Another type of engagement was experienced by the second Canso that approached ONS.5 that afternoon. Piloted by Flight Lieutenant J. W. C. “Jack” Langmuir of Toronto, Canso A “E” of 5 Squadron sighted 15 to 18 miles ahead a fully surfaced U-boat proceeding at about 8 knots on a course of 132°T. He later estimated its position as 55°35'N, 43°14'W. The Canso’s course was 023° at 5,500 feet. The time was 2045. Langmuir turned on a reciprocal course to the U-boat in order to get the sun at his back, and then, at 8 miles distance, he commenced a dive, going to 20 feet off the deck at 155 knots, and aiming almost directly at the U-boat’s bow, hoping for a perfect straddle. During his run in, the “dark brown-green” U-boat, deciding to fight it out on the surface rather than dive, opened up with 20mm anti-aircraft fire from the flak platform aft the conning tower.24 Pressing on, Langmuir hit the release button and got his perfect straddle, numbers 2 and 3 of the stick entering the water not more than 15 feet to either side of the U-boat’s hull, between the conning tower and stern.
As the Canso banked away to port, her crew observed the U-boat’s bow lifted above the surface by the explosions, showing daylight between the keel and water for about one-third of the boat’s length; yet the boat was still able to maneuver, and did so, making a complete 360° turn to starboard while “pitching and rolling violently” and persisting to offer flak. With all his D/Cs expended, Langmuir moved out of range and ordered the bow gunner, Warrant Officer Clifford Hazlett of Chilliwack, British Columbia, to mount a. 30-caliber Browning machine gun in the bow turret, which took about three minutes. Langmuir then made a second run at the boat. Descending from 200 to 50 feet, he called for fire from both the bow gun and the. 50-caliber gun in the starboard blister, beginning at 400 yards. Two U-boat crewmen on the flak platform were seen to fall, hit, and to crumble over railings into the sea.
After the pass, Langmuir banked to starboard intending to make a third run, but when he looked back he saw only the U-boat’s bow as the craft submerged at an awkward angle. No oil, debris, or survivors were sighted. Having done as much as she could do, Canso A “E” began the long return to base. A large number of photographic negatives were presented at Gander as witness to the action. The assessment from London on 28 June was, “Probably slightly damaged”—a tribute to the integrity of the U-boat’s hull, which took at least two D/C charges within close range.25 The U-boat was identified later from Enigma intercepts as U-438 (Kptlt. Heinrich Heinsohn), out of Brest, which signaled to BdU at 0608 on 5 May that she had had an exchange of fire with an aircraft and received minor damage: 4 BOMBS FROM CATALINA 15 METERS OFF.… ATTACKED SEVERAL TIMES BY FLYING BOAT. NO. 40 CYLINDER COVER TORN. OTHER DAMAGES SLIGHT. Later that day she reassured BdU: CAN REPAIR DAMAGES TO ENGINE WITH MEANS ON BOARD.26
On the cusp of battle, as a five-hour night fell across the bleak dress of the North Atlantic, Admiral Dönitz’s U-Boat Command had every reason to be confident. The initial conditions for a convoy fight had never been so favorable. Forty-one boats were forming the battle line, and a convoy had steamed into their near-middle. At 2213 GST (2013 GMT) Dönitz signaled one last personal exhortation to his commanders:
I AM CERTAIN THAT YOU WILL FIGHT WITH EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT. DON’T OVERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT, BUT STRIKE HIM DEAD!27
First out of the box was twenty-eight-year-old Kptlt. Ulrich Folk-ers, commander of the Type IXC U-125, which sortied on 13 April from her home base with 10th Flotilla at Lorient, a name that soon was to have a curious reprise. On his first patrol Folkers had sailed to the U.S. East Coast in January 1942 as a member of Operation Drumbeat (Paukenschlag), during which he sank only one vessel, the 5,666-GRT American freighter West Ivis. In three subsequent patrols, however, he put fourteen Allied ships in the locker and received the Knight’s Cross in March 1943. His actions on the night of 4/5 May are not known with any accuracy because neither his war diary (KTB) nor his torpedo shooting reports (Schussmeldungen) survived the battle. But German message traffic gives him the first trophy of the night, merchantman No. 34 in column No. 3. Her name: Lorient.28 Built in 1921 by Tyne I.S.B. Co. Ltd., Newcastle, the 4,737-GRT Lorient was transporting trade for the Continental Coal and Investments Company of Cardiff. Captain Walter John Manley commanded her merchant crew of forty-six officers and men. On the night of 4 May, without notice or trace, she simply disappeared, with all hands.
