World War II: The Autobiography

by Jon E. Lewis

  10.30 PM. Fire bow tube by director. Miss because of error in calculation of gyro-angle. I therefore decide to fire rest of torpedoes without director, especially as the installation has still not been accepted and adjusted by the Torpedo Testing Department. Boat is soon sighted by a ship which fires a white star and turns towards us at full speed continuing even after we alter course.

  I have to make off with engines all out. Eventually the ship turns off, fires one of her guns and again takes her place in the convoy.

  11.30 PM. Fire bow torpedo at a large freighter. As the ship turns towards us, the torpedo passes ahead of her and hits an even larger ship after a run of 1,740 metres. This ship of 7,000 tons is hit abreast the foremast and the bow quickly sinks below the surface, as two holds are apparently flooded.

  11.55 PM. Fire a bow torpedo at a large freighter of 6,000 tons at a range of 750 metres. Hit abreast foremast. Immediately after the torpedo explosion there is another explosion, with a high column of flame from bow to bridge. Smoke rises 200 metres. Bow apparently shattered. Ship continues to burn with green flame.

  19th October. 12.15 AM. Three destroyers approach the ship and search area in line abreast. I make off at full speed to the south-west and again make contact with the convoy. Torpedoes from other boats are constantly heard exploding. The destroyers do not know how to help and occupy themselves by constantly firing starshells which are of little effect in the bright moonlight. I now start attacking the convoy from astern.

  Over the next few hours Kretschmer sank another four ships in convoy SC7.

  HUNTING U-BOATS, 17 MARCH 1941

  Captain Donald Macintyre RN, HMS Walker

  In the next hour five ships were torpedoed. I was near to despair and I racked my brains to find some way to stop the holocaust. While the convoy stayed in impeccable formation, we escorts raced about in the exasperating business of searching in vain for the almost invisible enemy. Our one hope was to sight a U-boat’s telltale white wake, give chase to force her to dive, and so give the Asdics2 a chance to bring our depth-charges into action. Everything had to be subordinated to that end and so, with binoculars firmly wedged on a steady bearing, I put Walker into a gently curving course, thereby putting every point of the compass under a penetrating prove. It worked.

  As her bows swung, a thin line of white water came into the lens of my glasses, a thin line which could only be the wake of a ship. There were none of ours in that direction; it had to be a U-boat! I shouted orders increasing speed to thirty knots and altered course towards the target. Suddenly, the U-boat spotted us and in a cloud of spray he crash-dived. A swirl of phosphorescent water still lingered as we passed over the spot and sent a pattern of ten depth-charges crashing down. We could hardly have missed; it had been so quick we must have dropped them smack on top of him. Then the depth-charges exploded with great cracking explosions and giant water-spouts rose to masthead height astern of us. Two and a half minutes later another explosion followed and an orange flash spread momentarily across the surface. We had every reason to hope that this was our first “kill”.

  Though we learned that this was not so, for our charges had exploded too deeply to do him fatal damage, we felt almost certain at the time when our Asdic search showed no trace of a contact. Vanoc came racing past to rejoin the convoy and offered assistance. I refused this, convinced as I was that we could safely leave the scene with a “probable” marked down in the logbook, and ordered her back to her station.

  However, no U-boat was officially recorded as destroyed without tangible evidence and I continued the Asdic search until such time as wreckage should come to the surface.

  It was just as well. For half an hour later we gained contact with a certain U-boat. Our prey had not been “killed”; he was, in fact, sneaking back towards the convoy, still bent on attack.

  Recalling Vanoc to assist in the hunt, we set about our target with a series of carefully aimed patterns of depth-charges.

  Taking it in turns to run in to the attack, pattern after pattern of depth-charges went down as we tried to get one to within the lethal range of about twenty feet of our target. But he was a wily opponent and, dodging and twisting in the depths, he managed to escape destruction though heavily damaged.

  Soon the waters became so disturbed by the repeated explosions, each one of which sent back an echo to the Asdic’s sound beam, that we could no longer distinguish our target from the other echoes and a lull in the fight was forced upon us.

