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

by Clay Blair

  Fischer resailed U-244 from Bergen on December 12 to patrol off Reykjavik a second time. However, his snort failed, forcing him to abort. The boat returned to Bergen on December 23, where the crew celebrated Christmas and New Year’s.

  • The U-979, commanded by Johannes Meermeier, age twenty-seven, also made two patrols to Reykjavik. On September 22, he shot four torpedoes at the 5,700-ton U.S. Navy store ship Yukon, which was escorted by “corvettes and aircraft.” One torpedo missed and two were duds, but one hit Yukon near the stern. However, she made port under her own power.

  The next day, Meermeier attacked a small convoy, claiming a 3,000-ton freighter sunk, but it has not been confirmed in Allied records. A British patrol craft, St. Kenan, counterattacked U-979 with depth charges and rammed her, knocking the periscope askew. Meermeier escaped, eluded his pursuers, and aborted to Bergen, arriving on October 10, a patrol of forty-three days, almost all of it spent going and coming. The second patrol to Reykjavik, from November 9 to January 16, produced no confirmed sinkings either.

  • Fritz Hein in U-300, who was forced to abort his first patrol to North Minch because of battle damage, sailed for Iceland on October 4. Over a month later, on November 10, he intercepted elements of the disorganized convoy UR 142, which had been scattered by a gale en route from the British Isles, and which was merely two hours out from Reykjavik. Practically within sight of the city, Hein sank two British ships by torpedo: the 6,000-ton tanker Shirvan and the 260-ton tug Empire World, which was attempting to assist Shirvan. Shortly thereafter Iceland’s largest passenger-freighter, the 1,500-ton Godafoss, came up to rescue survivors, and Hein sank her as well. He returned to Norway on December 2.

  Two boats sailed to Moray Firth, northeastern Scotland, an area of the North Sea last patrolled by Type II ducks in 1941.

  • The first to put out, the U-680, commanded by Max Ulber, age twenty-seven, left Horten on August 14. Shortly after arriving in the area, on August 27, Ulber reported he had been detected and depth-charged. The damage, he said, was severe: smashed snort, periscopes, hydrophones, tanks, and valves. Forced to abort, he reached Bergen on September 8, lucky to return from a patrol of twenty-six days.

  • The second boat to that area was U-1199, commanded by Rolf Nollmann, age twenty-nine. Sailing from Bergen on September 14, Nollmann remained continuously submerged for fifty days—probably a snorting record at the time—and, contrary to most reports, had nothing but praise for the device. (“Proved its worth to the full; personnel are enthusiastic,” he wrote.) Nollmann spent thirty-one days in North Sea waters between Peterhead and Aberdeen. He claimed and was credited with sinking one 8,000-ton freighter but it was never confirmed in Allied records. His patrol, Control logged, proved conclusively that the “old type” U-boats fitted with snorts “could operate close off the coast.”

  In its continuing effort to build confidence in the snort, Control circulated widely Nollmann’s “enthusiastic” endorsement of the device. However, Control soon felt the need to temper that endorsement with a strong caution, also circulated widely.

  Improper servicing while Schnorcheling has on several occasions led to smoking up of the U-boat and resulting injury to members of the crew from carbon monoxide gas. Several commanding officers report that evidence of poisoning does not appear until several hours after ventilation has taken place. General weakened condition of the crew is then so pronounced that surfacing and opening of the [conning] tower hatch is possible only by exerting the greatest energy. The bridge watch was barely in a condition to stand on its feet. In the case of one U-boat, these conditions did not appear until the U-boat had been ventilated for a half an hour on the surface after smoking up.

  In the fall and early winter, twenty-five VIIs set off on the long voyage from Norway southabout Ireland to the English Channel, Bristol Channel, or Irish Sea. Two more skippers won the Ritterkreuz but nine were lost, a casualty rate of 36 percent. The stories in brief:

  • The U-246, commanded by Ernst Raabe, age thirty-one, sailed from Kristiansand on October 7. On the twentieth day at sea, October 26, an unidentified Allied aircraft hit U-246, causing so much damage to the periscope and other gear that Raabe was forced to abort. The boat reached Stavanger on November 11.

  • The VIIC41 U-1006, commanded by Horst Voigt, age twenty-four, sailed from Bergen on October 9. Near the Shetland Islands seven days later, on October 16, the Canadian Support Group 6 (six frigates) discovered her. One warship, the Annan, commanded by C. P. Balfry, fired eight close depth charges that severely damaged the boat and brought her to the surface. Another frigate, Loch Achanalt, got her on radar, whereupon Annan illuminated and attacked her with her main battery and smaller armaments and bore in to ram. Voigt shot a T-5 at Annan from his stern tube and returned fire with 20mm flak guns. The T-5 missed Annan, which closed rapidly and scored hits with her 4” guns and threw over more depth charges, one of which landed on the deck of U-1006.

  Hopelessly trapped by Annan and the five other frigates, Voigt abandoned ship and scuttled. Annan and other frigates rescued forty-four of the fifty-two-man crew, including Voigt and two other officers. British intelligence attempted to plant disinformation with a turned German agent who reported that U-1006 had hit a new minefield off southwest Ireland. However, Berlin scoffed at this report, noting accurately that the agent had been in England three years and was probably working for the enemy.

  The U-978, commanded by Gunther Pulst, age twenty-six, also sailed from Bergen on October 9. Pulst avoided detection by the Allied ASW forces that had sunk U-1006 and reached the English Channel about November 3, a snort voyage of twenty-four days. He then proceeded to the Allied landing area in the Bay of the Seine. In the five-day period from November 19 to 23, he attacked three convoys and claimed sinking three freighters for 22,000 tons. Control credited all the claims and after his return on December 16, awarded Pulst a Ritterkreuz. Allied records positively confirmed only one sinking, the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship William D. Burnham* The U-1200, commanded by Hinrich Mangels, who earlier had aborted a patrol to North Minch, sailed from Bergen on October 17 to join Pulst in the Bay of the Seine. He did not get there. On November 11, the British hunter-killer Support Group 30 (four Castle-class corvettes), commanded by Denys Arthur Rayner, who had earlier lost his destroyer Warwick to a U-boat, detected the surfaced U-1200 on radar south of Ireland. Rayner deployed his four corvettes (Pevensey, Launceston, Portchester, Kenilworth) line abreast. Mangels in U-1200 dived and bottomed, but the corvettes destroyed the boat with depth charges and Squids. Rayner wrote that one of the Squids, fired from his flagship Pevensey, brought to the surface a “tin of oil with a Hamburg address on it.” There were no survivors. Control was unaware of this loss until the boat failed to return to Norway in December.

  • The U-991, commanded by Diethelm Balke, age twenty-five, sailed from Bergen one day after U-1200, October 18. The boat reached the English Channel about November 12 with orders to relieve Pulst in U-978. Off Cherbourg on November 27, Balke shot three torpedoes at what he reported to be a 14,000-ton troopship or supply ship and believed he got two hits for damage, but the claim could not be confirmed in Allied records. While homebound near the southern tip of Ireland on December 15, Balke attacked what he described as a 7,200-ton “Liberty ship” in an inbound convoy “running for port” and claimed he sank her. That success was never confirmed either. After seventy days at sea, he arrived in Bergen on Christmas Day, bedeviled by a broken snort. He returned U-991 to Flensburg for refit and did not make another war patrol.

  The U-1202, commanded by Rolf Thomsen, age twenty-nine, sailed from Kristiansand on October 30. Control directed Thomsen on November 19 to enter Bristol Channel and patrol off Milford Haven. In that area on December 10, Thomsen attacked a convoy. He claimed the probable sinking of four big freighters for 26,000 tons, but only one, the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship Dan Beard was confirmed. Afterward Thomsen boldly stuck his nose into the Irish Sea for a look-see. Upon his return to B
ergen on New Year’s Day (with serious mechanical problems), Control credited his claims, praised his reconnaissance of the Irish Sea, and Dönitz awarded him a Ritterkreuz.*

  • The U-680, commanded by Max Ulber, who had earlier aborted a patrol to Moray Firth with depth-charge damage, sailed from Bergen on October 26 to patrol North Minch. However, after two weeks at sea, mechanical failures forced Ulber back to Bergen on November 8. When he resailed on November 13, Control directed him to patrol the English Channel off Cherbourg. Ulber reached that dangerous area but sank no ships and returned to Bergen on January 18, a luckless voyage of sixty-seven days. The U-680 made no more war patrols.

  • The VIIC41 U-322, commanded by Gerhard Wysk, age twenty-four, sailed from Horten on November 15 to patrol off Cherbourg. He never got there. Ten days out, on November 25, near the Shetland Islands, a Sunderland of Norwegian Squadron 330 and the British frigate Ascension teamed up to sink U-322 with the loss of all hands. Unaware of the kill until the boat failed to return to Norway, Control assumed that Wysk was patrolling off Cherbourg or, if he had found conditions there unfavorable, off Milford Haven in Bristol Channel.

  • The U-400, commanded by Horst Creutz, age twenty-nine, sailed from Horten on November 15. Creutz was also to patrol off Cherbourg, or if conditions there were unfavorable, Milford Haven. On December 17, Creutz found an inbound convoy, guarded by British Escort Group 18. As Creutz was closing to shoot, a frigate of that group, Nyasaland, commanded by A. E. Selby, got a strong sonar contact at 2,500 yards and attacked with ten depth charges and a Hedgehog. These missiles hit and destroyed U-400 with no survivors. Control was unaware of this loss as well, until the boat failed to return to Norway.

  The U-772, commanded by Ewald Rademacher, age twenty-six, who had taken the boat on one weather patrol from August 13 to October 6, sailed from Trondheim on November 19. Much was expected of Rademacher, who was directed to patrol off Cherbourg or, failing there, Milford Haven. Living up to Control’s expectations, Rademacher attacked three separate convoys off Cherbourg. From these he sank or destroyed four confirmed ships for about 21,100 tons: the 7,200-ton British troopship (LSI) Empire Javelin, crammed with 1,500 soldiers;* the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship Black Hawk, beached, a total wreck; and two British freighters, the 5,100-ton Dumfries and the 1,500-ton Slemish. In addition, Rademacher damaged the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship Arthur Sewall

  Rademacher did not, however, survive to savor these considerable victories. On December 30, a Leigh Light-equipped Wellington of Canadian Squadron 407, piloted by its leader, C.J.W. Taylor, spotted £/-772’s snort “on the calm sea in the moonlight,” as the official Canadian historian W.A.B. Douglas put it, and straddled her with six depth charges. These destroyed U-772 with the loss of all hands.

  • The U-1209, commanded by Ewald Hülsenbeck, age twenty-four, sailed from Kristiansand on November 24. Control directed Hülsenbeck to patrol off Cherbourg, but he did not make it there.

  While scouting the waters off Land’s End on December 18, Hülsenbeck ran aground at Wolf Rock and wrecked the boat. The astonished lighthouse keeper flashed an alarm via radio and a “running commentary” en clair. Two Canadian frigates, Montreal and Ribble,”† which arrived an hour and a half later, and some British motor launches rescued forty-four of the fifty-one-man crew. The survivors included Hülsenbeck and the chief engineer, Hans Claussen, but Hülsenbeck died (of a “heart attack,” the British reported) on Montreal and Claussen died later in a hospital.

  Assuming the Germans had intercepted the lighthouse keeper’s uncoded alarm and commentary, London released news of the wreck and captures from U-1209 at once. Washington immediately questioned the wisdom of the release on the basis that the Germans may have missed the lighthouse keeper’s traffic but they were not likely to miss a BBC broadcast. Upon learning that U-1209 went on the rocks, the Germans would assume that Allied salvagers might get Enigma keys from the wreck and would therefore change the current keys. This, in fact, did happen: The Germans made an emergency Enigma key change effective at noon on December 21.

  Inasmuch as many U-boats were patrolling in shallow water, Control soon expressed anxiety over Enigma security to all U-boats:

  Loss of U-boats in shallow waters gives the enemy the possibility of diving for cipher material and data. Make sure that cipher data are so kept that [sea] water can actually come into contact with the red print [on water-soluble paper]. When the Enigma machine is not in use, disconnect the plugboard, take out the [rotor] wheels and disarrange them. Keep everything concealed in separate places. See to it that key word orders are known to three officers only. Destroy at once slips of paper on which settings are figured. Lack of attention to these points may have unforeseeable consequences for the U-boat war.

  • The sister ships U-485 and U-486, commanded by Friedrich Lutz, age thirty-three, and Gerhard Meyer, age twenty-nine, respectively, sailed from Bergen to the English Channel in the last days of November. Lutz in U-485 missed a “destroyer” and other targets, but the boat survived and returned to Norway after sixty-six days at sea, having achieved nothing.

  Meyer in U-486 also survived, but he conducted a lively and successful patrol. Inbound to Cherbourg on December 18, he sank from a convoy the 6,100-ton British freighter Silverlaurel. Three days later he shot a T-5 at a “destroyer” and claimed a sinking, but it was not confirmed. In the same area on Christmas Eve, Meyer hit the 11,500-ton Belgian troopship Leopoldville (under British charter), which was inbound to Cherbourg with 2,237 soldiers of the American 66th Infantry Division and a ship’s company of 237 men. The British destroyer Brilliant took off about 850 soldiers, but Leopoldville9s Belgian crew prematurely abandoned ship and left the other soldiers to fend for themselves. When Leopoldville suddenly sank only five miles off Cherbourg, 801 men perished (785 soldiers; sixteen crew, including the captain), most in the icy water. Although 1,673 men were saved, it was one of the worst troopship disasters of the war and yet another little-known scandalous episode in British naval history.

  Meyer was not yet done. On the day after Christmas, he shot three T-5s at what he described as two destroyer escorts and a corvette. He claimed sinking the two destroyer escorts and damage to the corvette. Allied records show that Meyer hit two frigates that day: the 1,100-ton Capel, which sank, and the 1,100-ton Affleck, which was damaged but survived and reached port, a total wreck.

  If any U-boat skipper of those days deserved a Ritterkreuz, it was Gerhard Meyer for this patrol. He sank or destroyed four confirmed ships for 21,053 tons: two frigates, the troopship Leopoldville, and the freighter Silverlaurel. However, London and Washington clamped a tight security lid on the Leopoldville scandal and put out the disinformation that a “hospital ship,” the Amsterdam, had been sunk off Cherbourg. As designed, this broadcast confused U-boat Control, threw Meyer’s claims into doubt, and put a cloud on the patrol.

  • The U-275, commanded by Helmut Wehrkamp, sailed from Bergen on December 2. She was the first of the boats that had evacuated from France in August to complete a refit and reenter combat. She did not get far. Nine days out, on December 10, she reported irreparable damage to her blowers and aborted, returning to Bergen on December 12.

  • The U-650, commanded by Rudolf Zorn, sailed from Bergen on December 9. She was the second of the boats that evacuated from France in August to reenter combat. Zorn had orders to patrol off Cherbourg, but the boat disappeared without a trace. Allied and “German authorities assumed she went down near the mouth of the English Channel in January but listed the cause of her loss as “unknown.”

  • The VIIC41 U-325, commanded by Erwin Dohrn, age twenty-four, sailed from Kristiansand on December 11. He patrolled the English Channel off Cherbourg but had no success and returned to Norway on February 14, a luckless patrol of sixty-six days.

  • The U-905, commanded by Bernhard Schwarting, age thirty-one, also sailed from Kristiansand on December 11. Control assigned the boat to patrol the English Channel near the Bay of the Seine, but s
he did not get there. Forced by mechanical problems to abort, Schwarting returned to Norway on February 1, a fruitless voyage of fifty-three days. He resailed on March 13.

  • The VIIC41 U-1009 also sailed from Kristiansand on December 11. Normally commanded by Claus Hilgendorf, age thirty-two, the boat had aborted a prior patrol after six days, owing to serious snort defects. This time she sailed under command of a temporary skipper, Dietrich Zehle, age twenty-three, who came from sixteen months’ war service on another VII.

  Initially, Control ordered Zehle to carry out weather-reporting duty but owing to a defective radio antenna, the reports did not get through. When Zehle described the problem on January 1, Control directed him to take U-1009 into the Irish Sea via North Channel, hugging the north coast of Ireland near Londonderry. He was to go southward to waters off Anglesey, England (opposite Dublin), then withdraw via North Channel after two weeks.

  However, when Control learned from a German “spy” on January 14 that the Allies had planted new minefields in North Channel, Zehle’s orders to patrol the Irish Sea were rescinded. He returned via the longer route through the Faeroes-Iceland gap (rather than the Faeroes-Shetland gap) and reached Norway on February 8. Control “severely criticized” him for taking the longer route, and Zehle went on to other duty.

  • The U-1055, commanded by Rudolf Meyer, age twenty-four, also sailed from Kristiansand on December 11. Control directed Meyer to go southabout Ire land and patrol Land’s End and Milford Haven, and then go northward into the Irish Sea to Anglesey. While carrying out these orders, Meyer found plenty of action and claimed four, possibly five, sinkings for 21,000 tons plus. Allied records confirmed four sinkings for about 19,400 tons: the 8,200-ton British tanker Maja, the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship Jonas Lie, the 2,600-ton American freighter Roanoke, and the 1,400-ton British freighter Normandy Coast