U-Boat Scourge

by J Eugene Porter

  “Gentlemen, I failed to do proper introductions so while the call is being put through, let me make the rounds. My name is Ted Young, and I am the base commander. This is Capt. Mike Gannon who is the CO of Patrol Wing Eight, and this is Lt. Comdr. George Hamlin who is the CO of Squadron Twenty-Seven consisting of eight PBYs. We are glad to have you with us even though none of us has a clue what you are doing here or what you may ask us to do for you. But, the communications I received said to give you anything you want, as long as you want, so please let us know what we can do to be of assistance.”

  Just then the phone rang and Captain Young answered. He heard the yeoman tell him the call was through and that the admiral was on the line. The captain gave the phone to Commander Jameson and said, “The admiral is holding for you, Commander.”

  Jameson took the phone. “Thank you, Captain. I hate to do this, but I need to take the call in private. Is that all right?”

  “No problem at all, Commander.” The captain and others exited the room.

  The commander pointed at Brand to remain. Flannigan left with the others in a scripted move on behalf of Jameson to help with the secrecy and mystery of the mission.

  “This is Commander Jameson,” he said, knowing an aide or other officer was holding the call for the admiral.

  “One moment, Commander, I will put the admiral on,” came the reply.

  “Jameson, Willson here. Are you in Florida now?”

  “Yes sir, we arrived some ten minutes ago and everything is proceeding normally. How can I be of service, sir?” Jameson didn’t know what to expect and decided to play it as formally as possible.

  “Commander, we have incurred another loss off the coast. It may have been a mine or a torpedo. It occurred on the sixteenth but we just received confirmation. The Brits told us more U-boats were on their way, but I don’t have to tell you the boss doesn’t trust their intelligence. He does trust young Brand who told him to expect more attacks shortly. What have you found out so far?”

  Jameson spent the next ten minutes passing the phone back and forth to Brand as the two men tag-teamed the call. The major points Brand made concerned the lack of training in the Air Corps, the ideas on search and attack protocols, and the need to get heavy depth charges for the army bombers. Also, there was a need to educate them on deployment of the charges to maximize damage to the U-boats.

  The commander then fielded several questions concerning the inter-service protocols and the need to tread lightly on the training and deployment issues. Finally, the admiral said, “Commander, you and Mr. Brand go over the navy pilots just as aggressively as you did the army boys. Do not hesitate to criticize any aspect of training, ability, aggressiveness or whatever you find. The boss wants results and is getting a lot of noise from everyone. Understand?”

  “Yes sir. We will get the basics done on the ground today and then take to the air tomorrow to see how they approach the job. We will return our findings as soon as we can. By the way, Admiral, Mr. Brand wants to extend this trip by a few more days to better understand how submarines operate. He is requesting we go up to New London and have a talk with a real sub boat commander. Can you make this happen?”

  The admiral responded almost instantly, “Commander, finish up in Florida and then let me know when you can get to New London. I’ll keep the plane in your care until then. I’ll also arrange for a meeting and even a ride in a submarine if Mr. Brand thinks that would help.”

  The commander knowing the wishes of his protégé replied, “Thank you, sir. That would be most helpful, and as soon as we finish here, I’ll contact you for our next trip.”

  The admiral thanked them both, but before disconnecting asked the commander to round up the base commander and the Patrol Wing commander. He asked Brand to go get the others, and as they came in, Brand closed the door.

  “Captain Young, sir, the admiral wants to speak to you.”

  The captain took the phone and in as strong a voice as he could muster in the situation said, “Sir, this is Captain Young, how can I be of help to the admiral?”

  “Young, this is Admiral Willson. You know who I am, is that correct?”

  The captain immediately replied, “Yes sir, I know that you are the chief of staff to Admiral King, sir.”

  “Good. Now that you know who I work for and that I am speaking for Admiral King, do you understand what I am getting at, Captain?”

  “Yes sir, I understand.” The captain seemed a bit nervous, but this was probably the intent of the interrogation.

  “Captain, I want you to inform Captain Gannon of what I am about to tell you and if either you or he have any problems, you are to call me direct. If I am not available, you are to ask to talk to Admiral King. You will be put through immediately, is that understood?”

  Again, the captain said, “Aye, aye sir. Totally understood.”

  “Here is what you are to do and what you need to know.” The admiral proceeded to outline the mission and what was at stake to the navy and to the nation. After the minute and a half talk, Admiral Willson asked, “So, Young, do you see any problems or issues that would not allow the commander and his team to fulfill their mission?”

  The captain replied, “No sir, everything that can be done will be done and I see no reason the commander and his team will be hindered from completing their mission within the next forty-eight hours.”

  “Captain, make sure Captain Gannon understands these orders and the pilots who will fly this mission also understand the importance and secrecy of what they are being tasked with. Let me talk to Commander Jameson.”

  The captain handed the phone back to Jameson and heard a few “yes sirs” and “no sirs” and then heard the commander tell the admiral he would be in contact within the next two days.

  The commander hung up the phone and looked at Captain Young and the other two navy flyers. “Captain Young, please inform these officers of the orders you received from the admiral,” Jameson said and watched as the captain, almost verbatim, provided the other two officers with the wishes of the navy’s senior admiral.

