‘Any time now!’ Johnson said. ‘Stay and watch the fun!’
This was not Don’s idea of fun but he could hardly make his own way back. One of the crew, who was wearing headphones, stiffened suddenly then called out, ‘radar has them; they’re coming right over us.’
‘Load!’ The command was immediate. Don heard the double metallic clang of the shell-case being flipped into the loading tray followed by the power rammer driving the case up into the breech. A loud electrical humming came from the mounting, which slewed suddenly, the gun elevating.
‘Remote power control,’ said Johnson, ‘the nearby gun-laying radar provides height, speed, range, bearing and heading gen which are fed into a calculating machine which works out where the guns should be pointing. This then controls the gun aiming by signals sent over a land line. Each radar controls a battery of four guns, plus a searchlight.’
On cue, the searchlight snapped on just as the air raid sirens finally wound down. Don could faintly hear the distinctive, uneven drone of the German bombers at high altitude. The searchlight probed through the misty air, but Don could see nothing.
‘The lights are more for morale purposes than anything else. On a night like this, they’re not likely to spot a high-flyer, and the big Heinkels come in at well over thirty thousand feet.’
A brilliant flare suddenly illuminated the sky in the direction of the docks. Almost immediately, other flares became visible much further north.
‘At least one of their marker planes got through,’ commented Johnson. ‘The others are probably our decoys. The Germans keep changing their flares and it’s a constant battle to keep copying them. To confuse matters further we’ve even built a ‘decoy city’ a few miles to the south; lots of fuel pipes to produce spectacular fires.’
Don was reflecting on the irony of the reversed roles, with the Germans and the British both applying experience originally culled from the Allied bombing of Germany in 1944/5, when the gun fired with an ear-splitting crash. Even before he had recovered, the empty shell-case was automatically kicked out, the next round slammed into the breech and the gun fired again. Less than three seconds later, the third shot followed. Don looked up into the sky; far above, he saw a red flare curving gently away as it faded into the night. Much later, a brief flash indicated where the shell had self-destructed as the tracer burned through.
The noise seemed to go on for hours, the crew frantically running to and from the ammunition store, throwing shells into the mechanism as the gun relentlessly blasted skywards. Five times, Don saw a brighter glare high above them, followed by a tumbling fire as a stricken bomber fell to earth.
Sudden silence. As his ears recovered, Don heard the dull thuds of explosions from the docks, saw the glow of fires in the sky. Around him, the gun crew were draped in postures of exhaustion.
‘Twenty minutes,’ said Johnson judiciously. ‘Just keeping us on our toes. They’ll be back at least one more time tonight.’
Don walked back to the hotel in silence.
‘Message coming through; the convoy’s under attack!’ The radio operator’s voice crackled through the headphones. The pilot acknowledged, leaned forward to flip off the autopilot and began to ease the Sunderland around onto the course being fed to him by the navigator.
The huge plane looked little different from the pictures Don would have remembered from his youth, but at his urging production had been held back to make some important changes. Four big Hercules radials provided far more power than the Pegasus of the original design. To take advantage of the power, the wingspan and fuel capacity had been increased and the hull lengthened. Armament had also been boosted considerably, as had equipment and pilot aids such as the autopilot. The result was a formidable long-range patrol aircraft, now coming off Short’s production lines in significant numbers.
The plane had already been flying for many hours since leaving its base and was close to its rendezvous with the convoy homeward bound from Gibraltar. The ships had to sail far out into the Atlantic to keep away from the dangerous Bay of Biscay, before turning north to head for home.
The first sign of the convoy was an ominous smudge of smoke on the horizon. The pilot wiped the sweat from his brow – the hot sun turned the Sunderland’s big cockpit into a greenhouse – and alerted the crew. Those resting, off-duty, in the narrow bunks now took their position by guns or portholes. The tension rose steadily as the plane thundered toward the beleaguered ships.
