Chapter Eleven
U-124, after only a short overhauling, put to sea on May 4, 1942. Her last cruise had been a lone wolf operation, but this time she was part of a pack, identified by the code name Gruppe Hecht. The other commanders in the pack were Ites, Hinsch, Dieterichs, Mϋller-Edzards, Rehwinkel, and Bϋlow.
Dönitz believed the British would be using the shipping lanes along the Great Circle again since his blitzkrieg on the U.S. coast had left the convoys for a time relatively unmolested. If his guess were right, and the British had indeed gone back to this shortest sea route, then a well-placed wolf pack could reap a big harvest.
He was right. Even before the boats could take up their positions, U-124 intercepted a signal from Hinsch in U-569 to the BdU reporting contact with the westbound Convoy ONS 92. An hour later Mohr was able to report, "Habe Fϋhling" (have contact). Dönitz signaled the other boats to close in, and released Mohr and Hinsch to attack as soon as another boat sighted the convoy.
Ites reported contact, and by 0115 on May 12, U-124 had reached a shooting position. The convoy was ranged in three columns, and the U-boat had come in between the left and middle columns on a reciprocal course. Mohr fired a double shot at a loaded freighter, and both torpedoes hit. The 6,000-ton ship stopped, her bow settling so deeply into the water that her screws were out.
Another smaller freighter, also loaded and deep in the water, was the target for a stern shot.
". . . 90 degrees . . . distance, 1500 meters . . ." The torpedo officer waited until the ship came into the sight. "Los!"
The torpedo hit just abaft the smoke stack, and with the detonation came bedlam.
The freighter fired a signal flare amid the banshee howl of sirens as she began sinking by the stern. Within 10 minutes she was under, and U-124 was out of the convoy.
Other ships in the convoy were now shooting flares in a frantic attempt to either expose the U-boat or frighten her away.
Mohr's grey eyes flickered in the light from the star shells as he watched the convoy lying dispersed along the whole northern horizon in front of him. About 20 ships were silhouetted by the brilliant flares they had fired for protection.
"Look at that," Mohr said. "There they are—like on a serving tray!"
U-124, safe and undetected on the dark south horizon, now came around on a new course to take her back into the convoy. He quickly fired two bow shots on two overlapping freighters. The first torpedo hit its target amidships and the ship broke open. She sank in three minutes. The second torpedo missed.
As the U-boat turned off toward the darkened south horizon, the sharp silhouette of a corvette suddenly appeared directly ahead, no more than 200 meters away. She was traveling at high speed, and she had blocked Mohr's way into the dark.
"Hard starboard!" he yelled. "Full speed!"
U-124 heeled over away from the escort and back into the freighter column. Her own diesels roaring as she pounded through the heavy seas, she passed between two freighters whose sirens were howling with a maddening shriek.
"Escort on the starboard bow!" a lookout screamed above the fury.
No sooner had Mohr turned the boat away from this threat than another lookout reported a corvette to port.
Watching both escorts, Mohr held his boat in the middle and went between them. For an anxious moment, the U-boat lay with an escort abeam both starboard and port, each only 800 meters away. Then she was past them, plunging into the middle column of ships.
Mohr fired a stern shot with the last torpedo left in the tubes. It hit a 3,000-ton freighter amidships. Then he pulled out to reload.
Anxious not to lose the convoy, Mohr took time to load only three tubes before starting back. Another dazzling burst of star shells hung over the convoy, and Mohr wondered if they were for another U-boat.
Back in the middle column of the convoy, Mohr shot one torpedo at a 3,000-ton freighter. Hit amidships, she stopped, and within six minutes, her whole stern was under water. Mohr fired his other bow torpedo at another ship, but missed.
Wheeling around, he fired a stern shot at a ship behind him. This one hit just forward of the bridge. Shooting star shells frantically, the ship began settling by the stern. Mohr watched as the water rose till the forward hatches were covered. Seven minutes after the torpedo struck, the ship was gone.
As Mohr turned his boat toward the covering darkness, he could see red flashes from two of the ships in the middle of the convoy.
