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

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Hitler’s U-Boat War- The Hunted 1942-45 Page 79

by Clay Blair


  • The IXC40 U-846, commanded by Berthold Hashagen, which sailed on its second patrol from Lorient on April 29. On May 2, a Halifax of British Squadron 58 attacked U-846 in Biscay, but Hashagen’s gunners shot it down. Six days out, in the early hours of May 4, a Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of Canadian Squadron 407, piloted by L. J. Bateman, made radar contact with U-846 in bright moonlight. Attacking into heavy flak, Bateman let go six depth charges. Nothing more was ever heard from the boat, which presumably was sunk at this time and place with the loss of all hands.

  • The VII U-473, commanded by Heinz Sternberg, who hit and wrecked the American destroyer escort Donnell on May 3 with a T-5. As a result of this sinking, Western Approaches directed Johnny Walker’s Support Group 2, recently returned from Kola Inlet, to hunt down U-473. In the early hours of May 5, one of the five warships of this unit, the sloop Wild Goose, got a solid sonar contact and dropped ten depth charges. Thereafter she and the other four ships, the sloops Starling and Wren, commanded by S.R.J. Woods, and the frigates Bentley and Gore, carried out a relentless hunt, dropping a grand total of 345 depth charges during the day, set at fifty to seven hundred feet. However, Sternberg went deep (656 feet), and none of these missiles did any harm.

  Shortly after midnight on May 6, Sternberg surfaced to air the boat, charge the batteries, and run away on the diesels. The sloops Starling, Wild Goose, and Wren, which were waiting, opened fire with main batteries. Sternberg rang up full speed and shot a bow T-5 at Wren, which missed by about ten feet. From the bridge, Sternberg ordered the three other bow tubes made ready to be fired, but before he could shoot, Allied gunfire killed him. The other Germans abandoned ship and set scuttling charges. The sloops recovered thirty of fifty-three Germans. The prisoners alleged that the upper works of U-473 were camouflaged with an exotic gray paint, “which was intended to absorb infrared.”

  • The VII U-765, commanded by Werner Wendt, who had sailed from Bergen on April 3. On May 3, the night U-473 hit and wrecked Donnelly Wendt in U-765, a weather reporter, was not far away.* After DFing his transmissions, Western Approaches directed British Support Group 5, composed of the “jeep” carrier Vindex and a screen of six frigates, to the scene to mount a hunt to exhaustion. Swordfish from Vindex and four frigates, Aylmer, Bickerton, Bligh, and Keats, DFed U-765’s weather reports, closed, and engaged her.

  Wendt fired a T-5 at Bickerton or Bligh but it missed. After dark he surfaced to run away but a Swordfish located the boat, illuminated it with a searchlight, and forced Wendt to dive again. When he resurfaced at dawn on May 6 to air the boat and charge batteries, the frigates and a Swordfish pounced, drove the boat under, and depth-charged it relentlessly. Again forced to the surface, Wendt abandoned ship and scuttled. The British rescued eleven of the forty-eight crew, including Wendt and his first watch officer, Alexander Gelhaus, age twenty-one. The prisoners revealed that owing to the acute scarcity of copper in the Third Reich, the torpedo tubes of U-765 were made of steel, which rusted continually, and the diesels of this and all succeeding new U-boats had no reversing gear.

  • The VII U-955, commanded by Hans-Heinrich Baden, which sailed from Bergen on April 15, in part to report weather. On April 29, Baden’s radio receiver failed and therefore he did not get new orders from Control to join the Arctic force. Control was therefore surprised when on May 5, Baden reported that he had shot down an attacking B-24 in the Atlantic south of Iceland. At the conclusion of this patrol, the boat continued to France and destruction, as will be described.

  Another boat had a close call at this time. She was the ex-Preussen weather reporter U-672, commanded by Ulf Lawaetz, who was planting Thetis radar decoys in the Bay of Biscay. Shortly after midnight on April 24, a Leigh Light-equipped B-24 of British Squadron 120, piloted by L. T. Taylor, found U-672 on radar and attacked using the light, dropping six depth charges that evidently fell wide. About twelve hours later, near midday, a Sunderland of Canadian Squadron 423, piloted by F G. Fellows, found the boat on the surface in the afternoon, and attacked into heavy flak. Fellows dropped six depth charges that hurt U-672, but the Sunderland incurred such severe damage from flak or her own depth charges that Fellows was forced to abort immediately. Lawaetz dived U-672 and escaped, continued planting Thetis, and returned to St. Nazaire on May 12.

