The Secret Capture

by Stephen Roskill

  It is impossible to say whether, had this alteration not been made, the convoy would have been missed by U.94; but it certainly appears that it caused OB.318 to steer directly into Kuppisch’s arms, for at 6.05 p.m. he sighted the merchantmen’s funnel smoke to the east. As Baker-Cresswell had successfully made his rendezvous only twenty minutes earlier, the 3rd Escort Group was granted little time in which to prepare for trouble.

  1 The movements of U.20 at this time are doubtful, and the total may therefore have been ten.

  1 See Map 1 (front end paper).

  CHAPTER VI

  The 3rd Escort Group and

  the First Attack, 7th May

  JOE BAKER-CRESSWELL was born in London on 2nd February, 1901, while most of his family were watching Queen Victoria’s funeral procession from the windows of their London home. It was thus just before his fortieth birthday that he was appointed, in January, 1941, to command the 3rd Escort Group. Such an appointment had been his heart’s desire ever since the beginning of the war; and it was the combination of his own determination and a chance meeting with Admiral Noble at the entrance to the Admiralty which brought it to him. He came of a very old Northumbrian family on whose former estate stands Cresswell Tower, which is known to have belonged to them since 1190. The estates were, however, all bequeathed outside the family by his father when he died in 1921, two years after Joe had joined the Navy from Gresham’s School in Norfolk. As a Lieutenant he specialised in navigation, and subsequently served as navigator in a wide variety of classes of ship, from submarine to battleship. He thus gained experience which was to stand him in very good stead during the war. After graduating as a Commander in the Naval Staff College he went on to the R.A.F. Staff College; but his course there came to a premature end in August, 1939, when it became obvious that war with Germany might break out at any moment. The combination of wide sea experience, including handling many different classes of ship, with staff training marked him for early command; and the senior officers under whom he had served had no doubt that his quick brain and ripe intellect, supported by a calmness of decision and readiness to take responsibility fitted him for high posts in the Service. But it was to be some time before he gained the chance to make his mark at sea; for just before the outbreak of war he was hustled out to Cairo in deep secrecy to become the naval member of the Middle East Joint Planning Staff. The work was very interesting, the more so because he had to act as liaison officer between General Wavell and Admiral Cunningham in all the great joint undertakings of the early days; but a shore appointment in time of war did not at all suit Baker-Cresswell’s temperament, and he soon became impatient for a command of his own. Neither a hectic trip to Crete and Greece at the time of the Italian attack in October, 1940, nor the unwillingness of Admiral Cunningham to permit changes among the staff, did anything to damp his ardour or assuage his thirst for action at sea. His opportunity came quite suddenly when, in November, 1940, the Chief of Staff telephoned from Alexandria to ask if he would like to take command of the 10,000-ton supply ship Breconshire and act as Commodore of an important convoy (called MW.4) bound for Malta, in which she was to sail almost immediately. The bait was attractive, for Baker-Cresswell was told that he could return to Britain in the battleship Ramillies after revictualling Malta; and the fact that the Breconshire’s cargo included 6,000 tons of oil, 600 tons of petrol and a large quantity of ammunition did not worry him one whit. Escorted and covered by the entire Mediterranean Fleet she arrived safely on 26th November, and discharged her somewhat inflammable cargo. Baker-Cresswell then joined the Ramillies, and in her took part in Admiral Somerville’s action with the Italian Fleet off Cape Spartivento (Sardinia) on 27th November. But the Ramillies was subsequently held at Gibraltar, and his impatience to get home was thus aroused again. He therefore transferred to the old aircraft carrier Argus, which safely reached the Clyde by a circuitous route in December. Baker-Cresswell then came to London to seek a new appointment from the Admiralty, and as he was entering the Whitehall building he encountered Admiral Noble, under whom he had served before the war. He explained the purpose of his visit to the Admiral, who at once said, “ Leave it to me ”; and the Commander therefore penetrated no further into the Admiralty. A short while later he received an appointment to command the 3rd Escort Group. We need not here follow the details of the group’s early operations, but the recollections of all who served in it confirm how quickly its new senior officer imposed his personality and determination on his ships, and made them into a highly efficient, integrated striking force. One of his juniors, Lieutenant-Commander V. F. Smith, R.N.R., who commanded the corvette Aubrietia in those days, and who played a big part in the defence of convoy OB.318, wrote to the author in 1958 from the tanker British Skill, of which he was the Master, to say that “ The 3rd Escort Group was a grand group to work with. … Should you be writing to Captain Baker-Cresswell I would be most happy if you would send him my sincerest regards and good wishes.”

