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

by Clay Blair

  Proceeding toward the British Isles, convoy RA 64 sailed into the worst weather ever encountered by a Murmansk convoy. Between the violent storms, the Luftwaffe twice launched JU-88s. In spite of the adverse weather, the “jeep” carriers Campania and Nairana each got off ten Wildcats to fight off the Germans. One German plane torpedoed a straggler, the American Liberty ship Henry Bacon. A destroyer rescued all but twenty-two of the eighty-six-man crew and thirty-five Norwegian passengers. When the battered convoy reached the Clyde on March 1, a dozen destroyers had to be docked for hull repairs, damage caused by the hostile seas.

  • JW 65 (twenty-four ships) sailed from the Clyde on March 11. It was escorted by two “jeep” carriers, Campania and the Ruler-class 11,500-ton American-built Trumpeter; a cruiser; and nineteen sloops, corvettes, and other smaller craft. The convoy escaped hostile forces until March 20, when it approached Kola Inlet. Eleven U-boats were lying in wait. Five attacked ships in the convoy.

  Otto Westphalen in the U-968 sank two ships: the British sloop Lapwing and the American Liberty ship Thomas Donaldson. When Dönitz received Westphalen’s action report, he awarded him a Ritterkreuz*

  The youthful Hans-Georg Hess in U-995, who had recently penetrated Kirkenes Harbor, hit the American Liberty ship Horace Bushnell. She beached and her cargo was saved, but so far as is known, she was never repaired and returned to service.† This was Hess’s first and only confirmed sinking. ‡

  Jürgen Thimme in U-716 reported sinking a 1,600-ton destroyer. However, this claim could not be confirmed.

  Friedhelm Schweiger in U-313 claimed probable hits on three Liberty ships for an aggregate 21,000 tons. None of these claims could be confirmed either.

  The return convoy, RA 65 (twenty-six ships), sailed from Kola Inlet on March 21. Nine U-boats were still waiting outside, but the convoy eluded all of them. The convoy reached the Clyde on April 1 with no losses.

  • JW 66 (twenty-six ships), the last of the wartime convoys to Murmansk, sailed from the Clyde on April 16. The escort consisted of two “jeep” carriers, Vindex and the American-built Ruler-class Premier; a cruiser; twenty-two destroyers, frigates, and corvettes; and smaller craft. Vindex carried twelve Wildcats and eight Swordfish; Premier, twelve Avengers. Group Faust, composed of six U-boats, deployed in a search line west of Bear Island, but JW 66 slipped by undetected. When the Germans realized this, group Faust redeployed to Kola Inlet, where ten other U-boats gathered, making sixteen in all

  JW 66 incurred no losses and entered Kola Inlet. The U-boats remained outside, waiting. While marking time, U-997, commanded by Hans Lehmann, attacked a local Soviet convoy, PK 9. He missed two escorts but hit two freighters: the 4,300-ton Norwegian Idefjord (which Hess in U-995 had missed in Kirkenes Harbor) and the 1,603-ton Soviet Onega. The former survived, the latter sank.

  The return convoy, RA 66, sailed from Kola Inlet on April 29. Group Faust, reduced to fourteen U-boats, lay waiting. Ritterkreuz holder Otto Westphalen in U-968 shot at what he described as two destroyers and claimed his torpedoes hit and sank these two warships. In reality, he missed the British corvette Alnwick Castle and sank the British destroyer escort Goodall Only forty-four of Goodall’s crew were rescued.

  The next—and last—shooter was Karl-Gabriel von Gudenus, commanding the snort boat U-427 on her first war patrol. While cruising submerged in foggy twilight, a destroyer suddenly appeared. Already on keen alert, von Gudenus fired three torpedoes and claimed sinking that destroyer and another. Actually, he missed the big Canadian Tribal-class destroyers Haida and Iroquois.

  In this last convoy battle of the war, British forces sank two U-boats off Murmansk, both during the battle on April 29. The frigate Loch Insh, commanded by E.W.C. Dempster, got sole credit for U-307, commanded by Erich Krüger. Loch Insh rescued Krüger and thirteen other Germans.* The frigates Anguilla and Loch Shin and the destroyer escort Cotton shared credit for U-286, commanded by Willi Dietrich. There were no German survivors.

  RA 66 proceeded to the Clyde, arriving on the last day of the war, May 8, without incurring further losses. Von Gudenus in U-427, savaged by aerial bombs and hundreds of depth charges, could not dive. Otto Westphalen in U-968 and Klaus Andersen in the snort boat U-48I escorted von Gudenus back to northern Norway, where they arrived on May 3.