  I had for some time past noticed in the distance the bobbing lights from the lifeboats of one of our sunken ships, but with an enemy to engage there was nothing for it but to harden my heart and hope that the time might come later when I could rescue the crews. This lull seemed a good opportunity and perhaps if we left the area temporarily the U-boat commander might think he had shaken us off and be tempted into some indiscretion. So, the Vanoc steaming round us in protection, we stopped and picked up the master and thirty-seven of the crew of the ss J.B. White.

  This completed, the time was ripe to head quietly back to where the U-boat had last been located and perhaps catch him licking his wounds on the surface.

  We had hardly got under way when I noticed that Vanoc was drawing ahead fast and thought perhaps she had misread the signal ordering the speed to be maintained. As I ordered a signal to be made to her, Yeoman of Signals Gerrard said, “She’s signalling to us, sir, but I can’t read it as her light is flickering so badly.” I realised that Vanoc must be going ahead at her full speed and being, like Walker, an old veteran, her bridge would be shaking and rattling as her 30,000 hp drove her forward through the Atlantic swell.

  Rupert Bray, on the bridge beside me, said, “She must have sighted the U-boat.” Even as he spoke, Vanoc came on the air with his radio telephone, with the laconic signal: “Have rammed and sunk U-boat.”3

  What a blissful moment that was for us, the successful culmination of a long and arduous fight. Something in the way of revenge for our losses in the convoy had been achieved.

  There was grim joy on board Walker, and not least amongst the merchant seamen from the J.B. White, who felt they had a personal score to settle. But for the moment our part was confined to circling Vanoc in protection, while she picked up the few survivors from the U-boat and examined herself for damage. We were glad of this breathing space, as, with all the depth-charges carried on the upper deck expended, the depth-charge party, led by Leading Seaman Prout, were struggling to hoist up more of these awkward heavy loads from the magazine, with the ship rolling in the Atlantic swell, and often with water swirling round their waists. They were not a moment too soon, for, as we circled Vanoc, I was electrified to hear the Asdic operator Able Seaman Backhouse excitedly reporting, “Contact, contact.” But I could hardly credit it, for not only was it unbelievable that in all the wide wastes of the Atlantic a second U-boat should turn up just where another had gone to the bottom, but I knew that there were sure to be areas of disturbed water persisting in the vicinity from our own and Vanoc’s wakes. The echo was not very clear and I expressed my doubts to John Langton, but Backhouse was not to be disheartened. “Contact definitely submarine”, he reported, and as I listened to the ping the echo sharpened and there could be no further doubt. With a warning to the men aft to get any charges ready that they had managed to hoist into the throwers and rails, we ran into the attack. It was a great test for John Langton, for, with the maddening habit of the beautiful instruments of precision provided for us, they all elected to break down at the crucial moment. But much patient drill against just such an emergency now brought its reward. Timing his attack by the most primitive methods Langton gave the order to fire. A pattern of six depth-charges – all that could be got ready in time-went down. As they exploded, Walker ran on to get sea-room to turn for further attacks, but as we turned came the thrilling signal from Vanoc – “U-boat surfaced astern of me.”

  A searchlight beam stabbed into the night from Vanoc, illuminating the submarine U-99 whi
ch lay stopped. The guns’ crews in both ships sprang into action and the blinding flashes from the four-inch guns and tracers from the smaller weapons made a great display, though I fear their accuracy was not remarkable. Destroyer night gunnery in such a mêlée is apt to be pretty wild and in those days, when flashless cordite was not issued to us, each salvo left one temporarily blinded. In Walker confusion soon reigned around the guns, for the enthusiasm of our guests from J.B. White knew no bounds. Joining up with the ammunition supply parties, shells came up at such a phenomenal rate that the decks were piled high with them till the guns’ crews were hardly able to work their guns. But fortunately we were able very soon to cease fire as a signal lamp flashing from the U-boat, “We are sunking” [sic], made it clear that the action was over. Keeping end on to the U-boat in case he still had some fight left, we prepared to lower a boat in case there was a chance of a capture, but even as we did so the crew of the U-boat abandoned ship and she plunged to the bottom.

  I manœuvred Walker to windward of the swimming Germans and as we drifted down on to them, they were hauled on board. Some of them were in the last stages of exhaustion from the cold of those icy northern waters by the time we got them on board. Some indeed would never have made safety had not Leading Seaman Prout gone over the side fully clothed to aid them.