  As soon as he had taken over his new command in 1941 Baker-Cresswell seized every chance to improve the training of individual ships, and of his group as a whole. He tried out new convoy screening formations, exercised his ships in co-ordinated counter-attacks on submarines, and arranged frequent practices for the Asdic operators, and for the crews of the guns and depth charge rails and throwers. He also studied camouflage as a means to improve the chances of surprising an enemy at dusk or dawn—always the most critical hours in convoy work—and finally he painted his ships pale mauve, which he found the best aid to invisibility in the Atlantic in spring and summer. When winter came, however, he changed the group colour to white, which proved far superior in such conditions. These colour schemes, first adopted in the 3rd Escort Group, were widely used later on—including in the Mediterranean, where the mauve shade became known as “ Mountbatten pink.” As an individual mark for his group Baker-Cresswell painted the blue and yellow chequers of the old naval “ Flag 3 ” around the top of his ships’ funnels, and although unkind remarks were heard about “ custard tins ” and “ Scottish policemen ” that fashion too was soon copied by other groups.

  In April the group was well up to strength, and consisted of three destroyers, six corvettes and three trawlers. The Senior Officer’s pendant was worn by the destroyer Bulldog, which was a 1,360-ton ship, and one of a class of eight ordered under the 1928 naval programme. She was built on the Tyle by Messrs. Swan Hunter, and first commissioned in 1930. Her armaments originally consisted of eight torpedo-tubes in quadruple mountings, and four 4.7-inch guns; but both guns and torpedo-tubes were reduced during the war to enable more depth charges to be carried. Early in April the 3rd Escort Group was detailed to take a slow convoy out from Liverpool by the northern route; but Baker-Cresswell did not sail on that operation. There were experienced R.N. Lieutenant-Commanders in command of the destroyers Amazon and Ambuscade, and when his ship was due for boiler cleaning or refit he always felt perfectly confident to leave one of them in charge of a convoy. Moreover Admiral Noble had decided to transfer the group’s base from Liverpool to Iceland, and the prospect of a prolonged stay in northern waters obviously made it necessary for the senior officer’s ship to be in first-class condition. The interval for boiler cleaning gave Baker-Cresswell three days well-earned leave at his Hampshire home, after which he took the Bulldog to Hvalfiord, fuelled and then at once went to sea again to join the rest of his group, who had just been released from escorting the outward convoy that the Bulldog had missed. The next job was to meet a homeward convoy off south-west Iceland; but the group had to search as far to the west as 31° in very stormy weather before they found the merchantmen, which were 18 hours behind schedule. Four days later Baker-Cresswell turned his charges over to the group from Britain which was to escort the convoy during the final stretch home; but by that time the fuel situation in his ships was critical. He just managed to coax them back to Iceland, where the destroyers arrived on 5th May with only a few tons of fuel left and the trawlers with no coa
l at all in their bunkers ! That experience was typical of the problems which beset the commanders of the mid-ocean groups in those days. Nor was there any appreciable interval between convoys; for, as we have already seen, the 3rd Escort Group had meanwhile been ordered to meet OB.318 on 7th May. Baker-Cresswell was, however, this time able to give his men a short run ashore at Reykjavik, and he took the Bulldog round there from Hvalfiord on the 6th. The blazing lights of a town in which the black-out was, as yet, unknown seemed very strange to the British sailors! In harbour was the former P. & O. liner Ranpura (Acting Captain H. T. W. Pawsey), now an Armed Merchant Cruiser, and one of the self-styled “ suicide squad ” employed as escorts against surface raiders in the western ocean.1 She had just completed an east-bound convoy trip and was due to return to Halifax. Baker-Cresswell offered Pawsey the “ Hobson’s choice ” of joining his next convoy instead of proceeding west independently through the danger area, or of accepting the only escort available for him, which would be two slow trawlers; and the A.M.C. Captain unhesitatingly accepted the offer to join the convoy. Plans for the next outward movement from Iceland could now be finalised between the Naval Officer in Charge (Rear-Admiral R.J.R. Scott), his R.A.F. colleague of No. 15 Group (Group Captain W. H. Primrose) and the senior officer of the escorts.

