by Clay Blair
This ship was the Canadian frigate Valleyfield, commanded by D. T. English. She was the senior of the five escorts of Canadian Escort Group C-l, which had detached from convoy Outbound North (Slow) 234 and were headed, line abreast, for refits and crew rest at St. John’s. Owing to the scattered ice, none of the ships was zigzagging or streaming anti-homing torpedo noisemakers, known as Cat Gear or Foxers. Moreover, Valleyfield’s radar was down. The officer of the deck, Ian Tate, was keeping station with the other ships by a bright moon. At 11:35 P.M., the T-5 hit Valleyfield, blowing her in half. The bow sank in ninety seconds, the stern in six minutes. Three enlisted men on the stern bravely defused the depth charges, but it was an unnecessary action because the fuses were set to explode the charges deep. These men were among 125 crew of Valleyfield who perished that night.
The other four ships—all Canadian corvettes—did not at first realize what had happened. By the time they did, considerable time had elapsed, but they reversed course and carried out a submarine hunt. Zimmermann bottomed U-548 at 335 feet and lay doggo, again outwitting Canadian ASW forces. The corvette Giffard, commanded by C. Peterson, rescued thirty-eight frozen, oil-soaked men of Valleyfield (but not her skipper, English) and took them on to St. John’s. An official investigation faulted Escort Group C-l for its failure to follow proper steaming procedures. Zimmermann in U-548 returned to the chaos in France on June 24, where technicians hurriedly grafted a snort to the boat.
The last two boats to enter Canadian waters in the spring of 1944 both had snorts: the venerable IXB U-107 and the new IXC40 U-1222. They were commanded by the new skipper Volker von Simmermacher, age twenty-three, and by Heinz Bielfeld, age twenty-seven, respectively. Bielfeld in U-1222 came upon the eastbound fast convoy Halifax 292 on May 22. He shot two torpedoes at the big American tanker Bulkoil but missed. On June 8, Bielfeld fired a three-fan at a 12,000-ton “troopship” and two Liberty ships in the westbound convoy UC 24, but the torpedoes missed. Near Cape Sable, von Simmermacher in U-107 attacked a large American fishing schooner, Lark, on June 13. After missing with two torpedoes, he riddled her with his 4.1” deck gun. The crew abandoned ship but re-boarded and limped on to Boston.
A massive Allied task group, comprised of the “jeep” carrier Wake Island hunter-killer group and several Canadian ships and numerous land-based aircraft, mounted an intense hunt for U-107, but von Simmermacher escaped and returned to France on July 22. Bielfeld did not reach France. While he was inbound in the Bay of Biscay on July 11, a Sunderland of British Squadron 201, piloted by the veteran U-boat hunter I.F.B. (Wally) Walters, spotted [7-7222’s snort, attacked with depth charges, and sank her with the loss of all hands. Walters received a second DFC for this success, the first kill of a snort boat in daylight. *
The returns from these seven Type IX patrols to Canadian and American waters were less than satisfactory. Only four had any luck and it was minimal from the German viewpoint: Hänert in U-550 sank the 11,000-ton American tanker Pan Pennsylvania, Schmoeckel in U-802 sank the 1,600-ton Canadian freighter Watuka, Zimmermann in U-548 sank the 1,400-ton Canadian frigate Valley field, and Weber in U-845 damaged the 7,000-ton British freighter Kelmscott. In return, four of the seven boats were lost: U-550, U-845, U-856, and U-1222.
Besides Hänert in U-550, two other IXC40s that sailed in March entered waters of the United States East Coast about twenty days apart. These were first the veteran U-170, commanded by Günther Pfeffer, age twenty-nine, and then the U-541, commanded by Kurt Petersen, age twenty-seven. Both cruised south down the East Coast from New York to Florida. Pfeffer shot six torpedoes at two different Liberty ships but he inflicted no damage. The newly arrived U-541 was to meet the homebound U-170 and give her new Enigma keys on April 10, but Petersen told Control that the Allies had fouled the rendezvous, so he canceled it and sent U-170 the new keys by radio, doubtless a breach of communications security from which Allied codebreakers profited. Pfeffer returned U-170 to France on May 27, completing a useless voyage of 109 days, at which time he left the boat for other duties. Petersen in U-541 found a convoy off Florida on May 14 and shot seven torpedoes but none hit. On May 26, he stopped a Portuguese neutral, Serpa Pinto, and seized two American passengers and took them on board. He arrived in France on June 22, after an equally useless voyage of 115 days.
The Pan Pennsylvania was the only confirmed ship sunk by U-boats in United States waters in the spring of 1944.
