by Antony Trew
Apart from the risk of damaging the asdic dome by steaming fast into a head sea, Redman had ordered its raising and stopped A/S transmissions because submarines could hear pings at considerable distances. If the submarine they were hunting heard their radar transmissions increase in volume it would certainly dive, in which case the chances of attacking it in bad weather would be so slight as hardly to exist at all. On the other hand, there was just a chance in poor visibility of getting reasonably close if the weather sufficiently hampered the U-boat’s search-receiver. Redman was aware, however, that Vengeful and Violent’s prime task was to put the U-boat down before it picked up the convoy and made a sighting report. The nearer the destroyers got to the submarine, the more effectively they would achieve this, even if only by random depth-charging.
His optimism was short lived. At 5000 yards both ships lost contact, the blip disappeared from radar screens and operators reported ‘lost contact’.
Redman ordered an A/S search of the estimated diving position but nothing resulted. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The submarine was somewhere there, he had no doubt, sitting safely under a temperature layer, running dead slow on her electric motors. The problem was where?
Loss of radar contact and failure of the A/S search was reported to Bluebird. Ginger Mountsey ordered Vengeful and Violent to remain in the diving area for another thirty minutes and to ‘warm it up’. The A/S search was continued, both ships dropping depth-charges at irregular intervals. Some, at least, Redman hoped, would be near enough to frighten the U-boat into remaining submerged for some time.
In Fidelix’s operations-room the Vice-Admiral was discussing the problem with the staff-officer operations, Rory McLeod.
‘We know that a U-boat dived here,’ he pointed to the position on the plot with a pencil, ‘at about 0820. What was her distance from the convoy then?’
There was a pause. Cockburn, the navigating and plotting officer, said, ‘Twelve miles, sir.’
‘But she was about five to six thousand yards from Vengeful and Violent when she dived,’ said the Vice-Admiral. ‘Now – was that a routine dive or had she picked up radar transmissions on her search-receiver?’
‘I would assume the latter, sir,’ said the S.O.O.
‘So would I,’ said the Vice-Admiral. ‘And unless he’s an idiot the U-boat commander will conclude there’s a convoy somewhere in the sector from which his search-receiver picked up radar signals. U-boat commanders are not idiots so we must assume that before long he’ll make a sighting report.’ The Vice-Admiral pursed his lips. ‘What he won’t know is that we’ve made an emergency turn.’
The SOO said, ‘He’ll be able to give an approximate position of the convoy at 0820. Since aircraft can’t operate in this weather I don’t think that’s going to help the enemy all that much, sir.’
‘No. But it will help the Kola patrol line. The last sighting report the German High Command had was that made on the sixth by the reconnaissance aircraft we shot down. They’ll be more than happy to up-date the position of JW 137.’
The S.O.O. nodded bleakly.
The Vice-Admiral blew his nose before looking at the plot again. ‘Well, we shall have to wait for a B-Bar message. If that doesn’t come within the next couple of hours I shall be more than surprised.’ He looked round at his officers with bright challenging eyes. There wasn’t any sign of disagreement.
The convoy’s emergency turn to port increased the time it look Vengeful and Violent to get back on to the outer screen. When at last they had, and things seemed to have settled down, Redman climbed on to the bunk in the sea-cabin, stared moodily at the ice on the porthole, the lump shining ruby red in the reflection of the cabin’s light. He pulled the damp crumpled Admiralty blankets over his clothed body, screwed his head into a cold knobbly pillow and closed his eyes. He was conscious only of wondering when sleep would come and how long it would last …
A nurse was leaning over the bed, a young girl with flaxen hair, a high complexion and wistful blue eyes. She was very beautiful he decided. So lovely that he wanted to touch her to see if she was real, but he couldn’t move. She was tidying the bed, smiling in a familiar way as if they shared a secret, and he smelt the mixture of perfume and young womanhood and knew he wanted her. It was warm in the ward. Shafts of sunlight came through the windows near his bed and a gentle breeze ruffled the curtains. He felt relaxed, at peace with the world. The injection, he decided, must have been responsible for his euphoria.
