FAGr 5 returned its attention to the U-boat war on the 30th. A new wolfpack, Borkum, comprising 15 boats, had been formed in mid-December and positioned west of the Bay of Biscay. Here, BdU believed, aside from saving fuel, it would be in the optimal location to receive Luftwaffe assistance as well as being a sufficient distance away from Allied air squadrons in the Azores, French Morocco and Gibraltar. As with the Schill and Weddigen groups, Borkum’s orders were to intercept convoys staging through Gibraltar and going to, or from, Sierra Leone.28 Around 0400 hrs on 30 December, Ju 290A-3 Wk-Nr 0164 9V+GK of 2./FAGr 5 took off into the early morning darkness to search for SL.143/MKS.34, a northbound convoy of some 45 merchant vessels and 20 escorts bound for Liverpool. The two convoys had linked up on Christmas Day and the merged group was expected to be at 3940 North, 1850 West at 0800hrs on the 30th.29 Borkum, which was waiting along a line some 4° to the north of this, hoped to intercept it that morning. Unfortunately, it seems that 9V+GK suffered some kind of mishap, for at 0540 hrs, the aircraft transmitted distress signals. The crew had wanted to put down at Bordeaux-Mérignac, but bad weather regulations were in force there and at Cognac, and so they were compelled to head for Mont de Marsan, where they landed successfully at 0721 hrs having aborted their mission. Once again the U-boats were informed that air reconnaissance over the convoy had failed; once again there were too few aircraft.30
And so ended a somewhat inglorious and unlucky first two months of operations for Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 ‘Atlantik’. However, experience had been gained, lessons learned and there was much to build on.
Irrespective of the meagre scale of German air reconnaissance, by the end of 1943 it had become clear to BdU that it was no longer safe, or possible, for large groups of U-boats to operate in mid-Alantic waters between the Azores and Portugal. The Allies drew on air support from naval bases in French Morocco and the Azores, as well as from increasing numbers of escort carriers. Farther north, because of the vast, violent seas, the boats of the Sylt, Amrum and Föhr groups were unable to mount their Flak guns and so they were ordered to remain submerged during daylight. This, in turn, drastically nullified their ability to find convoys, most of which had been diverted south anyway. On 22 December, these three packs were divided into six groups of three boats, to be known as Rügen 1 to 6.31
Such isolated U-boat actions against convoys that there were, were dealt with swiftly by these air and surface escort forces. This meant, in effect, that the wolfpack – the scourge of Allied shipping since the winter of 1940/41 – had been conclusively defeated. The proof of this lay in the tonnage figure which, admittedly does vary according to which source is consulted; according to Roskill, in March 1943, 108 vessels of 627,377 tons had been lost to U-boats, but in the four months from September to December 1943, the loss amounted to 67 ships of 369,800 tons – an average of 17 ships and 92,450 tons per month, or less than one-sixth of the losses suffered in March.32 Blair states that in the last quarter of 1943, BdU had committed 37 upgraded Type VII and IX boats to the Schill, Weddigen and Borkum groups in the area between the Bay of Biscay, Gibraltar and the Azores. These groups accounted for a 3,000-ton Norwegian merchant vessel, a British destroyer (HMS Hurricane) and an American destroyer (USS Leary (DD-158)) and irreparable damage to a British sloop (the Chanticleer). Nine of the U-boats were lost in the aforementioned area, plus two more brought in from the North Atlantic, representing 550 crew.33 Another source states that by the end of 1943, at least one U-boat was lost for every merchant ship sunk.34
Adding to the German scenario, was that no matter how much BdU complained about any lack of performance or assistance on the part of FAGr 5, the operational reality was that, at all times, the unit suffered from a low strength and serviceability rate – far lower than that envisaged by OKL. That was not an operational responsibility in itself, but rather a greater problem involving production levels at Dessau and other Junkers plants, and Junkers was at the mercy of supplies of materials and parts, labour availability and tranpsort.
Furthermore, out in the skies over the Atlantic, on several occasions, the Hohentwiel search equipment provided to FAGr 5, only available in small numbers anyway, proved unreliable, often at a critical moment, thus negating the unit’s ability to locate enemy shipping.
