The Secret Capture

by Stephen Roskill

  A word might be said here about the use of this ‘special intelligence’.7 The Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre was able to re-route convoys past U-boats and ship losses were dramatically reduced. Dönitz was baffled by this, and there were only two possible explanations, he said: either treachery or enemy knowledge, which he thought unlikely. Tankers, weather ships and supply ships were destroyed, and this reduced the capabilities of German surface raiders. It had, too, an effect on dealing with the great German surface ships, another story.8 In larger measure, signals intelligence, and the breaking of the naval Enigma, was the most important single factor in the defeat of the U-boats in 1943. This ‘first charge on the resources of the United Nations’, as Churchill put it, was the ‘prelude to all effective aggressive operations’, notably the Allied invasion of Europe and after, and perhaps shortened the war from a probable 1947 to 1945.

  The story of the secret capture is one of many episodes in the famed batde of the Atlantic. It will always be one of some mystery and even of literary romance, for the U-boat in question could not be saved. The thirty-two German submariners fortunate to have escaped an icy death never knew that their vessel had been captured and boarded; in consequence, they could not reveal any secrets that had been gathered from it.9 The prisoners spent long years in captivity in Britain and in Canada. As for Lemp, he did not survive. He probably did not commit suicide, as has been imagined, though his first officer recounted that he did swim back towards his damaged but still-floating command, perhaps with a view to boarding and sinking; and he was not killed by gunfire. Most likely, he drowned in the rising sea, having been most successful in saving most of his ship’s complement. His last words had been ‘Leave everything. Leave everything. Get out, get out, get out!’10 Against this is the record of Lemp; when in command of U-30 on the first day of the war he sank the liner Athenia, an act of undoubted murder (there was a loss of 118) though one explained away by German high command. Lemp had thought the Athenia to be an armed merchant cruiser. In any event, he joined many another U-boat ace on the bottom of the ocean. Lemp had made ten patrols, a total of 235 days at sea. His successes were formidable: 19 ships sunk for a total of 96,314 GRT, 1 auxiliary warship sunk (325 GRT), 3 ships damaged (14,317 GRT) and 1 warship, the Barham, damaged (31,100 tons).

  As for Baker-Cresswell, a modest fellow, he did not parade his successes. He was an excellent escort group leader. When his command was finished he sent this message to those under his immediate authority: ‘good luck and good hunting.’ Like Roskill he served as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence. Then he became a justice of the peace, threw himself into good works, and enjoyed country sports, particularly fishing. But journalists and video producers kept calling at his door. He died in 1997, aged 96.

  In 1988, at Christmas, in one of his last communications to David Balme, Baker-Cresswell made some lasting evaluations of significance of what had transpired on the ocean wastes in 1941:

  The whole beauty of our exploit was the providential timing of it. The situation was just about desperate at the time and if losses in the Atlantic had gone on increasingly at the same rate as in the beginning of 1941 we would probably have had to sue for peace.

  Churchill says it was the only thing he was really worried about and I remember thinking at the time that we could not go on. I think that my remark on the Bulldog’s bridge: By God! We’ll do a Magdeburg [recovering a German code book as in 1914]! was as epoch-making as some of Churchill’s sayings! Because, if we hadn’t done a Magdeburg, our losses would have been insupportable.

  Later it didn’t matter so much because the Americans were in it and ships and aircraft were being turned out faster than they were being destroyed. Long after we are dead and gone, it will be written up again and the true lesson will be learnt. That breathing space we were given in 1941 when Rodger Winn in the Submarine Tracking Room was so clever with diverting convoys that we never got near a U-boat, was absolutely vital in the war. It is nice to think of the hundreds of ships and lives we saved, let alone the country.

  On the sixtieth anniversary of Dönitz’s capitulation as the second and last Führer, Balme donated Lemp’s naval cap, salvaged when he took possession of Enigma. This relic of that remarkable undersea arm of the German Navy that terrorized the North Atlantic before it was swept from the seas is now an artifact in the Imperial War Museum, London. Lemp’s Iron Cross, retrieved from U-110, Baker-Cresswell gave to Lemp’s sister after the war.

