Plan Z

by David Wragg

  The first of the assembled U-boats to attack was U-88, which had lain low and quiet while the first escorts steamed by, and then risen to periscope depth amidst the convoy and fired salvoes of torpedoes from bow and stern tubes, none of which found a target. A formation of He115s also headed for the convoy, but failed to get beyond the convoy’s air defences. Despite the increased threat, the cruiser squadron’s destroyer screen started to fall back towards the convoy to refuel from the Aldersdale in a flat calm sea. At 19.30, the American Wainwright was preparing to start replenishment when a stick of bombs exploded on her port bow, persuading her commanding officer, Captain D. P. Moon to postpone refuelling and position his ship abeam of Keppel ready for the expected air attack.

  Radar returns were good in the calm conditions, and at 20.20 the duty radar operators aboard the Palomares detected a low level attack, always giving shorter warning than a high level attack, and upwards of twenty-five He111s of KG26 and a number of torpedo-carrying Ju88s of KG30 flew straight into the convoy, attacking from astern. The Wainwright, which had complete freedom of action at this time, turned to starboard and raced past the convoy towards the German aircraft, turning beam on to give the largest number of AA weapons a chance to bear on the attackers, and opened fire giving an effective long-range barrage that effectively turned back the first wave when one He111 was shot down. The second wave was more determined. The leading He111 dropped a bomb on the surfaced P614, and despite being on fire from the intense AA barrage, released its torpedo to sink the British merchantman Navarino, whose lifeboats were lowered so hurriedly that they slipped in the falls and tipped their unfortunate occupants into the cold water where they were nearly mown down by the ship that followed. The aircraft then struck the water and those aboard a passing merchantman could see the crew being burnt alive as the aircraft sank. Then the aircraft that followed dropped a torpedo that struck the American merchantman William Hooper, and exploded the boiler. The cruisers then arrived to lend their contribution to the AA barrage, but the attack then faltered, although the British destroyer Offa claimed a Heinkel. Several ships narrowly missed torpedoes, while shots from the American Hoosier detonated a torpedo warhead. Less fortunate was the Soviet tanker Azerbaijan which was hit by a torpedo and exploded in a sheet of flame, but survived largely because she was carrying linseed oil rather than fuel oil. Also unfortunate were those aboard the Empire Tide and Ironclad, which suffered damage from AA gunners forgetting the injunction to be careful about hitting other convoy ships when firing at low flying aircraft.

  In the aftermath of the attack, the rescue ships moved in and the escorts were ordered to set about sinking both the Navarino and the William Hooper, which they failed to do before moving on, but the Azerbaijan astonished everybody as with her largely female crew she steamed on at nine knots. Surprisingly, despite at least seven U-boats being present, they had not intervened, missing the rare opportunity to attack the convoy when everyone was preoccupied with the air attack.

  Aircraft were in the air from the cruisers, with the Walrus from Norfolk looking for icebergs while the Vought Kingfisher from Tuscaloosa was looking for U-boats, but the Admiralty was now warning that heavy surface units were at sea. Broome ordered the Hurricane from Empire Tide to be launched to shoot down the Bv138 shadowing the convoy. He also contacted the two accompanying submarines, one of which signalled back that if heavy enemy surface units attacked, he intended to remain on the surface, receiving the reply from Broome, ‘So do I.’ A further line of defence was from the Allied submarines, with six Soviet boats watching the Norwegian coast between Vanna and the North Cape, and eight British boats and one Free French further out to sea, augmented by the two submarines that had accompanied the convoy.

  At 21.11 on 4 July, the Admiralty signalled both Hamilton and Tovey: ‘Cruiser force to withdraw to westward at high speed.’ The clear impression was given, following early warnings about the proximity of enemy surface units, that Tirpitz was at sea. The next signal, at 21.23, was addressed to both officers and also to Broome: ‘Owing to threat from surface ships convoy is to disperse and proceed to Russian ports.’ Then at 21.36, to the same three recipients, added emphasis was given to the previous signal with the unambiguous signal: ‘Convoy is to scatter.’

