by Clay Blair
Again, no boat of the Igel groups was able to mount a proper attack on a convoy. However, there was good news of sorts for the Germans from another sector. Off Iceland on February 8, the Arctic transfer U-985, commanded by Horst Kessler, age twenty-nine, which was three weeks out from Bergen, reported the sinking of a 6,000-ton freighter. The victim was really the lone 1,735-ton British cargo vessel Margit inbound to Loch Ewe in ballast from Murmansk convoy RA 56. This modest vessel was the only Allied merchant ship sunk by U-boats in the North Atlantic in February 1944.
During this period Coastal Command mounted saturation air coverage over those ocean convoys in the eastern Atlantic threatened by the Igel boats. Some unidentified aircraft had assisted Johnny Walker’s Support Group 2 in the sinking of U-238 and U-762. Other unidentified aircraft attacked the U-283, U-413, and U-608 on February 10. Over the next two days, Coastal Command aircraft sank two boats.
• That same day, February 10, a Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of British Squadron 612, piloted by the Australian Max H. Painter, found by radar an Igel U-boat in the waters west of North Minch. She was another new IXC40, U-545, commanded by Gert Mannesmann. Painter attacked with depth charges by moon light. These close explosions so badly damaged U-545 that Mannesmann had to abandon ship and scuttle.*
In response to an SOS from Mannesmann, Control ordered three Igel boats of the northern subgroup to assist: another new IXC40, the U-549; and the VIIs U-714 and U-984. One of the latter, U-714, commanded by Hans-Joachim Schwebcke, arrived in time and rescued all fifty-six men from U-545. Schwebcke then returned to France, arriving at St. Nazaire on February 25. Thereupon Mannesmann returned to Germany to command a big “electro boat.”
• The next day, February 11, a Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of Canadian Squadron 407, piloted by P. W. Heron, found another Igel boat, the new VII U-283, commanded by the twenty-one-year-old Günter Ney, who had shot down a Wellington of British Squadron 612 the night before. In a snap attack, Heron dropped six depth charges and destroyed the boat with the loss of all hands. Ney earned a DFC.
Another new IXC40, U-546, commanded by Paul Just, had a very close call at this time. On February 16, an unidentified Sunderland attacked the boat, killing a gunner and inflicting diesel-engine damage. However, Just reported, he could make repairs “with his own resources” and continue his mission to report the weather. Homebound in Biscay from that task on April 17, the U-546 survived three more air attacks and shot down a Mosquito.
The last action of group Igel took place on February 14. The U-445, commanded by a new skipper, Rupprecht Fischler von Treuberg, age twenty-four, shot a T-5 at a “destroyer.” His target was probably a frigate of British Support Group 3. The T-5 missed and all warships of this group attacked and severely damaged U-445, but she got away. However, as a result of this punishing attack, Rupprecht Fischler von Treuberg was compelled to abort to France. He arrived in St. Nazaire on February 27 and did not sail again until June.
Although the groups in the North Atlantic had achieved almost nothing at ruinous cost in U-boats, Control continued these futile operations despite ever-mounting losses. When a Luftwaffe aircraft reported a large convoy outbound from North Channel on February 15, Control calculated its probable course and deployed the Igel boats in two tight patrol lines, Hai 1 and Hai 2, at a likely location for an “old style” convoy attack. The convoy in question was either Outbound North (Slow) 29 or the fast Outbound North 224, both heavily guarded by all manner of surface and air escorts.
Control exhorted these two patrol lines, composed of about twenty-six U-boats, to do their utmost to achieve a great naval victory. Because of Allied air in the area, carrier-based air in particular, the “main blow” had to be delivered the first night. “So that you reach the convoy no matter what,” during this night attack the boats were not to dive from Naxos contacts, but remain on the surface with flak guns and a bow and stern T-5 homing torpedo ready to fire. If Control directed that the attack should continue into daytime, all boats except those with defective 37mm flak guns were to stay on the surface and, of course, go after the carriers first (with T-5s), then the destroyers of the escort or screen (again, with T-5s). “Do your best,” Control exhorted, “this long-prepared operation must succeed.”