Five boats sailed to the Caribbean Sea in the period from January 1 to June 1, 1944.
The IXC U-154, commanded by a new skipper, Gerth Gemeiner, age twenty-five, replacing the disgraced skipper Oskar-Heinz Kusch, left France on the last day of January, mere hours after a court had condemned Kusch to death. The boat patrolled all the way to Panama. On March 13, Gemeiner found a convoy and shot torpedoes at two tankers, but missed both. An escort—probably the American patrol boat PC-469—attacked the U-boat with depth charges, but she escaped with slight damage. Gemeiner sank no ships and returned to France on April 28, completing a barren voyage of eighty-nine days.
The veteran IXC U-518, also commanded by a new skipper, Hans-Werner Offermann, age twenty-two, left France on January 23. Per orders, while outbound, Offermann rendezvoused with the big inbound Japanese submarine 1-29, (code-named “U-Kiefer” or “Pine Tree”) to transfer to her a German navigator, Naxos gear, and Naxos operators. As Offermann approached the meeting point on February 12, he saw what he reported to be a seaplane tender escorted by four “destroyers.” Actually it was a hunter-killer group built around the “jeep” carrier Croatan that was assigned to foul this meeting. Offermann fired torpedoes at Croatan—and reported three hits—but in actuality all missed.
After her meeting with the Japanese submarine, Offermann took U-518 west and entered the Caribbean via the Mona Passage where, on March 3, he shot at a 4,000-ton freighter but missed. Near Aruba on March 7, he sank the 3,400-ton Panamanian tanker Valera, and on March 13 at Colon, he “thrust unseen into main harbor” (as he put it), then lay outside, harassed by air and surface patrols. Home-bound a month later, on April 2, he claimed sinking a 7,000-ton tanker, but it was not confirmed. Offermann returned to Lorient on May 7, completing a voyage of 106 days. While the crew rested, technicians installed a snort. Control inquired sharply into the reasons for Offermann’s failure to sink more shipping.
The VIID minelayer U-218, commanded by the old hand Richard Becker, age thirty-three, sailed from Brest on February 12 to lay a field off Trinidad. Owing to intense ASW measures, Becker was forced to cancel operations at Trinidad. Instead, he laid fields off Port Castries, St. Lucia, on March 23, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, on April 1. Neither field sank any ships. Becker returned to Lorient on May 7, yet another useless voyage, this one of eighty-six days.
The IXC40 snort boat U-539, commanded by Hans-Jurgen Lauterbach-Emden, departed France on May 1 for her second patrol to the Americas in 1944. Entering the Caribbean via the Mona Passage on June 5, Lauterbach-Emden sank in those waters the 1,500-ton Panamanian freighter Pillory. En route to Panama on June 11, he attacked two medium Dutch tankers with T-5s off Curaçao. When neither hit, he surfaced and attacked the 2,700-ton Casandra with his deck gun. The tanker returned fire, inflicting slight damage on U-539, which broke off the action. On the next day, a U.S. Navy Mariner found and, notwithstanding intense flak, attacked U-539, but the U-boat got away. Off Panama on July 4, Lauterbach-Emden shot at a convoy of tankers and claimed hits on four for 26,000 tons. Allied records confirmed slight damage to one tanker, the 10,200-ton American Kittanning, which entered Cristobal on July 6, assisted by a Coast Guard cutter.
The IXC U-516, commanded by Hans-Rutger Tillessen, age thirty-one, patrolled the Caribbean between Aruba and Panama. Near Aruba on July 7 and 8, Tillessen attacked two American tankers, the 9,900-ton Esso Harrisburg and the 4,800-ton Point Breeze. He sank the first with three torpedoes but Point Breeze evaded four torpedoes and got away.
Allied codebreakers provided good information on the retu
rn voyages of Lauterbach-Emden in U-539 and Tillessen in U-516. Tenth Fleet ordered the Card and Guadalcanal hunter-killer groups to hunt them down. Both groups found and attacked U-539 in the Mona Passage but she got away and reached Norway on September 17. The U-516 reached Norway on October 1. During the attack on U-539, Card suffered an engine breakdown that left her dangerously dead in the water for several hours. Forced to abort, she went into Puerto Rico.
The five boats patrolling the Caribbean Sea through July 1944 sank three merchant ships: the 1,500-ton freighter Pillory and two tankers, the 3,400-ton Valera and the 9,900-ton Esso Harrisburg. Although all five boats had achieved the primary mission of tying down massive Allied forces and all got back to Europe, owing to the impossibility of refueling at sea and other factors, U-boat Control sent no more boats to the Caribbean.