  The last to come over the side was obviously the captain, as he swam to Walker still wearing his brass-bound cap. We were soon to find out that we had made indeed a notable capture, for the captain was Otto Kretschmer, leading ace of the U-boat arm, holder of the Knight’s Cross with oak leaves and top scorer in terms of tonnage sunk.

  On 18 May 1941 the German battleship Bismarck slipped her berth in occupied Norway on a hunt for Allied shipping.

  THE PURSUIT OF THE BISMARCK, 24–27 MAY 1940

  Lieutenant Ludovic Kennedy RN, HMS Tartar

  I had the first watch that May evening, a day out from the Clyde. With Somali, Eskimo and Mashona we were escorting the troopship Britannic and the battleship Rodney westward across the Atlantic. It was, as I recall, an uneventful watch, and at about 9 p.m. while checking bearings and distance from Rodney for perhaps the sixth time. I heard the buzzer from the wireless office. Signalman Pearson, with whom I was sharing the watch, a barrel-shaped fellow partial to chocolate “Nutty,” thrust his flabby fist into the voicepipe and hauled up the signal box.

  “U-boat Disposition Report, I expect,” he said.

  He unraveled the signal, scanned it, then handed it to me. It was prefixed MOST IMMEDIATE, came from the cruiser Norfolk and went something like this: IBS ICR 66.40N 28.22W Co220 Sp 30.

  “Pearson,” I said, “does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Yes, sir. One enemy battleship, one enemy cruiser, position sixty-six forty North, twenty-eight twenty-two West, course 220, speed 30 knots.”

  “Christ!” I said, and pressed the captain’s buzzer.

  In such a manner did I learn of the break-out into the Atlantic of the giant Bismarck together with the Prinz Eugen, an event followed by the most exciting week of my life. A glance at the chart showed that the German ships had been picked up in the Denmark Strait, the stretch of water that lies between Greenland and the north of Iceland. Although of intense interest the news did not then affect us personally, as we were 600 miles away and fully occupied with protecting Rodney and Britannic against U-boats. But it was the one topic of conversation throughout the ship. In the wardroom that night we discussed the likely eventualities into the early hours, and when my servant called me with tea at 7.30 next morning, I was already awake.

  “Heard the news, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Hood’s gone.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, and Prince of Wales damaged.”

  The Hood gone – the most famous, most loved of British warships, the one above all others that epitomized the Navy and the country? It seemed impossible to believe. And the brand new battleship Prince of Wales damaged! If this is what the Bismarck could do in six minutes flat, what might she not achieve against the convoys from America? The question-mark that had arisen at the time of Dunkirk rose again. Loose in the Atlantic and supported by supply ships and tankers, she could prey on our shipping for months and cut the supply line on which we depended for survival.

  After breakfast I went to the charthouse where Spider had put up a large scale chart of the Atlantic, and penciled on it the position of the first sighting of the German squadron, the location of the sinking of Hood, and the squadron’s present position as received from the signals of the pursuing Norfolk, Suffolk and wounded Prince of Wales. He had also marked the positions of the British ships closing in on Bismarck, and as the day passed and assuming she kept her present course and speed, it looked as though the commander-in-chief, Admiral Tovey, in his flagship King George V with the battlecruiser Repulse would be the first to engage her in the morning and (if the result was inconclusive) that we would be the second.

  Eskimo and Britannic went off to the west, while we steamed south-westward all day, the seas getting higher, the wind rising hourly. Inevitably that evening, as the gap between us gradually narrowed, one’s thoughts turned to the action that lay ahead. Inevitably too one had mixed feelings, partly a desire to stop the Bismarck at all costs and by so doing perhaps win honor and glory, partly – and I’m not sure if it wasn’t the stronger part – a reluctance to get embroiled at all. Our task, if we met, was to close in to some 6000 yards to deliver our four torpedoes. With Rodney soon outdistanced by the swifter enemy, we would have to undergo the full weight of his broadsides during the run-in; and we knew, without having to say it, that if we survived that, it would be a miracle.

