Kleber's Convoy

by Antony Trew

  Pownall’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘We’re back in station, sir.’ Redman checked the display on the PPI. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m going below.’

  In the sea-cabin he took off his mittens and gloves and hung them up with the night glasses, dusted frost and snow from his anorak, turned back its fur-lined hood, and lay on his bunk. His eyes focused on the lump of red ice. It was so close to his face that each time he breathed a cloud of condensation formed and drifted across it.

  An old problem worried him. When should he take them?, He loathed the whole idea of using drugs to keep awake, and though the doctor recommended Benzedrine under certain conditions, Redman rarely resorted to it and then only towards the end of a journey. If one started too soon they caught up with you. Sleep couldn’t be bought off indefinitely. In the end it was an account which had to be settled.

  But there were fourteen U-boats ahead and there was going to be an attack on the convoy. For that he must be alert, on the top line. He made his decision. He’d take two tablets the next time he was called. He turned on his side, pulled up the damp, body odorous blankets and closed his eyes, trying to blot out the pictures which chased across his mind.

  Over the years he’d found that if he was very tired it helped to shut and secure an imaginary steel screen between his eyes and his brain. The screen was a sliding one, very solid like the door of a vault. He always moved it from left to right, slowly, steadily, shutting out the images bit by bit until there was nothing but the door – then, when it was shut right across, he would screw down the cleats which secured it.

  At 1300 Kleber made his second shadowing report. Like its predecessors it appeared to be a weather report. Again it included position co-ordinates in the new code. It was followed at 1315 by a conventional operational signal from High Command ordering all U-boats of Gruppe Osten to report their positions.

  In accordance with Plan X, each of the seven U-boats responded by reporting its position twice, once on receipt of the High Command signal and again within the half-hour. The eight U-boats of Gruppe Kleber making for U-0117’s position and maintaining radio silence made no report.

  Once again the position of all reporting U-boats was plotted in the U-boat tracking-room at the Admiralty, in Fidelix, and in the HF/DF equipped escorts. The plots revealed that during the two hours which had lapsed since they’d last reported, six of the ‘fourteen’ U-boats making for the Skolpen Bank had already reached its north-western extremity, while eight had varying distances to go, the furthest being twenty-five miles. In those two hours the U-boats had made good an average distance of about twenty-five miles. Rather more than the Vice-Admiral had predicted, whereas the convoy’s speed of advance had dropped to six knots. In Fidelix’s operations-room this was attributed to the current in the Barents Sea setting more strongly to the west than usual.

  In the U-boat tracking-room at the Admiralty there was some surprise at the time lag between some of the U-boats’ responses to the High Command’s request for positions since this was not normal practice. But nor was the use of weather reports for sighting and shadowing signals and both were presumed to be new procedures. The latest developments, however, confirmed the conclusion reached in Fidelix and at the Admiralty that KLEBER the weather reporter was in fact a shadower. The Vice-Admiral promptly dispatched two Home Fleet destroyers from the close screen to put KLEBER down few the third time that day.

  The latest positions of the ‘fourteen’ reporting U-boats caused the Vice-Admiral and his staff to revise their earlier predictions. They now estimated that by 1530 the convoy would be twenty miles from the Skolpen U-boats … the outer screen would then be only twelve miles from them. On the basis of these estimates the Vice-Admiral decided to order a major alteration of course to the southward at 1500 – away from the Skolpen Bank and towards the Murman coast west of the Kola Inlet – at which time he would detach the outer screen to deal with the Skolpen U-boats. This would put the enemy astern of the convoy and he had every confidence in the Fifty-Seventh Escort Group’s ability to keep them down while the convoy made off to the southward. He would at the same time move the close screen of Home Fleet destroyers six miles ahead of JW 137 on its new course, to form a temporary outer screen, and re-dispose the close screen – the corvettes and frigates of the Eighty-Third Escort Group – so that most of them would be on the convoy’s eastern flank, the side on which the Skolpen concentration lay.