  After he had finished, Captain Young asked the other two if there were any questions.

  Captain Gannon said he had none but Lieutenant Commander Hamlin began to smile and asked, “When do we fly, sir?”

  Everyone smiled, now that the tension was over and waited for the navy commander who had shown up on their base with orders from the top to tell them what was next.

  Jameson looked around and then said with a smile, “Gentlemen, I would like to get some lunch and I am quite sure that goes for the other members of the team. Then, let’s convene a meeting with the pilots of the two planes who will be helping us in our mission. We’ll need to create a flight plan exactly like what you would normally do in a routine operation. We just need to understand the entirety of it all and we will be asking lots of questions about the mission from the time of day of takeoff through all aspects of the flight dynamics, composition and experience of the crew, plus routine maintenance records for each aircraft for the past six months. I am quite sure there will be more requests, but we will try to keep them at a minimum. Any other questions or comments?”

  There were none. The base commander led them out of the office towards the base kitchen to get something to eat that hopefully was more than the cold sandwiches that had sustained them on the flight from Langley.

  18

  20 February 1942

  Naval Air Station

  Banana River, Florida

  • Submarine Swordfish evacuates President Quezon and other Philippine officials from Luzon, Philippine Islands.

  • Atlantic and Pacific Fleets are directed by Commander in Chief, United States Fleet to establish Amphibious Forces.

  • Japanese invade Timor Island in the Netherlands East Indies. Darwin, Australia is abandoned as an Allied naval base.

  The ten-man crews of the PBYs were checking their birds out by 5 a.m. Each of the pilots had gone over their checklists t
hree times and talked to the flight engineer about any engine issues. The navigators had spent an hour with the meteorologists looking at all the available weather information so they could construct a mental picture of the winds aloft and how that would affect their search areas. They needed to have a clear understanding of the weather conditions so they could do their calculations for any possible drift caused by the winds and set up their navigation waypoints for dead reckoning and noon sun shots. They had spent the previous evening with Ensign Brand who asked all kinds of questions on navigation, wind speeds at various altitudes, prevailing cloud conditions, and visibility. They were amazed at his level of navigation knowledge as well as his ability to locate stars for night-time sightings. This was far superior to what they had learned in navigator school at Pensacola.

  The two planes were scheduled for an eight-hour flight with the outward leg one hundred miles off the coast and an inbound leg of twenty-five to fifty miles off the coastline. The squadron commander Gannon would fly the plane with Brand and the wing commander would fly the number two plane with Commander Jameson. There would be two fewer crewmen on the flight to accommodate Brand and Jameson plus Laird flying with the commander and Flannigan in the plane with Brand.

  The PBY was an incredibly sturdy plane with a flight range of twenty-five hundred miles at a cruising speed of one hundred twenty-five miles per hour. This is much slower than the B-25s, but the range was nearly a thousand miles greater. The blue amphibian could carry an additional thousand-pound bomb load more than the B-25s which gave the PBY a total bomb load of four thousand pounds. All of this was carried on hard spots on the wings which were over-engineered to provide immense lift and, if necessary, the plane could slow to sixty miles per hour and without stalling. This ability to loiter at slow speed was essential for the originally envisioned search mission of the plane and had been proven early in the war by the British. It was one of their PBYs that found the German battleship Bismarck which was subsequently sunk by the British navy in June 1941.

  Crews were assembled and take off was set for 0700 hours. The planes were in the water and crews went to their respective planes in thirty-foot-long motor launches. Each plane’s maintenance crew had already started the engines and gone through all the checks before the flight crew boarded. Maintenance chiefs ran down the list for the pilots and co-pilots on how things were working and verified all fuel, ammunition, and bomb loads. Each plane carried four 450-pound depth charges and four 250-pound general purpose bombs. They did not have enough depth charges to put more on each plane, so the bombs would have to do. Each plane had six .50-caliber machine guns armed and checked. One of the maintenance men had the job of making sure the galley on the big bird was well equipped with coffee, water, sandwiches, fruit, and Coca-Colas for the young ensign.

  Brand had never flown in a seaplane before so this would be a new and exciting experience. He was interested in the scientific issues involved in getting a plane to go fast enough to overcome the resistance caused by the sea water. The PBYs and other water-borne aircraft of the navy were called flying boats, and that description was quite accurate. The fuselage of the plane that makes up a normal aircraft like the B-25 they flew out of Langley had a tripod landing gear and the amount of resistance to get the wheels rolling was quite low compared to the tons of sea water that would pile up against the hull of a seaplane. The hull of a seaplane is exactly that, a hull. Just like a regular ship, it’s designed to displace water so the plane floats and is angled like the hull of a modern high-speed boat similar to a PT boat. As the plane speeds up, it begins to rise on its hull, just like a speed boat. The wings provide more lift as it goes even faster and more of the hull gets out of the water until the hull is totally airborne and the plane can climb. The opposite happens when it lands. The plane slowly descends so as not to “crash” into the water but slowly touches the water until it is descending to its correct depth, then the plane comes to a slow rest in the water, much like the action when a speedboat slows down and no longer planes on the water’s surface.