This group operation, like those preceding it, failed utterly. The promised Luftwaffe reconnaissance did not happen, owing to mechanical defects in the planes. Allied carrier aircraft swarmed overhead. Too many U-boats had defective 37mm guns. It was in this would-be naval battle that Johnny Walker’s hunter-killer unit, Support Group 2, sank the snort boat U-264 and in return, the VII U-256 fatally damaged Walker’s sloop Woodpecker,
At this time, in the same area, the British frigate Spey, commanded by H. G. Boys-Smith, sank two Hai boats within twenty-four hours, a Royal Navy record of sorts. Spey was one of four frigates of the British Escort Group 10 attached to convoy Outbound North (Slow) 29.
• On the afternoon of February 18 Spey and another frigate, Lossie, found the VII U-406, commanded by Horst Dieterichs, and blew her to the surface with depth charges. As the first man to reach the bridge, Dieterichs encountered machine-gun fire from Spey that killed him. A boarding party from Spey got inside U-406 and rounded up a heavy bag crammed with secret documents, but the boat sank before the documents could be removed. The boarding party scrambled to safety. Spey rescued forty-five Germans but four died, leaving forty-one, including an electronics engineer and his two assistants.
• The next afternoon, February 19, Spey found and attacked the veteran U-386, commanded by Fritz Albrecht, which had earlier conducted a special mission off North Channel. Spey blew U-386 to the surface with depth charges, then closed, spraying the boat with 20mm fire to prevent the Germans from manning guns. As the German crew was leaping over the side, someone unintentionally engaged the boat’s electric motors and she began to move off. Seeing that, Spey “opened up with everything she had “ and sank the boat. Spey rescued Albrecht and fifteen other Germans who revealed that, as the Allies suspected, U-386, like U-406, carried electronic specialists.
Control dissolved the two Hai groups and established a new group, Preussen, on February 19. It was supposedly composed of seventeen boats, thirteen from the Hai groups plus four boats newly sailed from France. However, one of the Hai boats, the snort boat U-264, was already lost and another, U-281, was returning to France. That meant Preussen consisted of fifteen, not seventeen, boats. It was to be the last anticonvoy U-boat group or “wolf pack” of the war.
During this redeployment, one of the Preussen boats was sunk. She was one of the two oldest VIICs in the Atlantic force, U-91, commanded by Heinz Hungershausen, age twenty-seven, older brother of Walter Hungershausen, skipper of the U-280, which was lost with all hands the previous November 16. On the night of February 25, the British hunter-killer Support Group 1, composed of six frigates, found U-91 At that time Hungershausen got what he believed to be a Naxos aircraft contact and dived to two hundred feet. In actuality the Naxos contact had been made on radar from one of the frigates, Gore, which attacked with depth charges. As a devastating rain of missiles fell, Hungershausen dived deeper, to about 660 feet, but it was too late. Although the U-91 was severely damaged, in desperation Hungershausen surfaced to run away on his diesels. When he popped up, Gore and two other frigates, Gould and Affleck, opened fire with all weapons that could bear and destroyed the boat. The frigates rescued Hungershausen and fifteen other Germans.
Another Preussen boat had a very close call. For reasons not clear, Control ordered the VII U-212, commanded by Helmut Vogler, to rendezvous with the new IXC40 U-549, commanded by Detlev Krankenhagen, and give her a Naxos. As Vogler attempted to carry out these orders, unidentified aircraft attacked the U-212 on February 25 and again on February 27, when U-212 lay alongside U-549. However, both boats survived and U-212 reached France on March 12.
The expected target of group Preussen was convoy Outbound North 225. Believing it would take a southwesterly cou
rse like Outbound North 223 and 224, Control positioned Preussen accordingly for an attack on February 28. Aware of these positions from Enigma decrypts, Western Approaches diverted Outbound North 225 to a westerly course along the Great Circle route and thereby outwitted Control.
Three more Preussen boats were lost on March 1, another appalling slaughter.
• The British Support Group 1, composed of six frigates, three of which had sunk U-91 on February 25, found the veteran VII U-358 on February 29. Commanded by Rolf Manke, she was two weeks out from St. Nazaire. The frigate Gar- lies and the three frigates that had sunk U-91 (Affleck, Gore, and Gould) pounded U-358 tenaciously with depth charges and Hedgehogs in a relentless hunt lasting over thirty hours. At the end of that time—the longest U-boat hunt of the war to then—the air in the boat was so foul the men could scarcely breathe. Finally, after dark on March 1, Manke had no choice but to surface and try to run away on his diesels.