Then, once out in the Atlantic, the Ju 290s, at least for the early period of their operations, frequently had to contend with adverse weather as well as the overwhelming Allied air ‘umbrellas’ which prevented close tracking of convoys. In addition – and this was a crucial factor – Allied signals and naval intelligence was frequently able to intercept and decrypt German air and U-boat radio traffic and thus take pre-emptive action to move convoys away from a detected wolfpack, so that when the Luftwaffe arrived in the supposed area of an enemy convoy, they often found only empty sea.
With the Allied strategic air offensive against the Third Reich and its occupied territories ramping up in late 1943, opening up a new battlefront in the skies over the German homeland itself, from a German perspective, any sense of optimism over the coming year required considerable fortitude or a lack of reality, or both.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TO SEE, OR NOT TO SEE
Atlantic Operations, January 1944
Even if our U-boats cannot overcome the present difficulties and do not reach the goal set for the number of sinkings in 1942, every assistance must still be given to them… Above all, it is necessary to give the U-boats ‘eyes’. That is, adequate air reconnaissance by the Luftwaffe.
‘The Importance of Long-Range Aerial Reconnaissance in U-boat Warfare’, Luftwaffe 8.Abteilung Historical Report, April 1944
Perhaps it was General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, the Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces in Europe, who best encapsulated Allied sentiments and strength when, on the first day of 1944, he sent a simple, confident message to his commanders to welcome in the New Year: ‘Destroy the enemy air force wherever you find them; in the air, on the ground, and in the factories.’ That message may have been directed at the American airmen tasked with destroying German airpower over North-West Europe, but it applied to Allied air forces everywhere and, for the Luftwaffe, it was an ominous portent of things to come. To the East, where the Axis war effort was flagging, the Red Army, by early 1944 the most powerful field army in the world, had embarked upon a four-month offensive in the Ukraine. On 31 December, the Soviets had recaptured Zhytomir. It was the beginning of the end.
In western France, Generalleutnant Kessler was having to work with ever-diminishing forces as a result of a ‘sudden reduction in the number of aircraft at operational readiness.’ This was largely attributable to raids in which a force of 257 B-17s and B-24s of the USAAF’s VIII Bomber Command struck at Bordeaux-Mérignac, Cognac-Châteaubernard, Landes-de-Bussac and Saint-Jean-d’Angély (La Rochelle) airfields on 31 December.1 This was perhaps both a flexing of muscle and a show of intent on the part of the Allied air forces that the irritant and menace that was the Luftwaffe in the Bay of Biscay and over the Atlantic would be dealt with. On 6 January, Kessler informed the SKL that as a result of the bombing, III./KG 40 would not be operational for five weeks, meaning no Fw 200s would be available for reconnaissance, and that the few Fw 200s equipped with Kehl and Hs 293s were out of action. The Fliegerführer also projected that by 20 January it was likely that only five Ju 290s, two Bv 222s and three Ju 88s would be available to undertake reconnaissance. ‘This means,’ recorded the SKL war diary, ‘that on an operation lasting several days, only four aircraft can be employed each day.’2
New aircraft did continue to arrive with FAGr 5; in early January, for example, Leutnant Hellmut Nagel and his entire crew travelled from Achmer to Junkers at Dessau to collect the recently completed Ju 290A-5 Wk-Nr 0177 KR+LH, which had made its first factory flight on 17 December. At 0900 hrs on the morning of the 7th, Nagel took off in this machine and returned to Achmer. The next morning at 0945 hrs, he left Achmer to make the 1,800-km flight to Mont de Marsan where he arrived at
1547 hrs and where the aircraft was assigned to 1./FAGr 5 and coded 9V+DK.3
Some days previously, based on information from ‘local agents’, BdU made plans to deploy the Borkum group of U-boats to attack a northbound convoy heading out of Gibraltar.4 It was envisaged that the attack would take place in the mid-Atlantic on 6 or 7 January. BdU requested reconnaissance from Fliegerführer Atlantik and on the afternoon of the 5th, the Borkum boats were advised to expect Ju 290s to operate the following day to the south of their patrol line at approximately 45° North, 16° 30´–21° 40´ West to look for the convoy.
