Both Dönitz and his opponents knew that, ultimately, the U-Boats
would have to return to the North Atlantic. It was not only the main
shipping route from America to Britain, it was also the area closest
to his bases in western France and this proximity, given the recent
Allied restrictions imposed on his operations, had becoming increasingly
important. On 30 July, the situation was summed up by Commander Roger
Winn, RN, who supervised the Submarine Tracking Room at the Admiralty:
It is common knowledge both to ourselves and the enemy that
the only vital issue in the U-Boat war is whether or not we are
able to bring to England such supplies of food, oil and raw material
and other necessaries, as will enable us, (a) to survive and (b)
to mount a military offensive adequate to crush enemy land resistance.
Knowing this is so, the enemy in withdrawing from the North Atlantic
must have intended an ultimate return to this area, so soon as
he might be able, by conceiving new measures and devising new
techniques, to resist the offensive which we might be able to
bring to bear upon there ...... but it might be the last dying
struggle of a caged tiger for the enemy to send back in September
or October into the North Western Approaches his main U-boat forces
unless in the meantime, he acquires by sheer luck, or the brilliance
of some unknown inventor, the antidote and the panacea to all
those well proven weapons which our armoury contains.
Winn's assessment proved to be entirely accurate as, by the late
summer, Dönitz felt that he did possess the antidote to the Allied
navies' "well proven weapons." It had long been obvious to Dönitz
that the Type VII and Type IX boats were at the limit of their development
and needed to be replaced by more modern craft. In early 1943, he
had chosen two designs, the Type XXI and Type XXIII, based on research
by a German naval engineer, Helmut Walter, which incorporated many
innovations, including increased numbers of electric batteries that
gave these craft impressive underwater speed. The Type XXI also possessed
extremely long range -- a boat of this type could journey to the Cape
of Good Hope and back without refuelling. In April 1943 Dönitz ordered
450 of the ocean-going Type XXI and 250 of the smaller, coastal Type
XXIII from German shipyards and he expected these new vessels would
be entering service by the summer of 1944.
For the time being, the Type VII and Type IX would have to fight
on but, during the summer of 1943, Dönitz ordered their anti-aircraft
armament upgraded so that, if attacked by Allied aircraft on the surface,
his commanders had a chance of defending themselves. Boats operating
in the Atlantic now carried as many as eight 20 mm AA guns although
this increased armament still proved inadequate when they tried to
fight off Allied aircraft. The U-Boats also received radar search
detectors to warn if they had been detected by shipborne and aerial
radars, allowing them to dive to safety in time. Finally, the first
T-5 Zaunkönig acoustic torpedoes, which the Allies termed the GNAT
(German Naval Acoustic Torpedo), had entered service. The T-5 did
not have to be fired directly at its target and a submarine commander
therefore did not have to manoeuvre into the best firing position,
often a lengthy and risky operation. He simply fired a T5 and it homed
in on the target ship's propellers to accomplish its purpose.
HMCS Haida
Picks Up Survivors From U-971, 24 June 1944
Courtesy HMCS Cornwallis Museum
In September Dönitz decided that, with this new equipment and
weaponry, he would resume operations in the North Atlantic. During
the first days of that month, 29 U-Boats, most equipped with radar
detectors and acoustic torpedoes, sailed into the Atlantic to form
Gruppe Leuthen with the objective of intercepting a major westbound
convoy. The gruppe was to remain unseen both during passage and while
formed in a patrol line but, once a convoy was sighted, Dönitz emphasized
that Gruppe Leuthen was "to make full use of the surprise blow," by
attacking the convoy escort with acoustic torpedoes:
The decimation of the escort must be the first objective.
The destruction of a few destroyers will have considerable moral
effect upon the enemy and will greatly facilitate the attack on
ships of the convoy in addition. ...... I expect of all commanding
officers that each chance of a shot at a destroyer will be utilized.
From now on, the U-boat is the attacker -- fire first and then
submerge.
The stage was now set
for the last of the great Atlantic convoy battles ......
Bletchley Park was
able to provide timely intelligence of the German commander's intentions
and deployment. At risk were two westbound convoys, slow convoy ONS
18 with 27 merchant ships and, coming up astern of it, fast convoy
ON 202 with 40 ships. The escort for ONS 18 was provided by B-3 Group
with two destroyers, a frigate and five corvettes assisted by a MAC
(Merchant Aircraft Carrier) ship, Empire MacAlpine, which carried
8 obsolescent Swordfish biplanes. ON 202 was under the guard of C-2
Group which comprised the destroyers HMCS Gatineau (Senior
Officer) and HMS Icarus, the Canadian corvettes, Drumheller
and Kamloops and the British corvette, Polyanthus. Available
to reinforce either convoy was Canadian Escort Group 9 with the frigate,
HMS Itchen, the destroyer, HMCS St. Croix, and three
Canadian corvettes, Chambly, Morden and Sackville.