  The Admiralty was convinced that the Tirpitz was at sea, despite a member of the naval staff maintaining that there was no indication that the ship was at sea. A complete communications silence from the Germans could not be enforced once major fleet units had gone to sea as the U-boat commanders would have had to be warned that friendly surface vessels were at sea.

  The problem was that the Admiralty believed that it alone had possession of all the facts, and to be fair, the First Sea Lord, Pound, also felt that it would be unfair to place the full burden of absolute responsibility on the shoulders of Commander Broome once Hamilton had left with his cruisers. Dispersal was Pound’s solution, his second-in-command, the Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Moore, believed that this would take too long, and that the quicker the ships scattered, the safer they would be, and when Pound stated that by ‘dispersal’, he meant ‘scatter’, the further signal was sent to ensure that this was understood.

  While everyone involved at the Admiralty was acting with the best of intentions, albeit that they placed a higher value on their own major ships than on the merchantmen in the convoy, they were seemingly unaware of the nature of running a convoy through to northern Russia. As the convoys proceeded, they were channelled into an increasingly narrow funnel between the southern edge of the Arctic ice-cap and the Norwegian coast, so that the final stages became the most hazardous, caught between proximity to German airfields and the ice, a northern Scylla and Charybis. It was also the case that the merchantmen in a convoy were always ordered to keep station, not to straggle and that survival lay in operating as a unit, for mutual protection and, if the worst came to the worst, rescue.

  The signal gave both Hamilton and Broome problems. Hamilton had no option but to set course westwards, but he delayed for thirty minutes in the hope that Norfolk would be able to recover her Walrus, but without success, so he turned the cruiser squadron round and onto a westward course, which had the embarrassing result that the merchantmen and close escort could see the heaviest ships available deserting them, racing past the convoy at high speed.

  Broome also hesitated, but for a different reason, since he knew that the merchantmen would be vulnerable on their own. At 22.15, he ordered the hoisting of the signal to scatter. This meant that the convoy had to separate fanwise, with each column steering a course outwards at 10 degrees more than its inner neighbour. Individual ships then steered away from their closest neighbour and increased to best speed, the maximum speed of which the individual ship was capable given the weather conditions. While this was happening, the ships in the centre column maintained station, then finally they too scattered, with the odd-numbers moving out to starboard, the even numbers to port. Heading the centre column was the River Afton, with the convoy commodore, who signalled that he didn’t understand the order, forcing Broome to take his destroyer, HMS Keppel, alongside to repeat the order through a megaphone, then apologising for having to leave the convoy. As for the destroyers, Broome decided that his destroyers should come together as a cohesive fighting force, while the other warships made their own way to Russian ports.

  The scatter signal caught some of the ships at an awkward moment, with the destroyer Somali in the middle of refuelling from Aldersdale, and having to stop abruptly so as to rejoin Hamilton’s squadron, fortunately heading in the destroyer’s direction.

  Tovey believed that scattering the convoy would result in ‘sheer bloody murder’, while Broome expected ‘a shambles’, and a ‘bloody business’. Both were to be proved right. Worse was to follow when they heard from the Admiralty early the following morning that enemy ships were simply presumed to be north of Tromso, but that it wasn’t certain that they were at sea.

  U-456 was
the first to report the withdrawal of the cruisers, and later this was one of several U-boats to report merchant ships heading in unexpected directions, which was soon confirmed by aerial reconnaissance. Early on 5 July, U-334 had tried to torpedo the Navarino, but the ship had sunk before the torpedoes could reach it, and had then disposed of the William Hooper. No matter, Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Hubert Schmundt, ‘Admiral Arctic’, lost no time in ordering his U-boats into action against the merchant vessels, while KG30’s He111s were getting ready at Banak. Elsewhere, on learning of the convoy scattering, senior officers pressed for the Rosselsprung operation to be activated, but Raeder refused. When aerial reconnaissance showed the Home Fleet heading northeast, the major surface units were ordered to be ready to go to sea while Raeder approached Hitler for his approval, which was given. A battle group led by the Tirpitz with Hipper and Scheer slipped out to sea with a screen of seven destroyers and two ocean-going torpedo-boats. Shortly after leaving Norway, the Soviet submarine K-21 spotted Tirpitz, every Allied submarine commander’s dream, and fired her torpedoes, but without success. For his part, Raeder then sent a signal to Schniewind implying caution by stating that ‘partial success’ would be more important than ‘total victory involving major expenditure of time’. The battle group was spotted by the British submarine Unshaken and then by an RAF Catalina flying boat before the Germans eventually lost their nerve and recalled the ships to port, to the dismay of those aboard who felt embarrassed at sitting in port while the rest of the armed forces were involved in increasingly intensive warfare. When Vizeadmiral Oskar Kummetz proposed that Scheer should return to sea on her own, he was refused.