  When I came on watch again at midnight, it was blowing a gale. We had had to reduce speed to 15 knots, while Rodney with her long dachshund’s snout pushing through the crests had lumbered past at her maximum 22 knots and was now out of sight ahead. I think that was the most uncomfortable watch I ever kept. The motion was like that of a hovercraft in a bumpy sea, greatly magnified, for we lunged at the waves rather than rode them. Throughout the watch the signals from the shadowers kept coming in, and it looked as though the commander-in-chief would make contact with the enemy at around noon. When I reached my cabin via the engine-room and boiler-room (for there was a danger of being washed overboard along the upper deck) I found the place a shambles – books, wireless and broken water carafe strewn about the deck. I left them where they were and clambered into bed.

  “Sir?”

  Where was I?

  “Seven-thirty. Here’s your tea. I’ve cleaned up the mess on the deck. And Jerry’s done a bunk.”

  I thought sleepily, this man has got his priorities right.

  “Lost contact, have we?”

  “Not a whisper since you came off watch. Can’t say I’m altogether sorry.”

  This is not the place to recount the changing events and fortunes of either side during the rest of the operation, for we had little knowledge of them at the time . . . Suffice it to say that two days later when we had begun to think that Bismarck had disappeared off the face of the waters, she was spotted alone (for she had detached Prinz Eugen for independent warfare) some 700 miles north-west of Brest. Her speed was down to 20 knots which suggested damage or a fuel problem (it was both) but which would bring her under German air cover within twenty-four hours. At that time Rodney, Tartar and Mashona (Somali had left us to refuel) were still bucketing around the ocean at high speed, but we were some 150 miles to the north of her, and with only a couple of knots’ advantage had virtually no chance of catching up.

  There was still however one British group between Bismarck and France, Vice-Admiral Somerville’s Force H. steaming north from Gibraltar; it included the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal, and if one of her torpedo-planes could slow down Bismarck a little more, there might still be a faint chance of bringing her to book. At six that evening Admiral Tovey in King George V thundered over the horizon to join us, and took s
tation in the van.

  Presently a signal lamp began flashing from the flagship’s bridge. “To Rodney,” sang out our signalman, “from C-in-C. What is your best speed?”

  Then it was Rodney’s turn.

  “To C-in-C. From Rodney. Twenty-two knots.”

  Gradually the distance between the two ships lengthened and Rodney’s lamp began flashing again.

  “To C-in-C,” shouted the signalman, “from Rodney. I am afraid that your twenty-two knots is faster than mine.”

  The flagship dropped back, and we all steamed on, less with any real hope of Bismarck being delivered to us than for the lack of any alternative; if failure had to be admitted, let it not be admitted until the last possible moment. At 6.30 p.m. Tovey signaled the Admiralty that unless Bismarck’s speed had been reduced by midnight, King George V would have to return to harbor for lack of fuel; Rodney, with Tartar and Mashona also very short of fuel, could continue until eight the next morning. A little later came a report from Admiral Somerville that he had launched a torpedo attack with Swordfish aircraft, but they had registered no hits: if the light held, he aimed to launch another. For two hours we waited in anticipation of this, praying, hoping that it might be successful. Then came a second signal: “Attack completed. Estimate no hits.”

  So that was it. The long week’s night was over: we had lost Hood and gained nothing in exchange, and Bismarck was freed to fight another day. In Rodney the captain told the crew over the public address system that their last chance of bringing the enemy to action had gone, and his commander ordered guns’ crews to stand down. As for Tartar, it is difficult to convey the extent of the gloom in which we sat down to supper in the wardroom; nor, now that the week-long tension had been broken and the banging and buffeting were almost over, the overwhelming sense of exhaustion we all felt.

  And then a most extraordinary thing happened. A signal was received from the cruiser Sheffield, shadowing Bismarck from astern: “Enemy’s course 340°.” Now 340° was almost due north, toward us, almost the opposite of the course of around 120° which she had been steering for Brest. On the bridge the general feeling was that the captain of the Sheffield must have made a mistake and thought Bismarck was steaming from right to left instead of left to right, understandable enough in the prevailing weather. But a few minutes later came a confirmatory signal, “Enemy’s course North,” and when further signals came in saying her speed was no more than a few knots, we all realized that Bismarck had been crippled by the last Swordfish attack (one torpedo had hit and jammed her rudder) and that she was going to be delivered to us after all.