  During several Arctic patrols, Ritterkreuz holder Hans-Günther Lange in U-711 claimed sinking two “destroyers.” One turned out to be the British corvette Bluebell; the other could not be confirmed. For these and other supposed successes, Dönitz awarded Lange Oak Leaves to his Ritterkreuz by radio on April 29. Five days later, on May 4, a British task force, including the American-built “jeep” carriers Queen, Searcher, and Trumpeter, launched forty-four Avengers against the U-boat base at Harstad, Kilbotn. They sank a submarine tender, a freighter, and Lange’s JJ-711.

  During 1945, four JW Murmansk convoys, composed of 111 loaded freighters, had sailed from the British Isles to Kola Inlet. From these, U-boats destroyed two American Liberty ships: Horace Bushnell and Thomas Donaldson* In return, Allied forces sank four U-boats with the loss of two hundred men, fifteen of whom were captured (from U-425 and U-307).

  In all, from 1941 to 1945, the Allies sailed forty convoys (PQ, JW) comprised of 811 merchant ships to northern Russia. Thirty-three ships aborted for various reasons. Fifty-eight were sunk and 720 arrived safely. As detailed by Professor Rohwer, the Arctic U-boat force sank twenty of these loaded eastbound ships.† The Allies sailed thirty-seven return convoys (QP, RA) comprised of 715 ships from northern Russia to the British Isles or Iceland. Twenty-nine of these merchant ships were lost, twenty-one to U-boats. In all, the Arctic U-boat force sank forty-one merchant ships and thirteen warships from these convoys.‡ In return, forty-three U-boats were lost, manned by about two thousand men, of whom ninety-nine were captured. That was an “exchange rate” of one U-boat sunk for every merchant ship sunk.

  Including the routes in the Persian Gulf to Basra and the Sea of Japan to Vladivostok, the Americans and British delivered to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease staggering quantities of goods, including the following:

  376,000 Trucks

  131,633 Submachine guns

  51,500 Jeeps

  35,000 Motorcycles

  22,206 Aircraft

  12,755 Tanks

  8,218 Antiaircraft guns

  5,000 Antitank guns

  473 million Projectiles

  350,000 Tons of explosives§

  The Murmansk convoys delivered less than a quarter (22.7 percent) of this vast tonnage to the Soviet Union. However, the dangers of the Arctic Ocean and seas from the enemy and no less from the elements captured imaginations far more so than did the more perilous North Atlantic run. Moreover, in part to assuage Stalin by highlighting the Arctic deliveries, the Allies propagandized the Murmansk convoys more than could be justified by the results achieved. Thus was left in some quarters the wrong impressions that not only were the Murmansk convoys the most hazardous and costly in terms of ships lost and seamen killed and missing, but also that the deliveries to Kola Inlet saved the Soviet Union from certain defeat.

  LAST PATROLS TO THE AMERICAS

  During 1945, U-boat Control sailed nineteen Type IX snort boats to the Americas: five in February, eight in March, five in April, and one in early May. These included a new IXD2 U-cruiser, the U-873, and five new IXCs on maiden patrols. Four were more experienced boats with new skippers. Hence, ten skippers were untried as such in that role in battle.

  These boats achieved almost nothing. In all, they sank six ships for 23,000 tons: three freighters and three small warships. Nine boats manned by five hundred men were lost; thirty-three men were captured.* Eight boats surrendered to U.S. Navy or Royal Canadian Navy forces. One fled to Argentina.

  These boats confronted some of the worst winter-sailing conditions of the war: hurricane-force storms, raging blizzards, towering seas. It was no better off the North American coast. The official British oil historian wrote that


  [t]he winter of 1944-45 was the most severe for forty years in the eastern United States and weather conditions sharply cut down the amount of oil that could be moved overland. Many marshalling yards and junctions were almost put out of action; [railway] tank cars were immobilized.... The effects of the severe weather on rail and road transport made extra coastwise deliveries of oil by tanker unavoidable. All the main war theaters, even the Pacific, were dunned to release “Greyhounds” [big, fast tankers] to carry oil to the northeast United States. Shipments to the Mediterranean were held back and more vessels were withdrawn from the CU tanker squadrons. †

  What makes the recounting of these futile patrols to America worthwhile is that many were featured in another embarrassing Allied intelligence failure. This was a preposterous belief that these boats intended to smash New York and Washington with V-l cruise missiles and/or V-2 ballistic rockets.