  All of this requires an understanding of the flight physics and the movement of water around the hull. Pilots of seaplanes are a special breed because of their ability to fly and their ability to handle a large, ungainly boat. They need to understand how this ballet between sea and sky works to prevent breaking the plane apart on either takeoff or landing. Many planes had crashed because of human error and today these two pilots were more concerned than usual as they started their taxi to the marked channel serving as their takeoff and landing strip.

  Lieutenant Commander Hamlin signaled his co-pilot Lt. (jg) Bob Henson, and looked to his flight engineer to begin revving the engines. There are no brakes on a seaplane, and they had to begin their movement as soon as the planes got their power up. Both pilot and co-pilot had their hands on the controls, and the flight engineer was calling out speeds as the plane started to go from the wallow of a boat to a slowly lifting plane on the water. With each second the plane felt alive as it bounced very slowly on its way to flight. At around sixty miles per hour, the plane wanted to leave the water for good, but the commander kept it low as it gained more speed and therefore more lift. This was the most dangerous time for any plane, but for a seaplane like the PBY, a loss of power or hitting a wave could easily damage the plane or worse, make it crash head on into the water.

  Suddenly, there was no more bouncing. The plane left its water environment and became a true airplane. The engine noise was extreme but nothing as bad as the B-25. The planes two massive engines were high on the wing and more outboard than the army bombers. As the plane reached one thousand feet, the pilot called for a reduction in power and the plane became much quieter. Brand walked back to the huge plexiglas windows on each side of the plane and looked back to see the other plane working its way skyward toward its partner. The key attribute of visibility in the plane was quite evident. Besides the huge window nacelles on the side of the plane, there was a large observatory-like structure in the front of the plane housing a machine gun. Two men could view the world on a 180-degree basis from this location. The pilots also had great window seats to the world. All these features were designed into the plane in 1937. It might be slow, but it was a great observatory in the sky and fulfilled its mission well.

  After another twenty minutes, the two planes reached cruising altitude of ten thousand feet with Commander Jameson’s plane some half mile off to the right of Brand’s plane and behind it by one thousand yards. Over the course of the flight, both planes would trade off positions and altitudes to investigate optimal observation locations. The flight path would take them on a course of thirty degrees north by northeast, then the planes would fly due north for two hours. The planes would then head due west toward the coast at a heading of 195 degrees south by southwest to return. They would be anywhere from one hundred twenty-five miles off the coastline near North Carolina to twelve miles off the coast of Florida. This would permit them the chance to do some small search squares of thirty miles by thirty miles halfway between their maximum search area to the east and their minimum off the coast. The goal was, of course, to look for and attack U-boats, but today’s mission was to examine search protocols and experiment with attack profiles with hopefully the real thing but probably a simulated target in the ocean. Both crews had been informed of the mission profile and the guests aboard the two planes were in control.

  Three hours passed with the planes jockeying for position to the right or left and then they would swap locations and either gain altitude or drop, depending on the outline for the flight plan Brand had designed. At the three-hour point, Captain Gannon with Commander Jameson as his primary passenger was flying at nine thousand feet and nearly a mile in front of the plane Brand was in. The crew in Brand’s plane could still see the captain’s PBY just to the right of the nose of their plane. Suddenly, the plane began to drop to the right with an extreme bank.

  Before Hamlin could react, the radio operator bounced up to the pi
lot and shouted, “Sir, Captain Gannon has spotted what looks like a submarine bearing due east from his position and is going down to check it out. He wants you to follow. Shall I signal an affirmative?”

  “Damn right, tell him I am on my way.” Lieutenant Commander Hamlin now had the controls and ordered full power to the engines. “Crew, man your battle positions. Check all guns and be prepared to drop bombs.” The commander looked over at the co-pilot who had pulled out a checklist and was looking intently at the instruments as the plane started to drop at a very fast speed for the big amphibian.

  Brand looked out the cockpit window with his binoculars, scanning the seas in the direction indicated by the radio. He had started one of his two stopwatches so he could time the reaction of the crew and the U-boat if that is what it was.

  Flannigan was on the plane’s intercom saying, “Submarine at two points off starboard and it looks like it is diving.”

  Everyone on Hamlin’s plane looked over to see a submarine on the surface heading in their direction. The plane was now at less than four thousand feet, and the captain’s plane was nearing fifteen hundred feet and dropping fast. The submarine had to be a U-boat because no American submarines were operating in this area for fear of being attacked by friendly forces or by the Germans.

  The co-pilot shouted, “Looks like it’s almost totally underwater already with only a periscope showing. No, it is gone now too, but there is still a wake to follow. Heading straight on the line with the captain.”

  As the crew looked ahead they saw what remained of the wake where the submarine had been and within a few seconds, the other PBY was over the target area. Two splashes broke the waves. Seconds later, two huge eruptions occurred. Water billowed up, exploding in the air. The captain’s PBY was pulling up, and the commander was ready for the attack when Brand asked, “What are your intentions, sir?”