Hunt and Kill

by Theodore P. Savas

ULTRA, the source of the splendidly accurate intelligence that enabled such precise targeting of U-boats at sea, remained unknown to Gallery. Indeed, the cracking of the German code was the Allies’ most jealously guarded secret. Commander Kenneth A. Knowles, USN, was responsible for monitoring the ongoing ULTRA decryptions as head of the U.S. Navy F-21 “Atlantic Section Tracking Room,” which was attached to the Tenth USN Fleet. Knowles had established a close working relationship with Commander Rodger Winn, his better-known counterpart in charge of the Royal Navy’s submarine tracking room. Since Operation Drumbeat, the devastating attack on the United States’ eastern seaboard in early 1942, Knowles and Winn had cooperated so they could maintain a comprehensive database of Axis operations in the Atlantic, as well as other theaters where U-boats were known to be active.

  It was Knowles who would have authorized the passing to Gallery of whatever intelligence material was deemed to be useful to him. These included drawings highlighting specific and vital systems found aboard U-boats depicting not only the boat’s operation but how to prevent its scuttling. Gallery was also familiar with German patterns of operation based upon past knowledge gleaned from direct access to BdU’s most secret communications. Germany’s unsuspected Achilles Heel would soon reap disaster for U-505.

  U-505 had left port for its last operational patrol on March 16, 1944, and crossed the Bay of Biscay on the surface. Lange’s sealed orders directed him to hunt the waters off Freetown, West Africa. On April 7, Oblt.z.S Horst von Schroeter’s U-123 hove into view. The two boats ran alongside one another for more than half an hour so a copy of the so-called Adressbuch from his homebound flotilla-mate could be transferred by rubber dinghy to Lange. This small book provided updated cipher keys for disguising grid references, part of BdU’s instructions on tightened security of the U-boat codes. Dönitz had suspected (but doubted) the Allies had breached the supposedly impenetrable Enigma code, but his suspicions could never be proven. In the face of vehement disagreement from his superiors and those within BdU responsible for cipher integrity, measures such the Adressbuch were adopted—the best Dönitz could implement to increase complexity of the Enigma system.

  The weather worsened as U-505 approached the equator. Heavy seas took their toll on the boat’s crew, forcing Lange to submerge regularly to provide his men some relief. Towering waves were finally replaced by a long slow swell that, although less dramatic, slowed their progress considerably. New crewmen remained in the iron grip of sea sickness. Thus far the journey had been a difficult one. The tropical heat raised the temperature of both the boat’s interior and individual temperaments. Regular crash dives, usually the result of air alarms triggered by the boat’s radar detector, kept the men on edge and their stress level high. The daily monotony of long-distance cruising, meanwhile, was aggravated by a famine of merchant shipping. Lange did his best to locate targets by patrolling as aggressively as he dared, scouring the seas and even lingering near the harbor mouths at Freetown, Monrovia. Other than small fishing boats and a single well-lit neutral Portuguese steamer, however, nothing of value was found. Lange’s KTB (War Diary) entry for April 28 evidenced his desire to slip farther south in search of prey: “Intention: The conditions encountered off Freetown and the entire absence of escort vessels at the roadstead of Monrovia permit the conclusion that there is at present no traffic moving. This is indicated also by the extremely weak air patrol.”6

  Lange continued hugging the coast of Liberia scanning for opportunities near several more vacant harbors. Nothing was seen. The enemy was conspicuous only by its absence. Frustrated, Lange decided to draw away from the coast and head south to search for merchant ships off the Cape Town or Ascension areas. The move would also allow him to more safely undertake external repairs on bow torpedo tube two, which had stubbornly refused to completely close and made it difficult for the boat to dive properly. The work was successfully completed on May 5 and U-505 cruised slowly back toward Liberia for another five languid days before lookouts finally spotted a potential target: “Smoke plume in sight…battle stations!”7

  The ship was estimated as a “fat morsel [of] 8 to 9,000 tons,” and Lange gave chase on the surface. The vessel managed to maintain the eleven-mile gap between hunter and hunted, matching the U-boat’s speed. Eventually it slipped from sight. Lange, however, was determined to do everything he could to catch the ship. Obersteuermann Alfred Renig was ordered to plot a projected interception course. The move paid off when the ship’s smoke plume was once again spotted on the distant horizon later that day. Lange was thrashing his diesels in an attempt to close the range when the sudden appearance of an enemy escort vessel homing in on U-505’s plume of diesel exhaust forced him to abort the hunt. The wily escort waited for a while outside the range of U-505’s T5 Zaunkönig escort-killer torpedoes before mysteriously turning away and disappearing to rejoin the now vanished steamer. Although no one onboard could have known it, U-505’s last chance to sink an enemy ship had slipped away.