  Of 859 U-boats that conducted war patrols 648 were lost, and as Roskill put it unfailingly, the U-boat proved ’a source of anxiety to us right to the end’.11 Though many have concluded that the battle of the Adantic was won by the Allies by mid-1943, Roskill had a wiser appreciation: right to the dying days of the war, although dark clouds were gathering over the Third Reich and the U-boat arm, a stiff resistance was kept up until the last surrender was ordered from headquarters. In other words, the effectiveness and deployment of the Ultra secret was undoubtedly important in winning the battle at sea and perhaps shortened the war. But the resistance put up by a dogged and disadvantaged enemy was of remarkable strength. And the U-110 episode was but one of countless battles that tested the equipment, resolve and capabilities of the sea fighters of the Second World War.

  For assistance and materials used here I wish to thank Nicholas Roskill, Charles Baker-Cresswell, Margaret Griffiths of Bletchley Park Trust, Ralph Erskine, Allen Packwood and the staff of the Churchill Archives Centre, and the Master and Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge.

  BARRY GOUGH

  November 2010

  Notes

  1

  For Roskill’s engagement in this engaging and difficult enterprise and a bibliography of his works, see Barry Gough, Historical Dreadnoughts: Arthur Marder, Stephen Roskill and Battles for Naval History (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2010), 134–71, 341–2 respectively.

  2

  M.G. Saunders to Stephen Roskill, 18 September 1952, ROSK 4/47, Churchill Archives Centre.

  3

  Among many sources, see, in particular, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: The Battle for the Code (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), 131–45, David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma: the Race to Break the German U-boat Codes, 1939–1943 (London: Arrow, 1996), 9–14, 161–68, and, more generally, Patrick Beesly, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939– 1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977) and F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp, eds., Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchely Park (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). On Anglo-American difficulties in sharing of intelligence secrets, see Dale Rielage, ‘Indirectly in Operational Signals’, Naval History, 16, 6 (December 2002): 31–35.

  4

  London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968. Quotations here are from pages xv and 99.

  5

  Obituary of Sir Barry Sheen, The Sunday Times, 27 October 2005. He was first lieutenant of Aubrietia, and was, while Balme was boarding the U-boat, interrogating German survivors. He later became a judge, and gave the verdict on the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, 1987, blaming the captain, first officer and owners of the Herald of Free Enterprise.

  6

  The official historian adds: ‘but the Home Waters settings taken from her were those for April, of which most of the traffic had already been deciphered, and those for June, which duplicated the München material’ F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 1 [London: HMSO, 1979), 337–38.

  7

  Of particular importance is Ralph Erskine, ‘Naval Enigma: A Missing Link’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 3, 4 (1989): 493–508.

  8

  See Peter Jervis, The German Battleships (Bletchley, n.d.), 5–7.

  9

  Sixteen German sailors perished in this episode.

  10

  Many fresh details from the British and especially German side have been recounted in Andrew Williams, The Battle of the Atlantic: H
itler’s Gray Wolves of the Sea and the Allies’ Desperate Struggle to Defeat them. New York: Basic Books, 2003. This book accompanies the documentary series of the History Channel. There have been several video productions on the capture of U-110, British and American. Hollywood produced U-505, but that is a story for another day.

  11

  Roskill, War at Sea, 3, pt.2, 305. Roskill gives a figure of 785 U-boats lost in total; 126 of these were stated as lost by bombing or ‘other causes’. Ibid., 472.

  Foreword

  THIS SHORT account of perhaps the most important and far-reaching success achieved by our anti-submarine forces during the whole course of the last war has been compiled with the approval of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to whom my grateful thanks are due for permission to make use of their archives.