The convoy was a fast one and heavily protected by fleet destroyers and an escort carrier. As the Sunderland approached, the crew spotted one burning ship and a scatter of wreckage rapidly being left behind by the speeding convoy. A rescue ship was nosing around the wreckage. The destroyers were concentrated on the eastern flank but there was no sign of action – or of the escort carrier.
The Sunderland was equipped with short-range TBS radio and the pilot identified himself to the convoy escort captain.
‘We’ve lost the carrier and three merchant ships. They sent Junkers eighty-eights over first to decoy our Beaufighters. We got two of the Junkers, but in the meantime Dorniers came in at high altitude and released some form of guided missiles from long range before turning away. The missiles homed straight onto the largest ships in the convoy. We could do nothing to stop them. Radio jamming didn’t work’
The frustrated anger was clear in the captain’s voice. The pilot could do little but acknowledge and assume a protective patrol around the convoy.
Several hours later, nothing further had happened and the Sunderland began its return to Berehaven. The naval base was a strange place, the pilot reflected. Located in south-west Ireland and greatly resented by the Irish government, it was effectively cut off from the surrounding countryside. It was known that the IRA kept the base under surveillance and suspected that they reported ship movements to Germany. The British government had prudently ensured that the base was defended by Canadian troops in order to minimise friction, but there was still a tension not present at mainland British bases.
‘Radar contact dead ahead; range twenty miles!’ The pilot was jolted out of his reverie and called his crew to battle stations as he started the Sunderland on a steady descent towards the sea. The ASV radar achieved its longest range at an altitude of a few thousand feet, but at that height lost contact due to sea clutter while still several miles away. The shortest effective radar range was achieved at sea level, with the target silhouetted against the horizon.
‘Switch on camouflage lights.’ The pilot still found it difficult to believe, but the Sunderland had been fitted with a number of lights along the wings and the fuselage. The boffins had apparently worked out that because aircraft always appear dark when seen at a distance against the daytime sky, they could be made harder to see by illuminating them.
The Capitano di Corvetta in command of the Marconi class submarine of the Regia Navale was pressing ahead with all speed to make contact with the reported convoy. A part of the Betasom force based at Bordeaux, he was tired of the ill-concealed derision with which the slow, comfortable Italian submarines were regarded by the tough ‘sea-wolves’ of Dönitz’s U-boat fleet. Something caught his eye low on the horizon. At first he couldn’t make out what it was, but the view through binoculars shocked him.
‘Dive! Emergency!’ He gripped the forward edge of the conning tower, cursing the lethargic diving speed of his submarine as the hull slowly slipped into the Atlantic. He turned to enter the hatch but was caught in a hail of fire as the four 20 mm cannon fixed in the nose of the Sunderland sprayed the boat.
The pilot grinned fiercely as the submarine grew to fill the windscreen, large conning tower still above the surface. The four 250 lb depth charges, on minimum depth setting, straddled the hapless boat and the rear gunner gave a yell of delight as the combined explosion lifted the submarine onto the surface. The pilot banked the plane around to see if another attack was necessary, then froze in disbelief as cannon shells tore into the fuselage behind him.<
br />
‘Junkers! Four of them!’ One of the gunners yelled as the dark shapes of the big long-range fighters swept past the Sunderland. The pilot dragged the plane round and down to sea level, heading for home at full throttle. He silently cursed the lack of attention of his gunners, realising that they had been distracted by their first attack on a submarine.
‘They’ve split up,’ the rear gunner’s voice was under control now. ‘Two coming in on the port quarter, two to starboard. I’ll take the port.’ The other gunners acknowledged and shifted their turrets to cover the starboard quarter. The Sunderland was heavily armed, with four 0.5 inch Vickers-Brownings in the rear turret and two in each of the two upper turrets, one behind the wing and the other just behind the cockpit. Even so, they could not match the cannon-armed Junkers in range and hitting power.