  Only two U-boats sailed for patrols in the North Atlantic during May. Both were new Type IXs assigned to report weather. The IXC40 U-534, commanded by Herbert Nollau, age twenty-eight, left Bergen on May 8 and put into Bordeaux ninety-eight days later, August 13. The IXC40 U-857, commanded by Rudolf Premauer, age twenty-five, left Kiel on May 9 and also put into Bordeaux on August 13. Neither sank any Allied ships.

  All told, Control mounted seventy-eight U-boat patrols to the North and Middle Atlantic in the five months from January 1 to June 1, 1944. These boats sank or wrecked eleven Allied vessels, four merchant ships for 21,854 tons* and seven small warships, † Including three attempting to get into the Mediterranean, the Germans lost thirty-seven of the U-boats (47 percent) that sailed to the North and Middle Atlantic in this period, manned by about 1,900 submariners. Of these, 332 were captured from eleven different boats.‡

  THE ARCTIC

  In compliance with Hitler’s orders, in January and February 1944, Dönitz increased the Arctic U-boat force to thirty VIIs, basing mainly at Trondheim and Narvik. This force, still commanded by Rudolph Peters, was organized into Combat Flotillas 11 and 13.§ The veterans of these waters and some of the new arrivals achieved minor successes in the semidark Arctic “days” of late January 1944, but not much thereafter.

  After the destruction of Scharnhorst, the Admiralty considered the Arctic to be relatively safe for Murmansk convoys. Therefore, when the first section of the January convoy JW 56A, composed of twenty merchant ships, sailed from Loch Ewe, Scotland, on February 12, the Home Fleet was not required to provide a battleship covering force, a welcome relief. That convoy ran into a brutal winter storm that forced it to abort into Akurey, Iceland. Less five damaged merchant ships, the convoy resailed on February 21, guarded by eleven escorts. The second section of this convoy, JW 56B, comprised of sixteen merchant ships with thirteen escorts, sailed from Loch Ewe at nearly the same time, January 22. A cruiser force (Belfast, Kent, Norfolk) of the Home Fleet provided distant cover for both sections.

  The Germans deployed fifteen U-boats to intercept the first section of the convoy, JW 56A. All but three of the boats were newly arrived in the Arctic. They and the older boats were armed with T-5 homing torpedoes and twin 20mm and the unreliable automatic, rapid-fire 37mm flak guns. All had Naxos radar detectors and other new electronics, including improved passive sonar gear, capable of detecting a surface ship at a range of fifty miles. One boat, U-957, reported mechanical difficulties and requested dockyard facilities (in Trondheim) on her scheduled return.

  Fully aware of the U-boat deployments, the Admiralty diverted JW 56A to a northerly course to evade them. However, the northernmost boat in the line, U-956, commanded by Hans-Dieter Mohs, found JW 56A and gave the alarm. Running on the surface in Arctic darkness, other boats closed in for the kill on January 25 and 26.

  In this group attack, eight U-boats shot ten T-5s as well as other torpedo types, such as FAT. They sank three 7,200-ton Liberty-type ships and damaged the British destroyer Obdurate. Joachim Franze in the new U-278 got the American Penelope Barker, Klaus Becker in U-360 hit the British Fort Bellingham, and Franz Saar in U-957 finished her off to share credit. Hans Dunkelberg in the new U-716 got the American Andrew G. Curtin. Becker in U-360 also hit the Obdurate, which, however, survived and reached port.

  The U-boats could not sustain the attack on JW 56A, but they were in position to strike the second section, JW 56B, on January 29 and 30. Nine boats shot twelve T-5s and other torpedoes at various ships. Only one boat had a success: Joachim France in the new U-278, who had sunk the Liberty ship Penelope Barker from JW 56A, hit and blew off the stern of the British destroyer Hardy II with a T-5. The British d
estroyer Venus rescued the crew and put down the wreck with a torpedo.

  The U-boat skippers in these two attacks on JW 56 claimed many T-5 hits on destroyers and other sinkings that were not confirmed. Still confident that the T-5 was a war-decisive weapon, Control was only too willing to credit the claims. “That’s a good job,” Control radioed the boats on February 1, “keep it up!” Control credited a total of twenty-six hits or probable hits: seven destroyers and three merchant ships certainly sunk, three destroyers probably sunk, damage to six other merchant ships, and probable damage to six destroyers and one merchant ship. The confirmed results: the destroyers Obdurate and Hardy II hit, Hardy II fatally; three Liberty ships in JW 56A sunk.