  It was left to Kapitan zur See Wagner, Chief of Naval Operations, to sum up the situation: ‘Every operation by our surface forces has been hampered by the Fuhrer’s desire to avoid losses and reverses at all costs.’

  The presence of a German aircraft carrier would not only have provided earlier notice of the convoy being scattered, the merchantmen would have been vulnerable to aerial torpedo attack. As it was, a number of ships finally managed to reach their destination. There could have been some justification for the Germans congratulating themselves on virtually wiping out an entire convoy, and it was not until U-88’s commanding officer, Heino Bohmann, who had been present at so much of the destruction, injected some realism into the debate over how many ships had been sunk that they realised that many ships had passed either undetected or had survived attack.

  It is also possible that the presence of a German aircraft carrier would have made the Germans, and by this one means both Raeder and Hitler, more confident in sending their major surface units to sea. These would have posed a challenge for the Home Fleet and while a carrier versus carrier battle could have occurred, it would also have left the German heavy cruisers free to engage the convoys.

  PQ18

  It was clear that the convoys did not get the cover they needed from the presence of an aircraft carrier with the distant escort, but that they needed their own air cover. In the wake of the disaster that was PQ17, a number of measures were immediately put in hand. Some of these were more or less routine, such as the despatch of four destroyers to Archangel loaded with ammunition and replacement anti-aircraft gun barrels, as well as interpreters in an attempt to improve liaison with the Russians, all of which arrived on 24 July 1942. Then on 13 August, the American cruiser Tuscaloosa sailed escorted by two American and one British destroyer, carrying RAF ground crew and equipment, as well as spares, for two squadrons of Hampden bombers destined to be based in northern Russia, along with photo-reconnaissance Spitfires and a squadron of Coastal Command Catalina flying boats. Also included in the cargo carried by the second group of warships was a demountable medical centre and hospital unit, with appropriate medical supplies, but while the Soviets took the medical supplies, they rejected the hospital that would have done so much to improve the lot of Allied seamen in need of attention on reaching a Russian port.

  Several of the Hampden bombers, already obsolescent at this stage of the war, were shot down in transit by the Germans and, by mistake, by the Russians. One of those shot down by the Germans came down over Norway, and as bad luck would have it, contained details of the defence of the next pair of convoys, PQ18 and QP14. Doubtless because PQ18 was to have an escort carrier, plans were laid to attack the convoy with a combination of Luftwaffe bombing and U-boats, but QP14, not so fortunate, was to be the target for the Scheer, with the cruisers Hipper and Koln, and a supporting screen of destroyers. The German surface force moved to the Altenfjord on 1 September.

  PQ18 was the first Arctic convoy to have an escort carrier, with the US-built HMS Avenger. The carrier had three radar-equipped Swordfish from 825 Squadron for antisubmarine duties as well as six Sea Hurricanes, with another six dismantled and stowed beneath the hangar deck in a hold, for fighter defence. The fighter aircraft were drawn from 802 and 883 squadrons. Another Sea Hurricane was aboard the CAM-ship, Empire Morn. The convoy escort also included the cruiser Scylla, two destroyers, two anti-aircraft ships converted from merchant vessels, four corvettes, four antisubmarine trawlers, three minesweepers and two submarines. Once again there was a rescue ship, but just one as three minesweepers being delivered to the Soviet Union also acted in this role.