The pilot began a game of cat and mouse, turning into or away from the repeated German attacks to confuse them, keeping always just above the sea so the attackers could neither get underneath him nor dive from above for fear of hitting the water. The contest seemed to go on for hours, the desperate pilot dully aware of the Sunderland shuddering under the frequent cannon strikes, the rapid hammering of the defending guns and the continuous background howl of the abused engines. Cries of pain from injured crew, yells of triumph from gunners, scarcely distracted him from his concentration on judging which way to turn, when to turn… and then there was silence.
The co-pilot came forward and slumped heavily into the seat next to him. The pilot scarcely dared ask.
‘We’ve beaten them. Shot one down and damaged another. The others have gone – probably getting low on fuel. But we’ve lost Jackson. Merrit and Walker are badly hit, and the rear upper turret is knocked out.’
They scanned the instrument panel apprehensively as the pilot eased the engines back to a steady cruising hum. One fuel tank had been hit but there should just be enough to get them back to base. They looked at each other with that mixture of emotions so common after battle; shock at the encounter, relief at having survived, guilt about their friend who had not – and near-total exhaustion. The Sunderland droned north into the evening, a bubble of life and death traversing the vast uncaring ocean.
Summer 1941
The large meeting room in the Liver Building was crowded. Naval staff sat on one side of the long table. They were flanked and faced by a motley collection of men in a wide variety of clothing. Nearly two hundred of them packed the room, sitting behind the table and standing against the wall. They were merchant navy captains and they were not happy.
Their grumblings fell away as the C-in-C Western Approaches rose to his feet. After some initial words, he came straight to the point.
‘I know you don’t like having to wait for such a large convoy to be assembled, and that sailing with so many ships causes problems,’ the Admiral said quietly. ‘I want you to understand why we’re doing this. You all know that your chances of survival are much better in a convoy than on your own. What you may not realise is that the bigger the convoy, the better we can protect you. A convoy of two hundred ships can be given four times the number of escorts than one of fifty ships, yet has only double the perimeter to patrol. Furthermore, we are able to provide two MAC ships to provide continuous air cover throughout the voyage.’
This time the murmering was of appreciation. The captains knew all about the benefits of air cover.
‘To add to that, we are assigning a hunting group to the convoy; with five destroyers and an escort carrier.’
The murmur became a buzz of excitement.
‘Finally,’ the Admiral continued smoothly, ‘We have a whole squadron of long-range maritime patrol aircraft with the sole task of protecting your route all the way across the Atlantic.’
With the dour captains showing as much enthusiasm as they were ever likely to, the Admiral chose his moment to hand over to the Convoy Commodore and depart. The Commodore was a tough-looking weatherbeaten man in late middle age. His approach was rather different.
‘There are other benefits to large convoys that the Admiral was too polite to mention,’ he began. ‘For a start, a U-boat can only sink so many ships in one attack regardless of the size of convoy, so there’s safety in numbers.’
The mood sobered instantly.
‘We have also managed to include five rescue boats to haul you out of the water, so with luck and hard work we can better the average fifty percent survival rate following a torpedoing. What I am about to tell you now will minimise the chance of that happening to you, as long as you follow my instructions to the letter.’
He had their full attention as he took them through the rules and procedures governing the convoy. After he had finished, the Captain in charge of the escort took over, stressing the vital need for maintaining position. His concluding remarks were grim.
‘Remember these words all the way across: “Straggle and Die!”’
The bellow of the Pegasus radial engine filled the cockpit as the Swordfish struggled off the deck of the MAC ship and climbed with painful slowness to 2,000 feet. The observer settled back, feeling thankful yet again that this plane was one of the latest models with a well-heated, enclosed cockpit. It was theoretically early summer, but convoy OB150 was far to the north of the Great Circle route in the hope of avoiding U-boats, and a typical Atlantic storm was lashing the ships. Only the slow take-off speed and short deck run of the Swordfish allowed it to fly in these conditions; the fast monoplanes on the escort carrier stayed in their hanger. At least they had a hanger, the observer thought. Their MAC ship was one of the early ones consisting simply of a flight deck with arrester gear, bolted on top of a large grain carrier which still was able to carry its full commercial load, although it was now in ballast like most of the ships in this outbound convoy. The planes lived on deck, normally tied firmly down in conditions like these.
