Hitler’s U-Boat War- The Hunted 1942-45

by Clay Blair

  • On November 18, a Hudson of British Squadron 608, piloted by J.B.R. Petrie, hit the new Type VII U-613, commanded by Helmut Köppe, age thirty-three, still on her maiden patrol from Kiel. The explosion severely damaged the boat. Dönitz directed four nearby U-boats to assist U-613, including the aborting IXC U-509. Unable to repair the damage, Köppe too was forced to abort to France, escorted by the U-509. Repairs kept the boat out of action for forty-four days.

  • On November 19, a Hudson of British Squadron 608, piloted by A. F. Wilcox, found the new Type VII U-413, commanded by Gustav Poel, who was chasing another convoy. Poel crash-dived, but Wilcox dropped four depth charges on the swirl. These destroyed Poel’s periscopes, forcing him to abort to France, where he received high praise for his earlier sinking of the British troopship Warwick Castle.

  • The next day, November 20, the new Type VII U-263, commanded by Kurt Nölke, reported that while attempting to attack two freighters, escorts pounced on the boat, dropping 119 depth charges during a prolonged hunt. The damage was so severe that Nölke was forced to abort to France.

  Four days later, November 24, a Hudson of British Squadron 233, piloted by the sergeant Eric Smith, who had damaged U-566 a week earlier, attacked the aborting U-263 with four depth charges. These explosions caused so much additional damage that Nölke could not dive. As a result, Dönitz proposed that the boat put into El Ferrol, Spain, for internment. However, after receiving assistance from the aborting IXC U-511 and air cover from JU-88s, Nölke bypassed El Ferrol and limped into La Pallice, arriving on November 29. This wrecked boat was in repair and modification for thirteen months.

  Five other boats incurred damage but remained on patrol.

  • On November 19, another aircraft hit the U-91, commanded by Heinz Walkerling, who had sunk the Canadian destroyer Ottawa on his prior patrol. He reported the attack, adding that only one of his torpedoes was in firing condition. Nonetheless, Dönitz told him to withdraw to the west, repair damage, and continue the patrol as a lookout.

  • On November 21, the new Type IXC U-519, commanded by Günter Eppen, age thirty, still on her maiden patrol from Germany, was damaged by ASW forces during a convoy battle. Eppen pulled out to the west and repaired the damage.

  • That same day, the Type VII U-564, made famous by Reinhard Suhren but commanded by a new skipper, Hans Fiedler, age twenty-eight, also incurred damage during a convoy battle. Fiedler also ran west to repair damage.

  • In the period from November 22 to 25, the Type VII U-92, commanded by Adolf Oelrich, who had sunk the Clan Mactaggart, was hit once by surface ships and twice by Catalinas. He too repaired damage.

  • On November 24, the new Type IXC40 U-185, commanded by August Maus, still on her maiden patrol from Kiel, incurred “heavy damage9’ from an unidentified aircraft. Maus withdrew to the southwest to a rendezvous with the Type XB minelayer U-118, temporarily pressed into service as a U-tanker for the boats operating off the Strait of Gibraltar and Morocco. With assistance from U-118, commanded by Werner Czygan, Maus made repairs.

  The twenty-five U-boats of the Atlantic force that rushed to the areas just west of the Strait of Gibraltar and Morocco during the first two weeks of Torch failed to impede that operation to any significant degree. They sank eleven ships for 119,000 tons and damaged five ships for 29,000 tons. The Ritterkreuz holder Ernst Kals in the Type IXB U-130, who slipped into the Fedala anchorage to sink three big American transports for 34,407 tons, achieved the greatest tonnage successes. Upon his return to France, he was promoted to command Combat Flotilla 2. The Ritterkreuz holder Adolf-Cornelius Piening in the Type IXC U-155, who sank the British “jeep” carrier Avenger and a big British transport for 25,000 tons, ran second in tonnage, but the sinking of Avenger was concealed from the Germans.

  In return for eleven Allied ships sunk and five damaged, Dönitz had lost three U-boats of the Atlantic force (U-98, U-173, U-411) with all hands. This was a ruinous “exchange rate” of 3.6 ships sunk for each U-boat lost. Ten other boats of the Atlantic force were forced to abort, eight with battle damage,* and two with serious skipper problems (U-511, U-572). Five other boats sustained battle damage but were able to make repairs and continue patrols.†

  For Dönitz and the U-boat staff, the losses of and damage to the U-boat force as a result of Torch were devastating and eerily reminiscent of the heavy losses and damage during the same period the year before in the same areas.‡ When the five boats lost inside the Mediterranean were added to those lost outside, the grim total was eight.

  Even before a full reckoning had been made, on November 18 Dönitz registered his dismay and displeasure in his daily war diary, which circulated in the highest levels in Berlin. The entry was similar in tone and substance to his earlier repeated objections to operating Type VII and Type IX U-boats so close to the Strait of Gibraltar where Allied airpower was so formidable—and, with Northwest Africa now available for bases, it was bound to grow even greater in strength. The boats had achieved little in the anti-Torch operations, and the prospects for the future were dim.

  Moreover, to maintain twenty U-boats in the Atlantic west of Gibraltar, as Berlin continued to insist, Dönitz would have to earmark thirty boats of the Atlantic force for that purpose, to allow for travel time to and from the area. And besides that, if the U-boat force inside the Mediterranean was to be kept at a level of twenty-four Type VIIs, as Berlin also insisted, Dönitz would have to transfer yet another six or eight boats there, further diluting the Atlantic force, which, of course, he believed, could achieve much greater success on the “decisive” North Atlantic run.

  There was no doubt about it: Just as it had fully resumed, the U-boat campaign on the North Atlantic run had been gutted by the wholesale transfer of U-boats to the anti-Torch operations in November. However, the larger truth was that the existing Type VIIs and IXs were too obsolescent and lacking in electronics to properly wage submarine warfare in any area where the Allies had established even the most modest defenses. The resumption of full-scale U-boat warfare by groups (or “wolf packs”) on the North Atlantic run might well send more Allied tonnage to the bottom with less risk to the German submariners, but not enough tonnage to appreciably affect the course of the war. The Germans had already lost the contest at sea, but it was not in Dönitz’s nature to concede defeat or grant that there was no hope, no victory just over the horizon.

  Berlin was not yet ready to concede the approaches to Gibraltar. Hence, a dozen boats remained on patrol in that area through the month of December. To minimize, losses and battle damage, Dönitz was granted authority to move the boats westward, beyond range of the Hudsons and Wellingtons. Dönitz designated the remaining boats group Westwall. They achieved little.

  Werner Henke in U-515 took the prize. On the night of December 7-8, he came upon the 18,700-ton British troopship Ceramic, an ocean liner launched in 1913. Bound for Cape Town and beyond, she had left Liverpool with convoy Outbound North 149 on November 23, peeled off in mid-Atlantic with six other ships, and headed south. There were 656 persons on board Ceramic, including ninety-two women and children. After an eight-hour chase, Henke caught up and fired five torpedoes, sending Ceramic to the bottom. The survivors launched lifeboats and rafts, but a violent and prolonged storm soon arose. Henke took one prisoner, a British soldier, Eric Munday, but the other 655 persons perished.* Added to past claims and overclaims, Henke earned a Ritterkreuz, the only such honor awarded to Atlantic force skippers contesting Torch.†

  Three other Westwall Type IX boats came upon the other southbound ships that had peeled off from Outbound North 149.

  • Ritterkreuz holder Adolf-Cornelius Piening in the IXC U-155 sank the 8,500-ton Dutch vessel Serooskerk. This raised Piening’s bag to an impressive three ships sunk for 33,500 tons, but he and Dönitz were unaware that he had sunk the 13,800-ton “jeep” carrier Avenger.

  • The new skipper of the IXB U-103, Gustav-Adolph Janssen, who had had no luck in Moroccan waters, sank the 5,000-ton British f
reighter Henry Stanley and damaged another, the 14,000-ton Hororata.‡ Janssen captured the captain of Henry Stanley, Richard Jones, but the other seventy-one persons on the ship perished.

  • August Maus in the new IXC40 U-185 sank the 5,500-ton British freighter Peter Maersk.

  These additional successes raised the bag of the original twenty-five Atlantic boats deployed to oppose Torch forces to fifteen ships sunk for 156,700 tons plus six damaged for about 43,000 tons.

  In a postscript to these operations, Dönitz sent a task force of two Type VIIs into Moroccan waters to attack a special Allied convoy, reported to be composed of thirty to forty ships. The boats were the veteran U-432, commanded by Ritterkreuz holder Heinz-Otto Schultze, and the U-618, commanded by Kurt Baberg, a rising star who had sunk two freighters on his maiden Atlantic patrol. Arriving in December, both boats encountered intense ASW measures. As a result, Baberg sank nothing; Schultze sank one 300-ton French trawler. Upon his return to France, Schultze left the U-432 and went to Germany to commission a new DCD2 U-cruiser.