  Frustrated in what had been a noteworthy effort to catch his prey, Lange continued to creep along the coastline and investigate empty harbors. U-505 last brief situation report, transmitted on May 15, was received largely garbled in Lorient by the 2nd U-Flotilla. Eight days later a disgusted Lange threw in the towel. “We were down on oil and having some real battery trouble,” recalled Hans Joachim Decker, one of U-505’s machinists. “What a dismal trip—not a sinking to our credit.” The “battery trouble” mentioned by Decker was the result of the frequent air alarms that had plagued the boat in recent weeks. “The batteries were in bad shape because of the abbreviated charging periods. We simply could not stay under water for any length of time.” Lange turned his bow north to begin the return voyage to France.8

  It was Lange’s May 15 situation report that had caught the attention of Knowles and his staff at the F-21 tracking room. The course and location they plotted for U-505 during the days that followed proved to be more accurate than BdU’s own estimation of Lange’s whereabouts. By May 21, Knowles’s estimate was off by only 267 miles; BdU’s calculations, however, were 452 miles wide of the mark.9

  Using Knowles’s decrypts, Task Group 22.3 steamed in the direction of U-505 as Lange cruised slowly northward on his homebound trek. Progress was painfully slow and frequently interrupted by enemy aircraft alerts, forcing U-505 deep underwater. The increased danger from the skies convinced Lange to spend extended periods submerged. His boat, however, was not equipped with a schnorchel, and so he was unable to recharge the boat’s steadily draining batteries without running for long periods on the surface. Heat from the balmy equatorial waters clouded the boat’s interior with a dense humid fog. With his eye on survival instead of comfort Lange refused to dive deeper in search of cooler waters, choosing instead to remain closer to the surface where his hydrophones were more effective at detecting distant sounds.

  By late May U-505 was northwest of the Cape Verde Islands, well off the coast of Mauritania. Increasing aerial attention was making life aboard the boat almost unbearable. By the afternoon of the penultimate day of May, the U-boat’s batteries were virtually depleted and the atmosphere within the pressure hull had grown foul. Lange decided the time had come to risk running on the surface in brief sprints to recharge batteries. It was indeed a risky gamble for it was daylight and the sky held nothing but patches of high cirrus clouds and clear visible horizons. He knew full well the Allies would be on the lookout for U-boats running on the surface to recharge their batteries, but was willing to gamble their vigilance would be relaxed during clear daylight hours. After all, what U-boat would be foolhardy enough to run on the surface under these conditions? Lange’s high stake gamble paid off. He routinely interrupted his sprints on the surface with prolonged submergence to allow shelter and effective hydrophone sweeps in search of both hunters and prey. By doing so he recharged his batteries and inched his way across the Atlantic.

  Lange continued running in this manner. The steady air cover also continued to haunt
his efforts. On June 2 he recorded in his KTB his bewilderment at the endless parade of enemy aircraft: “Continuous A/C night patrol—here under Cape Blanco!”10

  It was about this time Lange began to suspect he was the focus of a Hunter-Killer group, at the hub of which was an aircraft carrier supplying the irksome airplanes that were tormenting his boat. Events revealed his hunch was indeed correct, but by a quirk of fate he chose a most unfortunate course of action. Lange concluded that if a task force was on his tail, the enemy group was west of his position. Therefore, he decided to turn east toward Africa. His new course carried him in the direction of the still distant American Task Force 22.3.

  Lange was now heading east directly into the arms of Captain Gallery and the Guadalcanal.

