlantic “Air Gap,” extending the convoy air umbrella eastward toward North Africa, westward toward Argentia and Bermuda, northward toward Iceland, and southward toward the Cape Verde Islands and Dakar.
Owing to the heavy Allied air cover provided to the KM-MK convoys proceeding between the British Isles and the Mediterranean, the Germans had not conducted group operations against them since June 1942. With the arrival in France of new Luftwaffe aircraft (JU-88s, HE-177s, JU-290s, BV-222s) and the loss of all but one U-tanker, Dönitz and Control deployed group Schill 1 against this convoy route. The group had what was considered to be the advantage of being close to French bases, thus reducing the need for refueling and profiting from the convoy-spotting by the Luftwaffe,
To avoid detection before its first strike, Schill 1 was deliberately kept small. It was composed initially of only eight boats, including the flak boats U-211, U-441, and U-953. Early in the deployment, unidentified Allied aircraft hit and severely damaged the U-441, commanded by Klaus Hartmann. Unable to make necessary repairs, Hartmann aborted to France.
The seven remaining boats of Schill 1 deployed west of Portugal to intercept the northbound convoy MKS 28, which was merged with the northbound convoy Sierra Leone 138, altogether sixty merchant ships. The two convoys were protected by British Escort Group 39, comprised of ten warships: two destroyers (Whitehall, Wrestler), three sloops (Hastings, Rochester, Scarborough), a frigate (Tavy), three corvettes, and, for protection against German aircraft, the antiaircraft light cruiser Alynbank.
A Luftwaffe BV-222 aircraft found and reported this large formation on October 27 but lost it over the next two days. However, Heinz Franke in U-262 located and tracked the convoy on October 29 and 30 and brought up other boats, including Ritterkreuz holder Peter Cremer in U-333. Franke and Cremer attacked and both claimed a “destroyer” sunk, but neither claim has been confirmed. In addition, Franke claimed that he sank a 7,000-ton freighter, which proved to be the 3,000-ton Norwegian Hallfried, only the third freighter to be sunk by U-boats in the whole of the North Atlantic in the month of October.
During the action on October 31, two of the British escorts, the destroyer White-hall and the corvette Geranium, found and sank by Hedgehog and depth charges one of the Schill 1 boats. She was the U-306, commanded by Claus von Trotha. The British confirmed the kill by fishing out “splintered woodwork5’ of the type known to be used in the interior of the VIIs. No survivors or bodies were found.
In order to maintain group Schill 1 at a strength of eight boats, U-boat Control directed two VIIs newly sailed from France to replace the lost U-306 and the aborting flak boat, U-441. The group, which still included the flak boats U-211 and U-953, then redeployed to intercept a KMS convoy southbound to Gibraltar.
Luftwaffe aircraft scouted for the convoy on November 2, 3, and 4, but they had no luck. However, on the night of November 4, Ritterkreuz holder Peter Cremer in U-333 got a hydrophone contact and surfaced in “thick” fog. Suddenly, he wrote, “distorted by the shifting veil of the fog, disjointed and growing to gigantic size, hulls, masts and funnels came into view.” But before he could prepare and send a contact report, a “destroyer” loomed out of the fog, bearing down on U-333. Cremer shot a T-5 at the “destroyer” by eye and dived to 590 feet, but the torpedo missed or malfunctioned and the “destroyer” pounded U-333 with “a rain of depth charges.”
The U-333 survived, but Cremer remained submerged during the daylight hours, delaying his contact report for about eighteen hours. U-boat Control was furious. Not only had Cremer delayed his contact report, the diarist logged, but also he had failed to include a location. His lapses were “incomprehensible,” the diarist admonished. Because of the delay, operations against this convoy could not be mounted.
Luftwaffe aircraft scouted for and found the expected northbound convoy, MKS 29, on November 7. U-boat Control shifted Schill 1 to intercept it but, as usual, the location given by the airmen was in error and the convoy sailed undetected through the U-boat line on the night of November 8. It was just like earlier days, the U-boat Control diarist complained. There were not enough aircraft in working order and the aircrews were not sufficiently trained in over-water navigation.
