The Secret Capture
Page 12
The next step—and the reader should remember that all this happened in a shorter time than it takes to read this account—was to pick up the German survivors, and Baker-Cresswell recalled the Aubrietia to carry that out. Captain J. B. McCafferty and the entire crew of 49 officers and men from the Esmond had just climbed on board the corvette by the scrambling nets hanging down her port side, when U.110 broke surface on her quarter. A spontaneous cheer at once swept the Aubrietia, and no one joined in it more vociferously than the rescued merchant seamen; but the corvette’s 4-inch gun’s crew were disgusted because the other ships were fouling the range, and they could not therefore open fire. Years later Lieutenant-Commander Smith wrote, “ I suppose I must have felt some excitement, but my impression is that the tension was neither more nor less than in anti-submarine exercises off Tobermory or Londonderry ”; which calmness of temperament may account for the remarkable success achieved by his little ship. “ Nevertheless ” he went on, “ we were certainly heartened, after so many months without any tangible contact with the enemy.”
Captain McCafferty, for all that he had just passed through the trying ordeal of losing his ship, now watched the gun engagement with the liveliest interest from the Aubrietia’s bridge. “ My,” he remarked at one moment, “ the Battle of Trafalgar must have been a snowball fight compared to this! ” The Esmond must indeed have been a splendidly manned and organised ship. Although she sank quite quickly her whole crew got away in the boats without (in Lieutenant-Commander Smith’s words) “ even getting their feet wet ”; and the very careful victualling of each boat apparently included a case of brandy—a fact which, in the excitement of the moment, no one remembered to mention to the Aubrietia until it was too late to salve it! Once on board the corvette all the Merchant Navy survivors settled down to work with their R.N. counterparts. The Chief Officer helped with the navigation, the engineers remade joints and packed glands, while the Boatswain and his men were found busily painting the Aubrietia’s bulkheads. Truly the spirit of the British Merchant Navy is incomparable. But Captain McCafferty and his men must have derived considerable satisfaction from watching 34 bedraggled Germans come up the little corvette’s side. Few of them had much kick left in them, but one man spat in the face of a Petty Officer, and was promptly pushed back into the sea until he remembered his manners. The prisoners were at once hustled below to a closed compartment whence they could see nothing of what was going on outside the ship. Next Smith told Sub-Lieutenant P. D. Newman, R.N.V.R., who had been in charge of the rescue operation, to make absolutely certain that the few Germans still floating in the water were dead, and on receiving a report that this was so he moved his ship back towards the Bulldog. Sub-Lieutenant B. C. Sheen, R.N.V.R. was placed in charge of the prisoners, and after they had stripped off their wet clothes and wrapped themselves in blankets he and a number of willing helpers conducted a preliminary interrogation. Several of the Germans spoke English quite well, but none in the corvette’s crew knew any German. None the less they evidently enjoyed their unusual task. Officers’ Cook James O’Brien for example “ spoke as if I did not like the English in order to encourage the prisoners to talk.” Evidently he was not above exploiting his Irish ancestry for the benefit of the country he was now sering. Ecke, the war correspondent, told O’Brien he was “ afraid to go to England as it was going to be bombed more heavily than ever before—or to Canada as the U-boats had made the voyage so dangerous.” He expected the war to end (presumably in a victory for Germany) “ some time after this month ”—a statement which, for vagueness, might qualify for inclusion in an astrologer’s forecast. O’Brien, himself a cook, was especially interested to learn that the Germans had grape-fruit for breakfast, and had enjoyed fresh food for lunch that very day. When he retailed this information on the mess decks later some of his shipmates said they would volunteer for service in U-boats, as the messing was obviously much better than in corvettes. Able Seaman Joseph Jakeman, who had just been releasing the Aubrietia’s depth charges at U.110, and was later “ Mentioned in Dispatches ” for his share in her capture, also talked with Ecke, who said that their first pattern had done no damage; but the second one had “ stopped the engines, put out the lights, and they knew it was the finish for them.” This was, by all accounts, very near the truth.