  The Vice-Admiral conveyed these intentions by TBS to the commodore of the convoy and the escort commanders. Kleber’s shadowing report at 1300-transmitted as a weather report – and the High Command’s signal at 1315 were, of course, read by the U-boats of Gruppe Kleber, though they maintained radio silence.

  The position co-ordinates in Kleber’s signal, deciphered from the special code attached to Plan X, enabled them to determine the courses to steer and distances to go to reach him, since each knew its own position by means of cross-bearings of the German beacon stations on the Norwegian coast.

  For the third time that day U-0117 had to dive under a temperature layer. This time to avoid the two Home Fleet destroyers detached to put the U-boat down. Again the area was subject to random depth-charging while U-0117 maintained the last-known course of the convoy at high submerged speed. Kleber knew that any U-boats of Gruppe Kleber close to him would be doing the same thing.

  He surfaced again at 1415 and made off in pursuit of the convoy. Soon after 1430 Ausfeld reported contact. Kleber made a course correction to put the convoy on U-0117’s port bow and reduced speed.

  By 1430 three U-boats of Gruppe Kleber were within a mile or so of U-0117 and were themselves receiving radar impulses from the convoy’s escorts. They, too, had turned on to parallel courses, keeping station abaft the beam of the convoy. Since radio silence had to be maintained, these boats were not in direct communication with each other, nor was there much likelihood of U-boat sighting U-boat in the darkness and bad weather prevailing.

  By 1500 concentration was virtually complete, all but one of the boats of Gruppe Kleber being in touch with the convoy. The exception was U-0153, Willi Schluss’s boat. Still two miles to the south of Kleber, it would have been a great deal farther but for Kolb, Meyer and Brückner who had fought, cajoled, threatened and cheated to such an extent that Schluss’s efforts to delay the approach had been of little avail.

  Kleber had no means of knowing if the concentration was complete, though one U-boat had been sighted close astern and visual signals had been exchanged by shaded lamp. Kleber found this comforting. He was pretty confident that other U-boats of the Gruppe, though hidden by darkness, were not far away.

  He knew that the convoy commander would soon have to decide whether to pass north or south of the Skolpen minefield. Both contingencies had been provided for. The U-boats in Gruppe Kleber would remain in their present position relative to the convoy if it went north of the minefield, and they would in that event be reinforced by Gruppe Osten.

  If the convoy went south it would be turning towards Kleber, and his Gruppe, up-wind of the convoy and on its starboard bow, would be in an ideal attacking position. Plan X was based on the probability that the convoy would go south of the minefield to avoid Gruppe Osten whose boats had been making their presence known to the enemy by reporting their ‘fourteen’ positions to High Command and by direct radio chatter to each other since 1430.

  Soon after 1510 the voice-pipe buzzer sounded on U-0117’s bridge. It was Ausfeld. ‘Radar impulses increasing in strength, bearing changing from left to right. Already we hear language messages in English between the convoy and the escort force.’

  ‘Good, Ausfeld. Can you make anything of them?’

  ‘They use many code words but it seems they make a major alteration of course towards us.’ Ausfeld spoke good English.

  ‘Ausgezeichnet. Sie gingen in die Falle … splendid. They walk into the trap.’ Kleber slapped his thigh and excitement showed through his normal composure. ‘Let me have frequent reports
.’

  ‘I will, Herr Kapitän.’

  A few minutes later Ausfeld reported, ‘Signals still gaining in strength. The convoy has evidently altered to the south. The bearing moves steadily from left to right. Estimated range eighteen thousand metres. Closing fast.’

  Kleber immediately altered U-0117’s course to intercept. He would approach the convoy on its up-wind flank. The starboard columns would come under attack first and because of the diversion caused by the Skolpen concentration he expected to find few escorts to starboard. The remainder of his Gruppe, familiar with Plan X, would, he knew, be reacting in the same way to the radar signals coming into their search-receivers. Telling Rathfelder that he would be back soon, Kleber handed over the bridge watch and went down to the control-room.

  Dieter Leuner, the navigating officer, had plotted the estimated position of JW 137 on its new southerly course. Kleber looked at the chart. ‘So the convoy has altered course perhaps ninety degrees or more to starboard.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Kapitän. If we maintain our present course we pass ahead of it.’

  ‘Give me a course for interception. Assume the convoy to be steering south. Speed seven knots. We make twelve knots.’

  Leuner set the factors on an inclination diagram and read off the answer. ‘We should steer zero-nine-five degrees, Herr Kapitän.’ He paused, measured, made a rapid calculation on a note-pad. ‘We should meet the advance escorts in approximately twenty minutes. The convoy itself about twenty to twenty-five minutes later.’

  Kleber’s eyes were bright with the excitement of danger. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Alter course now to zero-nine-five.’ The navigaiting officer gave the order to the helmsman. Kleber called Ausfeld on the voice-pipe. ‘What is the range and bearing?’

  ‘Fifteen thousand five hundred, Herr Kapitän. But …’ Ausfeld hesitated.

  ‘But what?’ urged Kleber.

  ‘The signals are confused. Those that were nearest before the alteration of course are receding. Others which were farthest gain in strength. They cover a wide sector.’

  Kleber said, ‘They must be redeploying the escorts. Detaching the outer screen to attack Gruppe Osten.’ He laughed gaily. ‘That is Plan X, Ausfeld,’ He quoted in scholarly overtones: ‘It will be the duty of Gruppe Osten to create a diver sion with the object of diluting the escort force prior to the main attack down-wind … I go now to the bridge. Let me know when the range is twelve thousand metres. Then we make the attack signal.’

  Back on the bridge Kleber concentrated his faculties on a mental picture of the convoy ahead shrouded in darkness. He was barely conscious of the steep seas before which U-0117 ran, slithering and surging like a surf-rider, of the sting of sleet and snow driven by the wind; of the frost which numbed the flesh of his face outside its mask; of the buffeting of icy seas which flooded the small bridge, at times forcing its occupants to grip the rail and hold on for dear life or, losing their foothold, to rely on the steel belts which secured them to the superstructure.

  The buzzer sounded again. ‘Estimated range of nearest signals twelve thousand metres, Herr Kapitän,’ reported Ausfeld.

  ‘Right. Transmit at once the shadowing report. Leuner has it ready. Conclude the message with “KLEBER closing down. Repeat KLEBER closing down – 12,000. Time of origin 1527”.’

  On receipt of this signal the U-boats of Gruppe Kleber knew that Kleber had dived and within minutes of its transmission they, too, had done so.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At a depth of one hundred and fifty metres, electric motors, ventilating fans and other auxiliary machinery humming in mechanical harmony, U-0117 moved along the course given by Dieter Leuner for interception of the convoy.

  Immediately after the dive Kleber ordered the crew to action stations. Rathfelder reported bow and stern tubes ready for firing. Leuner went to the attack-computer in the conning-tower where the submarine’s course and speed, the convoy’s estimated course and speed and other data were fed in and the torpedo-firing angles computed.

  There was an atmosphere of hushed expectancy in U-0117. The imminence of action, the knowledge that British escorts were notoriously efficient in dealing with U-boats, contributed to the fear and apprehension of the submarine’s crew. With taut faces the men in the control-room watched their instruments under the keen eyes of Rathfelder and Heuser the engineer-officer.

  Faces dark with anti-frost grease, eye-masks pushed up on foreheads, rubber diving suits still wet and glistening, Kleber, Rathfelder and the bridge dutymen were ready for their return to the bridge when the submarine surfaced. All knew that this was the crucial phase of the attack. Would U-0117 pass under the outer screen of destroyers undetected? Was the thermal layer beneath which the boat was moving sufficiently dense to deflect the asdic beams of the escorts? Were the other eight U-boats of Gruppe Osten in position?

  The control-room’s muted lighting ensured that the vision of those who went to the bridge would not be impaired on surfacing. Now it dissembled into Dantesque patterns of light and shade the faces of the men and the complex of instruments and controls which they watched.