What was that she was saying? He tried to concentrate. ‘… and you must rest. Sleep as much as you like. The longer the better. We won’t disturb you.’
‘Will you be here when I wake up?’ It was, he knew, a tremendously important question. Waiting for her reply he felt insecure, frightened of being alone.
She didn’t answer and when he turned his head he saw she was not a nurse but Marianne. She wore a blue smock, patterned with paint stains. She said nothing, just looked at him in a strange way, then left the ward. He called after her but realised she couldn’t hear because of the wheeziness in his voice. He sighed and lay back in bed, feeling the cool white sheets and the warm breeze coming in through the window. Presently his sadness went and the euphoric feeling returned because he was tired and knew he could sleep and that when he woke she would be there. She would never desert him. She had said that in Paris.
It would be like …
Pownall’s voice came cold and urgent through the voice-pipe above the pillow. ‘Forebridge – captain, sir.’
‘What is it, Pownall?’
‘Camden Castle reports U.S.S. John F. Adams stopped with ruptured main steam pipe. She is standing by her.’
‘Poor devils,’ said Redman. ‘Rather them than us.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Redman lay back on the bunk watching the ice-hump in silent misery. He looked at the time. It was nearly twenty-three minutes since Vengeful and Violent had got back into station. His exhaustion was compounded by the struggle to breathe. His eyes smarted and were heavy with tiredness.
Oh God, let me sleep, he muttered. Let me sleep and not dream.
‘Radar impulses gaining in strength, Herr Kapitän.’ It was Ausfeld on the voice-pipe. ‘Starboard astern sector, estimated range six thousand metres, closing.’
Kleber said, ‘Good.’ He stood for a moment looking back into the dark tumult of wind and sea, knowing that somewhere out there enemy destroyers had picked up U-0117 on radar and were hunting him. Exultation overlaid instinctive fear, for he knew they must be the vanguard of the convoy bound for the Kola Inlet.
‘Clear the bridge!’ he called, and in one motion pressed the diving-alarm and spoke into the voice-pipe. ‘Take her down to sixty metres, chief.’
Ulrich Heuser’s deep voice came back at once, ‘Sixty metres, Herr Kapitän.’
As Schaffenhauser and the lookouts went through the upper hatch Kleber shut off the bridge voice-pipe and took a last look round. Then he followed, shutting the hatch behind him and ramming home the clips. Next he went through the lower hatch, Schaffenhauser shut it and clipped it fast. The diving-alarm blared above the piercing hiss of air escaping from the ballast tanks as they flooded, and U-0117’s bows dipped down for the dive. Before long the boat had left the steep seas of the surface and the motion steadied as she went deeper. The noisy clatter of diesels had given way to the rhythmic hum of electric motors and ventilating fans, and the boat was free from vibration.
Standing at the small chart-table where Dieter Leuner was marking the diving position, Kleber thought about the relative ranges and bearings of U-0117, the hunting destroyers and the convoy ahead of which they must have been steaming. It was important to have a clear mental picture of what was happening on the surface.
From Heuser, standing behind the planesmen watching the depth gauges, came sharp orders as he sought to maintain the desired angle of dive. ‘Sixty metres, Herr Kapitän,’ he reported, levelling off the trim.
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p; ‘Hold her there, chief,’ said Kleber. ‘Steer one-one-zero. Revolutions for four knots. Silent running. Prepare for depth-charging.’ Kleber had altered the submarine’s course twenty degrees to starboard to reduce the noise interference of its own propellers on the hydrophones.
Ausfeld soon reported. ‘Propeller noises – destroyers – bearing green one-three-zero to one-four-zero. Estimated range five thousand metres.’
‘Any pings?’
‘Not yet, Herr Kapitän.’
Kleber knew that if there were he’d probably have heard them himself. They were usually audible in the boat, even at fairly long range. There wasn’t a man in the control-room who wasn’t listening for them.