The reality was that the anticipated northbound ‘Gibraltar’ convoy was actually a convoy heading west for North America that had sailed from Gibraltar on the 3rd, and so the Germans had both misidentified the target and its departure dates. The next northbound convoy (SL.144/MKS.35) did not leave Gibraltar until the 6th. Notwithstanding this, FAGr 5 sent two Ju 290s out at five-minute intervals, crossing the French coast at around 0400 hrs on the morning of the 6th. Thankfully, Mont de Marsan had escaped the American raids of 31 December and thus, in what may have been one of the first missions for 1./FAGr 5, 9V+DH (previously the damaged Wk-Nr 166 9V+BK reassigned to 1.Staffel) was heard transmitting a weather report for 24° West 2089 at 1219 hrs. British radio intercepts indicate that the other aircraft was 9V+BH, also of 1./FAGr 5.
Eventually, SKL realized its error: ‘In the meantime it was learnt that the convoy seemed to have left Gibraltar two days earlier than expected. The air reconnaissance was therefore too late.’5 The U-boats were signalled that no further reconnaissance could be expected before 10 January, the date that the next convoy was expected to reach their patrol line. Meanwhile, the two Ju 290s returned to Mont de Marsan having carried out a wasteful and fruitless search, due to no fault of their own.6 Later, during the night of the 6th, the SKL war diary noted:
Our air reconnaissance for the Borkum group brought no result. According to an intelligence report, the expected MKS convoy probably left Gibraltar on 6 January. This, and other information reveals that the Gibraltar convoys are changing from a ten-day to a fourteen-day cycle. Therefore, the next air reconnaissance off Gibraltar has been planned for 8 January. The operation against the convoy will take place on 10 January, in approximately the centre of grid square CF. The Borkum group will move about 150 km south.7
But the knives at SKL were well and truly out. On 7 January, a senior naval staff officer wrote: ‘Due to the lack of sufficient air reconnaissance, the boats of the Rügen [North Atlantic] group are being disposed individually. We shall have to accept the resultant disadvantage that the attacks will always be carried out by one U-boat alone.’8
The Gruppe despatched Ju 290A-3 Wk-Nr 0164 9V+GK on the morning of the 8th to look for the next convoy. At 1850 hrs, the aircraft signalled its position at 23° West 2868, adding the frustrating message, ‘Convoy not found’. The Junkers returned to Mont de Marsan at 0012 hrs.9 In fact, the elusive SL.144/MKS.35, comprising 45 vessels carrying iron ore, copper, tea, wheat, oranges, cotton, groundnuts and sardines, had sailed on the 6th but was still en route from the Strait, well to the south of the search area.10
The next day, the naval staff recorded: ‘At noon our air reconnaissance reported a northbound convoy in CF 9311. The Borkum [Mid-Atlantic between Gibraltar and the Azores] group is waiting for it in the patrol line extending from CF 2945 to 3556.’ Indeed, Ju 290s 9V+BH and 9V+EK crossed the coast at 0545 hrs with instructions to carry out reconnaissance south of a U-boat patrol line between the approximate positions of 39° 55´ North 20° 20´ West and 41° 15´ North 16° 00´ West from 1400 hrs. At 1336 hrs, 9V+EK reported the weather for 23° West 6831 and three minutes later spotted SL.144/MKS.35, but was unable to ascertain the convoy’s course, speed or details of its composition. At 1544 hrs, ground control asked the aircraft to advise whether the ships were heading north or south, and even on this question, the crew on board the Junkers seemed uncertain.