  One U-boat was lost in the second of these two battles. She was the new U-314, commanded by Georg-Wilhelm Basse. On January 30, the British destroyers Meteor and Whitehall in the escort of JW 56B destroyed her with depth charges and Hedgehogs. There were no German survivors.

  The U-boat attacks on JW 56 rattled the Admiralty and concern for the safety of Murmansk convoys again mounted. That concern intensified when the British learned from Enigma decrypts that the German destroyers in Altenfiord had been put on two-hour notice. For these reasons and others, the Admiralty delayed the sailing of convoy RA 56, homebound from Kola Inlet, until the escorts of JW 56A were ready to return and could be added. That convoy, comprised of thirty-seven merchant ships and twenty-six escorts, sailed from Kola Inlet on February 2, evaded the U-boat lines, and reached Loch Ewe on February 11.

  At the urging of Home Fleet commander Bruce Fraser, the Admiralty agreed to sail the next Murmansk convoy, JW 57, in one section and to provide it with a formidable escort. When it left Loch Ewe on February 23, JW 57 consisted of forty-two merchant ships. The close escort was comprised of the American-built British “jeep” carrier Chaser, light cruiser Black Price, and seventeen destroyers.

  The British knew from Enigma decrypts that fourteen U-boats lay in wait for convoy JW 57. The Germans converged to attack on February 24. Six boats mounted assaults with T-5s. Only one got a hit: The new U-990, commanded by Hubert Nordheimer, sank the 2,000 -ton British destroyer Mahratta. Other escorts rescued seventeen of her crew of about two hundred men; the rest perished in the sinking or in the frigid Arctic waters.

  The escorts sank two U-boats during this encounter.

  • On February 24, the old but skilled British destroyer Keppel, which had sunk U-229 of group Leuthen the previous September, destroyed the U-713, commanded by Henri Gosejakob. There were no survivors.

  • On the next day, February 25, an escorting Catalina of British Squadron 210, based in the Shetlands and piloted by Frank John French, found the U-601, commanded by Otto Hansen. French attacked into “inaccurate flak” and dropped two depth charges that destroyed the boat. French, who had been aloft for twelve hours, reported “eight to ten” Germans in the water and headed home. There were no survivors of this boat either.

  The return convoy, RA 57, comprised of thirty-one merchant ships, sailed from Kola Inlet on March 2, protected by the “jeep” carrier Chaser and other escorts. As the British knew from Enigma decrypts, fifteen U-boats were deployed to intercept RA 57. The opposing forces met on March 4. Over the next forty-eight hours, five U-boats fired five T-5s and other torpedoes. Only one got a hit. The veteran U-703, commanded by Joachim Brünner, sank the empty 7,100-ton British freighter Empire Tourist.

  In a notable performance during this Arctic encounter, Swordfish biplanes and Wildcats of Squadron 816 from the “jeep” carrier Chaser and a surface escort of the convoy sank three new U-boats in three days.

  • On the first day, March 4, a Chaser Swordfish fitted with rockets found the U-472, commanded by Wolfgang-Friedrich von Forstner. The pilot, P. J. Beresford, damaged U-472 with bombs and rockets and summoned help. The British destroyer Onslaught, commanded by A. Pleydell-Bouverie, destroyed the boat with gunfire. The Onslaught rescued von Forstner and twenty-nine of his men, who revealed that their flak guns were iced up and could not fire at the Swordfish and that they had shot a T-5 at Onslaught that missed.

  • On the following day, March 5, Chaser launched Swordfish in spite of foul weather and heavy seas. One of these, piloted by J. F. Mason, found and sank the U-366 commanded by Bruno Langenberg, the latest arrival in the Arctic. There were no survivors.

  • On the third day, March 6, yet another Swordfish from Chaser, piloted by L.E.B. Bennett, sank a U-boat with depth charges and rockets. She was the U-973, commanded by Klaus Paepenmöller.* The British destroyer Boadicea recovered the engineer, Franz Rudolf, and two enlisted men, but one of the latter died on board, leaving two prisoners. They asserted that most of the flak gunners and ammo passers had refused to carry out their duties. If true, it was a rare episode in the highly disciplined U-boat force.

  Another boat was severely damaged. She was the U-737, commanded by Paul Brasack, age twenty-seven, who earlier had bombarded Allied facilities on Spitzbergen. On March 6, a B-24 of British Squadron 120, piloted by the Canadian Harold F. Kerrigan, found and attacked U-737 in the face of intense and accurate flak. Kerrigan released six depth charges that damaged the U-boat, but the B-24 incurred two wounded and heavy damage, including the loss of two engines. Kerrigan limped home to a hero’s reward, a DSO. Brasack aborted and limped into Hammerfest on March 12, terminating a voyage of fourteen days.