Meanwhile the men detailed for the Bulldog’s boarding party, which consisted of six seamen, a stoker, and a telegraphist under Sub-Lieutenant David Edward Balme, R.N., then aged twenty and a half, had armed themselves with rifles, revolvers and hand grenades, which were all kept ready to hand, and manned the five-oared whaler.1 Balme reported on the bridge, and was told by his Captain “ Get on board the U-boat as quickly as you can. I think she is completely abandoned, but there may still be one or two men left on board. Get hold of the documents first, and then anything else useful that you can take away. Never mind if you lose the whaler in getting on board. I will send over another boat.” Balme slid quickly down the bridge ladder, and climbed into the whaler, which was then lowered to just above the water and dropped by releasing gear into the heaving Atlantic. The duty was a stern test of seamanship, courage and initiative; but Balme and the whole of his crew welcomed the opportunity wholeheartedly.
What had happened on board U.110 between the Aubrietia sighting her periscope at 12.03 and her breaking surface at about 12.35? It is difficult to piece together a coherent story from the fragmentary recollections of those of her crew who escaped—not least because neither Lemp nor Wehrhofer survived. The Captain was seen swimming in the water, and apparently asked Loewe and Eichelborn about the junior officer’s fate—for he remembered that Wehrhofer had only recently returned to duty after recovering from a serious illness. Evidently Lemp’s care for his crew never failed him. Loewe, the First Lieutenant, Eichelborn the Engineer, and Ecke the war correspondent (who had been given temporary naval rank), were the senior survivors, and from what they and certain of the ratings later told their interrogators it is fairly clear that, shortly before the Aubrietia fired her first pattern at 12.06 Lemp pulled down the periscope and went deep. He then altered course about 90° to starboard, and the first depth charges did no damage; but they knew that the attacker was still in Asdic contact. They then heard the Aubrietia pass overhead, and her second pattern exploded, with deadly effect, a short while later. The Germans declared that 18 charges were heard, but we know that only 10 were fired. According to survivors the interior of the boat “ was wrecked ”—a statement which does not at all tally with the conditions found by the Bulldog’s boarding party; the hydroplanes, rudder, electric motors and compasses were all put out of action; oil entered the hull from a damaged fuel tank, gas was given off from a damaged battery, she took up a trim by the stern, and the crew rushed towards the bows in panic. Loewe, who seems to have kept his head, is alleged to have suggested to Ecke, who only that morning had been taking dozens of pictures of the meeting with U.201, that he should photograph the faces of the panic-struck crew. The U-boat is supposed to have gone down to 95 metres (about 310 feet); but that seems improbable. Lemp then ordered the ballast tanks to be blown; but the control lever had been smashed, and no one could explain how she came to the surface. Indeed the crew only realised that she had done so when they felt a gentle rocking motion. The conning tower hatch was then opened, and Lemp gave the order to abandon ship. He himself hustled them over the side, but some were killed by our ships’ gunfire. The rest of their story has already been told.
1 See p. 79.
1 See Map 1 (front end paper).
1 See p. 73.
1 Seep. 51.
1 See Map 3. (opposite).
1 See Map 4. (opposite).
1 The names of the men who went across in the Bulldog’s whaler and seized U.110 should be recorded in full. They were as follows :—
Allen Osborne Long, Telegraphist
Sidney George Pearce, Able Seaman
Cyril Arthur George Dolley, Able Seaman
Richard Roe, Able Seaman<
br />
Claude Arthur Wileman, Able Seaman
Arnold Hargreaves, Able Seaman
John Trotter, Able Seaman
Cyril George Lee, Stoker 1st Class
Except for Long, who was a short-service rating, they were long-service men; all came from the Portsmouth manning depot. Long was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal “ for obtaining valuable information from U.110.” All the others were “ Mentioned in Dispatches ” for “ good work in salving documents under conditions of danger and difficulty.”
CHAPTER VIII
Capture and Search
As SOON as Balme’s whaler had been dropped into the water he pointed her towards the U-boat, his men got out their oars, and they pulled lustily across the short intervening space of water. The sea was, for the Atlantic, comparatively calm; but that did not mean that it was an easy matter to handle a small and heavily laden boat bound on such a venture.