  Perhaps it is desirable to explain briefly how it came to pass that in Volume I of my official history, The War at Sea, it is merely stated that U.110 was sunk by British surface warships on 9th May, 1941, during the passage of Convoy OB,318, whereas now her capture is revealed. The fact is that in all the Admiralty’s normal contemporary records that U-boat is shown as sunk, and no mention of her prior capture is to be found except in one small file which, doubtless for reasons of security, was kept apart from the main mass of the wartime archives. Very few people seem even to have known of the existence of this file; nor, until quite recently, did any officer or man who took part in the capture—or was aware that the U-boat had been captured—mention it to me. I have no doubt at all that, had the matter come to my notice earlier, no objection would have been raised to me telling the story in the official history, though considerations of space would have prevented it being told in full; and an amendment has already been prepared to fill the gap in the next edition of The War at Sea. It is, of course, an occupational hazard of the contemporary historian that he may miss some incident which he would have recounted had he known about it; and quite a number of correspondents from all over the world have in recent years actually drawn my attention to points not mentioned in my histories, but about which they possessed special knowledge. In some instances they were only of minor significance, but in several cases I have made, or shall make, additions to the history when a new edition is published. The capture of U.110 obviously comes within that category.

  Two occurrences led me to seek permission to publish this book. The first was a letter from Captain A.J. Baker-Cresswell, D.S.O., R.N., telling me briefly what had happened in his Escort Group eighteen years earlier, and the second was the appearance of the book entitled We Captured a U-boat by Rear-Admiral D. V. Gallery, U.S.N. Captain Baker-Cress-well’s letter at once drew my attention to the gap in my official history, and caused me fully to investigate the incident to which he referred; and the fruits of that research made me realise that the Royal Navy had never been given any credit for what was certainly a most important accomplishment. The more or less simultaneous study of Admiral Gallery’s book next made it clear to me that certain of the claims he made for his own ship and service would not hold water, and that the whole matter of the capture of enemy submarines between 1939 and 1945 had got badly out of perspective; for it is a fact that well before Admiral Gallery towed U.505 triumphantly into Bermuda we had captured two German and three Italian submarines, and had boarded and searched several others—and had said very little about it. We British are notoriously slow and diffident about publicising our successes, and by thus hiding our light under a bushel we not uncommonly allow others to claim a disproportionate share of the credit. In the present instance I felt that we had allowed matters to go altogether too far in that direction—the more so because the capture of U.110 in 1941 (with which I am here primarily concerned) far transcended in importance the capture of U.505 by Admiral Gallery and his men just over three years later. It will thus be seen that this book owes its appearance to two independent causes—research into the full details of an operation about which I had hitherto been totally unaware, and the provocation I felt over the inaccuracy of certain claims made (doubtless unwittingly) by a representative of the Royal Navy’s closest ally and greatest friend.

  Every one of the principal actors in this highly dramatic encounter whom I have been able to trace has given me the benefit of his recollections, and a number of them have been kind enough to read this book in draft form. I would particularly thank Captain A. J. Baker-Cresswell, D.S.O., R.N., and Captain I. H. Bockett-Pugh, D.S.O., R.N., who have answered all my importunities with great patience, and without whose help many vital details of the operation would have been lost to posterity. I also owe a great deal to Mr. J. ? Gardner and the staff of the Admiralty’s Record Office on whom I could reliably depend to find any paper I asked for— provided only that it had reached the Admiralty; and Commander M. G. Saunders of the Foreign Documents Section has helped me greatly in the essential work of comparing German records with our own. Inevitably discrepancies arise, but in all except a very few cases—and those generally of no great moment—it has been possible to reconcile them reasonably enough to enable me to offer this book to the public in the assurance that it has been made as accurate as is humanly possible.