The Swordfish carried eight armour-piercing rockets underwing and four 250 lb depth charges under the fuselage. It was further burdened with ASV radar and a Leigh light, as were all anti-submarine aircraft these days, but in the almost perpetual daylight at these latitudes visual sightings were still the most common way of spotting the faint track of a schnorkeling U-boat. The observer picked up the binoculars and began a systematic search as the pilot commenced his ‘Viper’ patrol; cruising around the convoy at visibility distance.
The Captain in charge of the close escort watched the old ‘stringbag’ perambulating around the convoy, travelling perceptibly slower into the wind than with it, and smiled in appreciation. Those boys seemed able to fly in virtually any weather and their appearance was a great boost to the morale of the convoy. He settled back into his high chair on the bridge and surveyed the scene. Huge Atlantic rollers swept by in the shrieking wind, lifting and dropping the corvette, spume blown from the crests spraying the windscreen. The convoy’s ships were visible as the corvette crested each wave, struggling to maintain station.
The enclosed bridge on the new Hunt class corvette was still highly controversial in naval circles but the improvement in the comfort and effectiveness of the bridge crew was immense. The Captain had spent too many North Atlantic patrols on windswept open destroyer bridges to want to return to them, and now that initial detection was usually achieved by HF/DF, radar or Asdic, the need for maximum field of view had declined.
The Captain reflected that many other things had changed in nearly twenty months of war. At first the sheer numbers of U-boats had achieved significant successes, mainly against ships sailing alone. As the importance of sailing in convoy had been realised, losses had dropped sharply; the MAC-based Swordfishes keeping surfaced submarines at bay while the new ‘pencil’ Asdic beams and Squid mortars proved devastatingly effective against submerged U-boats once the escort commanders had learned how to get the best from them. Surface attacks at night, often by groups of submarines, had been held off by radar-equipped escorts like his own, later supplemented by Leigh-light Swordfish. The Battle of the Atlantic was be
ing won very comfortably, until recently… he bit somewhat harder on his pipestem as he thought about the new threat – the high speed electroboats.
A towering column of spray from the convoy caught his attention in the same instant that the lookout shouted a warning. It was unmistakable: the signature of a torpedo strike.
‘Sound action stations.’ The clamour of the alarm bells rang through the ship, urging the crew to their positions. The Captain sent a brief message to the other escorts then settled back to wait. There was little else to do; there was no indication of where the torpedo had come from and the escort would have to wait until some sign of the lurking menace was detected. He had time to think that the crew were better protected as well; the gunhouse for the forward twin 4 inch mounting was now fully enclosed against the weather with ready-use rounds clipped to the inside, and the Squid teams were relatively well-sheltered behind the bridge. He settled back again and started brooding about that submarine. How on earth had it been able to aim with any accuracy in this weather?
The Korvettenkäpitan heard the dull boom of the explosion and smiled as the crew of U470 cheered. Four G7a torpedoes fitted with FAT pattern-running controls had been fired blind into the convoy from a range of more than 5,000 metres. The torpedoes were set to travel straight for a certain distance before beginning a zig-zag pattern which took them repeatedly through the convoy until a hit was achieved or they ran out of fuel. It was the ideal weapon for when weather conditions were too poor, or the escort too strong to close in for an aimed shot.
The torpedo tubes were rapidly reloaded by the powered system introduced on the Type X, and the Elektroboot crept in closer, staying below the turbulent waters of periscope depth and relying on the Balkon hydrophone system instead.
‘High speed screws, coming this way.’ The Korvettenkäpitan frowned; they could not possibly have been detected, it must just be bad luck that they were in the path of a destroyer sweep. The lound pinking of Asdic interrupted his thoughts; they were close to being detected. Irritated, he manoeuvred the Type X around to aim at the oncoming warship.
THE FORESIGHT WAR Page 19