The commanding officers in all three groups and crews were experienced
and they were backed up by no less than 73 VLR aircraft flying from
Ireland, Iceland and Newfoundland.
It was a Canadian aircraft
that got first blood. At 0855 on 19 September a VLR Liberator of 10
RCAF Squadron was covering ONS 18 when it sighted a submarine on the
surface 160 miles west or ahead of the convoy but moving toward it.
The Liberator attacked but the U-Boat commander, Oberleutnant zur
See Dietrich Epp, elected to stay on the surface and use his heavy
AA armament to defend himself -- that proved to be a mistake as well-placed
depth charges blew his vessel's bows out of the water and U-341
was no more. Just before midnight, U-402 of Gruppe Leuthen
sighted ONS 18 and, at 0155, 20 September, Oberleutnant zur See Paul-Friedrich
Otto of U-270 sent a Beta-Beta, what Allied codebreakers called
a "B-Bar signal" or sighting report giving the convoy's location and
heading: "beta/beta. Convoy square 1944, AL, 270 degrees, Otto." Almost
immediately, the reply came back from Dönitz's headquarters: "Leuthen
at 'em. Otto report contact. Manseck [commander of U-758] report
weather at once." The battle was joined.
Catalina On A Bombing
Run
Courtesy Canadian Forces Photo Unit
Otto's signal was picked
up by the HF/DF equipment on board the vessels of C-2 Group, which
was with ON 202 coming up behind the slow convoy. The group's Senior
Officer, Commander P.W. Burnett, RN, obtained a fix for U-270
and dispatched the frigate, HMS Langan, to investigate and,
when Langan acquired a firm radar contact, reinforced her with HMCS
Gatineau. The target was Otto's U-270 but, at 0259,
Otto fired an acoustic torpedo at Langan which blew the frigate's
stern off and killed 29 of her crew -- a spectacular debut for the
new weapon. Gatineau, coming up fast, responded with a depth charge
attack that damaged U-270 and forced Otto to withdraw from
the attack. The tug Destiny took the shattered Langan in tow
and got her safely back to a friendly port but the frigate's career
was finished.
Unfortunately,
while the escort group was diverted by this incident, U-238,
commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Horst Hepp, made contact with ONS
18 and, maintaining strict radio silence, manoeuvred into a position
ahead of the convoy. At 0732, as the lead ships were approaching his
position, Hepp fired and sank the merchantmen, Frederick Douglas and
Theodore Dwight Weld, before diving deep and passing under the convoy.
C-2 Group carried out ASDIC searches and attacked suspected contacts
but U-238 escaped unharmed and remained in touch. The escorts
were assisted in their work by the arrival of VLR aircraft which stayed
over the convoy the entire day.
The loss of three ships
in a few hours, however, prompted Sir Max Horton to order the two
convoys to merge and their escort to be reinforced by the RCN's Escort
Group 9. On receipt of this signal, Commander M.B. Evans, RN, the
Senior Officer of B-3 Group with the slow convoy, later recalled that,
although the fast convoy astern of him "was the centre of attraction
around which the beasts of prey were gathering," he "felt rather a
brute in leading my poor little ONS 18 into the turmoil," although
his crews expressed "delight at a chance of activity -- with handsome
escort -- after months of dreary ocean plodding." However, combining
65 merchant ships and three escort groups into a new and defensible
formation proved to be a very difficult task and, as the commander
of C-2 group later commented, throughout most of 20 September ONS
18 and ON 202 "gyrated majestically about the ocean, never appearing
to get much closer, and watched appreciatively by a growing swarm
of U-boats."
As this cumbersome
elephant dance took place on the face of a calm sea, VLR aircraft
and the convoy escorts were keeping the prowling enemy at bay. Several
attempted attacks were foiled and, in the early evening, an RAF Liberator
sank U-338. When another aircraft reported a surfaced U-Boat
a few minutes later, HMCS St. Croix of Escort Group 9 steamed
toward the area, right into the periscope sights of Kapitänleutnant
Rudolf Bahr of U-305 who fired an acoustic torpedo that blew
off her stern. While his crew struggled to keep St. Croix afloat,
her captain, Lieutenant-Commander A.H. Dobson, RCN, ordered her boats
lowered and the wounded placed in them as a safety measure and then
signalled HMS Itchen, which was coming to his rescue, that
he was "leaving the office."