  For permission to use the illustrations in this book I am indebted to the Imperial War Museum for No. 2 and 5, to the Admiralty for Nos. 1, 3 and 4, to Captain A. J. Baker-Cresswell, D.S.O., R.N., for Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 13, to Captain V. F. Smith, D.S.O., R.N.R., for No. 12, to Barry C. Sheen, Esq., for Nos. 10 and 11, to David E. Balme, Esq., for No. 14 and to Messrs Wright & Logan for No, 9, The maps are all based on original track charts and reports in the Admiralty’s possession, which are Crown Copyright.

  (Sgd.) S. W. ROSKILL

  Blounce,

  South Warnborough, 1958

  CHAPTER I

  Capture in Ancient and

  Modern Times

  EVER SINCE the earliest times fighting seamen have striven to capture enemy vessels rather than sink them. For many centuries the urge behind that purpose was ordinary human greed; but it is likely that the acquisition of knowledge about the other side’s movements and intentions—what we nowadays call Intelligence—was always an important subsidiary purpose, if only because it might lead to further captures and so to further material gain. Thus in the days of the first Elizabeth, when English seamen constantly scoured the oceans with the object of seizing the ships which carried the treasure of the New World home to Spain, the need to discover the dates when they would sail and the routes which they would follow was always very much to the fore. Elizabeth I took a very lively interest in the robbing of her Spanish cousin. The expeditions which set out for that purpose were financed somewhat on the lines of a modern joint stock company, with the Queen herself often putting up a considerable proportion of the capital needed to equip them; and a successful expedition would return to its promoters a fantastically high dividend. Small wonder that such possibilities held a strong appeal for the adventurous and ambitious seamen of the sixteenth century.

  When regular warships came to replace the armed merchantmen of the Tudor monarchs a new financial incentive to capture was introduced. Thus in the Second Dutch War (1665–67) a “ captor’s encouragement ” of 10s. per ton and £6 13s. 4d. per gun of an enemy ship was introduced. Not until 1692 was Prize regulated by an Act of Parliament (4 & 5 William & Mary, cap. 25), which divided the value of a capture equally between the captors, the Treasury of the Navy (principally for relief of the sick and wounded), and the Crown. In 1708 came the famous “ Cruizers Act ” (6 Anne, cap. 13), which transferred the whole benefit from the Crown to the captors after condemnation of the prize in the Court of Admiralty, and that principle, though modified from time to time, was maintained until recently. The continued dominance of the financial incentive is well expressed by an Act of 1756 (29 Geo. II, cap. 34), which extended the granting of all prize money to the captors for the duration of the Seven Years’ War, “ for the encouragement of seamen and the most speedy and effectual manning of the Navy ”; and during
the Wars of American Independence (1778–83) and of the French Revolution (1793–1802) further acts of Parliament confirmed the captor’s rights. Not a few great country estates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries owed their foundation to the good fortune of a senior naval officer in capturing valuable prizes.

  In 1864, however, all previous Acts were repealed (27–28 Victoria, cap. 23), and Prize of War was redefined. The Naval Prize Fund was distributed according to that Act after both the German wars of this century, but on 19th December, 1945, it was abolished. Thus, after nearly three centuries, did the financial incentive to capture at sea finally disappear. It is curious, and perhaps significant, that this should have come to pass exactly at the time when our Governments started to pay large financial sums to persons whose technical inventions were considered to have contributed substantially to the war effort.

  But the second motive behind the urge to capture an enemy vessel, that of gaining intelligence, retained some importance even at the time when financial gain was, sometimes to an excessive extent, the primary object. Thus during the Napoleonic Wars one frequently finds British officers interrogating the crews of captured ships with the object of discovering enemy movements and intentions; and it is perhaps natural that as the pecuniary motive declined, the gaining of intelligence should have increased in importance until in the wars of this century it became dominant. To-day it is the only reason for capturing an enemy vessel; but the collection of intelligence plays such a vital part in modern war that capture has lost none of the importance which it held in the days when Elizabethan seamen wished to make “ Her Majesty mistress of more treasure than any of her progenitors ever enjoyed.”