  Enigma decrypts in mid-March revealed to the Allies that the battleship Tirpitz, apparently repaired, was undergoing trials in Altenfiord in northern Norway. Although other Enigma decrypts indicated that Tirpitz was probably not fully ready for combat, British authorities were compelled to take measures to protect the next Murmansk convoy, JW 58, against a possible Tirpitz raid.

  That convoy of forty-nine merchant ships sailed from Loch Ewe on March 27. Its close escort was massive: the British-built “jeep” carrier Activity (seven Wildcats, three Swordfish), the American-built British “jeep” carrier Tracker (seven Wildcats, twelve Avengers), the British light cruiser Diadem, the old American light cruiser Milwaukee (in transit, a gift to Stalin in lieu of a share of the surrendered Italian fleet), twenty destroyers, four corvettes, and—in a radical change of mission—Johnny Walker’s famous Support Group 2, consisting of five sloops. In total: thirty-three warships in the close escort.

  In addition, the Admiralty deployed a huge British task force (Tungsten) to deal with Tirpitz during the passage of JW 58. This special force consisted of the battleships Anson and Duke of York, fleet carriers Furious (twenty-one Barracuda torpedo-bombers) and Victorious (twenty-one Barracudas), four American-built “jeep” carriers (Emperor, Fencer, Pursuer, Searcher), four cruisers (Belfast, Jamaica, Royalist, Sheffield), and fourteen destroyers.

  From Enigma decrypts, the British knew that despite recent losses, the Arctic U-boat force numbered twenty-nine boats. Of these, sixteen were at sea to intercept JW 58 and thirteen were in port for voyage repairs, refits, or yard overhauls. In view of past successes with the “jeep” carriers in this area, the British welcomed an opportunity to deal the Arctic U-boat force a heavy setback.

  The convoy escort delivered the first blow to the Germans on the night of March 29. Johnny Walker in the sloop Starling came upon the new U-961, commanded by Klaus Fischer, which had sailed from Bergen on March 25 to join the Atlantic U-boat force. It is possible that Fischer intended to attack Walker, but Walker’s sonar operator picked up a solid contact and the ever-alert Starling attacked at once, firing two depth-charge salvos. These hit the mark, destroying U-961 with all hands. A “stream” of wreckage and dead bodies rose to the surface to confirm yet another kill for this outstanding commander, warship, and crew.

  Assisted by Luftwaffe spotters, twelve U-boats, organized into three four-boat groups (Blitz, Hammer, Thor), found JW 58 on April 1. Joined by five outbound boats—making a total of seventeen—these skippers carried out eighteen attacks over the next forty-eight hours, mostly firing T-5s. Not one attack succeeded. In return, British convoy escorts
sank three more U-boats in three days.

  • On April 1, Martlets and Avengers of British Squadron 846 from the “jeep” carrier Tracker, working with the destroyer Beagle, attacked a U-boat, thought to be the veteran U-355, commanded by Günter La Baume. Although these forces received wartime credit for a kill, Niestlé raises doubts and declares U-355 lost to unknown causes.

  • The next day, the destroyer Keppel sank the U-360 with her Hedgehog. She was commanded by Klaus Becker, who had earlier damaged the British destroyer Obdurate and the Liberty ship Fort Bellingham. There were no German survivors.

  • On the third day, April 3, a Swordfish of Squadron 819 from Activity and a Martlet-Avenger team of Squadron 846 from Tracker sank the new U-288, commanded by Willi Meyer. There were no survivors from this boat either.

  Control was again generous in its assessments. Based on flash T-5 shooting reports, it calculated the Arctic U-boats had sunk “nine destroyers” and “probably” had sunk “four” others, a likely total of thirteen destroyers put down. In reality, no U-boat had sunk anything in convoy JW 58, which reached Kola Inlet on April 6. The escorts of this convoy had sunk four U-boats (U-288, U-355, U-360, U-961) and had shot down six German aircraft.

  During the passage of JW 58, the big British task force struck at the Tirpitz in Altenfiord on April 3. The Barracuda torpedo-bombers from Furious and Victorious registered fourteen hits with 500- and 1,600-pound bombs. These bombs caused considerable damage to Tirpitz’s upper works and inflicted a total of 438 casualties (122 dead). As a result of this attack, Tirpitz was under repair—and out of action—for another three months.

 

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