Black May

by Michael Gannon

  Long experienced in the North Atlantic, Atkinson had served in the Merchant Navy since 1932, and since 1937 as an officer, beginning as probationary sublieutenant, in the Royal Navy Reserve. He was called to duty in September 1939 and given command of the yacht Lorna, which, operating off Gibraltar, seized an Italian tanker when that country entered the war. He took the tanker, which was filled with seven and a half million gallons of petrol, back to England, where he asked for a “more active state of war.” Accordingly, he was sent for ASW training at H.M.S. Osprey in Portland. That completed, he was named First Lieutenant of the corvette H.M.S. Rhododendron, which, on 21 November 1940, one month after her commissioning, became the first ship to sink a U-boat (U-104) at night. His next ship, and first corvette command, H.M.S. Snowdrop, was detached to the “White Patrol” that ran between the northwest cape of Iceland and the packs and growlers of Greenland. There, well before Pink’s Party, he experienced the trials of a lonely vigil.

  The corvette’s mission was to travel back and forth across the Denmark Strait in order to detect a breakout of the German heavy battleship Bismarck, though, as he said to the writer over a half-century later, there was not anything his “little pea shooter” could have done about it except report. “There was darkness day and night, wind and cold, a lot of frostbite, seasickness all the time, poor food.” The loneliness of Snowdrop’s solitary watch was deepened by the fact that “We never went ashore; the Icelanders weren’t very hospitable.” On another occasion he said: “I was always vulnerable to seasickness strangely enough, having been at sea all my life, and I recall on one occasion having so many clothes on and being so weak from seasickness, I could hardly mount the companionway to get on to the bridge, I was so physically weak.”23 After one month of shore duty to help him get over his seasickness, Atkinson was given command of the newly commissioned (2 July 1942) corvette Pink, named after the fragrant flowers of the genus Dianthus. The corvette joined B7 when Peter Gretton assumed command of the Group.

  Now, at 1154 on 5 May 1943, toward the end of the starboard leg of a zigzag, Pink obtained a first-class asdic contact bearing 310°, range 2,200 yards. The echoes, Atkinson said, were “by far the clearest and sharpest I have ever heard.” The event confronted him with two conundrums: (I) Should he expend perhaps an unacceptable amount of precious fuel in making an attack, which might or might not succeed, or should he husband his oil in a simple defensive mode and thus extend his capacity to provide “scare tactic” cover for the stragglers? (2) Should he seize this opportunity to destroy one U-boat, or would his absence in so doing, whether successful or not, expose his small convoy to the torpedoes of another U-boat? The Atlantic Convoy Instructions permitted him to attack, “provided this duty can be undertaken without undue prejudice to the safety of the convoy.”24 Atkinson decided to attack.

  At her maximum speed available on one boiler, 11 knots, Pink held the contact to 150 yards, and at 1159 dropped three D/Cs, two set to 100 feet and one to 250. More were not dropped owing to Atkinson’s concern that at her low speed and with D/Cs set shallow, Pink would not get beyond the blast effect. When contact was regained, Pink commenced a second run in, during which her hydrophones picked up the sounds of the U-boat’s hydroplanes and/or rudder, indicating a depth change or a turn. At 1207, increasing for safety to 15 knots by getting her second boiler “flashed up,” she fired ten charges set to 150 and 385 feet. No signs of damage appeared on the surface. One minute later, a “moderately high echo” was obtained again. In setting up for a third attack, Atkinson deduced from the movements of the U-boat that it was endeavoring to put its stern and cavitation turbulence to him. As the target moved to starboard, Pink followed, and at 1216, with the range at 250 yards, he ordered the firing of twenty-four Hedgehog bombs with 4° of right deflection because of wind. To his extreme disappointment, the Hedgehog mechanism misfired.

