by Clay Blair
† At the end of the war, Fort Hunt was dismantled and destroyed. Its function remained top secret and unknown until Mulligan found its records in the National Archives.
* Henke told his interrogators he had sunk a total of twenty-eight ships for 177,000 tons. U-boat Control credited him with sinking twenty-six ships for 166,000 tons and on August 1, 1944, declared that he was killed “while attempting to escape.” His confirmed score—all on U-515—was twenty-five ships sunk for 142,636 tons, including the sloop Chanticleer, ranking him fifteenth among all U-boat skippers in the war.
* For valor and resourcefulness, David was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor; Wdowiak and Knispel the Navy Cross.
* On the day of the capture, June 4, First Sea Lord Cunningham cabled Admiral King urgently: “In view of the importance at this time for preventing the Germans suspecting a compromise of their cyphers I am sure you will agree that all concerned should be ordered to maintain complete secrecy regarding the capture of U-505.1 am instructing Flag Officer Commanding West Africa Forces and Flag Officer Gibraltar Mediterranean Approaches in this sense.”
* In postwar years, Gallery became one of the Navy’s chief propagandists in its bureaucratic war with the Army and Air Force and published two colorful, self-serving books on the Atlantic war, Clear the Decks! (1951) and Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea (1956). He was also one of the first and most outspoken critics of the Allied decision to try and sentence Dönitz for war crimes.
† Largely through the efforts of Gallery, a Chicagoan, U-505 wound up intact as a well-preserved and popular exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Until 1993, when a salvage company raised the U-534 from the Kattegat and transported her to Liverpool, England, for reconditioning and display, the U-505 was the only existing Type IXC.
* For the U-l 10 capture on May 9, 1941, see Volume I, pp. 278-85; for the U-559 capture on October 30, 1942, see this volume, p. 84.
† The complete top-secret Wenger memo and other declassified NSA documents were kindly provided by Keith Gill, director of the U-505 exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
‡ The Wizard War (1978).
* The Allies had not solved the Kurier problems by the end of the Pacific war in August 1945. In case the Soviets had obtained Kurier technology from the Germans, American R&D work continued in postwar years on counterdevices renamed “Spinach.”
* The Allied three-centimeter-wavelength radar could detect a raised snort. Aware of this, the Germans had initiated an R&D program, Schornsteinfeger (Chimney Sweep), to coat the snorts with various radar-absorbent (or stealth) materials, such as laminated paper, rubber, and sisal.
* Patched up, Barr was towed to Boston and fully repaired, then sent back into combat in the Pacific.
* Reporter Royal Ford of The Boston Sunday Globe suggests in a 1997 article that U.S. Navy blimp K-14 tangled with U-233 on the night of July 2 and, as a result, the blimp crashed into the sea. Based on an official naval court of inquiry, J. Gordon Vaeth in his book Blimps and U-boats (1992) wrote that K-14 flew into the sea, owing to crew error. Seven aircrew died; four survived. During interrogations, none of the thirty German POWs mentioned a fight with a blimp.
* See Padfield, The Last Fuhrer (1984).
† For Dönitz family history, see Volume I.
* Including two, U-267 and U-667, that had just returned to St. Nazaire from prolonged war patrols in the Atlantic and were in extended refit.
* See Plate 8.
* Vian and Kirk commanded the Eastern Task Force and Western Task Force, respectively. Their subordinate commanders were Cyril E. Douglas-Pennanat, Geoffrey N. Oliver, and A. G. Talbot of the Royal Navy, and Don P. Moon and John L. Hall, Jr., of the U.S. Navy.
† In April and May 1944, the Allies knew virtually nothing about the electro boat or the “Walter boat” programs. The first hints were found on May 1, 1944, when the Allies decrypted a December 1943 message from the Japanese naval authorities in Berlin to Tokyo. This message referred to the German crash program to produce “high speed” U-boats (i.e., Tfypes XXI and XXIII), but the author of the message incorrectly described these as “Walter boats” with closed-cycle propulsion systems, rather than as the electro boats that they were. From this message and from incorrect German POW assertions that “Walter boats” would be shipped to France by rail and be employed against the invasion forces, the Allies at first had to assume that they would face this ominous added threat. However, at the very last minute, on May 30, the Allies decrypted another Japanese message from Berlin to Tokyo, dated April 24, that clarified the types and led the British to conclude by “negative implication” that “Walter boats” had not yet reached a “practical stage” and that only two small Type XXIII electro boats had been launched in Baltic yards and they were far from combat ready.
* The Baltic-based “pocket” battleships Liitzow and Admiral Scheer; heavy cruisers Hipper and Prinz Eugen; light cruisers Emden, Koln, Leipzig, and Nurnberg.