"Muzzle fire," he said to the I.WO. "Looks like a 2 cm. machine gun, and they're shooting down. Wonder who's the target?"
Then across the water came the sound of detonations unmistakable to a U-boat man—depth charges.
The I.WO looked at the commander. "Hinsch or Ites—or maybe they're just to scare us off." The latter was the preferred assumption. It was not pleasant to imagine a brother U-boat the target of those hellish Wabos.
Dawn had lighted the eastern sky as U-124 pulled out. Mohr sent the convoy position and his additional sinkings in to headquarters, then lost contact. There had been no report from either Hinsch or Ites since 0430.
A few hours later Mohr caught sight of a single freighter, and quickly reported that he had regained contact with the convoy. Shortly afterward, Hinsch and Ites both reported that they were in contact. Dieterich's boat had also found it. Now Gruppe Hecht had placed four boats against the convoy.
Near noon, one of the lookouts reported a German boat in sight. As they closed, they recognized Dieterich's boat, and waved a greeting.
The radio man handed Mohr a signal he had picked up. Hellriegel had reported contact. Now there were five.
"Escort ship . . ." a lookout reported.
The "Stork" type escort was close, and as Mohr turned his boat away he suddenly found himself on the verge of ramming Dieterichs.
"Hard port!" he yelled.
The boat swung out of the way of the approaching U-boat, and Mohr caught sight of U-Hellriegel. The three boats were coming in together on the port side of the convoy.
Another signal came in, this time from Mϋller-Edzards, reporting contact. And now there were six.
Weather conditions had deteriorated and the attacking wolf pack found itself in constant rain through the day and night.
An escort fired several salvoes, apparently at Dieterichs, then turned away as Dieterichs turned toward U-124.
Another destroyer suddenly loomed up out of the rain on the port quarter, but she was soon lost to sight as U-124 held her course.
As the rain reduced visibility to practically nothing, the fast-ranging destroyers kept the boats away from the merchant ships until the whole pack had lost contact.
In an effort to renew the attack, Dönitz directed the Gruppe Hecht boats into a reconnaissance line, but it was the next day before Hellriegel reported sighting a single destroyer. The rest of the pack spent the next day and night trying vainly to intercept, and on May 15, Dieterichs reported contact, but with another convoy.
Five days passed as the wolf pack searched fruitlessly for convoys.
On May 20, Dieterichs sighted the westbound Convoy ONS 94, but he was forced under by a destroyer. He gave his last position report, adding the depressing information that the convoy was going into a fog bank.
Hellriegel also reported fog, and the pack was unable to attack. Dönitz again strung his U-boats in a line south of Newfoundland.
Mohr, blinded by fog, repeatedly dived to listen for the sound of screws, and twice was able to hear them. But both times the distant sounds were gone before he had a chance to pursue.
In the meantime, the big mine-laying boat, U-116 (von Schmidt), which had been fitted out as a U-tanker, had arrived in the area about 600 miles south of Cape Race to supply the boats of Gruppe Hecht. U-124 was ordered to rendezvous with her on May 25.
The provisioning took several days, and the bone-tired U-124 crew rested and relaxed. Optimistic fishermen rigged their lines in ambitious but futile hopes of catching a whale, or at least a sea turtle.
They were duty photographed by Matrosen Wenig, who along with the meteorologist Dr. Walden, was a guest on board U-124 for the cruise.
U-96 also joined the rendezvous, and her commander, Oblt. z. S. Hellriegel, came aboard U-124 for a visit.
U-124 took on 12 torpedoes, 132 cbm. diesel oil, and provisions for seven weeks, then left the "milch cow" to return to the hunt.
During the latter part of May, all the boats were refueled, and by June 1, had been formed into another line across the Great Circle.
They were in almost constant touch with each other and with headquarters, exchanging news of all sorts, relevant or not. Birthday greetings, jokes, and personal comments by the commanders to each other spiced otherwise routine signals or were sent out alone. This went on until Dönitz, apparently annoyed by the trivia they were announcing to him, each other, and anyone else who happened to be tuned in, finally signaled the boats of Gruppe Hecht to shut up unless they had something to report.
