Kleber's Convoy

by Antony Trew

  ‘Range one thousand metres, Herr Kapitän.’

  Again all ventilating fans, ballast and bilge pumps were shut off, speed was reduced to a bare minimum, and silent running was ordered. Once more the shush-shush-shush of propeller noises could be heard, this time against the faint but insistent background of a host of others. Kleber took a last look at the clock over the chart-table before moving to the periscope well. With steep seas and a blizzard superimposed on Arctic darkness he did not expect to see anything, but the superb Zeiss lenses would pick up the bow-wave of a ship nearby, and any illumination, however slight, from the convoy. A quick sweep round with the periscope was a precaution he could not omit.

  ‘Bring her to periscope depth, chief,’ he ordered. ‘I know it will be difficult to hold her there in this weather but do your best. And raise the schnorchel mast. I want to surface at maximum speed.’ To Rathfelder he said, ‘Stand by all tubes.’

  Orders were passed to the engine-room, to the men manning the hydrophones and valve controls. There was the hiss of escaping air as tanks were blown, the submarine took on a pronounced bows-up angle, and the readings on the depth-gauges dropped steadily as she made for the surface.

  ‘All tubes ready for firing, Herr Kapitän,’ reported Rathfelder.

  The men in the control-room waited for the crucial report, each busy with his own thoughts and fears. Soon Heuser reported. ‘Periscope depth, Herr Kapitän. Schnorchel mast hoisted.’ The submarine began to pitch and roll as she neared the turbulent surface water.

  Kleber ordered, ‘Up periscope.’

  An electric motor purred, the periscope came up from its well, Kleber knelt to meet it, snapping down the handles and rising with the instrument, his eyes pressed to the lens apertures. The deep roar of the diesels starting filled the boat, and welcome gusts of fresh air blew into the control-room through the Schnorchel vents.

  There was a radar antenna on the Schnorchel and Ausfeld’s report ‘Radar impulses on all sectors – maximum strength,’ was no surprise to Kleber. U-0117 had got through the escort cordon. Heuser was having difficulty in holding trim as the submarine felt the effects of the steep seas above her. Bracing himself against the boat’s sudden gyrations, Kleber swung the periscope through three hundred and sixty degrees. There was nothing to see but the white blur of wave crests sweeping out of the darkness astern. The waves masked the periscope at times, shutting the float on the Schnorchel and creating a sudden vacuum which made men gasp for breath until the sea had passed and the float lifted to open the air intakes once more.

  ‘Stand by to surface,’ Kleber’s barked command concealed much tension. ‘Blow main ballast tanks. Stand by all tubes for firing.’

  Ulrich Heuser repeated the orders. Once more there came the high pitched hiss of air forcing its way into flooded tanks. Soon afterwards Heuser reported, ‘Bridge clear, Herr Kapitän.’

  Kleber said, ‘Both engines full ahead together. Give us everything she’s got.’

  Rathfelder released the clips on the conning-tower hatch as Kleber slipped on goggles, face mask and mittens and hurried up the steel ladder. Rathfelder and the bridge duty-men followed close behind.

  The icy blast of the wind, the sting of sleet and snow struck them as they reached the bridge and clipped on their safety belts. The thunder of the diesels was challenged now by the roar of the wind and the seas surging past the conning-tower, their crests flooding the small bridge from time to time. U-0117 was driving down-wind, slicing through steep seas, the now moderate south-westerly gale astern.

  From the sound-room came Ausfeld’s urgent report. ‘Numerous radar transmissions to port and starboard. Maximum strength.’

  Kleber raised the Zeiss night glasses and swung them in a wide arc looking for a break in the wall of darkness. He picked up a white bow-wave as an excited shout came from a lookout. ‘Ship close ahead to starboard.’ It was less than three hundred metres away. In the submarine the crew could hear the drumming of countless propellers. It was an ominous sound, increasing steadily in volume.

  Redman was on Vengeful’s bridge at 1440 when the bridge-speaker relayed the Vice-Admiral’s signal ordering the convoy to prepare for a ninety-degree wheel to starboard to a course of 210 degrees, the Fifty-Seventh Escort Group to proceed with dispatch to the eastward to attack the concentration of U-boats on the north-western rim of the Skolpen Bank, while the Home Fleet destroyers moved up from their fighting stations to form the new outer screen. The signal concluded with an order to the close escort, the Eighty-Third Group, to place six of its eight ships on the port flank of JW 137 on which side the attack was expected.

  At 1500 the flagship ordered execution of the signal. The convoy immediately commenced its wheel to starboard, the corvettes and frigates of the close screen proceeded to their new stations, while the Home Fleet destroyers moved up at speed through rough seas to form the outer screen in place of the Fifty-Seventh Escort Group now making for the U-boats off the Skolpen Bank. The nearest of these was estimated to be within twenty to twenty-five miles.

  By 1530 the Twenty-Seventh Escort Group was in radar contact with U-boats at an initial range of eight thousand yards which, under the weather conditions prevailing, was no worse than expected.

  At from four to five thousand yards, the targets disappeared from radar screens and it was evident they had dived. The escorts then carried out an A/S search in the course of which Vectis and Bluebird obtained firm asdic contact with a U-boat close to the Bank where shoaling water had failed to provide a temperature layer. After a short sharp hunt with intensive depth-charging the U-boat was blown to the surface. It dived again almost immediately, only to be caught squarely in the centre of a shallow pattern dropped by Vectis. The U-boat’s bows lifted high above the surface before it sank stern first. There were no survivors.

  Soon afterwards the destroyer Whippet reported an asdic contact and was joined by the sloop Chaffinch. While making her run-in to depth-charge the U-boat, Chaffinch’s stern was blown off by a gnat torpedo. The sloop sank rapidly and with heavy loss of life. Vengeful – contrary to standing orders, and explicit instructions at the convoy conference in Loch Ewe – stopped to pick up survivors.

  Whippet held on to the asdic contact, and Vallance was ordered to join her. The captain of Vallance decided on his own initiative to cease asdic and radar transmissions and close Whippet at comparatively low speed. This sneak tactic soon paid a dividend. Vallance, keeping an asdic listening watch, picked up strong HE,1 classified it as U-boat propeller noises, and steamed up the bearing until she almost stumbled over the submarine which, aware that her gnat had sunk an attacking ship, was surfacing to make up-wind in pursuit of the convoy. The U-boat surfaced two cables ahead of Vallance, fine on her starboard bow, and was caught and held in the destroyer’s searchlight.

  The submarine crash-dived, turning sharply to port, but Vallance was on to her like a terrier after a rat. Swinging to port the destroyer fired her ‘hedgehog’ before the U-boat had time to go deep. The pattern of mortar charges plummeted into the water into which the submarine’s bows were turning.

  Seconds later three detonations in quick succession left little doubt that mortal damage had been inflicted. This was confirmed not long afterwards by sounds on Vallance’s bridge-speaker of the U-boat breaking up.

  At 1615 an urgent signal from Fidelix ordered all but two ships of the Fifty-Seventh Escort Group to rejoin at once as the convoy was under attack from surfaced U-boats which had come in down-wind on its lightly defended starboard flank.

  Two ships of the Group were left to deal with any U-boats of the Skolpen concentration which might attempt to surface. On Ginger Mountsey’s orders both streamed ‘foxers’ as a protection against gnats.

  The remainder of the Group made off to the south-west, steaming into wind and sea at fourteen knots which was all they could manage without incurring weather damage.

  Vengeful, delayed by her attempts to rescue survivors from Chaffinch, brought up the rear
. She had picked up fifteen men, but of these a number had died soon after being taken from the water.

  1 HE – Hydrophone effect. The sound of propellers as heard on hydrophones.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The bow-wave sighted by U-0117 less than three hundred metres from the submarine turned out to be that of a Liberty ship, thus confirming Ausfeld’s report that the nearest propeller noises were slow revving piston engines.

  Kleber swung hard to port to avoid the oncoming ship. The suddenness of the confrontation, the scuffle to avoid it, ruled out a torpedo shot. Running on opposite courses, the freighter and the U-boat quickly passed each other at a range of less than two hundred metres. There was no indication that the U-boat, trimmed down in the darkness and travelling at high speed, had been sighted.

  Kleber shouted to Rathfelder, ‘Too late. We’ll run down between the columns. Fire one torpedo at each ship, port and starboard alternately. Then we’ll dive and re-load.’

  Slithering and plunging through watery hills and valleys, driving down-wind, the crests of seas washing the bridge, Kleber felt a strange exultation as flurries of sleet and snow masked the scene, clearing at times like a curtain drawn back across a darkened stage, replacing the anonymity of darkness with the shadowy outlines of ships.

  With his night glasses Kleber saw to port the white flash of a sea breaking, behind it the dim outline of a ship. He shouted urgently, ‘Target red, zero-two-zero.’ Rathfelder swung the TBT1 on to the bearing. ‘I have it,’ he answered as the dark shadow plunged steadily forward, its bows throwing up sheets of spray.

  Events moved fast after that, Rathfelder passing the TBT bearings to Dieter Leuner in the conning-tower, getting back the target’s course and speed and other vital information. Watching the angle on the bow open steadily, Kleber called, ‘Stand by to fire.’ The seconds went by. ‘Shoot now,’ he commanded.

  Rathfelder pulled the TBT safety lever to ‘on’. ‘Tube one, fire!’ he shouted down the voice-pipe.

  Time seemed to stand still as they watched the amorphous shadow of the target pass up the port side. There was a blinding flash, terrifying in its scale and suddenness, and a column of flame and smoke mushroomed into the sky. The shock wave struck Kleber in the face as the roar of the explosion rolled across the water. Falling snowflakes, hanging like curtains of coarse muslin, made the scene strangely unreal.

  ‘Ammunition ship,’ he said, ordering a correction of course to bring the submarine over to starboard.

  Rathfelder swung the TBT to starboard, ready for a new target. They heard the rumble of what sounded like distant thunder and far away to port flames licked into the sky, the gale sweeping them down-wind. Another U-boat in Gruppe Kleber had found a target.

  Suddenly, from every quarter, Snowflake rockets soared skywards, bursting at their zenith, scattering brilliant showers of light. Above the noise of wind and sea the men on U-0117’s bridge heard the explosive thunder of gunfire. Flares filled the sky over the convoy and drifted down-wind, slowly losing height, conspiring with the rockets to turn night into day.

  ‘Herrgott! Lösden sie die verfluchten Lichter aus … Christ! Turn off the bloody lights,’ mocked Kleber. But he felt naked and afraid, and the men on the submarine’s bridge bent lower as if hiding from a celestial observer.

  Busy conning the boat into position for its next target, Kleber had a fleeting impression of long, widespread convoy columns; of the silhouette of a frigate astern of U-0117 turning towards them, a sea breaking over her as she came beam on to the weather; of brightly coloured balls of tracer approaching from many directions; of the rumble of gunfire and fountains of water leaping unaccountably from the sea around the U-boat. But trimmed well down, fast moving, hidden by steep seas and flying spray, U-0117 was a difficult target, particularly for guns on the pitching stems of merchant ships.

  To Kleber it was a wild scene, a sort of maritime ride of the Valkyries. Though his faculties were concentrated on the attack, he was aware of a strange euphoria, of man controlling the elements, of fighting in a hopeless cause yet fulfilling some strange Wagnerian destiny. He was too intelligent not to realise that Germany had already lost the war, but there was in him a curious mixture of resolution and romanticism, a liking for the knife-edge of danger, and he would not have chosen to be elsewhere. These emotive thoughts were soon swept aside by the urgencies of battle as a Liberty ship, ghost-like in the flares, showed up on the starboard bow and Rathfelder refocused the TBT. A rapid exchange of information between bridge and attack-computer was followed by Kleber’s. ‘Shoot as soon as you’re ready.’

  The Liberty ship and U-0117 were approaching each other on parallel courses at a combined speed of twenty knots, the bearing changing rapidly.

  ‘Tube two – fire!’ shouted Rathf elder. The submarine shuddered as the torpedo left its tube. The men on the bridge counted away the seconds, watching the plunging ship, waiting for the explosion. But none came. The magnetic pistol had failed or the wallowing of the submarine through rolling seas had upset Rathfelder’s aim.

  Kleber swore under his breath as more Snowflake rockets and starshell relit the waning sky. A lookout shouted, ‘Warship bearing red, one-five-zero. Approaching.’

  Kleber swung round to see a corvette outside the port wing column heading towards them. Bright flashes leapt from her forward gun. The shell splashes came suddenly closer. He said, ‘She can’t overtake us in this weather, Rathfelder. Wahlen sie das nächste Ziel … Select next target.’

  There was no trace in his voice of the excitement he felt and this apparent nonchalance reassured the executive officer who’d decided that things were getting a bit too hot. He swung the TBT to port as the submarine’s bow went that way and soon found a ship, darkly silhouetted against a low flare, smoke billowing from her funnel as she worked up the pressure in her boilers. The submarine rose on the crest of a following sea and Kleber took a precautionary look astern. The corvette was belting down-wind in pursuit, firing as she came. He was aware that a trim-downed submarine was a difficult target in heavy weather, but nevertheless disliked being the target. ‘Hold everything, Rathfelder,’ he called. ‘We’ll cut through the starboard column. Plenty of targets on the other side. And we’ll be shielded from that damned corvette for a while.’ The whine of a shell broke into his sentence. There was a sharp explosion close astern followed by the smell of cordite. Water cascaded on to the bridge. ‘The escorts are beginning to wake up.’ The note of gaiety in Kleber’s voice masked his concern. ‘We haven’t much time.’

  U-0117 swung across to starboard, passing close ahead of a merchant ship in the second column. Kleber altered course again to drive down between the second and third columns.

  Ausfeld reported, ‘Heavy depth-charging, starboard sector. Distant.’ So one of the Gruppe at least had been forced to submerge, reflected Kleber. There wasn’t time to speculate which it might be. He just hoped that whoever it was had gone deep enough in time, and found a good thermal. From far away came the sound of another explosion followed by a bright flash of light. Rolling billows of smoke and flame came from somewhere near the centre of the convoy. One of the Gruppe must have torpedoed a tanker.

  A shell from a merchant ship’s stern gun burst uncomfortably close to U-0117.

  ‘Verdammt!’ shouted Kleber above the hubbub of wind, sea and gunfire. He turned to see Rathfelder focusing the TBT on a ship in the starboard column. ‘Shoot, Rathfelder,’ he commanded. ‘For Christ’s sake, man, shoot. We can’t hold this course much longer …’ The end of his sentence was drowned by the executive officer’s. ‘Tube three, fire!’

  Kleber looked astern and against the backdrop of starshell and Snowftake saw the bows of the pursuing corvette emerge from the port column. He knew that under those weather conditions the corvette would be hard put to it to gain on U-0117 which was travelling at fourteen knots, but he didn’t like to be the target for her gunfire. The night was too brilliantly lit.

  He altered course to starbo
ard to pass astern of the ship at which they had just fired. Soon afterwards there was a rumbling explosion and a flash of light leapt from the freighter which had now drawn abeam. Kleber had no time to speculate on its cargo but he patted the executive officer’s shoulder. ‘Fine work, Rathfelder. Stand by for a target to port as soon as we’ve got through this column.’ Another shell whined overhead and burst fifty metres or so from the submarine, while lines of oerlikon tracer converged on the conning-tower splattering the sea around it. But U-0117 was a fast-moving target, sheltered by the crests and valleys of seas through which she lurched and slithered, hidden from time to time by sheets of spray. To Kleber, keyed to the exigencies of the moment, revelling in the fast-moving action, it seemed as if his boat bore a charmed life.

  As they passed ahead of the Liberty ship next in line, Rathfelder trained the TBT on to its bows now barely two hundred metres away. At that moment a lookout shouted, ‘Warship on the starboard bow. Approaching fast.’ Kleber, who’d been watching the Liberty ship as the submarine crossed its bows and turned to port, swung round to see a frigate coming up from astern of the convoy, heading for them and firing as it came. Its unpleasantly accurate gunfire caused fountains of water to erupt close astern of U-0117, the wind sweeping their spray across the bridge.

  He steadied the submarine on a course to take it down close to the remaining merchant ships in the port column. Not only would this inhibit the frigate’s gunnery but it would give Rathfelder a point blank shot for his next torpedo. But time was the critical factor. With the U-boat and merchant ship steaming on opposing courses, the bearing was changing so fast that only seconds were left.

  ‘Shoot, Rathfelder, shoot,’ yelled Kleber. ‘We must dive now.’