† USN Bombing Squadrons VB 103, VB 105, and VB 110. Eight B-24s of Squadron VB 114, equipped with searchlights, were temporarily transferred from Port Lyautey to Dunkeswell, Devon, on June 18. Four other B-24s of VB 111 based at Port Lyautey were also transferred to the U.K. Total USN B-24s in Neptune: fifty-seven.
* On D-plus four, June 10, the British “jeep” carrier Tracker of the outer barrier smashed into the Canadian frigate Teme of Support Group 6 and wrecked her with the loss of four men killed. Another Canadian frigate, Outremont, towed Teme two hundred miles to Cardiff. The next day, June 11, the three “jeep” carriers were withdrawn, having achieved little or nothing. Hence they will not be discussed further in this account.
* The copilot, Fredrik Meyer, wrote a history of the Norwegian Air Force in World War II.
* In Arctic waters on May 30, the British destroyer Milne sank the VIIC U-289, commanded by Alexander Hellwig, age twenty-eight. There were no survivors.
* RAF Spitfires accidentally shot down Engebrigsten’s Mosquito on June 11. He was rescued, but his navigator-copilot, Odd G. Jonassen, perished.
* See Plate 9 and Appendix 2.
* SeeNARA,RG457,SRMN043.
* Per Franks (1995) and Niestte (1998).
* That same day, nearby, a Sunderland of British Squadron 201, piloted by Leslie H. Baveystock, sank the new nonsnort VII U-955, which was inbound to Lorient from a fifty-four-day weather patrol. Her skipper, Hans-Heinrich Baden, age twenty-nine, and all others perished.
* Many U-boats and Allied aircraft tangled in the channel on the night of June 6-7. Per Franks, Coastal Command reported the loss of three B-24s and a Wellington, but it is impossible to say with exactitude which boats made which kills.
* Eight other nonsnort VIIs in Biscay that reported air attacks from June 6 to June 14, according to the war diary at Control: U-382, U-437, U-445, U-608, U-766, U-981, U-985, and U-993, Doubtless there were other unreported attacks.
* See NARA, RG 457, SRMN 043.
* Niestte writes that U-988 was sunk by a B-24 of British Squadron 224 (piloted by John W. Barling) and four British frigates on June 30. If that is the case, the assumption by Jürgen Rohwer that U-988 wrecked or sank on June 27, 28, and 29 the British corvette Pink and two British freighters, the 2,400-ton Maid of Orleans and 7,200-ton Empire Portia, is probably correct. See Franks (1995), p. 166, Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, p. 182, and Niestte, p. 95.
* The affidavit was introduced by the British at Dbnitz’s trial at Nuremberg as another example of U-boat barbarism. Dönitz denied the accusation with the convincing explanation that many such survivors who were in or near the line of gunfire directed at their vessels mistook this fire to be aimed at them.
* From U-269, U-390, U-715, U-767, and U-971.
* In the postwar reassessment, this Mosquito was, of course, rightly credited with a “kill.”
* The British naval contribution to Stalin, in lieu of sharing vessels of the Italian fleet, sailed in conjunction with JW 59,
manned by Soviet crews: the British battleship Royal Sovereign (Archangelsk), recently refurbished in America; and eight destroyers, all of them ex-American four-stackers that had been transferred to the Royal Navy in 1940-41. (See Volume I, Appendix 9, pp. 741-745.) A ninth ex-American four-stacker sailed with JW 60. The British also gave the Soviets four submarines: Sunfish, Unbroken, Unison, and Ursula.
* At this time, another Arctic boat, U-362, was lost with all hands to “unknown causes” in the Kara Sea.
* For past claims and successes and for a patrol to the Kara Sea, during which he sank two small Soviet vessels and destroyed a Soviet weather station on the island of Sterligova.
* An exact account of German explosive motor boats and midget submarines’ successes and losses is beyond the scope of this work.
* U-275, U-741, as will be described.
† This attack so close to home persuaded Rösing to sail in July some of the remaining nonsnort boats in Brest specifically to defend the approaches to that place for the benefit of the outgoing and incoming snort boats. The U-92 and U-989 (group Rauber) pioneered this defensive patrol on July 6. After seventy-two hours, they returned to Brest. The U-415 and U-963 (group Pirat) replaced them on July 11. About a dozen Allied fighter-bomber aircraft attacked these boats, but inflicted no damage. After futile attempts to vector them to Allied warships by land-based radar, the Germans recalled the boats. On a second sortie on July 13, the U-415, commanded by Herbert Werner, hit a British mine in the early hours of the next day and wrecked, but the crew survived. The U-963 and U-993 (group Fli-bustier) sailed on July 17 and returned in forty-eight hours. The U-260 and U-608 (group Marder) sailed on July 22 and put into Lorient the next day. In these nine defensive sorties, no skipper encountered a target worth a torpedo. In the last days of July, the U-618 and U-766 sailed from St. Nazaire to Brest for defensive patrols but these too were canceled.