  The atmosphere was fetid with odours of diesel oil, decaying food, sodden clothing, human bodies, and a faint trace of chlorine gas from the battery compartments below the control-room. Gas leaks caused by depth-charge damage on her last patrols were ‘supposed to have been made good during U-0117’s last refit in Trondheim, but the turn round had been a quick one and the workmanship less than thorough.

  Ausfeld’s voice broke the silence in the control-room. ‘Destroyer propeller noises ahead, red zero-two-zero to green zero-four-five. Low volume. Estimated range three thousand metres, closing steadily. No sound of asdic transmissions.’

  Kleber replied, ‘Good. The thermal does its duty.’ He turned to smile at Rathfelder and Heuser. The men in the control-room must see that he was not worried though he shared the fears which assailed them. Perhaps in greater degree. While the men had infinite faith in his skill and judgment, he knew better than anyone else the chances U-0117 was taking – and his own limitations.

  ‘Not long now,’ he said in a low voice … ‘Dann begint der Spass … then the fun starts.’

  Reports from the sound-room told of the shrinking distance between the submarine and the destroyer screen. The approach of danger made mouths dry, muscles taut, eyes blink. Some men coughed, others clenched their teeth, bit on their lips or tapped with nervous fingers. Voices were lowered when reporting and men held their breath as if to aid the submarine’s concealment.

  At most there were now eight minutes before the destroyers reached U-0117.

  Three questions nagged at Kleber. Would the temperature layer sufficiently mask them? Would the convoy alter course at the last moment and so confound the attack? How many of the Gruppe were ready and in position? At least, he consoled himself, I shall soon know.

  When Ausfeld reported the range down to 2000 metres, Kleber turned to Heuser. ‘Rig for silent running. Fifty revolutions port and starboard engines. Strict silence throughout the boat.’

  All ventilating fans, pump motors and other auxiliary machinery were stopped, and instruments not immediately needed were switched off. While thermal layers could deflect asdic beams they could not mask every sound in a U-boat. Now all that could be heard in U-0117 was the almost inaudible hum of the electric motors turning at slow speed, and Heuser’s low key orders to the planesmen as he watched the depth gauges.

  The absence of asdic pings indicated that the sonic beams were bouncing off the temperature layer but, despite the thermal, Ausfeld’s hushed report, ‘Range five hundred metres,’ was followed not long afterwards by the faint shush-shush-shush of churning propellers.

  ‘Destroyer propeller noises passing overhead. Close to port.’ Ausfeld’s deep voice was muted. ‘Bearing moving ahead. Range opening.’

  Men bent their heads as if to avoid the destroyer above, prayed or swore under their breath and later sighed with relief as the muffled thrashing g
rew fainter.

  ‘We’re through the outer screen,’ said Kleber. ‘Another five or six miles to the close escorts and the convoy.’

  Rathfelder said, ‘I hope the other boats of the Gruppe are as lucky as U-0117, Herr Kapitän.’

  ‘Not luck, Rathfelder.’ Kleber’s retort was sharp. ‘Skill and guts.’ He paused. ‘But I’ll grant you the weather is on our side.’ Then he laughed to show the incident was forgotten. The men in the control-room silently thanked God for Kleber.

  The ventilating fans were switched on and the hum of the electric motors reached a higher pitch as speed was increased. Twenty long drawn-out minutes – seeming to some like twenty hours-ticked away on the control-room clock before Ausfeld made the report Kleber had long awaited. ‘Numerous propeller noises ahead and to starboard. Reciprocating engines. Spread over a wide sector. Estimated range three thousand metres.’

  ‘The convoy,’ said Kleber without emotion. ‘It has not altered course. We come in on its starboard flank.’ He added, ‘In about seven minutes we go under the close escorts.’ He turned to Rathfelder. ‘Pass that message to all compartments and stand by for surfacing.’

  ‘Jahwol, Herr Kapitän.’

  As the minutes drifted away, Kleber focused his thoughts on the coming attack. Somewhere, not far away, were the other eight U-boats of Gruppe Kleber. The absence of reports of depth-charge explosions from the sound-room – they could be heard at considerable distances – was an assurance that no U-boat had yet been attacked. He prayed that meant all had safely penetrated the outer screen.