The Naval Cryptographic Service informed Dönitz that they had decoded British signals indicating that a new convoy, ONS 100, was due to sail. Accordingly, the admiral regrouped his wolf pack, and on June 6, the first boat made contact.
Mϋller-Edzards reported sighting the convoy, but a few minutes later he added a second report, saying that he had been forced under and had lost contact.
Dönitz signaled, releasing Mϋller-Edzards for a daylight attack. He repeatedly regained contact with the convoy, only to lose it, and although he sent a directional signal to Mohr, neither boat was able to attack.
And again Dönitz called off the group to form a reconnaissance line, this time in mid-Atlantic.
On June 8, Mohr sighted a convoy, and the pack began to close in. Hinsch made contact the next day, but Mohr was still unable to get past the escorts to the convoy.
He fired two stern shots at the destroyer on the starboard side, but both missed, and U-124 was still blocked out by the escorts.
Mohr fell back to try to slip in past the after escort, but the destroyer was zig-zagging too fast to give the U-boat a chance. Visibility was too good.
Frustrated and exasperated, Mohr turned his sights on the offending escort, firing a salvo of two torpedoes. A hit close to the after stack sent a broad geyser of water flying into the air and shock waves of sound rumbling across the water. A second explosion, undoubtedly from her boilers, enveloped the destroyer in clouds of steam.
Rolling thunder from exploding depth charges and munitions shook the air as the French destroyer Mimose burned and sank.
"Both ahead full!" Mohr called to Subklew as the boat headed north into the convoy.
But no sooner had she started onto her new course than a lookout reported another menace. A destroyer was coming directly for them, the white bow waves foaming up around her prow.
"Hard port!" Mohr shouted.
The boat shook violently as she took the wrenching turn at top speed. Mohr was going back into the diesel smoke in an attempt to find concealment. But the destroyer, having sighted the U-boat, was as desperately determined to hang onto her and fired a star shell directly overhead. Mohr had no choice but to crash dive.
A few minutes later, when no depth charges came, he brought the boat back to the surface and started back to the convoy, signaling his position report and notifying Dönitz he had sunk a destroyer.
By midday, four boats had reported contact, and U-Mohr, on the starboard side of the convoy, had three other German boats in sight.
Mohr was racing full speed around ahead of the convoy to come in from the opposite side when a sudden rain squall blotted out visibility and the convoy vanished.
Despite position reports from two other boats and diving to pick up the sounds of screws, Mohr was unable to relocate the convoy.
The other boats had likewise lost contact, and Dönitz, anxiously following the chase from his headquarters, told all boats who were able to do so to give an exact position report, urging them to "stay tough" and to hang on to the convoy by all possible means.
Three of the Gruppe Hecht boats reported engine damage, and Dönitz once again threw Mobr, Ites, Hellriege, Mϋller-Edzards, Dieterichs, and Hinsch into a line to trap the convoy.
Next day, Hellriegel reported contact, but due to a faulty position report, the other boats were unable to find the convoy until the following day.
Mohr torpedoed one freighter, but in the confusion of a near-collision with another German boat under the glaring star shells, he was unable to observe a sinking.
On June 16, the wolf pack met the westbound Convoy ONS 102. It was soon apparent that this convoy was even more strongly guarded than the previous ones, and both 17-94 and U-590 took such a beating in depth charge attacks which lasted some eight hours they were forced to break off the attack and start home.
Worried by reports of increased success by the destroyers in folding U-boats, Dönitz began to fear the possibility of a new British locating device. In order to get some first-hand information, he called up Mohr, the best and most experienced of the commanders in the group, on the scrambler radio.
He asked if Mohr thought the British could have some new locating device, and Mohr replied that, in his opinion, that was not the case. Although he had been forced under a number of times by destroyers suddenly coming toward him (seven times in that one day), he did not believe they had actually located the boat since they did not steer directly for him and they did not follow when he took evasive action.