  Exactly how this belief took root has not been established absolutely. It may have begun with a secret OSS report of October 26, 1944, from Stockholm, in which that station telegraphed that reliable sources indicated a U-boat would “depart for New York harbor to use V-l” for propaganda purposes. OSS Stockholm followed this with similar reports on November 3, November 6 (“four U-boats will be used in operation against New York”), and December 22.*

  The American naval historian Philip K. Lundeberg wrote recently † that the German agents recovered from U-1229 and U-1230 (Oscar Mantel, Erich Gimpel, and William C. Colepaugh) predicted a missile or rocket attack on New York mounted from U-boats. In response to a query from Bernard F. Roeder in OP20G, Harry H. Hinsley in the Naval Section, Bletchley Park, wrote on November 29, 1944:

  We have of course received the rumours to which you refer that the Germans plan to use a U-boat (or U-boats) to fire robot bombs on the East Coast of the United States and—because, as you say, the project is worthy of considerable attention—we have been in close touch with the Admiralty in an effort to discover whether these rumours have any foundation. To date, both Admiralty and G.C.&C.S. are quite happy that the rumours are mere propaganda, and that they are not corroborated by any reliable high-grade evidence... ‡

  Two high-level American officials spoke publicly about German rocket attacks on New York City. On December 10, New York’s Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, caused a near panic when he raised the possibility. As Lundeberg wrote, a month later, on January 8, 1945, Admiral Jonas Ingram, commander in chief of the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic Fleet, also raised the possibility, but stated that the U.S. Navy and the Army Air Forces were fully prepared with a secret plan (Bumblebee, later renamed Teardrop) to thwart any German U-boat missile attack on any shore of the United States.

  Then, astonishingly, Hitler’s chief of war production, Albert Speer, announced in a Berlin radio broadcast that V-l missiles and V-2 rockets “would fall on New York by February 1, 1945.” This caused renewed panic in the highest military levels in the United States. The Admiralty, however, remained calm, and on February 16, cabled this logical appreciation to Admiral King:

  A. There was no evidence from photographic reconnaissance to confirm preparations by the Germans to mount such attacks.

  B. The V-2 ballistic missile could not be launched from a U-boat.

  C. The winged V-1 “buzz bomb” (i.e., cruise missile) could be stored in a top side hangar in knocked-down condition, assembled, and fired from launch skids on a Type IX U-boat.

  D. The damage created by one V-l (assuming it could hit a target) would be so negligible as to make the putative project not worthwhile.

  E. A missile attack from U-boats at this stage of the war was “highly unlikely.” §

  Nonetheless, the Americans remained fixated on the likelihood of a U-boat missile attack on the U.S. East Coast. The plan to thwart the attack, Teardrop, proceeded. It would mobilize massive American air and naval forces.

  Some last patrols to the Americas, in brief.

  • In the period from February 6 to 11, three IXC40s sailed from Norway for Canadian waters. These were the experienced U-857, commanded by Rudolf Premauer, age twenty-five; the U-866, an experienced boat commanded by a new skipper, Peter Rogowsky, age twenty-five; and the U-879, a new boat commanded by Erwin Manchen, age twenty-six.

  As these boats crawled westward on snorts and batteries, U-boat Control directed them to radio daily weather reports, for what urgent reason it is difficult to imagine. These reports enabled Allied intelligence to determine the exact daily positions of the U-boats. Tenth Fleet directed a hunter-killer group of six American destroyer escorts, then refueling in Iceland, and two other destroyer-escort groups to track down these U-boats.

  One of these groups sailed from New London, Connecticut, on February 23. It was comprised of four destroyer escorts, manned exclusively by Coast Guardsmen. A year earlier in the Mediterranean, U-371 had blown off the stern of one of these vessels, the Menges. Towed to the States and repaired with a patched-on stern from a sister ship, the Holder, Menges was now back in action with sister ships Lowe, Mosley, and Pride.

  Alerted by Tenth Fleet, this group deployed one hundred miles east of Halifax. On March 18, the Lowe got a positive sonar contact and the four ships attacked all day with Hedgehogs and depth charges. These destroyed the U-866 with the loss of all hands. Thus were the hurts of Holder and Menges avenged.

  Admiral Ingram and Tenth Fleet deployed massive ASW forces into the northwestern Atlantic to hunt down the other two IXs, U-857 and U-879. These included the hunter-killer groups built around the “jeep” carriers Mission Bay and Croatan, as well as hunter-killer groups of destroyer escorts or frigates.