The luck of the Luftwaffe changed on November 9. Aircraft located northbound convoy MKS 29 in time to shift Schill 1, less the low on fuel, homebound flak boat U-953, to a promising position. After dark Heinz Franke in U-262 reported “lights,” brought up several of the boats, then attacked. Franke and another skipper, Gerhard Thater in U-466, claimed hits on “destroyers” but none of the claims was confirmed. Erwin Christophersen in U-228 claimed sinking a 5,000-ton freighter, but that claim was not confirmed either. The convoy escaped with no losses.
Allied ASW forces knocked out two of the remaining seven boats of Schill 1. Near dawn on November 9, a’B-17-of British Squadron 220, newly arrived at the British base in the Azores, found the U-707, commanded by Günter Gretschel, age twenty-nine. Flying into “heavy and accurate” flak, pilot Roderick Patrick Drummond made two low-level passes and dropped seven shallow-set depth charges that destroyed the U-boat. Drummond reported that his crew saw “ten to fifteen” Germans in the water, swimming amid “wooden wreckage,” and that he dropped them two dinghies and rations. Another B-17 of British Squadron 220, piloted by G. P. Robertson, arrived to find only one German in the water. Robertson dropped him supply packs and radios but the Allies recovered no one from U-707. In an unrelated action, surface-ship escorts of the convoy counterattacked Thater in U-466 and inflicted so much damage that he was forced to abort to France in the wake of the flak boat U-953.
At about this time, German intelligence reported the presence of a big northbound Allied formation. This was convoy MKS 30, merged with convoy Sierra Leone 139, altogether sixty-six merchant ships. Protection for these merged convoys was massive: twenty warships (two destroyers, five sloops, seven frigates, six corvettes) of escort groups 5, 7, and 40, plus the British armed merchant cruiser Ranpura and the Canadian antiaircraft merchant cruiser Prince Robert. In addition, Coastal Command B-24s and Wellingtons of British Squadrons 53 and 179, B-17s of British Squadrons 206 and 220 in the Azores, and Sunderlands of Canadian Squadron 422 provided saturation air cover.
The Germans were determined to strike a heavy blow at these convoys. To make certain of success, U-boat Control deployed three patrol lines from south to north, altogether about thirty U-boats.
• The southernmost line, Schill 1, was composed of seven boats, including the remaining flak boat, U-211; the U-333, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Peter Cremer; and, temporarily, the newly sailed IXC US 15, commanded by Werner Henke, who wore Oak Leaves on his Ritterkreuz. Two other boats returning from operations on the North Atlantic run, U-426 and U-608, were assigned to Schill 1, but they could not get that far south in time.
• The next line farther north, Schill 2, was composed of ten boats; six returning from the North Atlantic run,* including the U-608; one, the IXC40 US36, returning from the aborted POW pickup in Canada; and three boats newly sailed from France. The U-426, returning from the North Atlantic run, was given freedom to operate independently near Schill 2.
• The third and most northerly line, Schill 3, was composed of twelve boats returning from the North Atlantic run. Two other boats low on fuel from the North Atlantic ran, U-91 and US52, were
encouraged to join Schill 3 if at all possible.
While en route to join Schill 3, the new IXC40 US42, recently sailed from Norway, found a group of “destroyers” on November 16. The U-boat skipper, Christian-Brandt Coester, age twenty-four, boldly shot a T-5 homing torpedo at one of them, but it did not hit. The “destroyers” and a “Hudson” aircraft counterattacked US42 but Coester shot back with a second T-5. It prematured, but he eluded the hunters. When another new boat, the U-969, commanded by Max Dobbert, age thirty-three, en route to Schill 2, reported a “destroyer” from about the same area, Control speculated that these boats had probably encountered the screen of an east-bound convoy, perhaps Halifax 265 or Slow Convoy 146. However, the supposed convoy was already too close to the British Isles to mount a U-boat attack.
Luftwaffe aircraft found the merged northbound convoys MKS 30 and Sierra Leone 139 on November 16. U-boat Control shifted Schill 1 easterly to intercept it submerged at about midday on November 18. The dogged spotter and tracker Heinz Franke, in U-262, found the convoy. He and Ritterkreuz holders Cremer in U-333 and Henke in U-515 led the attack.