Kurt Rathfelder, the executive officer, reported the stem tube ready for firing an acoustic torpedo.
Kleber shook his head, strong white teeth showing between open lips. ‘We are going to find and shadow that convoy, Rathfelder. If we attack now the destroyers will know we are here. As it is they think we are, but they have no certainty.’ He looked at the chart again. It was damp and mildewed, difficult to mark with a pencil without damaging the paper. From the diving position, Dieter Leuner had laid off the range and bearing of the propeller noises. In that weather, decided Kleber, destroyers would not do much more than fourteen to fifteen knots, and they would be steering a converging course to intercept him. He did some mental arithmetic: within the next ten to fifteen minutes the enemy should have the submarine within asdic range. When Aus-feld reported hearing pings they’d dive deeper. There was plenty of water. The chart showed 250 to 300 metres.
Kleber’s arithmetic was good. Twenty minutes later Aus-feld reported asdic pings. Soon they could be heard without difficulty in the control-room.
‘Take her down to one hundred and forty metres, chief.’
‘One hundred and forty metres, Herr Kapitän.’
The submarine tilted bow down as the men on the hydroplanes responded to Heuser’s orders.
Kleber called Ausfeld. ‘Let me know when the pings are lost.’
The eyes of the men were focused on the dials, gauges, tell-tales and valves which reflected the subdued light in the control-room. The only sounds apart from cryptic orders and reports were the low hum of the electric motors at slow speed, the faint scratch of instrument styluses, the dripping of water which had condensed on the inside of the hull, and the pings which came at regular intervals like the tick of some sinister metronome. Ventilating fans and other auxiliary machinery and instruments not needed had been switched off.
At a depth of 130 metres the pings faded and were lost. The. destroyers’ ranges were estimated at between 1500 and 1800 metres. Kleber knew that the submarine had passed under a temperature layer which was deflecting the asdic beams. He knew too that the destroyers would depth-charge the estimated diving position and at once took steps to get away from it. ‘Emergency full ahead together,’ he ordered. ‘Hard-a-port.’
The hum of the electric motors rose to a higher pitch and the boat heeled over as her bows swung to port,
‘Steer zero-two-zero,’ said Kleber.
The temperature layer not only deflected asdic beams but muffled the sound of the enemy’s propellers so that bearings and ranges became difficult to obtain. But Ausfeld’s hydrophone operator was able to give them very approximately and this was of some assistance.
Three minutes later the first depth-charge explosions were heard astern and to starboard. Not long afterwards a slight hammer effect was felt as compression waves struck the submarine.
‘At least eight hundred metres.’ Kleber’s confident smile reassured the men in the control-room. ‘Die Tommies mussen es schon besser machen, wenn sie uns die Angst eintreiben wollen … the Tommies will have to do a lot better than that if they want to worry us.’ He decided to keep U-0117 on her course and maintain maximum submerged speed for another ten minutes.
For the next half-hour depth-charging occurred at irregular intervals. They were single, sometimes double explosions. The closest was estimated at 500 metres. Kleber knew that the destroyers had lost contact and were depth-charging at random to keep him submerged while the convoy altered course. He imagined it would have made an emergency turn away from his reported position. As each depth-charge exploded, Dieter Leuner plotted the approximate position given by the hydrophone operator. When the explosions ceased Kleber looked at the chart, considered the various possibilities and made his decision.
Fifteen minutes later he took U-0117 above the temperature layer to 50 metres. Before long Ausfeld had again picked up propellers’ noises. They were to the north-east, estimated range 9000 to 10,000 metres, opening. Kleber realised the destroyers must have abandoned the search soon after the last depth-charge explosion. Now they would be returning to their screening positions in front of the convoy. When the propeller noises could no longer be heard, Kleber brought U-0117 to the surface.
The course steered by the destroyers, estimated by Ausfeld, suggested that the convoy’s emergency turn had been to port. Kleber set course to the eastward to overtake, keeping to windward.