Although quite large waves were breaking over the U-boat’s hull, Balme skilfully took the whaler alongside her forward of the conning tower. His bowman at once jumped aboard with the rope painter and held the boat, while he himself, quickly followed by the rest of the boarding party, scrambled on to the deck. Not for the first time had the training the Royal Navy gives to all junior officers in handling boats under oars and sail, as well as under power, proved its value. As he walked aft Balme drew his revolver, feeling very conscious of the fact that his capacity to use the weapon was, to say the least, doubtful. Years later he wrote “ Had anyone appeared I do not suppose I would have hit him, but the revolver gave me a sense of security for I did expect someone to come out of the conning tower.” He next climbed up on to the conning tower, found the hatch open, and looked down into the inside of the U-boat. All seemed very quiet below, but it was hard to believe that some of her crew were not still there, trying to scuttle their helpless ship. “ To climb down the conning tower of a submarine when one has hardly ever been aboard one before,” wrote Balme, “ is difficult enough with both hands free, and to do so with a loaded revolver in one hand seemed likely to prove suicidal. So I put the revolver back into its holster. This to me was the worst moment of the whole affair, since while I was climbing down I was presenting a perfect target to anyone below.” He was soon followed by the rest of the boarding party, and Baker-Cress well, who was watching anxiously from the Bulldog’s bridge now knew that the prize was almost certainly secured.
When Balme reached the bottom of the conning tower ladder he found no sign of life. All the lights were still burning, and “ everything was lying around just as if one had arrived at someone’s house after breakfast, before they had time to make the beds. Coats were flung around, and bunks half made. There was complete silence in the U-boat except for the continual thud-thud of our own ships’ depth charges. This was a most unpleasant sound,” he wrote later, “ especially when the detonations came closer—for it made one expect the U-boat to be blown up at any moment. However, we wasted no time and started immediately looking at the gear and documents lying around. The Telegraphist in the boarding party (whose name was Allen Osborne Long) immediately went to the wireless office, noted all the setting on the U-boat’s wireless sets, and dismantled a lot of equipment. Meanwhile I had a look at some of the charts, and at once noticed the heavy dark lines indicating all the searched channels leading into the German U-boat bases. Two or three of the seamen now helped me pass all the charts up through the conning tower and into the whaler, and they were soon followed by all the books. One had no time to distinguish between those of greater or less importance, so we passed out the whole lot. Various pieces of movable equipment which were obviously of technical interest were also sent up, and we also found about half a dozen sextants of superb quality—far superior to those supplied to us by the Admiralty. Of course I know nothing about the use that was later made of what we seized, but from my own personal point of view the greatest find was about ten pairs of Super Zeiss binoculars. One of them, I am afraid, was not handed in; and I still use it nearly every week-end when I am out sailing. They are the finest I have ever used, and the same standard applied to everything else we found in the U-boat. For instance those were the days when England was short of everything, and we all lacked clothing which was really suitable for work on the Atlantic convoy route; but in the U-boat we found quantities of splendid leather clothing—similar to what we later, and enviously, saw American sailors wearing. While inside the U-boat we lost all sense of time, but I believe the whaler made several trips backwards and forwards loaded down with documents and equipment. In due course our Engineer Officer came over to see if he could get machinery started, but he had no success.” While Balme and his men were exploring the inside of the U-boat every pair of eyes on the upper decks of the Bulldog, Broadway and Aubrietia was anxiously watching her. Would she sink with the British sailors trapped inside her? What were they finding? Could they tow the prize in? How badly damaged was she? Such and a dozen other similar questions were passing through everyone’s minds. Outside the Engine Room hatch of the Bulldog a furious argument was in progress. The First Lieutenant, John Aitken, had just restrained the young doctor from jumping overboard to help rescue the Germans bobbing about in the water, while Lieutenant-Commander G. E. Dodds, the R.N.R. Engineer Officer was telling him not to be a silly unmentionable, and threatening a very unpleasant fate for any Germans on whom he himself might lay his hands. The Captain, overhearing this, remembered an argument between the same two in the wardroom a short while earlier, when the doctor had declared that he would never help to rescue German U-boat sailors, but Dodds had said, “ I don’t agree at all. After all they are only doing their duty like you or me.”