Convoy rules specified that upon being torpedoed, a ship should send up two white rockets and key the emergency signal SSS (Struck By Torpedo) on the 600-meter distress band. Lorient did neither. Unless she was broken in half, a torpedoed ship in ballast, as Lorient was, normally should have had enough buoyancy to stay afloat long enough to make a signal, as well as get her crew away in boats. However, as the next ship to go down demonstrates, that amount of time could be as little as two minutes. In any event, no crewman or debris from Lorient was ever found. Commodore Brook commented simply that Lorient “parted company,” probably indicating no more than that she had become an out-of-sight straggler.29 The conclusion that Lorient’s end came at the hands of U-125 is based on a signal from Folkers to BdU, repeated by the latter to all northwest Atlantic boats at 0218 on the 5th: FOLKERS REPORTS ON 36 METERS. ON 4 MAY IN QU AJ 6298 [55°33‘n, 41°45’W] INDEPENDENT 4000 TONNER, COURSE 220, SUNK.30 Lorient would be U-125’s only victim in the battle. Fewer than thirty hours later, U-125 would be a victim herself.
Significantly, at this same early hour of the battle, Kptlt. Helmuth Pich, Commander of U-168, reported that he was breaking off the line because of fuel shortage. Just as significantly, BdU, which had fretted over the fuel problem from the time Fink was organized, signaled back that it would not permit it. Pich was to continue operations, and all boats were to remain engaged until their fuel state reached five tons, when they could disengage to resupply from a Milchkuh standing well clear to the east. Pich was back in the line at 2246.31 The second U-boat to take offensive action was U-707, a Type VIIC commanded by Oblt.z.S. Günter Gretschel. At 2153 Gretschel dived ahead of the convoy, intending to attack at dusk:
[Through the periscope] I can see two destroyers [Offa and Oribi?] zigzagging regularly ahead of the convoy. Asdic is being used only in short spurts. One destroyer is now only 1000 meters distant, dead ahead … ; now it zigzags toward port again. Nothing can be seen of the convoy. I think that all’s clear and that I’m through [the screen] when a destroyer heads right for me again. He must have located me [by asdic] because I’m proceeding at a very low speed. Now his asdic is continuous. I dive deeper to A+20 [a prescribed but varying depth such as 30 meters plus 20 meters]. Eight well-placed D/Cs [Wabos], The convoy passes overhead.32
The D/C attack was made by Tay, which had moved to close ahead of convoy.33 Gretschel continued:
Surfaced. I am in the rear of the convoy formation. To the front are a few shadows, to starboard a corvette, astern, a large steamer. Battle stations! [Auf Gefechtsstationen!] I attack a modern passenger steamer of the type City of Manchester, with protruding bow and continuous deck, 7500 GRT, on course 210°. I launch a fan shot from Tubes I, II, and IV, bearing 90°, range 1500 meters. After a run of one minute, 34 seconds, an eel hits abaft the mast, causing a high black detonation column. Immediately, the steamer begins sinking by the stern. The upper deck is awash. The vessel remains floating for awhile, then suddenly stands itself up, the bow vertical, and descends into the sea. Time for sinking: 69 seconds. Secure from Battle Stations! Dive to reload.34
This time the sinking was observed by the armed trawler H.M.T. Northern Spray, commanded by Lieutenant F. A. J. Downer, R.N.R. The victim was not the type of passenger steamer Gretschel identified, but a 4,635-GRT freighter of the North Shipping Company in Newcastle. Named North Britain, she had straggled from the convoy in bad weather on Saturday, 1 May, had rejoined on the 4th, but then had straggled six miles astern again with boiler trouble. The record does not state how many of Gretschel’s torpedoes hit home, but is clear that his victim, which was in ballast, sank very quickly, stern
first, inside two minutes.35 The time was 0027 on 5 May. Northern Spray, which was nearby, carried out an “Observant” around the spot of sinking but failed to make asdic contact. No boats or life jacket lights could be seen, and the trawler reported to Tay that there were no survivors of the crew of over forty. Then, at 0055, some lights were sighted, and ten minutes later the trawler discovered a waterlogged lifeboat and a raft. Repeatedly the lifeboat was brought alongside, but the ten exhausted crewmen inside it made only lethargic efforts to get out. Finally, they and an eleventh survivor on the raft were taken on board, and Northern Spray proceeded to the positions of other sinkings.36
Hasenschar, the contact-keeper in U—628, was next to open a fighting account. With seven other boats of his knowledge in contact with the convoy by dusk (U-707, U-202, U-264, U-265, U-168, U-732, and U-378), he thought himself free to shed his shadower’s role—Somit ist für mich Angriff freigegeben:37
I move toward the convoy columns [on the surface] so I can attack just at the beginning of night. The sea state is 3–4, moderating with a light swell. Visibility is good. As it gets darker the starboard bow escort steams far off to the west and a second destroyer heads south. I’m successful in getting through the hole between them, and now, at first darkness, I’m in contact with the main body of the convoy. Positioned west of the convoy, I start my attack.… I don’t think it’s advisable to proceed any closer because escorts on the beam can approach me at short range. In spite of the great distance to target I decide to launch exactly aimed individual shots, because I have precisely calculated target data. All Etos are hot and ready.… At 0043–0046 I launch from Tubes I through IV at five [sic] different freighters in a row, range 4000 to 5000 meters, torpedo depth set to three meters.… Then I turn to starboard and make a [single] stern launch, after which I take off on the surface, full speed, toward the northeast because the starboard escorts have moved in my direction again. Calculating from the time of the first torpedo launch, there were four hits, the first after a run of 7 minutes, 58 seconds, the last after 9 minutes, 30 seconds. There was a 3-minute interval between the launch from [bow] Tube I and the launch from [stern] Tube V. We could only observe three hits. The first, which had a high detonation column, was on a large freighter. The others were on two medium-sized freighters. One explosion was very large, so one could assume a sinking. The third freighter hit shoots two white rockets and begins to burn. As we back off from the scene, a muffled explosion is heard at 0105 from the first, large freighter, possibly a boiler explosion. A large black cloud of smoke hangs over the ship for a long time. Then there is nothing more that can be seen of the ship. In the boat we can hear the noises of a sinking ship. The ship sinks. As we continue our withdrawal the rear echelons of the convoy send up illumination flares continuously. Some of the flares are very close, but we are not spotted.… Because I have one eel left I decide to return to the scene in order to sink a ship that might be damaged.… At 0225 I observe a shadow with a weak red masthead light. At first it shows little aim-off bearing. For a short while I pursue it with diesels at slow ahead. Now we recognize it to be a corvette, hove-to, bearing 110°. I approach to a range of 800 meters and at 0302 launch a single eel, set at 4 meters depth, from Tube III. After 28 seconds running time there is a huge tongue of flame, followed by spark showers, then nothing more to be seen. A strong shockwave followed. I guess that the entire D/C stowage exploded. The corvette had literally gone up in thin air.38
Later, in reporting these attacks to BdU, Hasenschar stated that he had sunk one large freighter, probably had sunk a medium-size freighter, had left a third freighter burning, and had blown a corvette to pieces—”Atomisiert.”39 But the twenty-six-year-old Commander was peering through rose-colored binoculars. Only one ship was hit by his torpedo barrage: the 5,081-GRT freighter Harbury, with a cargo of 6,820 tons of anthracite coal. As for the vaporized corvette, Snowflake, Sunflower, and Loosestrife—Pink was on another course—continued rolling and pitching on their assigned stations, unscathed by anything but weather. Some of the explosions reported by Hasenschar may have originated with torpedo hits scored in the same time period by U—264 (see below). Or they may have been end-of-run detonations.
With a loud explosion, but no flash, one of Hasenschar’s wakeless torpedoes struck Harbury on the starboard side in No. 5 hold, blowing off its hatches and flooding it. The time was 0046 on 5 May. A fracture in the tunnel door allowed water into the engine room, which began to fill with sea water. The Master, Captain W. E. Cook, made his way to the bridge wings, where he saw that the ship was settling by the stern. Third Officer W. Skinner fired the required white rockets. Only twenty-one or twenty-two years old, Skinner had previously gone down once with a mined ship, a second time with a ship sunk by Japanese aircraft off Ceylon, and, after the latter sinking, he had been sunk yet a third time by a Japanese cruiser that shelled the ship that rescued him. Said Cook later about Skinner’s fourth experience, he was “most reliable and cool.”
As the well deck went under water, Cook switched on the red lights to mark his position, stopped engines, threw overside the weighted Confidential Books, directed a distress W/T message to be transmitted, placed a W/T set in one of the main lifeboats, and ordered Abandon Ship. The crew succeeded in lowering the two main lifeboats amidships, but the starboard quarter small lifeboat had been rendered useless by the explosion, and the port quarter boat capsized on becoming waterborne. Several lives were lost when a knot of crewmen stranded aft were forced to jump into the sea. Cook remained on board with two crewmen and searched the ‘midship accommodation to make sure that all fifty-one crewmen, including seven Navy and two Army gunners, had gotten off. Near midnight the ship gave a “grinding and wrenching” sound from aft, leading Cook and the two ratings to think that Harbury was sinking. They hurriedly boarded the forward starboard raft, cast off the painter, and drifted away into a heavy swell and dark night. In the distance they sighted two white lights, which they assumed belonged to the lifeboats.
Around 0320 they observed a shower of sparks and heard a loud explosion, which they interpreted to be an end-of-run torpedo detonation, and an hour and ten minutes later they sighted Northern Spray. Cook attracted the trawler’s attention using a newly issued handheld rocket that threw up five flares. With some difficulty because of the rough sea and the lack of ring bolts or cleats on merchant ship rafts to which lines might have been made fast, the trawler hauled on board the raft’s occupants and, a short time later, those also from the lifeboats, making a total of forty-four men rescued, six of whom were slightly injured. Seven were missing.
In the morning (0900), Cook, with his Chief Officer and the First Lieutenant of the trawler, took a boat to inspect Harbury and to secure flour and potatoes from her pantry to replenish the trawler’s dwindling stock. They found water ten feet high in the engine room, above the dynamos, and saw that the sea was pouring into No. 4 main hold. All indications were that Harbury would sink. At 1000 the boat party returned to Northern Spray. A month and a half later, Cook would say: “I did not see my ship again, but in view of her condition I am certain that she eventually sank. Aircraft were sent out the following day to the scene [55°oi’N, 42°59‘W] but no sign of the ship could be found.”40
Hasenschar’s KTB, which has not always been reliable, proved to be correct about the fate of the Harbury wreck. At 1230 on the afternoon of 5 May, while proceeding underwater near the position 55°14'N, 43°02W, Hasenschar sighted a stopped, presumably damaged, freighter in his periscope lens. He surfaced, decks awash, long enough to make an observation from the bridge, then submerged again:
I approach the freighter with full speed underwater. With the periscope I can see that the steamer has been abandoned. It has a slight list to starboard and it’s down by the stern. Lifeboats hang out of their davit arms. Stairs and lines hang outboard. At 14511 surface and clear the guns at a distance of 300–400 meters. With 40 rounds of 8.8 fire from the forward deck gun and 100 2cm armor-piercing shells we ge
t the freighter to sink.… It lists to starboard and then capsizes.… The vessel displays a repainted shipping company insignia of the “Harrison Line” on the funnel. A drifting cutter with sail nearby carries the name “Harbury”. The freighter fits the silhouette of that type. I assume that this is the damaged ship that we torpedoed the night before.
He was right. S.S. Harbury was owned by J. & C. Harrison Ltd., of Mark Lane, London. Hasenschar also identified this derelict as Harbury in his Schussmeldungen, unfortunately the only shooting reports to survive in German archives from any U-boat operating in May 1943.41 The young Commander would go down with his boat on 3 July 1943 northwest of Cape Ortegal, Spain.
Hard on the heels of Harbury s torpedo, two more ships took hits, the work of Kptlt. Hartwig Looks in U—264. At 0014, Looks placed his Type VIIC boat ahead of the convoy, on the surface, with the intention of attacking inside the port bow and port beam escorts (Sunflower and Snowflake). A “destroyer” (Tay) visible to the north did not see him in the overcast weather, visibility good but very dark, rough sea with heavy swell, wind from the southwest Force 5. At 0100,14 minutes after Harbury was struck, Looks made his move:
I have a group of five steamers ahead of me, three at approximately 1500 meters and two behind them at about 2500 meters.… At 0102 I launch two fan shots at the larger two of the three nearest ships, one launch of two eels from Tubes II and III at a 6000-tonner and another launch of two from Tubes II and IV at a 5000-tonner. Range 1500 meters, angle on the bow 3.8° and 3.9°, respectively. Torpedo depth set to 3 meters. I then turn hard-a-starboard and launch a fifth eel from the stern tube at a 4500 GRT freighter. All five eels hit home. The first fan launch at the 6000-tonner detonates after runs of one minute, 22 seconds and one minute, 26 seconds, one hitting amidships and the other 20 meters from the stern. Two high smoke columns can be seen. The second fan launch hits the 5000-tonner at the same locations on the hull after runs of one minute, 47 seconds and one minute, 51 seconds. Again there are two high detonation columns. The single launch from Tube V hit the 4500-tonner amidships under the funnel. There is a very high detonation column topped by a large mushroom cloud. I suspect that all three steamers will sink because of the good positioning of the hits. I take off as fast as I can. A destroyer heads toward me from the north at high speed. The steamers I hit shoot up white rockets.42
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