By that time Garlies and Gore had departed for other duty, leaving Affleck and Gould to pursue U-358. When Manke reached periscope depth at 7:30 P.NL, he set up quickly and fired a T-5 at the frigate Gould, commanded by D. W. Ungoed. As the T-5 hit and blew Gould apart, Manke surfaced to run. However, the frigate Affleck, merely 1,500 yards away, pounced on U-358 and sank her with depth charges and the main gun battery. Affleck then turned about to rescue the crew of Gould, after which she returned to the site of the U-358 sinking and found one survivor, an enlisted man. According to him, Allied fire hit and killed Manke on deck while he was waving a white flag of surrender.
• The American “jeep” carrier Block Island, which sailed from Norfolk on February 16 with a new screen of one destroyer (Corry) and four new destroyer escorts, reached the area of group Preussen on February 29. Late that afternoon, an Avenger team spotted a periscope trailing a feather in the water. The planes dropped sonobuoys and gave the alarm but were unable to attack.
Three destroyer escorts of the screen, Bostwick, Bronstein, and Thomas, raced to the site and found by radar the VII U-709, commanded by a new skipper, Rudolf Ites, age twenty-six. The Bronstein, commanded by Sheldon H. Kinney, fired a star shell to illuminate the scene and opened fire with her main battery (3750 caliber) and twin 40mms and drove the boat under. After firing two Hedgehog salvos, Bronstein moved aside as the Bostwick, commanded by John H. Church, Jr., and the Thomas, commanded by David M. Kellogg, came in with depth charges and more Hedgehogs. Bostwick and Thomas pounded U-709 for about five hours. Finally, at about 3:30 A.M., March 1, they destroyed her with the loss of all hands. She was the first U-boat to be sunk solely by American destroyer escorts.
• In the meantime, shortly after midnight, March 1, Sheldon Kinney in Bronstein had found another quarry close by. She was the VII U-603, commanded by Hans-Joachim Bertelsmann. Kinney attacked immediately with a barrage of depth charges and Hedgehogs that destroyed U-603. She became the second U-boat to be destroyed by American destroyer escorts. There were no survivors of this boat either.
Another Preussen boat had a very close call. On March 2, an unidentified aircraft hit the ex-flak boat U-441, commanded by Klaus Hartmann. He reported “severe damage” and aborted. On March 14 he limped into Brest, where the boat was fitted with a snort and did not sail again until late May.
U-BOAT ACTIONS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC: III
There was no longer the slightest possibility that U-boats could achieve anything of value on patrols in the eastern Atlantic close to the British Isles. Yet Dönitz insisted that such patrols should continue into March despite the heavy U-boat losses. After all, Hitler had proclaimed the U-boat arm to be his first line of defense against invasion in the west; the Kriegsmarine would not let him down. Besides that, the patrols provided a proving ground for information on the new weapons to be incorporated into the “electro boats,” such as the latest version of the T-5 homing torpedo and yet another new looping torpedo, LUT; the 37mm automatic flak gun; the Aphrodite and Thetis radar decoys; the Fliege, Tunis, and Naxos radar detectors; and the Gema and Hohentwiel search radars.
Group Preussen was still at sea on March 7. Control believed it consisted of fifteen boats but four had been lost, leaving eleven, including the experimental VIIs U-986 (antiaircraft rocket array) and U-267 (snort). The group deployed close to the British Isles on a loose and widely spaced north-south line from Rockall Bank to the western approaches to the English Channel, somewhat like the U-boat deployment in the first days of the war. However, owing to the four losses, there were many “holes” in this line, all known to the Allies from Enigma decrypts and other intelligence sources.
One of the Preussen boats sank a ship. She was the VII U-255, commanded by Erich Harms, an Arctic transfer that had sailed from Bergen on February 26. On the evening of March 9, Harms happened upon a big tanker convoy, CU 16, inbound from the Caribbean via New York to the British Isles. The close escort group consisted of six new destroyer escorts, all manned by Coast Guard crews. Harms got off a contact report to Control and shadowed. However, one of the destroyer escorts, Leopold, commanded by Kenneth C. Phillips, perhaps assisted by a Huff Duff bearing, got U-255 on radar, went to battle stations, and charged, firing star shells and her 3750-caliber main battery.
