by Clay Blair
Four small Type XXIII electro boats carried out full war patrols by May 1. The first two, U-2322 and U-2324, each made two patrols of about three weeks duration in the North Sea off the east coast of Scotland and England. The U-2321 and U-2329 each made one patrol to those same areas, the latter a cruise of merely fifteen days. A fifth boat, U-2326, attempted to carry out a patrol but had to abort a luckless cruise often days. In total, these five XXIIIs logged 178 patrol days. Altogether they sank five small British freighters for 8,542 tons and damaged the 7,200-ton Norwegian Liberty ship Sverre Helmerson and the British destroyer escort Redmill.
The Type XXIII electro boats also had numerous drawbacks and faults. The most severe drawback was their tiny size: 114 feet long, about 234 tons displacement. They were smaller even than the prewar and wartime Type II ducks. The XXIIIs had only two torpedo tubes—both forward—and no space for torpedo reloads, compared with three tubes forward and three reloads in the Type II ducks. The XXIIIs were so delicately balanced that after firing even one of the two torpedoes, they had a tendency to broach. The telescopic snorts on the XXIIIs, which were raised and lowered by a compressed-air system similar to that on the Type XXIs, were unreliable.
In sum, the Type XXIII electro boats were little better than useless. Their chief contribution to the German war effort was to confuse many in the Allied camp into thinking that they were more or less the equivalent of the larger Type XXI electro boats.
• A consistent tendency, even by some Allied submarine experts, to over value the snort and to underrate the severe immobility it imposed on the U-boat, and the snort failure rate of that era.
Contrary to a widespread view in the Allied camp, U-boats did not snort continuously on diesel engines at speeds of 6 to 10 knots, making good 150 to 250 sea miles a day fully submerged. As related, they snorted at about 5 knots for only about four hours in twenty-four and they were lucky to make fifty or sixty miles a day. Therefore, it took a snort boat nearly eight weeks of a nine-week patrol to reach the English Channel from Norway and return, leaving barely one week for operations. Hence significantly larger numbers of snort boats were required to cover the sea areas and do the work that had been done in earlier and easier times by the nonsnort-equipped boats. Moreover, there was an acute shortage of upgraded, combat-ready Type VII and Type IX snort boats.
Foremost among the Allied submarine specialists who predicted that a very tough fight versus the new U-boats lay ahead in 1945 was the British admiral commanding Western Approaches, Max Horton. His deep but misplaced concern influenced seniors in the Admiralty to forecast extremely heavy Allied shipping losses in March 1945, perhaps heavier than the spike in the spring of 1943. If and when this occurred, First Sea Lord Andrew B. Cunningham warned the British Chiefs of Staff Committee that land operations on the Continent were bound to be adversely affected.
These overly pessimistic views greatly angered the Admiralty technocrats in charge of the anti-U-boat activities, particularly two senior division chiefs, N. A. Prichard and C. D. Howard-Johnston. They drafted a blistering attack on Max Horton. In part:
At various meetings recently the Commander in Chief, Western Approaches, has made statements to the effect that he considers that we are worse off materially at the present moment, for means of locating and destroying U-boats, than we have been at any time during this war (and, he added on one occasion, “or the last war”).
These statements are, in our opinion, both untrue and misleading, and although the true state of affairs is no doubt appreciated by Their Lordships, we feel that such statements are bound to give a false impression when made in the presence of other senior officers and members of other services who may not be so well informed, and we feel it our duty to submit the true facts as they are known to us....
At Malta, from January 30 to February 2, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the combined military staffs agreed to several important measures to deal with the renewed U-boat menace that they expected.
• A new strategic bombing directive that called for a significant increase in heavy-bomber air raids on U-boat construction and assembly factories, and shipyards and canals in Germany by RAF Bomber Command and the U.S. Eighth Air Force.*
• The doubling of the RAF mining of the U-boat workup areas in the Baltic, thereby driving more U-boat flotillas to abandon the eastern Baltic in favor of workup in the western Baltic, the Jade, and Norway, areas RAF aircraft could reach more easily.
• Intensification of the RAF air campaign against U-boat bases in Norway and German surface shipping supplying those bases.