Cremer wrote in his memoir that “chance would have it that U-333 was the first boat to intercept the enemy.” The result was disastrous. The British frigate Exe, one other warship, and an aircraft spotted U-333’s periscope almost simultaneously and pounced. “A pattern of ten depth charges exploded with a deafening roar round the boat,” Cremer continued, and “the effect was terrible ... [and the] damage [was] very great.” Moreover, Exe’s keel hit U-333’s periscope and broke it off. Exe and other escorts then depth-charged U-333 for eight hours. By what was deemed a miracle, U-333 survived her third collision with Allied vessels, aborted, and limped home.
Henke in U-515 hit the 1,350-ton British sloop Chanticleer with a T-5 and blew off her stern. However, the sloop survived and a tug later towed her to the Azores. Other air and surface escorts, including notably the British sloop Crane, quickly found and aggressively attacked U-515 and savaged the boat. The chief engineer, Georg Mahnken, urged Henke to return to France for repairs. Mahnken’s understudy, Günther Alterburger, who had made twelve war patrols on other boats, believed the crew could repair the boat at sea. Always willing to “take a chance,” as Allied intelligence put it, Henke proceeded to an isolated area in the Canary Islands. After rigging a camouflage net, the crew repaired the extensive topside damage and Henke took U-515 on to Freetown.
Yet another Schill 1 boat was lost in this attack, the flak boat U-211, commanded by Karl Hause, age twenty-seven. A Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of the Azores-based British Squadron 179, piloted by the Canadian Donald F. McRae, who had earlier sunk U-134 and forced U-760 into internment in Spain, found U-211 by radar and then by sight in the moonlight. In the belief that his chances of success were better if he did not use his Leigh Light, McRae achieved complete surprise and sank U-211 with a nearly perfect straddle of four depth charges. There were no survivors.
The air and surface escorts of this convoy formation simply overwhelmed the U-boats of Schill 1. When it realized this, Control canceled the operations of Schill 1 and repositioned the next northerly line, Schill 2, for the second assault. Owing in large part to a massive air escort (seven Leigh Light-equipped Wellingtons the night of November 19-20, twelve B-17s and B-24s during the day on November 20), Schill 2 was unable to assemble and crack through. However, two boats of Schill 2 shot down Allied aircraft. The U-618, commanded by Kurt Baberg, got a Sunderland of Canadian Squadron 422. The U-648, commanded by Peter-Arthur Stahl, who had earlier shot at the “jeep” carrier Tracker but missed, and had been hit by an aircraft on November 18, got a B-24 of British Squadron 53.
Over the next several days, from November 20 to 23, boats of Schill 2 and Schill 3 attempted to break through the massive screen and attack the merchant ships, but none succeeded. The Luftwaffe inflicted the only damage to merchant ships of this convoy formation. That damage was slight, but the way it was done was innovative and startling.
Late on the afternoon of November 21, when it was likely that its air escorts had returned to bases, the Luftwaffe sent off a special force of twenty-five four-engine HE-177 bombers to attack the convoy. The Heinkel bombers were unsatisfactory planes, but each was armed with two HS 293 radio-controlled “smart bombs.” At a range of about eight hundred miles from their base, twenty of the twenty-five HE-177s found the convoy and dropped (or “flew”) forty bombs at various ships from an altitude of 1,300 to two thousand feet. Eleven bombs failed to detonate and almost all the others missed, but the Germans hit two merchant ships, Marsa and Delius. The former sank; the latter survived and reached port.
The Kriegsrnarine concluded that this special Luftwaffe operation, mounted at high cost and with great expectations, was a flop. The “poor results,” the OKM diarist logged, were due mainly to the lack of training of the aircrews. Of the five HE-177s (with ten glider-bombs) that failed to reach the convoy, three were lost and two developed engine problems and aborted. Following this fiasco, the OKM transferred the outfit to the Mediterranean theater.