Harms dived and fired a T-5 at Leopold from extremely close range. After a run of merely twenty-seven seconds, he reported, the T-5 hit its target with a solid explosion. In fact, it broke Leopold’s back. She split in half and the stern sank. Armed depth charges rolled into the water, killing a great many of the crew. Another of the destroyer escorts, Joyce, commanded by Robert Wilcox, arrived at the scene, got U-255 on sonar, and chased her for three hours, but Harms got away. Joyce returned to Leopold’s drifting bow section at dawn, rescued twenty-eight enlisted men, and sank the half hulk with guns and depth charges. Altogether, 171 Coast Guardsmen of Leopold perished in the sinking.
The next day, March 11, Harms reported, while he was attempting to overtake the convoy, an unidentified aircraft attacked U-255. Two men were wounded, one seriously. Upon receiving this report, Control directed Harms to rendezvous with another Preussen VII that had a doctor, U-608, commanded by a new skipper, Wolfgang Reisener, age twenty-five. When this meeting and another failed, Harms treated his own wounded and continued his patrol.
Control ordered five more VIIs to join group Preussen. The Allies handled this reinforcement roughly. In brief:
• The veteran U-575, the third VII to embark on a war patrol with a snort, which departed St. Nazaire on February 29. Ten days out, on March 9, the skipper, her former first watch officer, Wolfgang Boehmer, age twenty-three, attacked and sank with a T-5 the British corvette Asphodel, part of the escort of the merged inbound convoys Sierra Leone 150 and MKS 41. She was the first Allied ship to be lost to a snort boat, although that device played no direct part in the sinking.
Other British escorts, including Baynton and Clover, screening the “jeep” carrier Striker, hunted U-575 with depth charges and Hedgehogs for eighteen hours, but Boehmer got away. When clear, he took advantage of the sinking and chase to report briefly on snort operations, as ordered. It was not advisable to snort in the vicinity of Allied surface ships, he said, because the noisy diesels drowned out the boat’s own hydrophones and in daytime, despite all precautions, the snort intermittently emitted exhaust smoke that might be detected by the enemy vessels.
A Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of British Squadron 172, piloted by John P. Finnessey, providing escort for convoy Outbound North 227, came upon Boehmer in U-575 in the early hours of March 13. Finnessey attacked with depth charges, dropped float flares, gave the alarm, and broadcast beacon signals. At dawn a B-17 Flying Fortress of British Squadron 206, piloted by A. David Beaty (later a well-known author), arrived at the scene and attacked into heavy flak and dropped four close depth charges. The automatic feed of the 37mm gun on U-575 failed, and it had to be loaded by hand. In view of that fact, Boehmer submerged. Looking from above, it appeared to Beaty that she went down stern first, with her bow stickin
g up at a steep angle.
Beaty climbed, broadcast an alarm, and circled the site for five hours, sending beacons. A B-17 of British Squadron 220, piloted by Wilfred R. Travell, soon arrived. Seeing a large oil slick, Travell dived and dropped two depth charges into its middle. Travell then climbed and in response to orders, broadcast homing signals for the benefit of an American hunter-killer group built around the “jeep” carrier Bogue, which had sailed to this area from Norfolk on February 26.
An Avenger from Bogue, piloted by John F. Adams, came on the scene that morning, found the oil slick, and dropped sonobuoys. A destroyer of the escort, Hobson, also explored the area but found nothing. Later in the day, one of four new destroyer escorts of the screen, Haverfield, commanded by Jerry A. Matthews, Jr., arrived, got a sonar contact, and carried out depth-charge and Hedgehog attacks. While Matthews was so engaged, a Canadian frigate, Prince Rupert, commanded by R. W. Draney, happened along and, upon invitation, joined the attack. Another Avenger, piloted by Donald A. Pattie, circled overhead.
The destroyer Hobson, commanded by Kenneth Loveland, returned to join the hunt. Coached by Haverfield, she got a solid sonar contact and fired two massive, deep depth-charge salvos. These drove U-575 to the surface, whereupon all three warships opened fire with main guns and Pattie in the Avenger attacked with rockets and bombs. These finally destroyed U-575. The Prince Rupert picked up fourteen Germans and took them to Newfoundland. The Hobson collected twenty-three survivors, including skipper Boehmer, and took them to Casablanca for eventual transfer to the States.
This was the second time the Allies had recovered prisoners from a snort boat. They learned many more technical details about the snort and its operation, including the fact that contrary to popular belief, U-boats did not snort all the time, but only for three or four hours at night to charge batteries. Based on these interviews, an American intelligence officer wrote: