Black May (75 page)

83
. Ibid., TBF-1 No. 6,1103 22 May 1943.

84
. Ibid, TBF-1 No. 5,1325 22 May 1943.

85
. Telephone interviews with Captain Frank Fodge, U.S.N.R. (Ret.), Stuart, Florida, 12 September 1996, and Radioman James O. Stine, Walnut Grove, Missouri, 22 November 1997.

86
. PRO, ADM 237/100, Convoy ON.184, Report of Antisubmarine Action by Aircraft, TBF-1 No. 6,1804, 22 May 1943.

87
. DHIST/NDHQ, Ottawa,
Naval Historical Section Files, 1650-“U-Boats”—U
-569, Report on the Interrogation of Survivors From U—569, Sunk on May 22,1943
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1943), 17 pp. The writer is grateful to Dr. Roger Sarty, DHIST Senior Historian, for a copy of this report.

88
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 21 May 1943.

89
. DHIST/NDHQ,
Survivors From U-569,
p. 14.

90
. PRO, ADM 237/100, Convoy ON.184, Report of Antisubmarine Action by Aircraft, TBF-1 No. 7, 1840, 22 May 1943. Elsewhere in the same report Roberts states that the white flag first appeared while his gunner was changing ammunition cans.

91
. DHIST/NDHQ, Ottawa, Naval Historical Section Files, 1650-“U-Boats”—U 569, “Delivery of 25 Prisoners ex German U-boat to U.S. Authorities.” The writer thanks Dr. Sarty for a copy of this document.

92
. “Wildcats and Avengers,” pp. 29–33, which notes in addition: “There was one more incident, this one involving the officers of the U—860. The
Solomons’
Executive Officer brought Commander Buechel [Freg. Kapt. Paul Büchel] and his Exec to the wardroom for a meal. At that point one or more of the ship’s Jewish officers walked out in protest, a feeling shared by the squadron’s pilots who had lost close comrades. The ship’s Exec later explained lamely that they were merely trying to treat the prisoners nicely to gain intelligence from them.” Lt. (jg) Stearns and Ens. Doty were both killed in the Pacific. The writer is indebted to
Bogue
veterans Frank Fodge, Ralph Hies-tand, David O. Puckett, and James O. Stine, who shared their recollections with him. As pointed out earlier in a discussion of HF/DF (chapter 2), it was Huff-Duff that led to Chamberlain’s success. Captain Short of
Bogue
stated that U-569's W/T transmission at 1727 “wrote its death warrant”; NARA, Action Report, Box 855, Serial 026, U.S.S.
Bogue
(CVE-9), Report of Operations of Hunter-Killer Group built around U.S.S.
Bogue
furnishing air cover for Convoy ON.184 from Iceland area to Argentia area; from Commander Sixth Escort Group, to Commander in Chief Western Approaches, 29 May 1943, p. 3. PRO, ADM 199/358, Report of Proceedings of Convoy ON.184, The Senior Officer, C.1 Group in H.M.S.
Itchen
to Captain (D) Newfoundland, 1st June 1943.

93
. NARA, RG 457, SRGN 18793: to groups donau and mosel: discontinue operation on northeast convoy. set off to west; TOI 0934Z, 23 May 1943. Cf. KTB-BdU, 23 May 1943.

94
. PRO, AIR 15/210, Coastal Command Tactical Memorandum No. 62, Guide to the Use of RP Against U/Boats; Tactical Notes on U-Boat Attack
with Rocket Projectiles by Swordfish Aircraft; A Brief Survey of the Characteristics of the Aircraft Rocket Weapon. AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. Ill, pp. 61–65, Appendix IV, pp. 1–7.

95
. Naval Staff History,
The Development of British Naval Aviation 1919–1945,
Vol. II (London: Historical Section, Admiralty, 1956), pp. 123–124.

96
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, f. 245, notation by R. M. Coppock.

97
. Ibid, f. 276.

98
. NARA, Tenth Fleet, ASW Analysis and Stat. Section, Series VI; ASW Assessment Incidents 3177–3257, Box 102, folder 3208.

99
. NARA, KTB-U-7& (reconstructed), 6.4.43–16.5.43.

100
. NARA, Tenth Fleet, ASW Analysis and Stat. Section, Series VI; ASW Assessment Incidents 3177–3257, Box 102, folder 3219.

101
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, f. 305, notation by R. M. Coppock.

102
.
Franks, Search, Find, and Kill, p. 194; Lees, Type VII U-boats, p. 28.