• The retention in home waters of about half of three hundred British destroyers and escort vessels that were earmarked for the Far East to support the war against Japan. Many of these vessels were deployed in new hunter-killer groups operating in the Minches, North Channel, Irish Sea, and English Channel.
• An increase in Coastal Command ASW squadrons from thirty-two to thirty-eight and a half, comprised of 528 aircraft, and the transfer of several Iceland-based squadrons to bases in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England. These planes were to concentrate against likely U-boat routes to and from Norway to the British Isles and in the waters of the latter.*
• The laying by surface ships of seventeen thousand defensive mines in “deep” fields on the main Allied convoy routes, focal points in the Irish Sea, and on well-known “shallow patches,” which it was assumed U-boats used for navigational purposes.
At first mystified by the public Allied forecasts of an intensification of the U-boat war, Admiral Dönitz finally concluded that these statements were part of a clever deception. He therefore informed Tokyo that
[t]he sudden onset of a new U-boat war, as announced by the enemy, is not to be expected because we have already been in the new U-boat war since the equipping [of U-boats] with Schnorchel ... If the new U-boats fulfill our expectations of them, a gradual increase in the number of sinkings can be counted on, which will grow with the monthly sending of U-boats to the front....
The enemy continues to be afraid of the U-boat war and its intensification. By a tactical bluff—that is, repeated announcement of a new U-boat offensive—he is attempting, even though the offensive announced by him does not materialize, to give the impression that he has once again succeeded in becoming master of the U-boats.
The American and British parties, grown to about seven hundred persons (!), left Malta for Yalta on the night of February 2-3 in about twenty aircraft. President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Averell Harriman, and others of the Roosevelt inner circle flew in his C-54, the “Sacred Cow’ Churchill and his party flew in Churchill’s C-54 sister ship. It was 1,400 miles to Saki airfield in the Crimea, a seven-hour flight. It took eight more hours to travel by auto the forty primitive and mountainous miles from Saki to Yalta, altogether a hideous trip that further eroded the health and spirits of Roosevelt, already gravely ill.†
This second and final meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin stretched over eight days from February 3 to February 10. The conferees agreed to a number of fateful military and geopolitical decisions that had no bearing on the U-boat war and do not warrant extended discussion in this history. The most important of the military decisions was Stalin’s pledge to enter the war against Japan “two or three months after Germany surrendered.” The most important of the geopolitical decisions were Stalin’s agreement to fully participate in the newly forming United Nations, the ratification of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe, including eastern Germany, which the Soviets had already overrun,* and the establishment of four Allied zones of occupation in postwar Germany.
At the conclusion of the conference, Roosevelt and Churchill traveled by auto on February 11 to Sevastopol, a three-hour trip over rough roads. Both spent the night on headquarters and communications ships: Roosevelt on Catoctin, Churchill on the liner Franconia. The next day, Roosevelt returned by car over more primitive roads to Saki airfield. There he boarded the “Sacred Cow” and flew to Egypt, where he rebo
arded the heavy cruiser Quincy, and on February 14 held brief conferences with three kings: Farouk of Egypt, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Churchill left Sevastopol by car for Saki on February 14, boarded his own C-54, and flew to Athens. The next day he flew on to Alexandria, Egypt, where he established quarters on the light cruiser Aurora and had a final meeting with Roosevelt on the Quincy. The next day the Quincy set sail for the States. After an overnight stop in Algiers on February 18, Quincy reached Norfolk on February 27. Roosevelt returned to Washington where, on March 1, he addressed a joint session of Congress from his wheelchair. Churchill flew back to England on February 19 and on February 27, addressed the House of Commons, which approved his decisions at Yalta, although not unanimously. Admiral King and General Marshall, who were not permitted to fly in the same aircraft, returned to Washington by various means and routes.
It was obvious to everyone who saw President Roosevelt—including all of Congress on March 1—that he was gravely ill. On March 29, aides lifted him aboard his private train and he traveled to his favorite hideaway and spa, “the Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia. There, on April 12, he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Vice President Harry S Truman assumed the positions of president and commander in chief.