* Not counting the nine brief “port defense” sorties per footnote on p. 602.
* Seventy-five U.S., fifty British, thirty-nine other Allies, and three “neutral.” plus a Canadian escort group consisting of one frigate and six corvettes. Three of the merchant vessels were operational MAC ships that launched ASW aircraft, but they saw nothing during the crossing.
† Source: Tucker, vol. 2 (1952), Plate 15.
* In three raids, on August 5,12, and 13, thirty-three Lancasters of RAF Bomber Command devastated Brest. The bombs they dropped included twenty-six 12,000-pound Tallboys aimed at the U-boat pens. Nine of the Tallboy bombs hit the sixteen-foot-thick roof of the pen. These penetrated six or seven feet but failed to pierce the ceiling.
† See Appendix 2.
* Published in Buchheim’s unpaginated, nonfiction work, U-boat War (1979). However, the two U-boats and crews involved are not identified. Doubtless this pathetic episode was a shock to propagandist Buchheim and may well have contributed to the untimely and incongruous defeatist tone of his novel Das Boot, which was based on his 1941 voyage in U-96, when morale in the U-boat force was highest.
* Chaudiere, Kootenay, Ottawa II, and Restigouche. The last came from Canadian Support
* On August 6, Berlin directed Rösing at Angers, France: “Destroy Kurier-set apparatus completely or make sure of its salvage.*’ At that time Kurier was still undergoing trials at sea. After Allied soldiers cut the land lines to Berlin, forcing U-boat bases to use radio, Kurier might have been employed between Angers and Berlin.
* The decommissioned VIIs U-255 and U-766 were left behind, the latter, as related, blown up.
† The Admiralty thought U-736 was the first U-boat to be sunk by Squid, but as related, the U-333, sunk by Loch Killin and Starling on July 31, was the first.
* They Shall Not Pass Unseen (1956).
* Wilke came from the decommissioned U-766, replacing Rudolf Zorn, who replaced Ernst von Witzendorff in U-650, who returned to Germany to command a big electro boat. Gerke replaced Heinz-Gerd Sauer in U-673.
* Ironically, in January 1945, the U-382 was rammed and sunk in the Baltic.
* The British frigates Blackwood, Mourne, and Goodson; British corvette Pink; Canadian corvettes Alberni and Regina; American LST 280 and LST 921; British LSI Prince Leopold; British minesweeper Loyalty; British ASW trawler Ganilly; American LCI 99.
* Including eight boats that were unfit for combat, decommissioned, and/or scrapped in France or Norway (U-255, U-256, U-276, U-673, U-766, U-957, U-985, U-998) and four sunk in the Bergen air raid on October 4 (U-92, U-228, U-437, U-993). Eleven of the seventy-two losses were Arctic boats. Not included in the seventy-two losses were five Mine boats that returned to the Submarine School in the Baltic (U-397, U-677, U-982, U-999, U-1192).
* Kennedy was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but higher authority reduced the decoration to a Navy Cross. His copilot, Wilford Willy, also received a Navy Cross, as did Ralph Spalding. Only one other pilot in Fairwing 7 earned a Navy Cross: James H. Alexander, Jr., whose B-24 was attacked over Biscay by six JU-88s. His aircrew shot down several enemy planes, but the wounded Alexander had to ditch the riddled B-24. All ten airmen survived thirty-six hours in a life raft and were rescued by the Spanish and ultimately repatriated.
† The IXD1 cargo conversions U-180 and U-195 and the IXD2 U-178 at Bordeaux; the IXD2s U-181, U-196, U-198, U-859, U-860, and U-861 in the Far East.
* U-168, U-183, U-510, U-532, U-537, U-843.
§ U-534, U-853, U-857.
* Allied guerrillas ambushed an auto convoy and killed the skipper of the U-188, Siegfried Hidden, who was en route to Berlin to make his oral report. The guerrillas found valuable papers in his effects, including his patrol report with a special section containing the current U-boat approach routes to Penang, Jakarta, Singapore, and so on.
* The hurricane also sank four American warships with heavy loss of life: destroyer Warrington, the small harbor minesweeper 409, and the Coast Guard cutters Jackson and Bedloe.