103
. NHB/MOD, Assessments, f. 324, notation by R. M. Coppock. Syrett,
Defeat of the German U-Boats,
has U
-436
still operating in patrol lines as late as September and October (pp. 204, 206), but Hessler, Coppock, Mulligan, and Lees all agree that she was sunk on 26 May, certainly no later than 3 June (Mulligan). BdU declared the boat lost as of 4 June; NARA, KTB-BdU, 4 June 1943.

104
.
Mulligan, ed., Records Relating to U-Boat Warfare, p. 160; Lees, Type VII U-boats, p. 43.

105
. PRO, AIR 27/911, Form 541, Liberator III “E” 120 Squadron, 28 May 1943; Franks,
Search, Find and Kill,
pp. 194–195. The last boats known to have been damaged, as opposed to sunk, during May were U-552 (Kptlt. Klaus Popp), depth-charged by a Liberator of 59 Sqdn. on the twenty-ninth; and U
–621
(Oblt.z.S. Max Kruschka), depth-charged by Liberator “Q” of 224 Sqdn. on the thirty-first.

106
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 24 May 1943.

107
. NARA, RG 457, SRGN 18838, 23 May 1943.

108
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 24 May 1943.

109
.
Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–1945,
p. 332. The present writer has taken the liberty of changing “submarines” to “U-boats” in the English translation and of spelling out numerals to conform with written speech.

110
. Ibid, p. 334.

111
. Horst Boog, “Luftwaffe Support of the German Navy,” in Howarth and Law, eds.
Battle of the Atlantic,
p. 308.

112
. Ibid, pp. 309ff. The present writer was shown the disparities between
the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe grids at the map collection of the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt in Freiburg im Breisgau.

113
. Dönitz,
Memoirs,
p. 341. The original German edition was published in 1958.

E
PILOGUE

1
. Doenitz,
Memoirs,
p. 406.

2
. Ibid., pp. 406–408; Hessler,
U-Boat War,
Vol. Ill, p. 8.

3
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 13 August 1942. The historian may justly wonder about the moral merits of this decision, as Noah Andre Trudeau wonders about General Robert E. Lee’s decision to continue fighting and so lose thousands more lives after he concluded that he could not win the Civil War. See Trudeau, “ ‘A Mere Question of Time’: Robert E. Lee from the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed.,
Lee the Soldier
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), pp. 523–558. Writing about another American military tragedy, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNa-mara admitted in a recent book that he continued to feed American lives into the killing fields of Vietnam after he realized that that war was not winnable. See Robert S. McNamara,
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
(New York: Times Books, 1995).

4
. Jürgen Rohwer, “The U-Boat War Against the Allied Supply Lines,” in H. A. Jacobsen and J. Rohwer, eds.,
Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965), p. 310.

5
. Hessler,
U-Boat War,
Vol. Ill, pp. 25–27.

6
. Ibid., pp. 4–5. The
Naxos-U
replaced an interim G.S.R. called
Hagenuk-Wellenanzeiger,
or
Wanze,
the sole virtue of which was that it emitted low levels of radiation. Discovering that the old
Metox
emitted high levels, BdU feared that Allied aircraft were homing on those emissions. It was confirmed in that fear when an RAF prisoner at the German interrogation center Oberursal told his questioners that that was the means used by Coastal aircraft to find U-boats. Though untrue, the POWs lie and the resulting “radiation scare” caused Dönitz to pull the plug on
Metox,
effective 13 August. The
Wanze
that replaced it had no capacity to receive 10-centimeter. The
Naxos-U
worked marginally well against centimetric pulses, but a dependable G.S.R. for that wave band was not available until April 1944.

7
. Ibid., p. 51. In the Atlantic war prior to May 1943, U-boats made 1,440 operational patrols amounting to 52,891 days at sea, during which they sank
2,155 ships of 11,551,108 GRT; in the same period, 193 Atlantic patrols, or 13.4 percent, resulted in the loss of the boat and 7,537 fatalities. During the two years that followed, the larger U-boat fleet of that period made 1,027 Atlantic patrols amounting to 36,721 days at sea, during which they sank only 271 ships of 1,363,077 GRT; while 330 patrols, or 32.1 percent, resulted in the loss of the boat and 14,047 fatalities. The futility of U-boat operations after May 1943 is further demonstrated by the marked increase that occurred in Allied ASW assets. Where in May 1943 the Allies could deploy a World War I, between the wars, and new construction mix of 131 destroyers, sloops, frigates, and corvettes, in April-May 1945 (exclusive of the central and western Atlantic) they countered the U-boats with 191 destroyers, destroyer-escorts, sloops, frigates, and corvettes, 76 percent of which were new construction since 1943. In April 1943, 293 Allied shore-based ASW aircraft flew 2,459 missions; in April 1945, 490 ASW aircraft flew 6,314 missions. In April 1943, of the 293 aircraft dedicated to ASW, 98 were four-engined Liberators, Fortresses, and Halifaxes; in April 1945, of the 490 ASW aircraft, 254 were Liberators. The writer is indebted to Thomas Weis for these data.