Two boats sailed to Brazilian waters.
The venerable IXC U-129, commanded by Richard von Harpe, age twenty-six, left France on March 22. En route, he refueled from the tanker U-488 before she was sunk and gave Naxos gear to Lüdden in U-188, inbound from Penang. Although Tenth Fleet alerted Allied forces to U-129’s arrival and patrol area, she remained undetected during her entire cruise. Against this desultory ASW, von Harpe had the best luck of all the boats patrolling to American waters in 1944. Off the southern Brazilian coast, he sank two British freighters: the 5,300-ton Anadyr on May 6 and the 6,600-ton Empire Heath on May 11. He returned to France on July 18, completing an arduous voyage of 119 days. Deemed to be too old and infirm for a snort, the boat was decommissioned in Lorient a month later. Von Harpe returned to Germany to commission a Type XXI “electro boat.”
The IXC40 snort boat U-549, commanded by Detlev Krankenhagen, age twenty-six, sailed from France on May 14. American codebreakers speculated that she might be going to Argentina “to deliver agents and clandestine radio equipment,” but German records listed no special mission, merely her assigned patrol area, Brazil. Acting on decrypted Enigma traffic, Tenth Fleet put the Block Island hunter-killer group, which sailed from Casablanca on May 23, on her trail near the Madeira Islands.
The Block Island group made contact with U-549 on May 28, but she dived and escaped. In the early hours of the next day, May 29, an unarmed night-flying Avenger got a “strong” radar contact. Two other Avengers flew out for the kill, but the attack failed and U-549 again dived to safety. Determined to hunt this boat to the death, the hunter-killer group commander, Francis M. Hughes, mounted searches all day long on May 29. The search peaked at 5:00 P.M, with the launch of six Wildcats that were to be relieved about three hours later by six Avengers and another Wildcat.
About 8:00 P.M., one hour before dark, Krankenhagen in U-549 hit the 8,600-ton Block Island with three torpedoes. One of the four destroyer escorts of the screen, Barrf commanded by Henry H. Love, saw a periscope and attacked, dropping thirteen depth charges, but all fell wide. Thereupon Krankenhagen fired a T-5 at Barr It hit her solidly in the stern, killing twelve men, wounding sixteen, and knocking the ship out of action.
Mortally holed, Block Island sank slowly. At 9:00 P.M., Hughes ordered the 957 men on the carrier to abandon ship. The six airborne Wildcats flew toward the Spanish Canary Islands but all had to ditch in the dark and only two of the six pilots survived. The destroyer escorts Ahrens, commanded by Morgan H. Harris, and Robert I. Paine, commanded by Drayton Cochran, came in slowly to rescue survivors of Block Island. Ahrens picked up 674 men; Paine 277. Amazingly, only six men of the “jeep” carrier perished.
While engaged in the rescue, Ahrens, commanded by Morgan H. Harris, got a sonar contact. Unable to pursue, Harris coached the fourth destroyer escort, Eugene E. Elmore, commanded by George L. Conkey, into an attack. Picking up the sonar contact, Conkey fired three successive Hedgehog salvos. He reported three explosions and heavy “crumbling” noises. That was apparently the end of U-549. She was never heard from again.
Two of the three operable destroyer escorts scoured the area for U-boats during the night of May 29-30, while Conkey in Elmore tended the stricken Barr. Elmore helped bury Barr’s dead and took on board fourteen wounded and other “excess” personnel, leaving only her captain, Henry Love, and the damage-control and salvage parties. She then took Barr in tow and headed for Casablanca. The American seaplane tender Humbolt, destroyer escort Wilhoite, and the Dutch tug Antic left that port to take over the towing. Ahrens and Paine reached Casablanca on June 2 with 951 survivors of Block Island; Elmore, with Barfs wounded and much of her crew, and Barr (under tow) reached Casablanca three days later.*
After the British Audacity and Avenger, the Block Island was the third Allied “jeep” carrier to be lost to U-boats in the Atlantic to that point. Remarkably, she and her screen had sunk seven U-boats, including her nemesis U-549. In her honor, the “jeep” carrier Sunset Bay was renamed and commissioned as Block Island on December 30,1944. She was manned by many crew of her namesake who took her to the Pacific.
Two boats sailed for the Americas in May.