U-BOAT PATROLS IN BRITISH WATERS: 1945
Displaced to Norway, Heligoland, the Jade, and to western Baltic ports, the U-boat force, like its World War I predecessor, dutifully carried on until Germany finally gave up and capitulated.
As commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine in a desperately crumbling Germany, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz could no longer give the U-boat war his undivided personal attention. The construction and readiness of the U-boats remained the responsibility of Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg. At U-boat Control, Admiral Eberhard Godt, assisted by Dönitz’s son-in-law, Günter Hessler, continued to plan U-boat strategy and tactics.
The remaining Type VII snort boats designated to carry on the naval war in the Atlantic were based in Norway. Hans-Rudolf Rösing, commander in chief, U-boats West, retained that title after the withdrawal from France to Norway. Rein-hard Suhren retained the title of captain, U-boats North (Norway, Arctic). The VIIs were assigned to three combat flotillas: the 11th at Bergen, commanded by Hans Cohausz; 13th at Trondheim, commanded by Rolf Rüggeberg; and 14th at Narvik, commanded by Helmut Möhlmann.
The situation in Norway made it difficult to mount the VII war patrols. Unlike the French, the Norwegians, virtual prisoners of the Germans for nearly five years, remained hostile. Emboldened by the Allied pincers closing tightly on Germany, Norwegian resistance groups stepped up acts of sabotage against the German occupiers and their infrastructure. Allied aircraft repeatedly attacked the U-boat pens and dockyards at Bergen and Trondheim and the German shipping attempting to supply forces in Norway via the Kattegat and the inshore leads. British submarines joined in the antishipping campaign. Further complicating and endangering German naval operations, the RAF planted thousands of mines off the naval bases and in the leads.
Under this continual Allied pressure, most of the VIIs were forced to disperse widely in protective fjords and primitive ports, where refits and replenishing were difficult and hazardous. There were shortages of fuel oil, food, torpedoes, electronics, and competent repair and replacement personnel. Warmed by the last fingers of the Gulf Stream, the seas were ice-free, but everything else was cold, cold, cold, and assaulted by snow and ice.
Remarkably, the Germans were able to mount 145 U-boat patrols from Norway and Germany in the four months from January 1 to April 30, 1945. The boats were assigned as follows:
As can be seen, the preponderance of Type VII snort-boat patrols from January 1 to April 31, 1945, were conducted in waters of the British Isles via the Atlantic: 113 of 119. The other six shown in the chart were mounted by four different tiny Type XXIII electro boats via the North Sea.
These Type VII snort-boat patrols, constituting the so-called “renewed” U-boat war, were difficult and unrewarding. Of the 113 that sailed, nearly half, fifty-six, manned by about 2,800 men, were lost to Allied ASW forces. Those authors who have written exuberantly that the snorkel gave the Germans a decided edge in the naval war should ponder well these figures. It was another terrible U-boat slaughter.
Nineteen VIIs sailed in January, eleven of them new boats making first patrols. Seven of the latter were the deep-diving VIIC41s. Six of these were new. The boats sank ten Allied ships for 30,726 tons. Ten U-boats (53 percent) were lost with about five hundred crew, of which forty-three were captured.* For every Allied ship sunk, one U-boat was lost, a ruinous exchange rate.
Some of the VIIs patrolled off North Minch, some off North Channel, and nine went to the English Channel. It should be stressed once again that the snort voyage between Norway and the English Channel was a long ordeal, usually taking about twenty-eight days each way, leaving only a brief time to patrol the channel.
Because the U-boats remained submerged about twenty hours a day and raised the snort for only four hours to charge batteries and air the boat, sightings and kills by Allied aircraft fell off drastically. Aircraft killed only nine U-boats in the North Atlantic in the period January through April. Catalinas and B-24s of the U.S. Navy’s Fairwing 7 got three of these and shared credit for a fourth kill with British surface ships.