Almost at that same
moment, U-305 fired a second, standard torpedo at St. Croix
that cut the vessel in half. When Itchen arrived on the scene, she
found only the destroyer's bow above water and the sea around it dotted
with the heads of survivors. Presented with a new target, Bahr fired
an acoustic torpedo at Itchen which detonated in the frigate's wake
and her captain wisely decided to wait for support from the corvette,
HMS Polyanthus, before attempting to pick up survivors.
Unfortunately, Polyanthus
never made it. While she was standing by St. Croix's survivors,
Itchen fired starshells that drew no less than four U-Boats
toward her. Polyanthus had just carried out an attack on one
of these opponents when another submarine, U-952 commanded
by Oberleutnant zur See Oskar Curio, fired an acoustic torpedo that
immediately sank the corvette, taking down her entire crew except
one survivor who was rescued the next day. It was now quite dark and
the night that followed degenerated into a confused series of separate
actions as the escorts tracked down and attacked several U-Boats which
responded by firing acoustic torpedoes without success.
Just before dawn on
21 September, a thick blanket of fog descended on the two convoys
which had finally managed, more by luck than skill, to position themselves
abeam of each other. Thirteen hours after St. Croix had sunk,
Itchen finally found time to return and rescue her survivors
who had spent a long and cold night in the oil-soaked Atlantic. Many
had drowned or succumbed to hypothermia but, through the diligent
efforts of Dobson, just over half the destroyer's complement of 147
men were plucked from the sea.
The fog continued throughout
21 September and into the next day. In such weather, the radar-equipped
escorts had an advantage over the U-Boats who were trying to manoeuvre
into positions to attack the combined convoy, which now consisted
of eighteen columns of ships spread out over thirty square miles of
ocean. Time and time again, they beat off the attempts of the enemy
but the only escort to score a kill was the destroyer, HMS Keppel,
which ran down a HF/DF fix during the early hours of 22 September
and surprised Oberleutnant zur See Robert Schetelig's U-229
running on the surface -- Keppel promptly rammed and sank it. Despite
hazardous flying conditions, the Empire MacAlpine launched one of
her rickety Swordfish biplanes and VLR aircraft patrols were kept
constantly overhead.
The fog
finally lifted during the afternoon of 22 September and Commander
Evans, who had assumed command of all the escorts recorded that, after
"living under a blanket for so long ...... it was very nice to come
into the open air and find it filled with Liberators." Those aircraft
were from 10 Squadron RCAF based in Newfoundland and over the next
few hours they made three separate attacks on surfaced submarines
prowling around the convoy. Liberator L/10 flown by Warrant Officer
J. Billings attacked Otto's U-270 with depth charges in the
face of anti-aircraft fire so accurate that it knocked out one of
his engines and hit the cockpit of the aircraft. Having expended his
depth charges, Billings requested assistance from Liberator X/10,
another 10 Squadron aircraft, only to receive the reply: "I have a
U-boat of my own on my hands." Billings was forced to break off the
attack after he expended his ammunition but Otto's submarine was so
badly damaged he had to return to base. Meanwhile, Liberator X10,
having dropped all its depth charges, severely raked U-377
with its machine guns, seriously wounding its captain, Oberleutnant
zur See Gerhard Kluth. His second-in-command submerged and withdrew
from the battle to seek medical assistance. A few minutes later, Liberator
X/10 attacked another surfaced submarine only to lose it in a fog
bank. Elsewhere, two Swordfish from Clan MacAlpine sighted yet another
surfaced submarine but, being no match for its heavy AA armament,
contented themselves with circling out of range and calling in the
escorts to deal with it. The U-Boat dived deep before surface vessels
came up and escaped. Finally, at dusk Liberator N/10 from 10 Squadron
RCAF arrived and mounted a patrol around the convoy until darkness
fell.
But there were still
10 boats from Gruppe Leuthen in contact and they were not yet finished.
At 2130 hours, Itchen got a good radar contact ahead of the
convoy and steamed to investigate, beginning a confusing but very
lively night as the U-Boats tried to penetrate the escort screen only
to be foiled by the warships. The enemy responded with acoustic torpedoes
which, fortunately, either missed their targets or exploded prematurely.
Tragically, at one minute before midnight, Itchen was hit by a T5
fired by Kapitänleutnant Herbert Engel in U-666 and sank so
fast that only three men were rescued: a sailor from her own crew;
a survivor from St. Croix; and the sole survivor from Polyanthus.