  While the convoy had gained an escort carrier, the Home Fleet had lost its fleet carrier, Victorious, which needed a refit after suffering damage while escorting the convoy Operation Pedestal to Malta in August. Also missing were the American ships, transferred to the Pacific. Tovey also made other changes to the distant escort. This time he would remain aboard King George V at Scapa Flow where he could have constant telephone communication with the Admiralty, while his deputy, Vice-Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser went to sea in the battleship Anson. The strong destroyer escort afforded PQ16 would be repeated to protect both PQ18 and QP14. This meant allowing the destroyers to leave the close escort to the corvettes, trawlers, anti-aircraft ships and minesweepers if the situation warranted it, with freedom of action to make a sweep looking for U-boats or German surface units. Nevertheless, to save fuel, the officer in command of the destroyers, Rear Admiral Robert Burnett, aboard the light cruiser Scylla, ordered that no U-boat hunt by the destroyers was to exceed ninety minutes. Not only would the convoy have the support of Force Q with its fleet oiler, but this time there would be two of them, while Force P, with two tankers and four destroyers was deployed ahead of the convoy to Spitzbergen, while a resupply operation for the Norwegian garrison on Spitzbergen was also linked with these forces.

  Once again, Iceland was the main rendezvous. Even getting to Iceland was difficult. Seas were so rough that a Sea Hurricane was swept off Avenger’s deck, and the steel ropes securing aircraft in the hangar failed to stop the aircraft breaking loose, crashing into one another and into the sides of the hangar. Fused 500-lb bombs stored in the lift well broke loose, and had to be captured by laying down duffle coats with rope ties, to be quickly tied up as soon as a bomb rolled on to the coats! The ship suffered engine problems due to fuel contamination. Even remote Iceland was still not completely safe, for here the carrier was discovered and bombed by a Focke-Wulf Fw200 Condor long-range maritime-reconnaissance aircraft, which dropped a stick of bombs close to the ship, but without inflicting any damage.

  The engine problems aboard Avenger meant that the convoy, already spotted by a U-boat whilst on passage to Iceland from Scotland, had to sail without the carrier, and on 8 September, the convoy was discovered by another Condor. Low overcast then protected the convoy from German aircraft until 12 September, when a Blohm und Voss Bv138 flying-boat dropped through the clouds. By this time Avenger had caught up with the convoy and was able to launch a flight of four Sea Hurricanes, but not in time to catch the German aircraft before it disappeared.

  The Swordfish were extremely vulnerable on the Artic convoys. This meant that the fighters were not simply concerned with protecting the ships from aerial attack, they also had to cover the Swordfish, whic
h could have fallen prey to many German aircraft. At 04.00 on 9 September, the Sea Hurricanes were scrambled after Swordfish on antisubmarine patrol were discovered by another two Luftwaffe aircraft, a Bv138 flying-boat and a Junkers Ju88 reconnaissance aircraft, but again, these disappeared into the low cloud before the fighters could reach them. Another role of the Swordfish was to see exactly what the Luftwaffe was up to, and on one occasion, PQ18’s Swordfish reported that Bv138s were dropping mines ahead of the ships.

  PQ18 was repeatedly attacked from the air, requiring the ships to make massed turns and to put up heavy AA fire, all of which made life for the returning Swordfish crews very interesting. Ditching in the sea was never anything to be considered lightly, but in Arctic waters, survival time could be very short indeed. The Sea Hurricanes attempted to keep a constant combat air patrol, CAP, over the convoy, eventually with each aircraft spending twenty-five minutes in the air before landing to refuel, and in such circumstances, keeping a constant watch over the Swordfish as well was almost impossible.

  On 14 September, the first Swordfish of the day found U-589 on the surface, but she dived leaving the Swordfish to mark the spot with a smoke flare. Alerted by the Swordfish, the destroyer Onslow raced to the scene, attacked with depth charges and destroyed her. This led the Germans, so far not accustomed to a convoy having its own air cover and aerial reconnaissance, to change their tactics. Reconnaissance Bv138s and Ju88s were sent to intimidate the Swordfish, forcing them back onto the convoy, until the Germans were driven away by heavy AA fire. The Swordfish would then venture out, only to be found and driven back again.