  On the evening of 6th May the four merchantmen from Iceland1 which were to join OB.318 sailed under the escort of the corvettes Aubrietia, Hollyhock and Nigella, and the trawler St. Apollo, all of the 3rd Escort Group; and the movement was duly reported to all concerned by the Naval Control Service Officer in Iceland, At 2.15 next morning Baker-Cresswell, with the Bulldog, Amazon and Broadway (the three available destroyers of his group) took the old Ranpura under his wing and set course to find his convoy. The A.M.C. certainly had an ample and comforting escort for the first leg of her westward journey; but her Captain’s peace of mind was not to stay undisturbed for long. The trawler Daneman was delayed by a boiler defect, and did not get away with the rest of the group. She joined the convoy, however, at a critical moment next evening.

  Baker-Cresswell knew that, with his three corvettes astern of him escorting the merchantmen from Iceland, and all his three trawlers temporarily absent, he was going to be very short-handed to begin with; but his first problem was to find the convoy. He knew from the signals he had received that the enemy was in touch, and that it had been diverted from its original course; and this was likely to make it harder to find, because alterations of course were bound to delay a convoy, and they did not, moreover, always adhere strictly to the courses ordered. Commodores of convoys always had discretion to act on their own initiative in such matters, in consultation with the escort commander. The 3rd Escort Group reached the rendezvous with time in hand; but the visibility was poor, with patches of mist, and Baker-Cresswell cannot have been surprised that there was no sign of the merchantmen. As so often he had an awkward moment before deciding in which direction to search; but his first cast again proved lucky and at 545 p.m. he sighted the merchantmen under Bockett-Pugh’s charge in 61°14 North 23°37 West. This was actually 15 minutes early on the planned time, and only 7 miles north of the planned position of the rendezvous1— which was a good deal better in both respects than was often accomplished; but OB.318 had so far had favourable weather. The two group commanders now brought their ships close together, transferred the relevant orders from the Westcott to the Bulldog and held a short conference over their loud-hailers. Bockett-Pugh’s destroyers (the Westcott, Newmarket and Campbeltown) had none too much fuel remaining, and they would have to leave the convoy that evening; but he agreed to leave all the rest of his group (the sloop Rochester, the corvettes Nasturtium, Aubrietia, Dianthus, Primrose and Marigold) to continue with the convoy under Baker-Cresswell’s orders for a further 24 hours. On the evening of 8th May they would have to be detached in order to meet the fast east-bound convoy HX.123 as ordered by Admiral Noble. At 7.45 p.m. Baker-Cresswell took over responsibility for OB.318 and the destroyers of the 7th Escort Group left for Hvalfiord soon afterwards. In his report on the convoy Bockett-Pugh said that it was “ well handled, organised and disciplined ” and that “ station keeping had been noticeably good.” He had, however, severely censured the Burma, the Rear-Commodore’s ship, for showing a bright light.

  Baker-Cresswell now had his own three destroyers and six of Bockett-Pugh’s ships. He left the latter in the screening positions which they already occupied, stationed the Amazon (Lieutenant-Commander N. E. G. Roper) ahead of the port columns, his own Bulldog ahead of the starboard columns, and the Broadway (Lieutenant-Commander T. Taylor) astern of the port columns. The A.M.C. Ranpura he placed in the centre of the convoy, whose fifth and sixth columns opened out to make room for her. There she stood out, as Baker-Cresswell remarked, like a haystack. The formation of the convoy at this time, on its mean course of N. 42° W. (true) is shown below; but the escorts were of course zig-zagging independently.