The Navy assumed that this was a sighting of SL.144/MKS.35 and, based on that, Borkum was ordered to take up a shortened patrol line between 40° 40´ North 19° 40´ West and 41° 35´ North 16° 40´ West to be reached at 0400 hrs on the 10th. This was the ‘vital day’ for the Borkum group in its attempt to strike at the convoy.11 To attempt further support for the redeployed boats, FAGr 5 sent up another aircraft, possibly the A-5 Wk-Nr 0177 9V+EH of 1.Staffel, at 2230 hrs, and it crossed the coast outward bound 20 minutes later. It was anticipated that the Ju 290 would make contact with the convoy at about 0300 hours, giving the U-boats plenty of time to prepare their attack. The hours slipped by and at 0830 hrs, signals were sent to the effect that this mission had also failed. Thirty-five minutes later, the Ju 290 confirmed that the convoy had not been found.12 This time the antennae on the FuG 200 Hohentwiel had been incorrectly adjusted and their pick-up capability had been drastically reduced.13 According to the SKL war diary: ‘The long-range Ju 290 reconnaissance aircraft which started on a flight for the Borkum group on the night of 9 January did not detect anything in the operational area between 0400 and 0830. On return its radar gear was found to be defective.’14
The BdU urged the Luftwaffe to increase the number of aircraft in its patrols, especially since the guiding of U-boats towards a target was ‘dependent solely on the results of air reconnaissance and that finding convoys cannot be based on luck.’15
Two more Ju 290s, 9V+GK and 9V+EK of 2./FAGr 5, were sent out and the U-boats were instructed to surface at 1930 hrs to watch out for beacon signals from the shadowers. However, once more the convoy evaded the Germans and eventually Fliegerführer Atlantik instructed the aircraft to cease sending beacon signals in the event that the ships were located, possibly because it was thought that by evening the convoy was too far from the U-boat line for medium frequency cooperation with the U-boats to be effective. At 2046 hrs, following repeated queries from Fliegerführer Atlantik, the crew of 9V+GK reported that they had not located the convoy.16 Both aircraft eventually returned to base. BdU noted: ‘The three Ju 290 sighted nothing when out on reconnaissance. When the third Ju 290 flew over Gruppe ‘Borkum’, it was fired at by U-305; recognition signals were then exchanged.’17
‘Once more,’ wrote the SKL diarist, ‘it is obvious that the number of long-range reconnaissance aircraft is completely inadequate.’18 Curiously, a comment in the British radio intercepts for that day reads:
Aircraft ‘E’ called 03.43-04.27/11 without success may have succumbed to Flak from a U-boat which reported on the evening of the 10th that it had beaten off an aircraft which it subsequently recognized as a Ju 290 and with whom it exchanged recognition signals. On the morning of the 11th, two Spanish destroyers were searching in sea area as far as 100 miles N.W. of El Ferrol to give search and rescue assistance to crew of a German aircraft – possibly the Ju 290 ‘E’.19
This situation is not, as far as is known, borne out by any losses of FAGr 5 from that day.
Another attempt to locate the convoy was made in the early afternoon of the 11th, when two Ju 290s, 9V+DH of 1./FAGr 5 and 9V+EK of 2.Staffel, crossed the coast between 1245 hrs and 1330 hrs. They had instructions to be south of the Borkum patrol line which, by this point, lay between 41° 27´ North 22° 14´ West and 42° 21´ North 19° 26´ West by 1830 hrs. The eight U-boats were to surface an hour later and set watches for beacon signals. In fact, the most westerly boat, U-305, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Rudolf Bahr, had found and reported the convoy and had endeavoured to shadow it, but it had been driven off by a destroyer and Bahr lost contact. Bahr had probably found the southbound OS.64/KMS.38 on its way to Freetown and Gibraltar.
But in the air there was disappointment; British intelligence analysis reported that, ‘No help in following up these was obtained from the G.A.F. [German Air Force] although boats were informed at 2050 that they could still reckon with beacon signals; at 2200 however, they were warned there would be none.’20 Indeed, a summary of Ju 290 operations between 8 and 11 January in the war diary of the Bd
U did not make encouraging reading:
Summary of operation:
8.1: Radar reconnaissance made by one Ju 290: Convoy not found.
9.1: Radar reconnaissance made by two Ju 290s: Convoy found! Attempt to re-contact made by one Ju 290. Radar gear broke down, convoy not found.
10.1: Attempt to re-contact made by one Ju 290 (morning). Radar gear broke down, convoy not found. Attempt to re-contact in order to send out beacon signals made by one Ju 290 (evening). Convoy not found.
11.1: Radar reconnaissance made by two Ju 290s (evening). One aircraft had to break off search because of engine trouble.
Total: eight Ju 290s
Shadow over the Atlantic Page 15