  Gallery’s Task Force had headed toward its operational area south of the Cape Verde Islands, flying a continuous stream of daytime anti-submarine search patrols while practicing night flying in order to qualify inexperienced pilots for operational patrols during dusk to dawn hours. “[W]e broke the ice on night operations for CVEs,” he later wrote, referencing techniques perfected during his previous anti-submarine operation. “So far as I know, we were the first CVE to operate continuously at night as a matter of routine. On this cruise there was one period during which we had planes in the air continuously for 48 hours, and it was during that period that we got both of our kills.”11

  A brief flurry of excitement erupted in the nerve center of Guadalcanal when radar contact was made on May 30 with a potential U-boat, “but it faded quickly. On our next watch another guy had a reading, and we went to GQ. But nothing.” Gallery, however, was convinced the signals were the real thing. “We were heading north toward the Bay of Biscay. We kept getting noises on the sonobuoys, and strong transmissions from the sub’s radio frequency. We kept getting disappearing radar blips.” The U-boat, Gallery noted, “was very cautious.”12

  In Washington, meanwhile, Knowles continued to feed Gallery as much tracking data as he could on U-505’s homeward progress. Once again his estimates proved to be much closer than those of Dönitz’s staff. On June 1, Knowles reckoned U-505 to be 175 miles south-southwest of the position logged by Lange in his KTB, while BdU placed him 503 miles to the northwest.13

  Ultimately the hunt around the Cape Verde Islands proved to be unproductive for Gallery’s group. Every boat in the task force was ordered to operate only one-half of its main engineering plant in order to conserve fuel so the group could stay within its operational area for as long as possible. Gallery was convinced time was his ally. He was right. But Gallery was already pushing his luck—and his fuel bunkers—to the brink of exhaustion.

  At 2000 on May 31 Gallery ordered Task Force 22.3 to head for Casablanca, taking the opportunity to scour the 20th meridian along the way in a final search for the elusive target. “We planned to conduct continuous night searches so designed that each night we would cover an area 100 miles on each side of the 20th meridian and 250 miles along the meridian,” Galley explained. “The searches were to overlap so that if the sub were running surfaced at night anywhere in that area, we would be bound to find him.”

  Gallery’s luck turned on the night of June 2/3 when numerous aircraft made radar contacts with an unknown craft and sonobuoys picked up the sounds of a U-boat’s propeller. “We ran north nearly all day June 3 because fuel was getting low and we had to make ground toward Casablanca,” explained Gallery. At a conference that afternoon, however, he determined the readings from the previous night “must have been authentic,” and that the group could “probably stretch our fuel enough to spend one more night searching that area.” Galley turned back and swept the area again on the night of June 3/4. “There were no contacts that night.” The pivotal decision to turn back, however, had put the Hunter-Killer group on a collision course with Lange’s U-505.14

  Ironically, Gallery’s breakthrough arrived shortly after his fuel level reached the critical stage. Guadalcanal’s chief engineer, Earl Trosino, warned his commander that fuel was running so low they might not make landfall unless they headed for Casablanca immediately. Frustrated by his inability to find the enemy, Gallery prudently heeded the warning and ordered the task group to sail at economical speed for Africa. A short time later a report from USS Chatelain was handed to him. The words rekindled his enthusiasm for the hunt.

  U-505 was running submerged on electric motors a little after midday (German summer time) on June 4 when a faint propeller wash was picked up on the hydrophones and passed to Lange. Perhaps an Allied convoy had wandered into the U-boat’s vicinity? Maybe the patrol would not be a complete bust after all. Lange ordered to boat to periscope depth and mounted the ladder into the conning tower to take a look around. As U-505 trimmed into periscope depth an unusual metallic “clinking” noise echoed through the boat. Decker remembered it as “a scraping sound, as if someone were dragging a long cable along the deck above. It stopped, then started again.” Most aboard were puzzled; some were terrified the sound was a chain linking a moored mine scraping along their iron flank. The sound ended abruptly only to be replaced by another sound, one that chilled the hearts of all who heard it:

  “Destroyer!”

  Lange bellowed his warning as he spun the scope around before slamming it back into its well. Valves were turned and diving planes angled to speed U-505’s slide into deep water. The strange “clinking” sound was not a chain anchoring a mine but machine gun bullets from two carrier-based airplanes circling overhead firing into the water to mark the U-boat’s position for approaching surface ships. In the few seconds available to him Lange had grasped the entire panorama closing in on him: the fighter planes, at least three destroyers, and the distant silhouette of an aircraft carrier.