* At about the same time, the reengined IXD1 cargo U-cruisers U-180 and U-195 and the big type XB minelayer U-219 sailed from Bordeaux to the Far East with supplies for the U-boats basing at Penang, Jakarta, and elsewhere. Upon reaching the Bay of Biscay, the U-180, commanded by Rolf Riesen, age twenty-four, probably hit a British mine and sank with the loss of all hands. The U-195, commanded by a new skipper, Friedrich Steinfeldt, and U-219, commanded by Walter Burghagen, reached Jakarta in December.
* Two days after sailing on this last patrol, on May 5, 1945, a B-24 of British Squadron 86, piloted by J. D. Nicol, sank U-534 in the Kattegat. Three crewmen perished, but forty-nine Germans survived, including Nollau. On August 23, 1993, the boat broke into the news when a Dutch salvage company, Smit Tak of Rotterdam, raised U-534 intact, while some of the B-24 aircrew and some of U-534’s wartime crew observed. At that time news accounts reported that Nollau had “committed suicide in 1976.” The salvors said U-534 would be refurbished and placed on exhibit in Liverpool.
* The various production schedules called for thirty to thirty-three type XXIs per month, commencing in August 1944. At that rate, the Germans were to produce 165 type XXIs in 1944. But only sixty-one XXI boats were commissioned by the Kriegsmarine in that period: twenty-eight at Hamburg, nineteen at Bremen, and fourteen at Danzig. About one-third of the sixty-one type XXIs commissioned in 1944 came into service in December. See Plate 8.
† For an official postwar evaluation of the Type XXI by the U.S. Navy, see Foreword to Volume I or Afterword to this volume.
* Losses and accidents continued in the Baltic. Allied air raids on Kiel, Bremen, Danzig, and elsewhere sank Type VIICs U-239 and U-777, the VIIC41 U-1164, and the IXD2 U-cruiser U-872. Allied aircraft damaged the Type XXI electro boat U-3509, the IXD2 U-cruiser U-873, the Type IXC40 U-870, the Type VIICs U-773 and U-901, and the Type VIIC41s U-1014, U-1109, and U-1273. In the Gutf of Finland a Soviet patrol boat sank the VIIC U-250, commanded by Werner-Karl Schmidt, age twenty-nine, who was rescued with five other crewmen. The Soviets raised and salvaged U-250, obtaining
an Enigma machine, T-5 homing torpedoes, and other arms and equipment. The new small Type XXIII electro boat U-2323 hit a mine near Kiel and sank. Another, U-2331, sank during trials off Hela. The VIIC41 U-1000 hit a mine near Pillau (Baltisk) and due to severe damage, had to be decommissioned. The IXC40 U-1234 collided with a tugboat and sank. She was raised and salvaged, to become a school boat. Wrecked by an accidental torpedo explosion, the VIIC U-1196 also became a school boat. Severely damaged in a collision, the VIIC U-1054 was decommissioned. The IXD2 U-cruiser U-874 collided with the IXC40 U-1235, as did the XB (minelayer) U-234 and the VIIC41 U-1301. The latter became a school boat; the other three boats were in the yards for repairs for months. The VIIC41 U-1018 was also delayed by a collision with another vessel. The Type VIIC school boat U-80 was lost in an accident near Pillau. Fed up with the careless ship handling that had led to many collisions, Admiral Dönitz issued a stern warning that further U-boat losses due to carelessness would be “ruthlessly punished.”
* At the time of the award, his confirmed score was one ship for 7,200 tons.
* At the time of the award, his confirmed score was one ship for 7,200 tons.
* Because of smart seamanship and rescue operations, only six soldiers on Empire Javelin perished.
† Of the new Canadian hunter-killer Group 26. That group and the new Canadian Group 25, in effect, replaced in British waters the deactivated Canadian Group 12 and Group 11, disbanded when a storm wrecked one of its destroyers, Skeena, on rocks near Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 25, 1944, with the loss of fifteen men.
* Losses in the Baltic continued. On December 12, the VII U-479, commanded by Friedrich-Wilhelm Sons, age thirty-four, hit a mine in the Gulf of Finland and sank with the loss of all hands. On the same day, the school boat VII U-416 collided with a German minesweeper and sank. Five crew survived, but not the skipper, Eberhard Rieger, age twenty-one. Late in the month, the Hamburg-built type XXI electro boat U-2508, commanded by the youthful Uwe Christiansen, age twenty-four, sank in a diving accident during workup. The boat was raised in due course but too late in the war to be of any use. Christiansen went on to command of the small Type XXIII electro boat U-2365. Another small Type XXIII electro boat, U-2342, hit a mine and sank. Four men were rescued. Allied air raids on Hamburg on December 31 and January 17 destroyed the new, combat-ready Type VII U-906, and destroyed or badly damaged four Type XXI electro boats nearing completion: U-2515, U-2530, U-2532, and U-2537.