  Directly off Cape Cod on April 5, Premauer in U-857 hit and damaged the 8,500-ton American tanker Atlantic States. A hunter-killer group comprised of two frigates and two destroyer escorts raced to the scene to mount a dogged U-boat hunt. On April 7, the veteran U.S. Navy destroyer escort Gustafson found a U-boat and blasted her “all day” with Hedgehogs. It was thought that these destroyed the U-857 with the loss of all hands. However, the Admiralty recently declared that U-857 was lost to unknown causes.

  Off Norfolk on April 14, Manchen in U-879 sank the freighter Belgian Airman. On the night of April 29-30, Manchen attempted to attack a Key West-Norfolk convoy, KN382, but one of the escorts, the Canadian-built American frigate Natchez, drove U-879 off with depth charges. A hunter-killer group comprised of three American destroyer escorts, Bostwick, Coffman, and Thomas, destroyed U-879 with the loss of all hands.

  • The veteran IXC40 U-190, commanded by Hans-Edwin Reith, sailed from Kristiansand on her sixth patrol February 22. Off Halifax in the period from April 12 to 16, Reith may have shot at several ships (the pages of the logbook for some days are missing and the record is not clear). On April 16, he definitely sank the Canadian minesweeper Esquimalt with a T-5 off the approaches to Halifax. She went down with sickening speed, so fast that the men could not launch lifeboats. The survivors climbed onto Carley floats, washed by icy seawater. A sister ship, Sarnia, happened along six hours later and rescued twenty-six of Esquimalt’s sixty-five-man crew.

  The U-190 was homebound when Germany capitulated. Reith returned to Canadian waters and jettisoned all torpedoes, ammo, and secret papers. Per instructions, he met two Canadian warships on May 12: the frigate Victoriaville and corvette Thorlock. The Canadians boarded the U-boat and obtained “a signed deed of surrender.” Captors and captives then proceeded to Bay Bulls, Newfoundland.

  • The IXC40 U-853, commanded by a new skipper, Helmut von Frömsdorf, age twenty-three, sailed from Stavanger on February 23. En route to the Americas on March 26, he celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday. Off Portland, Maine, on April 23, he probably sank the old 430-ton American patrol boat Eagle 56. Off Block Island on May 5, he definitely sank the 5,400-ton collier Black Point, en route to Boston with a load of soft coal. The explosion blew away forty feet of the ship’s stern. In the blast or in the water, twelve of the crew of forty-six perished. The freighter Kamen rescued the thirty-four s
urvivors and broadcast an alarm.

  Four Boston-bound American warships, which had escorted ships of convoy GUS 84 to Norfolk, Philadelphia, and New York, heard the alarm. The senior vessel, the destroyer Ericsson, was already inside the Cape Cod Ship Canal, but the next senior vessel, the frigate Moberly, manned by a Coast Guard crew, and the destroyer escorts Amick and Atherton raced to the scene to carry out a determined hunt.

  The Atherton got a strong sonar contact and attacked, dropping thirteen depth charges fitted with magnetic pistols. One missile may have hit. Meanwhile, an armada of powerful warships converged to hem in U-853: the destroyer Ericsson, which about-faced in the canal; the destroyers Barney, Blakeley, Breckinridge; the frigate Newport; two former Royal Navy corvettes, Action and Restless; and the auxiliary destroyer Semmes. Upon the arrival of these vessels, Amick left for a vital prior assignment.

  The hunt continued through the night into May 6. Atherton, commanded by Lewis Iselin, attacked with Hedgehogs and depth charges, while Moberly, commanded by Leslie B. Tollaksen, held sonar contact, and other warships formed outer lines to block U-853 from escaping to deep water. Owing to the shallow water (one hundred feet), back blasts from the depth charges damaged Atherton’s electronics. Moberly then carried out a high-speed depth-charge attack that damaged her own steering gear. When this had been repaired, Moberly made a second attack with Hedgehogs. These attacks probably destroyed U-853, for German escape lungs, life jackets, an officer’s cap, and other gear rose to the surface amid leaking oil.

  At dawn, two Navy blimps, K-16 and K-58, from Lakehurst, New Jersey, arrived to assist in the kill. When K-16 got a precise MAD contact, Atherton, Ericsson, and Moberly resumed attacks at that site with Hedgehogs and depth charges, perhaps on a dead U-boat. These explosions brought up more wreckage: a chart desk, life raft, foul-weather gear, and cork. Then the blimps attacked with 7.2” rockets. Thereafter, Ericsson declared the U-boat killed—the last U-boat sunk by U.S. forces in World War II—and marked the location with a buoyed line. Later that day, a diver from the Navy salvage vessel Penguin descended to 127 feet to the bottomed U-boat to confirm the kill, reporting massive damage and bodies strewn about inside the hull. He identified the boat by its number.*