  The first sign of danger came little more than an hour after Baker-Cresswell had taken over the convoy; for just before 9 p.m. his Bulldog gained Asdic contact with some object 200 yards ahead of her. The contact was, however, lost before it could be classified, so Baker-Cresswell reversed course and passed down through the convoy between the seventh and eighth columns. Nothing more had been heard when, at 9.15, the fourth ship in column 4 (the Eastern Star) and the fourth in column 5 (the Ixion) were torpedoed almost simultaneously. The Bulldog was actually inside the convoy at the time, about abreast of the rear ships, and Baker-Cresswell at once realised that the torpedoes must have been fired from a position very near to his ship or the Rochester.1 He dropped one depth charge and told the Rochester to do the same; but neither ship obtained any sign of a contact. He also told the trawler Daneman, which had just joined the convoy from Iceland and had been stationed in the rear of the convoy between Columns 1 and 2, to stand by the Eastern Star, which had caught fire and was blazing furiously, and the corvette Marigold to do the same for the Ixion. Within two minutes of the attack Commodore Mackenzie had turned the convoy 40 degrees to port by emergency signal. This produced some hectic moments for the Bulldog, which was still inside the convoy, and found herself surrounded by manoeuvring merchantmen. Meanwhile the Amazon was coming down through the convoy, and the senior officer ordered her to join the Rochester for a counterattack, while the Broadway searched on the port quarter. When the Broadway had swept out to a distance of two miles without finding anything Baker-Cresswell ordered Taylor to rejoin the convoy and take charge of it; for the escort had of course been much depleted by these movements. A few minutes later Lieutenant-Commander C. B. Allen of the Rochester received a report from an alert look-out on his quarter-deck “ Periscope in sight on the port beam.” He could not see it himself from the bridge, but almost simultaneously Lieutenant-Commander Roper’s Amazon gained contact at 1,700 yards. He quickly manoeuvred astern of the Daneman, which was picking up the Eastern Star’s crew, and at 9.26 fired a full pattern of ten depth charges with deep (150-350 feet) settings, followed by a second one nine minutes later, for which, however, only five charges (set to 150 feet) were ready. The Rochester had now also gained contact, and it was she who attacked next, with a full pattern, at 9.41. Meanwhile Baker-Cresswell had extricated his Bulldog from the convoy, and came across to join in the hunt. The Bulldog and Amazon had trained together as the 3rd Escort Group’s Striking Force, but Baker-Cresswell kept Allen’s Rochester with him as she was also in contact with the U-boat. The safety of the Ranpura, which he had more or less invited to come along with him, was not the least of the escort commander’s anxieties at this time, and he signalled to ask how her Captain now felt about his decision. Pawsey replied, however, that he still considered he had done rightly.

  At 9.48 the Bulldog was also in contact, and came in with her first full pattern, which was soon followed by others from the Amazon and the Rochester. Thus did 55 depth charges, released in six separate and deliberate attacks, rain down upon the U-boat within little mo
re than half-an-hour of the first contact; but Asdic conditions were none too good, and although the attackers believed that they had damaged the enemy, and were hopeful of finishing him off, they realised that they were up against a skilful and wily antagonist. Between 10 and 10.30 p.m. all three ships regained contact, only to lose it again; but at 10.30 the Rochester and Amazon were once more firmly on to the enemy, and the latter carried out her fourth attack with the Rochester directing her movements. Roper considered this to have been his most accurate pattern so far. As the plume from the ten depth charges subsided a large bubble of air came to the surface. The Rochester, however, maintained contact, and just as Roper was about to come in for his fifth attack the U-boat altered course making straight for the Rochester at high speed! This was a cunning manœuvre, for it forced Roper to break off his attack while the enemy passed under Allen’s ship; but the two ships’ Asdic operators both held the U-boat, and the Amazon got in her delayed attack soon afterwards. Roper was now running short of depth charges, and rationed himself to five in each subsequent pattern. The Bulldog, however, got in another full pattern at 11.20, and ten minutes later Roper made his sixth and final attack. Again the target swung rapidly to starboard as he moved in, and the British ships realised that their enemy was not only adept at evading their onslaught, but had probably not yet suffered serious damage.