Black May (72 page)

13
. Slessor,
Central Blue,
p. 504.

14
. See PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)84 in n.12, above.

15
. PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 89.

16
. See PRO, CAB 86/3 in
n.
12 above.

17
. PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)86; A.U.(43)84; A.U.(43)90.

18
. PRO, CAB 86/2, Minutes of the A.U. Committee Meeting, 24 March 1943.

19
. PRO, CAB 86/3; A.U.(43)96; A.U.(43)99; A.U.(43)98.

20
. PRO, CAB 86/2, A.U.(43) 13th Meeting, Minutes, Anti-U-Boat Warfare Committee, 31 March 1943, ff. 152–158; CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)96; AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 92.

21
. Slessor,
Central Blue,
p. 449. Between January and May 1943 Bomber Command lost more than 100 heavy bombers in raids on the U-boat bases; Price,
Aircraft versus Submarine,
p. 146.

22
. PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)98, Memorandum by the First Lord of the Admiralty, CAB 86/2, A.U.(43) 13th Meeting, Minutes, Anti-U-Boat Warfare Committee, 31 March 1943, ff. 152–158.

23
. Ibid., Minutes.

24
. Slessor,
Central Blue,
pp. 524–526. Without naming Slessor, Blackett wrote about this episode: “During the heat of the controversy over the proposal to transfer some bombers from Bomber to Coastal Command, a leading airman was goaded by the welter of statistics and calculations produced by the Operational Research Groups to remind scientists, ‘that wars are won by weapons and not by slide rules.’ But in fact ‘slide rule strategy’ had arrived to stay….” Blackett,
Studies of War,
p. 228.

25
. Waddington,
O.R.,
pp. xv-xvi.

26
. PRO, CAB 86/4, A.U.(43)152,
The Bay Offensive: Comparison of Actual and Estimated Results. Note by the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Coastal Command. 23 May 1943, f. 136.

27
. PRO, CAB 86/4, A.U.(43)126; Memorandum [Telegram] by the First Sea Lord, the Commander U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, and the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Coastal Command; 22 April 1943.

28
. Ibid, and PRO, CAB 86/2, A.U.(43) 15th Meeting, Anti-U-Boat Warfare Committee, 14 April 1943, Annex, paragraphs 1 and 12.

29
. This is the reading of King’s explanation given in Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 95. See also PRO, CAB 105, Vol. I;
Principal War Telegrams and Memoranda, 1940–1943, Washington, America, United Kingdom and Europe
(Nendeln, Liechtenstein: KTO Press, 1976), pp. 120–121, 134. King subsequently made an offer of one Catalina squadron and one Ventura squadron to Iceland, but neither would have permitted reinforcement of the Bay patrols; CAB 86/4, A.U.(43)174, Reinforcement of the Bay Offensive, 21 June 1943.

30
. Slessor,
Central Blue,
p. 532.

31
. For various views of the Army-Navy jurisdictional dispute the reader may wish to consult: Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill,
Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1952), pp. 472–471; Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds.,
The Army Air Forces in World War II,
Vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), pp. 402–411; H. H. Arnold, General of the Air Force,
Global Mission
(New York: Harper & Bros., 1949), pp. 362–364; Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy,
On Active Service in War and Peace
(New York: Harper 8c Brothers, 1948), pp. 504–517; and Slessor,
Central Blue,
pp. 532–538. Cf. Norman Polmar, “To Be or Not to Be,”
Naval Institute Proceedings,
Vol. 123 (September 1997), pp. 62–64.

32
. Slessor,
Central Blue,
p. 536.

33
. PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 96; Norman Franks,
Search, Find and Kill
(London: Grub Street, 1995), pp. 108–110; Adams and Lees,
Type VII U-boats,
p. 19.

34
. The U-boats still did not have a 10-centimeter G.S.R., as noted before, but a new visual tuner called the “Magic Eye,” when incorporated into the standard Metox gear, not only glowed when the boat was painted by metric radar, but sometimes, if the antenna happened to have exactly the right electrical capacity, it could cause the visual tuner to glow on the harmonics of a 10-centimeter pulse. This happened so rarely, however, that it proved to be an unreliable reed to lean on, and faith in the Magic Eye was shattered during Operation Derange.