  The odds were heavily stacked against him.

  The message from Chatelain passed to Captain Gallery reported a sound contact roughly three miles from the carrier’s position. Gallery read the message about the same time Lange was told his own hydrophones had picked up a contact. The course of events that led to the notification was meticulously recorded aboard the destroyer. “The Chatelain was patrolling station G-1 of Screen plan 35, and zig-zagging in accordance with the Guadalcanal,” reported Dudley S. Knox, its commander. “Carrier had hoisted signal ‘Queen Queen,’ denoting commencing flight operations, when contact was first made at approximately 1109Z; bearing 060°T; range approximately 800 yards; no doppler; bearing width 25°.” Dudley immediately changed course to 75° and reduced his speed to ten knots. The target was coming in loud and clear and was off the destroyer’s starboard side. Another course alteration to 95° was ordered and at 1110 Gallery was informed Chatelain was “investigating possible sound contact.” The range to the target was only 600 yards and closing rapidly. Within two minutes the contact was classified as a submarine, though by this time “the range [was] too close to fire.” Dudley sounded general quarters but lost the contact “at less than 100 yards”15

  Within minutes one of two patrolling aircraft that had been airborne for more than four hours arrived at the spot pinpointed by the approaching Chatelain. The pilot, Ensign John W. Cadle, Jr., spotted the distinctive outline of a submarine off his port bow running submerged just below periscope depth but clearly visible in the clear Atlantic waters.15 Excited by what he saw, Cadle radioed precise targeting instructions to the destroyer and then fired bursts from his .50 calibre machine guns into the water at the U-boat. A few minutes later USS Chatelain steamed over U-505, which was now desperately trying to go deep. Depth charges were dropped in an effort to blow the submarine to the surface or to the bottom.

  The U-boat had only reached 50 meters when the first charges exploded “close aboard,” remembered machinist Decker. “U-505 shuddered violently, the lights went out, and amid the din we heard the most dreaded of noises to submariners: water rushing in. Sure enough, someone shouted, ‘Ruptured hull in the control room!’” Conditions in the engine room were similarly chaotic, where “flashlights played on stream
s of oil and water from broken pipe lines. We were in real trouble now,” wrote Decker. “More trouble than most of us knew.” According to Decker, the boat was out of control and had dropped down to 230 meters. “Take us up, take us up before its too late!” shouted Lange.16

  Someone blew the ballast tanks and U-505 began its final ascent into the arms of the waiting Task Group 22.3.

  Lange tried to exit as fast as possible, was severely wounded in the attempt, declined to try to defend a doomed boat, and instead issued the command to abandon ship. It was his penultimate decision and perhaps his most controversial, for once the crew abandoned the boat it was much more vulnerable to being captured. Should he instead have ordered the crew to stay on board and fight back?

  Jordan Vause

  Desperate Decisions

  The German Loss of U-505

  The capture of U-505 was as surprising to the United States Navy as it was to the crew of the boat. Only Daniel Gallery believed such a thing truly possible. His superiors were skeptical and the U-Bootwaffe considered the seizure of a U-boat at sea so difficult as to be impossible and not worthy of serious consideration.1

  How, exactly, did it take place? How did Gallery’s task group and Albert David’s boarding party pull off such a high risk maneuver when all the odds for success were against them? Why wasn’t the boat blown up or sunk? Was it Gallery’s careful planning and audacious execution, as widely advertised in most popular histories, or was there a complete breakdown of discipline and morale inside the boat, as was whispered in the U-boat community?

  Most of what has been written about the capture of U-505 is from an uncritical American point of view. This essay examines the dramatic event from the overlooked German perspective. It concentrates not on the timeline of events (which is hazy at best), or the exact sequence of events (which is even hazier), but on the chain of desperate decisions made within the boat during the last minutes of her existence: the decisions themselves, why they were made, how they could have been made differently, and if the end result in each case would have changed had a different option been followed. The question for historians and leaders is whether any of the decisions made aboard the boat made a real difference, and whether any of them was significant enough to deliver the boat to Task Group 22.3.