8
. Operations Evaluation Group Study 533, by Carl E. Behrens, “Effects on U-Boat Performance of Intelligence from Decryption of Allied Communications,” 28 April 1954, Defense Technical Information Center, Defense Logistics Agency, Cameron Station, Alexandria, Virginia, p. 8. While the U-boats boasted of their
Zaunkönig,
the Allies were not lax in deploying new weapons and devices of their own during the two-year mopping-up period. These included a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (M.A.D.), which picked up the disturbance in the earth’s magnetic field caused by the presence of a submerged steel hull and could be fitted to an aircraft such as the Catalina or to a blimp; Expendable Radio Sono Buoys (E.R.S.B.), which, launched from an aircraft, floated on the water’s surface and transmitted the noise of a submerged submarine picked up by hydrophones suspended 24 feet below them; more precise 3-centimeter radar to replace or supplement 10-centimeter equipment; Squid, a mortar-fired ahead-throwing weapon similar to Hedgehog except that it was
depth
rather than impact-fused; and Foxer (British) or Cat (Canadian), which were noisemaking devices towed astern of a warship to attract and detonate a
Zaunkönig
at a safe distance from the vessel. Both the Mk.24 and R-P. weapons, first introduced in May 1943, went on to further successes in the two-year period.

9
. Quoted in Padfield,
Dönitz
, pp. 462–463.

10
. Price, Aircraft versus Submarine, p. 165.

11
. Slessor,
Central Blue
, pp.
524–525. One example, among many that could be given, of the airmen’s “courage and skill” that were praised by Slessor was provided on 28–29 May when Sunderland “O” of 461 Sqdn., Royal Australian Air Force, based at Pembroke Dock, flew out to position 47°50'N, 09°38'W in search of a dinghy containing the crew of Whitley “P” of 10 Sqdn. O.T.U., which had ditched on the 27th from engine failure. Finding the dinghy, the flying boat attempted a sea landing, but caught a cross-swell, bounced, and then stalled nose down into a tall wave. The impact killed the pilot, F/Lt. W. S. E. “Bill” Dods and seriously injured co-pilot F/O R. de V. Gipps. The rest of the crew managed to get a single serviceable dinghy out through the astro-hatch as the aircraft sank, and they rescued Gipps, who was floating helplessly off. The ten Sunderland and six Whitley survivors then tied their dinghies together and spent the night tossing on high waves. Not having heard anything from the flying boat, Pembroke Dock dispatched a second Sunderland “E” the next morning, captained by F/O G.O. Singleton, which found the dinghies at 0630, and made a successful landing alongside them. With the weight of so many rescued men on board, however, Singleton could not take off. Fortunately, other aircraft nearby homed a Free French sloop—
La Combattante
—to the scene. After taking on board all the survivors, including some of the crew from E/461, the sloop took the Sunderland with a skeleton crew aboard in tow. After only four and one-half hours, the tow line parted, and Singleton decided to attempt a takeoff from the heavy sea. For a distance of three miles the flying boat crashed from wave to wave, suffering a hole in the hull seven by four feet, and eventually breaking the surface to become airborne. Singleton realized that with such a large hole it would be suicidal to attempt a water landing. Accordingly, he alerted base that he would put the flying boat down on land at Angle airfield near Pembroke Dock. At 2000 hours he jettisoned excess fuel, unnecessary equipment, and all inflammable materials, while on the ground crash trucks and ambulances assembled at Angle. With his skeleton crew at crash stations, Singleton took aim at the grass bordering the tarmac airstrip. The aircraft’s keel plowed noisily into the ground and cut a shallow furrow in the turf 150 yards long before finally slowing to a stop and canting gently over on one wingtip. The squadron record book recorded that it was “believed to be the first time a flying boat has landed on a land drome!” PRO, AIR 27/1913, Operations Record Book, R.A.F. Form 540, No. 461 Squadron, RAAF, May 1943; AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in the Maritime War,” Vol. Ill, p. 103.

12
.
McCue, U-Boats in the Bay, p. 61.

13
. Brian McCue to the author,
Alexandria, VA, 6 July 1997.

14
. Churchill,
Second World War
, Vol. V,
Closing the Ring,
p. 13; Slessor,
Central Blue,
p. 469.