  Counting all forces operating inside and outside the Mediterranean, the Germans deployed about fifty U-boats against Torch forces. The Italians contributed another twenty-two boats, for a total of seventy-two Axis submarines. To about December 15, all the German U-boats had sunk twenty-four ships for 218,000 tons and damaged eight for 51,600 tons. Four different Italian submarines and Axis aircraft in the Mediterranean sank four ships for 33,300 tons and damaged the 5,500-ton British light cruiser Argonaut.*

  In order to maintain group Westwall at twelve boats, Dönitz had to further deplete the North Atlantic force. He attached the recently sailed Type VIIs U-563, U-615, and U-706, and temporarily attached two Type IXs returning from long patrols to Canada, Hermann Rasch in U-106 and Heinrich Schafer in U-183. Since five of the original boats, including U-91, as well as the newly attached U-183, were low on fuel, he had to divert another tanker, U-463, to the area, replacing the provisional XB (minelayer) U-118. During these operations the Type VII U-91 was again hit by Allied aircraft and so “badly damaged” she “could not dive.” Piening in U-155 came to her rescue, giving her spare parts and sufficient fuel to reach France. Finally—on December 23—the OKM conceded that group Westwall was not sufficiently rewarding and allowed Dönitz to disband it.

  Dönitz logged with obvious relief that the OKM concession would free the Atlantic U-boat force of “a rather thankless task.” He sent two of the recently sailed VIIs, U-563 and U-706, to groups on the North Atlantic run. All others returned to France without further loss or mishap.

  The senior American strategists were never quite pleased with Torch. The failure of the British-led forces in Algiers to promptly move east and seize Tunisia resulted in a prolonged and miserable struggle for that strategic territory and to a commensurate delay in the destruction of the Afrika Korps. At the insistence of Prime Minister Churchill, the Allies were to prolong operations in the Mediterranean even further by invasions of Sicily and southern Italy, all of which the impatient Americans viewed as peripheral and diversionary to the main task of defeating Germany, and to the secondary task of defeating Japan.

  In the view of Dönitz, the permanent diversion of the ten U-boats to the Mediterranean in the fall of 1942, when the Allies were not yet overwhelmingly strong in ASW forces, robbed the U-boat arm of an opportunity to deliver a decisive blow to the vital North Atlantic convoys at the least risk. In all, by the end of 1942, Berlin had sent sixty Type VII U-boats to the Mediterranean. Forty-two of these got through the Strait of Gibraltar, none ever to return.†

  THE RETURN OF U-BOATS TO THE NORTH ATLANTIC RUN

  The redeployment of U-boats of the Atlantic force to Morocco and west of the Strait of Gibraltar left only nine boats (two IXs, seven VIIs) in the North Atlantic on November 10. Three of the VIIs refueled from the departing XB (minelayer) U-117, temporarily serving as a tanker. Since this was not really sufficient force with which to attack a convoy, the boats were given freedom to search for and sink single ships, but none found any.

  The paucity of boats was gradually overcome by several means. First, the tanker U-460, commanded by Ebe Schnoor, sailed from France at top speed to replenish those boats already in the area that still had a good supply of torpedoes. Second, four new boats outbound from Kiel (one IX, three VIIs) were integrated with the others. Third, three VIIs (U-262, U-611, U-663) that had been briefly halted for the defense of Norway, were released from that task to the North Atlantic. By November 15, the North Atlantic force, including those boats refueling or waiting to refuel, had increased to sixteen boats (three IXs, thirteen VIIs), enough to form one group, Kreuzotter (Viper).

  On that day, Klaus Bargsten in the Type IXC U-521, still on his maiden patrol from Kiel, found a convoy. It was the relatively small Outbound North (Slow) 144, composed of thirty-three ships, guarded by British Escort Group B-6 less its two destroyers, Fame and Viscount, both damaged when they had rammed U-boats on the earlier eastbound voyage with Slow Convoy 104. Absent these, the escort was quite weak: five corvettes—one British, Vervain, and four Norwegian. Nominally British, the group was commanded by the Norwegian C. A. Monsen in Potentilla. All ships had Type 271 centimetric-wavelength radar, and the convoy-rescue ship Perth had Huff Duff.

  Bargsten in U-521 reported and shadowed the convoy, but his vector signal was defective and the other boats could not home on him. Granted permission to attack, Bargsten fired a full salvo of six torpedoes, but all missed.