But the Captain had little time now to consider the ethics of such arguments; for he was very conscious not only that Balme and his crew, marooned on board the U-boat, might be in grave danger, but that his three ships were presenting a perfect target to any other enemy which might be about. The visibility was now closing down rapidly, and the convoy had disappeared over the misty southern horizon; but the distant thud of depth charge explosions made it clear that another attack was in progress. Baker-Cresswell’s next order was to the Broadway to send her American-type motor-boat, a larger and more seaworthy craft than the British whalers, over to the U-boat; and Taylor got her away very promptly. Secondly the group commander organised an anti-submarine patrol around the prize. It was now nearly 2.30 p.m., and the precautions against U-boat attack were not taken a moment too early; for hardly had the Bulldog started to patrol when her Asdic produced echoes which she identified as submarine, and which were quickly confirmed by both the Aubrietia and Broadway. During the next hour (2.35–3.35 p.m.) the three ships were almost continuously in contact with what they were convinced was another U-boat. The Aubrietia made two attacks, and the Broadway three, while the Bulldog helped the others to hold the contact, and kept an anxious eye all the time on the prize. By 3.40, however, the contact had faded out without yielding any evidence to show that the attacks had inflicted damage. We will return later to the question of whether these contacts were on a genuine submarine.
With Balme and his crew down below on board U.110, and the three ships watchfully patrolling around her, we must temporarily take leave of them and return to the convoy, which we left at the time of Lemp’s noon attack. The rescue of the Esmonds entire crew by the Aubrietia has already been described; but the Bengore Head’s men were little less fortunate. Although the ship was hit right amidships, and broke in two immediately “ the funnel falling forward on to the bridge and the two masts crossing,” only one of the forty-five in her crew was killed. All the rest were picked up either by the trawler St. Apollo or by the Norwegian ship Borgfred, which had joined the convoy from Iceland on the evening of 7th.1 The Chief Officer of the Bengore Head declared with some indignation that, had the Empire Caribou (No. 81) not been astern of station at the time, it would have been she that was hit.2 But in fact that ship was not to survive many hours l
onger; and if they ever heard of her fate3, the Bengore Head’s men would doubtless have forgiven the earlier lapse.
The mess-boy in the Borgfred was a West Indian lad of Portuguese descent from Trinidad called Alfred Mendes, then aged twenty. On the outbreak of war he was at college in the United States; but in 1940 he decided that it was his duty to take an active part in the war, and signed on for the Merchant Navy. In 1958 he was working as an oil driller in Tripoli, and from his camp in the desert he wrote to tell the author of this book how vividly some of the incidents which took place during the passage of convoy OB.318 had remained in his memory. His ship, which had taken station at the rear of the starboard wing column, had been told to act as rescue ship in the event of U-boat attack, and as soon as the Esmond and Bengore Head were torpedoed she therefore moved across to pick up survivors. “ One of them,” wrote Mr. Mendes, “ was a young mess-boy from the Bengore Head, and his rescue will always be remembered by me as a classic example of Norwegian seamanship. We had already taken on board all the survivors we could see, and were moving ahead again, when someone spotted this boy in the water some way off on our port quarter. Before the Borgfred had lost way again our Bosun, a big Norwegian whalefisher called Per Strom, and one or two A.B.s had lowered the small lifeboat, and were on their way to pick him up; but in spite of all we could do for him the boy died from exposure. His subsequent burial at sea was witnessed by three Captains—our own and the two we had rescued. Where the surfacing of the U-boat fitted into this hectic sequence of events I cannot recollect; but I remember seeing it on the surface only a short distance away on our starboard quarter. Of course I was very surprised to learn not only that she was captured, but that there were survivors from her; for it seemed to me that the escort vessels were expending all their ammunition on the luckless U-boat. Moreover had her fate been left in the hands of our First Mate, Mr. Sabo, she would have been blown to smithereens! He was in charge of our 4-inch gun, and on seeing the submarine break surface he immediately trained it on to the target, and shouted the order to open fire. To this day I can remember his fearful rage and bitter disappointment when his order produced no answering ‘bang’; and the way in which the offending ‘dud’ shell was cast overboard certainly reflected his mood. Nor did he get a second chance; for the water around the U-boat was soon cluttered with escort ships. After the convoy dispersed the old Borgfred, a coal burner built in 1921, made her way to Sydney, Nova Scotia, as fast as her tired boilers could push her, the 25 in our crew making room for the 49 extra souls we had on board.”