Once again U-0117 was running at high speed on the surface. The moderate south-westerly gale blew now from astern. Conditions on the small horseshoe bridge were incredibly uncomfortable as the submarine slithered and wallowed through heavy seas. Snow and sleet storms followed each each other with monotonous regularity, and despite the feeble Arctic twilight of forenoon, visibility was rarely above five hundred metres.
It was almost two hours later that Ausfeld reported faint radar impulses fine on the port bow. Kleber at once reduced speed. With diesels throttled back to seven and a half knots, U-0117, astern and up-wind of the convoy, settled down to shadowing, her search-receiver just able to hold the multiplicity of distant radar impulses at maximum range. Kleber counted on the submarine’s silhouette, trimmed well down, being too small a target for the escorts’ radar in those seas.
At 1017, having established the approximate course of the convoy, Kleber made his sighting report to the Naval High Command. It was an unusual signal in some respects. When Whitehall intercepted and deciphered it, it appeared to be a weather report, albeit with curious features.
The signal evidently gave the U-boat’s position co-ordinates but in a new style cipher group, and the name or word KLEBER in plain language appeared before the penultimate group which gave the time of origin. The message ended with XXXX instead of the customary cipher group representing the U-boat’s call-sign. Though of a minor nature, these were departures from the standard form used for weather reports by German U-boats. Cipher officers in Whitehall could not decide the significance of the variations, and the four Xs defied rational explanation. The cipher groups thought to be the position co-ordinates could not be broken, but they were presumed to be based upon bearings from German radio beacons along the Norwegian coast.
In all other respects the message’s form and content, and the transmission frequency, was that normally used for weather reporting by U-boats. Whitehall had, of course, no means of knowing that this ruse de guerre was an essential part of Plan X, agreed by Kleber with the Flag Officer, U-boats, Group North.
As soon as Kleber’s message was received in the operations room at Trondheim, Plan X was put into operation. In accordance with custom, the convoy was, for reference purposes, named after the U-boat commander who had sighted it.
Thus JW 137 became known to the German High Command as Kleber’s Convoy.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The brass-rimmed clock on the bulkhead of Vengeful’s HF/DF office showed 1017 when Leading-Telegraphist Blades, the operator on watch, heard a ground-wave signal transmitted by a U-boat. His hands flew to the tuning controls of the receivers in front of him and with almost imperceptible movements he amplified the signal, checked its frequency and read off the bearing. That done he immediately broadcast to all escort vessels by TBS – remote controlled from his desk – the bearing and series number of the B-Bar message.
For eve
ry second of every hour of every day since leaving Loch Ewe, Blades and his fellow operators – there were three of them – had sat in the minute office under the quarter-deck taking turns to watch their receivers and listen for a ground-wave transmission on the frequencies used by U-boats. They had done this in conditions of the utmost discomfort but they had been trained to identify such signals instantly, for speed was imperative. A U-boat’s sighting report took under thirty seconds to transmit. Now, at last, one had come.
At the twenty-third second after picking up the signal, his vital task completed, Blades pressed the buzzer which sounded on the bridge, in the chart-room beside the plotting table, and in Lieutenant Sunley’s cabin. All who heard it knew that Vengeful had picked up a B-Bar message from a U-boat.
Within minutes escorts had exchanged HF/DF bearings and plotted the submarine’s position. They did not, of course, know that this was U-0117, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Johan August Kleber, though they suspected that KLEBER was the captain’s name. Nor did Kleber know that his boat’s position had been plotted for its message had been transmitted on an ultra-high frequency: one which the Germans believed the British could not use for direction-finding purposes, a belief which persisted until the end of the war.
Once the U-boat’s signals had been deciphered, the U-boat tracking-room in Whitehall lost no time in passing its contents to the Vice-Admiral in Fidelix. Describing it as apparently a weather report, Whitehall drew attention to its unusual features. The Vice-Admiral did not acknowledge the signal because he intended maintaining wireless silence until the position of JW 137 was, beyond all doubt, known to the enemy.