  Bargsten hung on for the next twenty-four hours, repaired his vector signal, and brought up some other boats. After dark on November 17, three of these—all on maiden patrols—attacked. The first was U-262, one of the Type VIIs released from Norway, commanded by Heinz Franke, age twenty-six. He shot three torpedoes, but all missed. Second was Hartwig Looks, age twenty-five, in U-264, a. new Type VII from Kiel, who sank a 6,700-ton Greek freighter. Third was Günther Dangschat, age twenty-seven, in the new Type IXC40 from Kiel, U-184, who claimed sinking two ships and probably a third, but who actually sank only one 3,200-ton freighter.

  For the next six hours a furious battle ensued. Using Type 271 radar to advantage, the five corvettes, notably the Norwegians in Potentilla, Rose, and Montbretia, held the gathering U-boats at bay or drove them under and delivered depth-charge attacks. It is possible that one of these attacks caught and destroyed the green Type IXC40 U-184, with the loss of all hands, ten days into her first patrol.* Several other U-boats also reported persistent and heavy depth-charge attacks.

  In the early hours of November 18, ten boats shot at the convoy. Ulrich von Soden-Fraunhofen, age twenty-nine, in the new Type VII U-624, sank the 5,300-ton British tanker President Sergent and the 4,700-ton American freighter Parismina, and damaged the 5,400-ton American freighter Yaka. Herbert Schneider, age twenty-seven, in the new Type IXC U-522, put Yaka under with a finishing shot. Heinz Franke in the U-262 hit and sank the Norwegian corvette Montbretia, which plowed under at full speed. Twenty-nine of the crew were rescued, but her captain and forty-six others could not be found. Klaus Bargsten in U-521; Hans-Karl Kosbadt, age twenty-four, in the new VII U-224; Hartwig Looks in the new VII U-264; Horst Kremser, age twenty-five, in the new VII U-383; Burkhard Hackländer in the veteran VII U-454; and Alfred Manhardt von Mannstein in another veteran VII, U-753, all shot torpedoes but missed.

  The four remaining corvettes—one British, three Norwegian—closed in tight on the convoy and attacked the U-boats with astonishing courage, persistence, and skill, taking advantage of radar and a bright moon. On November 19, Allied authorities ordered two destroyers, the British Firedrake and the American four-stack Badger, to reinforce the escort, but by that time the U-boats had fallen away. On November 20, a local coastal Canadian group took over Outbound North (Slow) 144 and escorted the convoy onward to New York.

  Based on flash reports from the boats, Dönitz was well satisfied with the attack on Outbound North (Slow) 144. They claimed to have sunk eighteen ships for 82,800 tons (incl
uding two destroyers and a corvette) and to have damaged six other ships. The confirmed score was about one-third of the claims: five ships (including one tanker) for 25,400 tons sunk plus the corvette Montbretia. Allied authorities again “warmly congratulated” Norwegian escort commander Monsen in Potentilla for “magnificent” aggressiveness, which prevented what could have been a major convoy disaster.

  Following this action, the nine boats that had constituted the entire North Atlantic force on November 10 and one of the recently joined, U-264, began the return to France. About six of the nine, as well as several boats returning from patrols to the Americas, were to refuel from Schnoor’s U-460 in a grid about five hundred miles northwest of the Azores. As related, a massive, prolonged storm swept into this area, preventing the refueling, Dönitz logged, for six days. Some of the boats ran completely out of fuel and drifted helplessly, unable even to charge batteries for lighting and cooking. What was even more frustrating, Dönitz added, was that there were indications from B-dienst that a section of a large westbound convoy dispersed nearby. Had the boats been able to refuel earlier as scheduled, they would have been ready to attack these unescorted targets.

  Unaware that the U-184 had been lost, Dönitz formed a new, small group, Drachen (Dragon), comprised of (as he thought) the three boats recently transferred from Norway, plus two new ones from Kiel. He positioned these on a line running southeast from Greenland and alerted them to expect an eastbound Slow Convoy. But Drachen did not find this, or any other convoy. One of the recently arrived boats from Norway, Heinz Franke’s U-262, which had sunk the corvette Montbretia in convoy Outbound North (Slow) 144, sank a lone 7,200-ton British Liberty ship, Ocean Crusade, with its last torpedoes and went home, leaving Drachen with merely four boats. Another boat recently transferred from Norway, U-663, commanded by Heinrich Schmid, sank the 5,200-ton British freighter Barberrys. When Dönitz became aware that Drachen had been reduced to four boats, he dissolved it and assigned the boats to new groups forming in the North Atlantic.