35
. Price,
Aircraft versus Submarine,
pp.
166–167; Slessor,
Central Blue,
p. 465. Roskill calls Dönitz’s decision “perhaps his biggest mistake of the war”;
War at Sea,
Vol. II, p. 371. Historian Philip Lundeberg calls it a “historic tactical blunder”; in Howarth and Law, eds.,
Battle of the Atlantic,
p. 361. Peyton Ward also describes it as the first in “a series of tactical blunders” in PRO, AIR 41/48, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 96.

36
. PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 96 and Appendix VII.

37
. This is the recent interpretation of naval operations analyst Dr. Brian McCue; McCue to author, 6 July 1997.

38
. In his plan Raushenbush considered six countermeasures that the enemy might take, from diverting U-boat traffic to Norwegian bunkers and German bases to exhausting the endurance of aircraft by bottoming-out in Spanish waters. He failed to consider that Dönitz would go to full submergence at night.

39
. Price,
Aircraft versus Submarine,
p. 155, states that Bromet “abandoned the night patrols” so that he could divert the L/L squadrons to daylight work. But Peyton Ward gives the nighttime L/L flying hours in the Enclose and Derange ribbons as follows: 777 (April), 688 (May), 596 (June), 877 (July, including other transit areas), 1,296 (August, including other transit areas), 1,904 and 2,167 (September and October, respectively, including other transit areas). PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, Appendix VII. Peyton Ward does say that from 20 May, L/L Squadrons Nos. 172, 210, and 407 operated “largely by day”; 41/48, Vol. IV, p. 99,
n.
4.

40
. Terence M. Bulloch to the author, Burnham, Bucks., England, 4 August 1997; Max Arthur,
There Shall Be Wings: The RAF-1918 to the Present
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), p. 189.

41
. This synopsis closely follows the text of PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Appendix VI, Coastal Command Anti-Submarine Tactical Instruction (C.C.T.I. No. 41), 12 June 1943, pp. 1–10; see also 41/48, Vol. IV, p. 99.

42
. PRO, AIR 27, Royal Air Force Operations Record Book, Form 540 [hereafter RAF Form 540], April 1943; NHB/MOD, Assessments, May 1943, f. 232. The position of the attack was 44°45'N, 11°57’
W.

43
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, 1 May 1943, f. 235; Franks,
Search, Find and Kill,
pp. 110–111.

44
. RAF Form 540, No. 612 Squadron, May 1943, p. 1; NHB/MOD, Assessments, 1 May 1943, f. 236; Franks,
Search, Find and Kill,
p. in.

45
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 3 May 1943.

46
. RAF Form 540, No. 461 Squadron,
RAAF, May 1943, p. 1; NHB/MOD, Assessments, 2 May 1943, f. 240; Franks,
Search, Find and Kill,
p. 112. The position of the attack was 44°48'N, o8°58'W.

47
. RAF Form 540, No. 58 Squadron, May 1943; NHB/MOD, Assessments, 4 May 1943, f. 243 and notations by R. M. Coppock on ff. 247 and 253.

48
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, 4 May 1943, ff. 247, 248, 253, and notations by R. M. Coppock.

49
. PRO, AIR 27, RAF Form 540, No. 58 Squadron, May 1943, p. 128; NHB/MOD, Assessments, 7 May 1943, ff. 267–268, and notations by R. M. Coppock.

50
. PRO, AIR 27, RAF Form 540, No. 10 Squadron, RAAF, 7 May 1943, pp. 875–876; NHB/MOD, Assessments, f. 269, 7 May 1943, and notations by R. M. Coppock.

51
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, ff. 290, 291, 292, 293, 294,15 May 1943, and notations by R. M. Coppock.

52
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, ff. 290, 291, 292, 293, 295, and notations by R. M. Coppock; PRO, AIR 27, RAF, May 1943, p. 12.

53
. U
-662
by a USN Catalina of Patrol Sqdn. VP-94 on 21 July, and
U-648
by H.M.S.
Bazely, Blackwood,
and
Drury
on 23 November.

54
. PRO, AIR 27, RAF Form 540, No. 58 Squadron, May 1943, p. 13; NHB/MOD, Assessments, ff. 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, and notations by R. M. Coppock.

55
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, ff. 302, 313, 315, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 323, and notations by R. M. Coppock.

56
. PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, pp. 98 and
n. 4,
99 and
n.
1; Franks,
Search, Find, and Kill,
pp. 117–118.