  It took eleven minutes of following the plot to acquire a new contact, which was “firm and metallic,” at 1227. Two minutes later, the asdic echo was bearing 0°, range 1,400 yards. Good hydrophone effect was also heard on that bearing, and at 1233 Atkinson fired a ten-pattern set to 250 and 385 feet. With no evidence of damage, and not expecting to see any appear right away from that depth, Atkinson’s asdic team kept their sound pulses glued to the U-boat’s hull, and at 1241 contact was again “sharp and firm.” Hydroplane and/or rudder noises picked up by hydrophone suggested that the U-boat might be diving deeper. At 1244 Pink made her fourth attack, ten charges set to 350 and 550 feet. This time Atkinson felt confident that he had made an accurate and successful drop. He was confirmed in that confidence during Pink’s run out by hydrophone reports of blowing tanks. Then, about 500 yards astern, three huge bubbles followed by numerous smaller ones broke the surface of the water. Pink turned back and closed the position to observe the “boiling”:

  … The water in the vicinity [was] considerably aerated in appearance and green and white like shallow water. Tangible evidence of destruction was greedily and most enthusiastically searched for, but nothing further was seen. It was realized that my little convoy was drawing away and was now some distance ahead and also unprotected, but I decided to risk this and to continue with the hunt.25

  With asdic showing that the U-boat was quite deep and practically stationary, Atkinson decided on a second Hedgehog salvo, which was fired at 1302. But, again, the Hedgehog disappointed as all twenty-four projectiles exploded on striking the water (!) Giving the hunt one last go, Atkinson set up for another deep ten-pattern drop, commencing his run in at 1307, course 110°, speed 13 knots, eight light D/Cs fused for 350 and 550 feet, and two heavy charges with Mark VII pistols to give extra depth fused for 700 feet. (The depths were all guesses, since the Type 145 asdic then in use on corvettes did not indicate the target’s depth. The first operational depth-determining asdic, Type 147, would not be available until September 1943. It was not known that a U-boat could dive deeper than 700 feet [213 meters] until June 1943.)

  Opening the range to 1,500 yards, Pink listened for an echo, but there was none. Nor was there any evidence on the surface, which Atkinson returned to inspect. At 1325 he abandoned the hunt and shaped course for 240° at 15 knots to rejoin his convoy 10 miles ahead. Fourteen minutes later, Pink was shaken by a powerful underwater explosion, “like a deep grunt,” which left Atkinson “in no doubt as to the fact that the U-boat was destroyed.” He was sorely tempted to turn back and see what the surface might reveal, but since his convoy had been unprotected for an hour and a half, he decided that to do so was not prudent.

  Atkinson’s report on his five-pronged attack was reviewed by the Admiralty’s U-Boat Assessment Committee on 28 June 1943, and the conclusion was drawn that “this attack was probably successful and it is assessed as ‘Probably sunk.’ ”26 By 20 July 1943 the Admiralty was convinced that it knew the identity of the U-boat sunk: “The sinking of this submarine, which was U.192, has since been confirmed.”27 In the subsequent literature from Roskill to Syrett, U-/92 (Oblt.z.See Werner Happe) has been identified as the fatal victim of Pink on 5 May. We know little about Happe’s boat, which had sortied from Kiel on 13 April, because she was lost at some point in the battle and her documents went down with her. A KTB based on messages sent to her was reconstructed in Berlin, but it is not revealing; no response was heard by BdU since 3 May, from qu AJ 3757, and on 6 May (again on 9 May) she was declared a total loss. It is now clear that U-/92 succumbed on 6 May (see below), in a sad finish to her first and only patrol.

  The better fit as Pink’s target is U-358 (Manke), the slayer of Bristol City and Wentworth. Analysis of the KTBs of the participating boats shows that U-358 was in the approximate same position as Pink, astern of ONS.5 (U-358 at 1000: 54°52'N, 43°3o’W; Pink at 0954: 54°56'N, 43°44'W), and that over a period of one hour and a half she experienced a prolonged pounding from “69 well-placed depth charges.” Pink, in fact, dropped forty-three D/Cs and twenty-four Hedgehog rockets; the latter may have sounded like D/Cs when they ex
ploded on contact with the surface, but they would have gone off with near simultaneity. In his description of the event, Manke was not certain about the number of escorts present or about the category of his pursuer, mistaking Pink for a destroyer, but he correctly cited a separate “small convoy”:

  At 1042 we sighted a small convoy: 3 steamers, 1 destroyer, and 1 corvette. The boat was heard [asdic] by the destroyer. Then 1½ hours of depth charges followed: 69 well-placed depth charges [Wabos]. The destroyer criss-crossed above the boat continuously. He must have a good hydrophone because he used asdic only for a short time before attacking. In addition, he employed doppler effect, and 50 seconds later the depth charges came.

  Afterwards, Manke surveyed the damage: diving cells Nos. 1 and 5 were out of service; the tower hatch leaked badly; there were numerous electrical breakdowns; four battery cells were cracked; there was leakage in the cooling jacket of the outer exhaust cutout; torpedo Tube 5 was inoperable for underwater launches; the stern hydroplanes could not be moved beyond 10 degrees; and the boat produced loud noises throughout the interior. After he surfaced to make what repairs he could, Manke discovered that his diesels could not produce more than 10 knots speed. He signaled a report on his condition to BdU, and at 1731 the next day he received a response: RETURN DIRECTLY TO BASE WITHOUT REPLENISHING.28

  It was not a kill. But it was as good as a kill. In judging U-358 to have been the U-boat involved, it is useful to note both that no other B7 or Support Group escort made a sustained attack during the time period when Pink was attacking, and that no other U-boat reported being attacked during the one hour and thirty minutes when U-358 was absorbing her punishment.29

  For Atkinson, elation quickly turned to ashes: “At 1453, my worst fears materialized.” About three miles astern of his small convoy, augmented since noon by the arrival of a fifth straggler, S.S. Yearby, the corvette Captain saw a “huge column of smoke” rising from the port wing ship, West Madaket, which immediately began to settle by the stern. Only one ship was sunk, but it was misfortune enough. The “another U-boat” in Atkinson’s conundrum was U—584, commanded by Kptlt. Joachim Deecke. This Type VIIC boat was a veteran of several North Atlantic patrols; had sunk a Soviet submarine (M-175) on 10 January 1942; and on 17 June (GST) of the same year had deposited four German saboteurs (all of whom were captured and executed) on the beach at Ponte Vedra, Florida. Now U-384 was submerged at 1400 on 5 May in qu AJ 5695 (5447'N, 44°12'W):

  Enemy is in sight [by periscope], course 250°, speed 9 knots, 4 steamers, 3 of them overlapping. Enemy zigzags 20° to 230°. At 1443 I launch a 4-torpedo fanshot—Tube 4 fails to launch—at 2 overlapping steamers, bearing right 85°, range 2000 meters. The freighter in front is 5000 GRT. The one behind it is larger, and possibly, to judge from its long fo’c's’le, is a tanker. In the foreground is a small vessel, possibly a corvette. After 4 minutes, 48 seconds, and after 4 minutes, 52 seconds, there are 3 torpedo detonations. 5 minutes and 20 minutes later there are two additional detonations, most likely boiler explosions followed by the bursting of bulkheads. After 44 minutes the first steamer sinks, and after 90 minutes the second goes down. The sinking noises are clearly made out [inside the boat]. A corvette drops warning depth charges [Schreckwasser-bomben], but they are far off.30

  By this point the reader may have come to suspect that U-boat Commanders, as a species, were uncommonly given to observation errors, if not to self-deception. With claims of two sinkings instead of one, Deecke was the latest in a line that included Junker (U-332), who claimed two hits (that subsequently were credited him by BdU) when he had made none; Hasenschar (U-628), who made four claims, including a “vaporized” corvette, but had only one actual hit, plus an artillery coup-de-grace to Harbury; and Looks (U—264), with three claims and two actuals. Further, as we have seen, there have been reporting errors in ship types, in times required for vessels to sink, and in the quantity of tonnage destroyed.

  Endemic to U-boat claims throughout the war were euphoric tonnage figures, as in Manke’s (U-358) claim of 8,000 tons for the 2,864-GRT Bristol City. Although Dönitz had urged his Commanders to “estimate cautiously and accurately—we are an honest firm!", they nonetheless sometimes inflated their figures either through mistaken observation, or misinterpretation of an end-of-run detonation for a Treffer (hit), or old-fashioned wishful thinking.31 Yet the reader would want to know that all these same defects characterized reporting by U.S. Navy submarine skippers in the Pacific war being conducted at the same time against Japan. A postwar analysis by the U.S. Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) drastically reduced the number of sinkings and tonnage sunk by U.S. submarines from 4,000 enemy ships and 10 million tons claimed to 1,314 ships and 5.3 million tons actually sunk. In one individual example, the leading U.S. submarine ace of the war, Richard H. O’Kane, had his numbers reduced from thirty-one ships and 227,800 tons claimed to twenty-four ships and 93,824 tons actual.32

  There was only one ship torpedoed by Deecke on 5 May 1943, and it was West Madaket. A sudden jar was felt by those on board the vessel, and the Officer of the Watch and several crew members saw a large geyser of water rise on the port quarter. The torpedo must have penetrated a good distance into the hull, survivors said, because a 5-by-2½-foot hole was torn in the starboard side. Almost at once the stern sagged. Inspection of the deck, where there was a large crack in the plating amidships, convinced the ship’s Master, Captain H. Schroeder, that the freighter’s back was broken, and he ordered Abandon Ship. The entire crew of sixty-one, including twenty-two D.E.M.S. gunners, who never saw a target, made it into boats safely. In the interim, the other four merchantmen turned to starboard and performed what Atkinson called “some remarkable and spectacular zigzags.”

  When Pink caught up to West Madaket, he carried out an Observant, dropping D/Cs intermittently to keep the U-boat down. These were the “warning charges” heard by U-584. The lifeboats were widely scattered and Atkinson endeavored to muster them so that he could make a pickup of survivors while hove-to in the shortest possible time, knowing full well that Pink would make an inviting target during the operation. When he approached the boats and found them filled with as much luggage as humanity, he ordered the men out and the luggage left. Then he told the Oerlikon crews to use the boats and luggage for practice fire. Finally, by 1600, without hindrance, he had everyone on board, and could turn his attention to the canted hulk of West Madaket.

  Although her Confidential Books were safely overboard in a metal container, Atkinson decided to assist the broken merchantman to sink, which he accomplished by firing down her side two D/Cs set to 50 feet from his starboard throwers. “The result was devastating,” he stated four days later. “She split as if cleaved by an ax amidships, sinking in two separate pieces and turning turtle as she sank.” (To the writer he said, dryly, “That U-boat didn’t sink West Madaket. I sank her.”) Atkinson was surprised that she left no trace of her passing despite the fact that her bunkers contained 540 tons of oil. Now Pink set course to catch up with her remaining four charges while her crew busied themselves making room on the tiny corvette for threescore American passengers.33

  During the daylight hours of 5 May, two functioning merchantmen, Dolius and West Madaket, were torpedoed. But in exchange, the Germans took a beating of their own. Sunflower sank U-638 (Staudinger), and Pink mauled U-358 (Manke), which was compelled to move off for return passage. On the same day, in a reprise of the U-439/U-639 collision on 4 May, U-600 (Kptlt. Bernhard Zurmühlen) slammed into U—406 (Kptlt. Horst Dieterichs) at 0905 in qu CG 1746, off the coast of Spain, necessitating the return of both boats, which, like U-439 and U-639, had occupied adjacent stations in Group Drossel. The accident took place with the two boats on the surface in good visibility (gute Sicht), seas Force 3–4 with medium swell. Unaccountably, U-600 came into view on U-406's port side and took a collision course toward the latter boat, which frantically flashed a recognition signal (Erkennungssignal) and turned hard-a-starboard, both engines emergency
full (äußerste Kraft voraus!). Without deviating, the bow of U-600 rammed into U-406's hull just forward of the port diving tank. Both boats were compelled by the damages inflicted to make a Rückmarsch, U—600 to La Pallice, U-406 to St.-Nazaire.34

  The first U-boat kill by a surface escort had been posted, and the list of damaged and retreating U-boats was lengthening. So, too, was the list of sunk merchantmen, of course, but the ONS.5 hemorrhaging was about to stop, following one last, and spectacular, U-boat success. Three weeks into her second North Atlantic Feindfahrt, the Type VIIC U-266 launched four torpedoes in rapid succession at 1950 on the 5th. We have no details of her attack because the boat, with her documents, was destroyed later in the month. A KTB reconstructed in Berlin based on F.T.s received cites this signal from boat commander Kptlt. Rolf von Jessen:

  Sank one [ship] of at least 5000 GRT and a second, based on sinking noises, probably also 5000 GRT. Two further detonations were definitely heard. At 2150 [GST] the enemy was positioned at AJ 8359, course 200°, speed 7 knots.35

  Three ships were hit in this action: British steamers Selvistan and Gharinda, followed by the Norwegian steamer Bonde, at 1,750 GRT the smallest ship in the convoy. What Sherwood called “reliable survivors” from the British vessels reported that the torpedoes were seen approaching from port. Since the three victims were positioned toward the starboard side of the convoy, indications were that U—266 had penetrated inside the columns. That Bonde was two columns farther toward the convoy’s center, and that her survivors sighted and engaged a periscope on the starboard beam, persuaded Sherwood that the U-boat torpedoed the British vessels with his bow tubes and the Norwegian with his stern.