Apart from continuing saturation air escort, the Allies reinforced the nineteen surface escorts of the convoy formation with British Support Group 4, which, as related, was comprised of six new, American-built frigates. This group increased the surface escort to twenty-five warships. The surface escorts sank three Schill U-boats:
• On November 20, the frigate Nene and two Canadian corvettes, Calgary and Snowberry, of Canadian Support Group 5 (commanded by a Britisher), found the IXC40 U-536, newly arrived from the failed POW pickup in Canada. The three warships attacked U-536 and blew her to the surface with depth charges. Nene sent a boarding party to capture the boat or its secret documents, but she sank before anything could be done. Nene and another British frigate, Tweed, rescued the skipper, Rolf Schauenburg, and sixteen other Germans.
• On November 21, the sloop Crane and the frigate Foley of British Support Group 7 found the new IXC40 U-538 of Schill 3, commanded by Hans-Egbert Gossler, age twenty-nine. In a notable display of teamwork, the two warships destroyed U-538 with depth-charge salvos. There were no survivors.
• On November 23, three of the new frigates of British Support Group 4, Bazely, Blackwood, and Brury, found what was thought to be the U-648, commanded by Peter-Arthur Stahl. In another notable display of teamwork, the three warships trapped the U-boat and pummeled her with depth charges. In wartime, the Admiralty credited these ships with the kill of U-648, but Niestlé writes that the cause of her loss is unknown.
So ended operations of the three Schill groups. Of the approximately thirty U-boats that had been deployed against the two merged convoys, only one boat achieved anything: Henke in U-515 blew off the stem of the British sloop Chanticleer, which made port in the Azores but was not repaired. In return, Allied forces had sunk six Schill boats (U-211, U-306, U-536, U-538, U-648, U-707) with the loss of about three hundred men (seventeen, from U-536, were captured). Three Schill boats (U-333, U-441, U-466) aborted to France with severe damage and/or personnel casualties.
Control reshuffled the three Schill groups into a new patrol line on November 23. This was Weddigen, to be composed of seventeen boats, or so it was believed. Actually, the Allies had sunk two of these (U-538 and U-648), leaving only fifteen, and the IXC U-515, commanded by Werner Henke, had hauled away to repair damage and resumed her voyage to Freetown. Yet another, U-586, low on fuel, had to depart for home the following day, reducing group Weddigen to thirteen boats, several also quite low on fuel.
The Weddigen group included the bold and indefatigable Heinz Franke in U-262 from the first Schill group, who continued to scout out and report convoys with exceptional valor and skill. On the late afternoon of November 26, when the Luftwaffe reported a big convoy—the merged MKS 31 and Sierra Leone 140—Franke put on full speed. Despite a radical course change by the convoy, the Luftwaffe relocated it on November 27. Thereupon Franke eluded depth-charging escorts, cannily positioned his boat, and surf
aced at night in the middle of the convoy, like a latter-day Otto Kretschmer. He shot three T-5s and claimed that he sank three 5,000-ton freighters, but these sinkings were not confirmed.
Two other Weddigen boats got close enough to shoot T-5s at escorts. One was the new VII U-764, commanded by Hans-Kurt von Bremen, age twenty-five. The other was the aged IXB U-107, commanded by Volker von Simmermacher. Von Bremen claimed a sinking, von Simmermacher claimed a hit for damage, but neither hit was confirmed.
The recently arrived U-238, commanded by that fall’s top scorer, Horst Hepp, saw two Allied aircraft crash in flames. Hepp rescued two British airmen and sent off a long (and useless) report on his interrogation of them, which the Allies DFed. Control ordered Hepp to rendezvous with von Bremen’s homebound, low on fuel U-764 on November 30 and turn over the airmen to that boat.
Allied codebreakers and Huff Duff experts provided good information on this rendezvous. Land-based aircraft and the Bogue hunter-killer group went out to break up the party and—hopefully—rescue the British airmen. On November 29, von Bremen reported that four land-based aircraft attacked the U-764 and destroyers hunted him for sixteen hours before he escaped and continued to France. On November 30, Hepp reported that three (Bogue) aircraft hit the U-238, killing two men and wounding five others, including Hepp. Navy pilots James E. Ogle III, Carter E. Fetsch, and others carried out this attack; but Hepp, too, got away and aborted to France, still holding the two British airmen.