The IXC40 snort boat U-530, commanded by Kurt Lange, age forty, left Lori-ent for the Trinidad area on May 22. Lange was to rendezvous en route with an inbound Japanese U-cruiser, 1-52 (code-named “U-Föhre,” formerly “Tanne”) and provide her with Naxos, a Naxos operator, and a German navigator. Allied code-breakers, decrypting both Japanese and German traffic, tracked both boats. On June 2, the Bogue hunter-killer group, under a new commander, Aurelius B. Vosseller, sailed from Casablanca to foul the meeting.
The huge 1-52 (356 feet, 2,600 tons) had sailed from Singapore on April 23. She carried ninety-five crew and fourteen German-bound passengers, two tons of gold in the form of 146 bars, and a cargo of tin, rubber, wolfram, quinine, opium, and molybdenum. On June 23, she and U-530 met, as planned, about 850 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. Lange did not linger. In compliance with orders from U-boat Control, he cruised to the western Atlantic near Trinidad and southward along the “bauxite route.” He sank no ships and returned to Norway on October 1, completing a fruitless patrol of 133 days.
The Bogue group DFed the exchanges of messages between U-530 and 1-52. On the evening of June 23, Vosseller launched Avengers to hunt down both submarines. Two separate aircraft, piloted by A. L. Hirsbrunner and Jesse D. Taylor, got radar contacts and dropped sonobuoys. Upon picking up propeller noises, Taylor attacked, dropping two depth charges and a Fido. Three minutes later, Taylor and his crew heard sounds that they likened to a tin can being crushed or twigs snapping.
When Taylor reported, “We got that sonofabitch,” Vosseller launched another Avenger to get the “other” submarine. Homed to the likely site by Hirsbrunner, this third Avenger, piloted by William D. (“Flash”) Gordon, dropped sonobuoys, got a contact, and attacked with a Fido. Gordon reported that he missed, but eighteen minutes later he heard a “loud, rolling explosion” that lasted almost a full minute.
Vosseller believed his aircraft had killed two submarines, but he was mistaken. One possibility is that Taylor’s Fido fatally damaged 1-52 and Gordon’s Fido hit a remnant of that submarine. In any case, the next day destroyer escorts of Bogue’s screen recovered 115 blocks of crude rubber, bolts of silk, a Japanese sandal, and numerous pieces of mahogany lumber. That appeared to be positive evidence of the kill of 1-52, but the kill was to be clouded by a decrypted Japanese radio message. On July 31, the Japanese naval attache in Berlin told Tokyo that he had established communications with 1-52 on the previous day, July 30, that the 1-52 would arrive in Lorient on August 4, and that a Japanese “reception party” had already left Berlin. German escort vessels reached the rendezvous on August 1 and remained until August 4, but found no sign of 1-52. On August 6, the attache radioed 1-52 that the German escorts had returned and requested her estimated time of arrival, but there was no response.
An American salvor, Paul Tidwell, and a team of experts equipped with state-of-the-art search gear claimed to have located 1-52 in 1995. According to Tidwell, she lay 1,200 miles west of the Cape Verdes, in seventeen thousand
feet of water (about 3.2 miles deep). Working remote-control sonars and cameras from a leased Russian research vessel, the team allegedly got fairly good images of 1-52 and an adjacent “debris field.” She appeared to be “upright and intact” except for a “torpedo hole” on her starboard side, Tidwell stated to the media. A shortage of money, legal entanglements, and other problems thwarted further confirmation and salvage efforts through 1998.
The new XB minelayer U-233, commanded by Hans Steen, age thirty-six, sailed from Kiel on May 27. Steen’s mission was to lay sixty-six SMA (moored) mines off Halifax, Nova Scotia. Although his crew was green, Steen had served as a watch officer on the sister ship U-117 for sixteen months and had scored well in practice minelaying in the Baltic.
After topping off her large fuel tanks in Norway, U-223 put out for Halifax. Since she had no snort, she was frequently detected and attacked by Allied aircraft. Steen thwarted these ASW hunts by remaining submerged about twenty hours each day and crept across the Atlantic very slowly. On the fortieth day out, July 5, he finally reached Canadian waters, about 250 miles southeast of Cape Sable.
Allied codebreakers alerted Tenth Fleet to this oncoming menace. On June 25, the Card hunter-killer group, commanded by Rufus C. Young, sailed from Norfolk via Bermuda to Canadian waters to sink her. On the evening of the day U-233 arrived there, July 5, one of the five destroyer escorts, Baker, commanded by Norman C. Hoffman, got U-233 on sonar. Hoffmann gave the alarm and went to battle stations. While Young took Card out of torpedo range, protected by Bostwick, Breeman, and Bronstein, the Thomas, commanded by David M. Kellogg, raced up to assist Baker.