It turned out that Mohr was wrong. The British did, indeed, having a locating device that was to play a decisive role in tipping the scales against the U-boats. It was radar, a type unknown to the Germans, small enough to be carried on escort vessels and aircraft. And when enough escorts were equipped with it, this device would spell the end of the free-for-all wolf pack attacks with which the U-boats had slaughtered the hard-pressed convoys. With radar, the darkest night would not hide a surfaced U-boat, and the destroyers would hunt them down as relentlessly as the U-boats had dogged the convoys.
Still uneasy, in spite of Mohr's opinion, the BdU decided to break off the operation on June 18. U-124 turned her bow eastward and set her course for Lorient. Her success was high—seven ships sunk and two others hit, but it had been a grueling cruise.
The off-watch crew had turned in, glad to be headed home. Mohr was asleep in his bunk, utterly exhausted after some five weeks of convoy battles. For the first time since the first convoy was spotted, he could now look forward to uninterrupted sleep and he bad fallen into his bunk in blissful anticipation. He had been asleep less than an hour.
"Commander to the bridge!"
Now what? Mohr grabbed his jacket and started for the bridge, his body automatically obeying the summons even before his mind was fully awake.
"What is it?"
"Convoy, Herr Kaleu. There, off the port bow." Mohr's own battle report records the action:
"18.6 0230. Wireless sent. Setting out on return. . . . 0600. Daybreak, shadow in sight off port bow toward the east. . . . convoy . . . hard evasive maneuver because of destroyer. Passed at about 300 meters, didn't see us. . . . running with high speed northward so as to place me on the starboard side. Convoy goes northwest. 1618. Becoming brighter, can look the situation over. Convoy steams in 2 columns, right column has 5 big ships, left at least 3 large ships, columns tightly covered by small craft. One destroyer is forward side escort. Boat stands on the inside of the forward escort, exactly in front of the left column. Around 0620 I turn around for a bow shot attack on the leading ship of the right column. Shoot a two-torpedo spread on the right ship, a freighter of 7,000 tons, position 40 degrees, distance 4,000 meters. Immediately a two-torpedo spread at the second and third ships which follow close together, each freighter 6,000 tons. Distance 4,000 meters. Two hits on the lead ship after 4 minutes 16 seconds running time. Black smoke cloud from the explosion, over 100 meters high. Ship sinks quickly. After 3 minutes part of the ship towers up out of the water, after 5 minutes, it is gone. A
t the same time a hit on second ship of 6,000 tons, bright blaze of fire, rain of sparks. Freighter falls away aft, apparently has internal fires. After 6 minutes fires are extinguished as freighter sinks. A minute later torpedo detonation heard in boat Hit not observed on surface. Hit on third ship, freighter of 6,000 tons is assumed. After the shots on the surface, I go full speed northward to break through ahead of the starboard escort. No flares, it is quite light . . ."
The boat was soon well away from the convoy, and Mohr once again turned toward Lorient.
"How do we stand on fuel?" he asked Subklew.
"We've got enough," Subklew told him. "But just barely, at the most economical cruising speed."
"Well, take your time," Mohr told him. "We're not running a race."
While U-124 cruised home, Laubisch made the pennants to fly when she entered port. As soon as his official duties in port were finished, Mohr headed for Berlin and his wife. He had a long leave coming, and it was a particularly enjoyable one.
His wife was expecting a child, and the imminent prospect of fatherhood filled him with awe and pride. Eva insisted that it must be a son, but her husband confided, to her surprise, that he would really much rather have a daughter first. Preferably, just like her mother.
But frequent air raids on Berlin sounded an ominous note, and with growing concern for his wife's safety, Mohr began quietly to make plans to send her to a safer place.
Mohr's brother, Theo, was also on leave and visited them in Berlin. He was a sergeant pilot in the Luftwaffe, and it was a rare and precious time for the two brothers to spend a leave together. They took long walks, relishing the beauty of Berlin in summer, and talked far into the night.
By way of variety, one day Jochen insisted that they exchange uniforms before their walk. So he wore Theo's sergeant's uniform, while Theo was attired as a naval officer, complete with Knight's Cross.
Grey Wolf, Grey Sea Page 19