57
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, ff. 325, 328, 329, 330, 333. Curiously, the interrogation information on
U-523,
reported in f. 330, does not conform to other details known about that boat: The interrogators informed the Assessment Committee that
U-523
sortied from base outbound on 29 May, when her KTB shows that she sortied on 22 May. Furthermore, when attacked by A/206 the boat in question was on an inbound course of 090°, according to f. 330.

58
. Quoted in Norman L. R. Franks,
Conflict Over the Bay
(London: William Kimber & Co., 1986), p. 80. The “yellowish brown” color of the U
-563
hull is unusual, since most color descriptions read “gray,” “light gray,” or “mud gray.” Occasionally, though, one reads of “brown splotches” on the gray, and one other May report described a U-boat as “khaki,” which is another way
of saying olive brown or yellowish brown; PRO, AIR 27, RAF Form 540, No. 58 Squadron, 31 May 1943.

59
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, f. 331. The 58 Sqdn. 504 records that “the U-boat blew up with an orange flash,” a detail that is missing from other accounts.

60
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, f. 332; Franks,
Conflict,
pp. 77–78.

61
. Adams and Lees,
Type VII U-boats,
p. 26.

62
. PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. IV, Appendix VII, “Air Operations Against
U
-Boats in the Bay of Biscay Transit Area.” Peyton Ward gives 103 as the number of
U
-boats sighted and 67 as the number of attacks made in the Bay in May. He counts 7
U
-boats sunk in the Bay in May, but he includes
U-332,
which in fact was sunk on 29 April. The Secretary of State for Air Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt., M.P., stated that there had been 103 sightings and 68 attacks; PRO, CAB 86/4,
A.U
.(43)161
,
Aircraft for the Bay Offensive, 5 June 1943. Both sets of figures are higher than the sightings and attacks described in this present narrative, which relies on the
U
-Boat Assessment Committee documents that considered only those attacks thought likely or possible to have led to a sinking or to damage. For RAF casualties see Peyton Ward, Appendix VII, and Franks,
Conflict,
Appendix IV, pp. 254–259.

63
. PRO, CAB 86/4,
A.U
.(43)161
,
Aircraft for the Bay Offensive, 5 June 1943; see
n.
62.

64
. PRO, CAB 86/2, A.U.(43), Minutes of the 18th Meeting, A.U. Committee, 12 May 1943, f. 183.

65
. PRO, CAB 86/4, A.U.(43)152, Note by the Air Officer Commandingin-Chief, Coastal Command, 23 May 1943, ff. 134–136.

66
. It is not likely that Raushenbush protested his obscurity. A colleague in London, and friend for years after the war, Oscar A. de Lima, said of him: “Stephen Raushenbush is the most self-effacing of men, the most modest of violets. He wouldn’t even tell his closest friend what he did in the War.” RP, “Stephen Raushenbush of the U.S. Navy,” 25 June 1961.

C
HAPTER 9

1
. See
Operation Epsilon: The Farm Hall Transcripts,
Introduction by Sir Charles Frank (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993); Jeremy Bernstein,
Hitler’s Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall
(Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics, 1996). American readers
are well familiar with the “Nixon Tapes,” but two recent publications serve to remind us that secret recordings, in the Latimer House model, preceded those tapes: Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds.,
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977); and Michael R. Beschloss, ed.,
Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–11)64
(New York: Simon 8c Schuster, 1977).

2
. The transcripts for the period March-August 1943 are found in PRO, WO 208/4145 and 4205. Each transcript carries a numeral prefixed by S.R.N., possibly “Secret Recording Number.”

3
. See, for example, PRO, ADM 86/800, Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty, “Interrogation of U-Boat Survivors, Cumulative Edition, June 1944,” ff. 268–330, which summary was prepared from interrogation “and other information.”

4
.

H
ERBERT
A
PEL
. U
-439.
Maschinenobergefreiter (equivalent
USN
rating: Fireman, second class). Captured 4 May 1943.

B
RUNO
A
RENDT
. U
-659.
Oberbootsmaat (Boatswain’s Mate, second class). Captured 4 May 1943.

(No first name given in the existing records)
B
rine.
U-432.
Leutnant z.See (Ensign). Captured 11 March 1943.

J
OSEF
-M. BRÖHL.
U-432.
Leutnant z.See (Ensign). Captured 11 March 1943.