Some January VII patrols, in brief:
• In early January, the U-245, commanded by Friedrich Schumann-Hindenberg, who had made a weather patrol in the fall of 1944, sailed from Norway to the island of Heligoland to carry out a special mission, Brutus, This directed him to sail across the lower North Sea to the mouth of the Thames River and sink shipping. Fighting strong currents in shallow water and mines, Schumann-Hindenberg did in fact sink a ship: the 2,600-ton Dutch tanker Liseta. He returned to Heligoland to prepare for a second Brutus patrol.
• The U-1199, commanded by Rolf Nollmann, making his second patrol, sailed on New Year’s Day. Three weeks later, near Land’s End, he found coastal convoy TBC 43 and hit the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship George Hawley. The tug Allegiance towed her into Falmouth, a complete wreck. Two British warships, the destroyer Icarus and corvette Mignonette, pounced on and sank U-1199 on January 21. One of the crew of forty-seven survived: Chief Quartermaster Friedrich Claussen.
• The veteran U-275, commanded by Helmut Wehrkamp, sailed on January 13. He incurred snort problems and put into Lorient on February 10. After repairs he resailed from France on February 25. Off the south coast of England on March 8, Wehrkamp sank the 5,000-ton British freighter Lornaston. The Admiralty believes that U-275 struck a mine off Beachy Head two days later, March 10, and sank with the loss of all hands.
• The new U-1208, commanded by Georg Hagene, sailed from Norway on January 14. Over a month later, in St. George’s Channel on February 20, Hagene sank the British corvette Vervain, from convoy Halifax 337.
Off the Lizard in the twilight of February 27, three ships of the famous British hunter-killer Support Group 2, the frigates Labaun and Loch Fada and sloop Wild Goose, got U-1208 on sonar and attacked with depth charges, Hedgehogs, and Squids. Nothing further was ever heard from U-1208. The Admiralty apportioned credit for the kill among the three ships.
• The experienced VIIC41 U-300, commanded by Fritz Hein, making his third patrol, sailed from Trondheim on January 21. Since there were too many U- boats in the English Channel, Hein got permission to patrol off Gibraltar Strait. On February 17, he attacked convoy UGS 72 and damaged two ships, the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship Michael J. Stone and the 9,551-ton British tanker Regent Lion. Salvage vessels towed the Regent Lion into Tangier on February 19, where she was declared a total loss.
A British hunter-killer group composed mostly of corvettes got U-300 on sonar on February 19, just west of the mouth of the strait and attacked. The depth charges—in particular those from the British yacht Evadna—severely damaged U-300 and flooded the forward end. Hein remained submerged for as long as possible with
out periscopes or sonar gear, all wrecked by the depth charges. Finally, on the morning of February 22, he was forced to surface and, quite by coincidence, he came up in the middle of a convoy. Two astonished escorts, the minesweepers Pincher and Recruit, opened fire with all guns that would bear, killing Hein, his second watch officer, his engineer, and six others. The German survivors scuttled and jumped overboard, and the British ships rescued forty-one.
• The new VIIC41 U-1018, commanded by Walter Burmeister, sailed from Horten for the English Channel on January 21. Over a month later, on February 27, the boat intercepted a coastal convoy, BTC 81, off the Lizard and sank the 1,317- ton Norwegian freighter Corvus. The convoy escort counterattacked promptly, dropping 150 depth charges. Finally the British frigate Loch Fada, commanded by B. A. Rogers, got a good contact on U-1018 at 164 feet—sixteen feet off the bottom. Loch Fada fired a Squid that hit and blew a huge hole in the U-boat’s side, in stantly flooding the bow and stern compartments and the control room and killing nearly all of the crew. Five Germans rose to the surface, but three drowned. Loch Fada rescued one officer and one enlisted man, who described a scene of the utmost horror inside the doomed U-boat.
• The new U-927, commanded by Jürgen Ebert, sailed from Kristiansand to the English Channel on the last day of January. Off the Lizard on the evening of February 24, a Leigh Light-equipped Warwick* of British Squadron 179, piloted by Antony G. Brownsill, got a radar contact on U-927’s snorkel. The plane attacked from an altitude of seventy feet, dropping six depth charges at the snort in a perfect straddle. Nothing further was heard from U-927. Brownsill was later awarded a DFC.