At about 0200, the intrepid Kapitänleutnant Hepp of U-238 managed
to slip on the surface through a gap in the escort screen and sink
three merchantmen. At 0615, while it was still dark, Kapitänleutnant
Oskar Curio, commanding U-952, recorded "At last, shadows to
starboard," as he sighted the convoy and fired a spread of standard
torpedoes that hit and sank a sixth merchant ship. That was the last
casualty because, when dawn came on 23 September, the Liberators of
10 Squadron from Newfoundland returned in strength to drive the U-Boats
under and Dönitz ended the attack.
"Pom-pom"
Courtesy Canadian Naval Memorial Trust
Both sides claimed
victory. Dönitz, working from the radio reports of the boat commanders
in Gruppe Leuthen believed that, for the loss of 3 submarines, his
crews had used the new acoustical torpedoes to sink no less than 12
destroyers and 7 merchant ships, and damage 3 more destroyers and
3 merchant ships. He also believed that the new radar search detectors
mounted on many of the submarines in Leuthen had worked satisfactorily
and would go some way to eliminating the threat of Allied aircraft.
In actual fact, his commanders had sunk 3 escorts and 6 merchant ships
while, as for the new German T5 torpedo, an effective Canadian countermeasure
was introduced within a matter of days. Dubbed the CAT (Canadian Anti-Acoustical
Torpedo) gear, it was basically a noisemaker, an arrangement of loosely
connected pipes which, if towed behind a ship, produced a louder noise
than her propellers, causing the torpedo to explode harmlessly against
it. The battle for ONS 18 and ON 202, however, cost the lives of about
400 British and Canadian sailors from Itchen, Polyanthus
and St. Croix and more or less eliminated Escort Group 9 in
the process. It was formally disbanded a few weeks later. ......
The Captain of HMCS
Fraser Remembers Losing His Ship, June 1940
On 25 June 1940, the
destroyer HMCS Fraser was cut in half by the British cruiser,
Calcutta, and her captain, Commander W.B. Creery, RCN, remembered
the moments that immediately followed:
The upper bridge
[of Fraser], where eight of us were standing, was neatly
picked up by Calcutta's focsle. The shock of the collision
sent us flying and it was a moment or two before we recovered
our senses sufficiently to realize what had happened. To us, our
perch seemed very precarious and we hastily climbed over the front
screen of Fraser's erstwhile bridge and dropped some six
feet or so onto Calcutta's focsle. So Fraser's bridge
personnel -- myself, the Officer of the Watch, the Second Officer
of the Watch, signalmen and lookouts -- were now aboard Calcutta.
One of the wheelhouse crew was also rescued there -- he was in
a small cavity between Calcutta's deck and the floor of
Fraser's bridge, which had buckled. The man who had been
standing beside him had been squashed flat. Fraser's bridge
remained on Calcutta's focsle until it was burned off in
Devonport Dockyard by acetylene torch. ......
By now it was pitch
dark and I couldn't see any part of Fraser, but I had heard
shouts from the fore part and then, a little later, the men's
voices singing "Roll out the Barrel."
HMCS Moose Jaw
Sinks U-501, 10 September 1940
Lieutenant F.R. Grubb,
RCN, commanding Moose Jaw, reported what happened when the
submarine unexpectedly surfaced beside his ship and the German crew
emerged onto its deck:
At one time four
of the submarine's crew made a determined move to the after gun.
As our own gun was still jammed, no action could be taken except
to increase speed and try to ram before they could fire. This
I did, although the chance was small, but, fortunately, someone
on the conning tower ordered them back. The .5 inch [.50 calibre]
machine guns were bearing at the time, but when the trigger was
pulled, they failed to fire. A subsequent check showed no defects,
so I assume that in the excitement the crew failed to cock them.
I managed to go
alongside the submarine, starboard side to, and called on her
to surrender. To my surprise, I saw a man make a magnificent leap
from the submarine's deck into our waist and the remainder of
the crew move to do likewise. Not being prepared to repel boarders
at that moment, I sheered off. The submarine altered course across
my bows and I rammed her. .......
The gun being cleared
by that time I opened fire again. The crew jumped into the sea
as soon as the first round went, and I ordered fire to be stopped.
I subsequently learned that the shell had passed low enough over
the conning tower to knock down the men who were standing thereon.
......
The man who I had
seen jump on board turned out to be the submarine's commanding
officer. He was badly shaken and when he was brought to me on
the bridge appeared to be worried at the amount of light we were
showing in order to pick up survivors.
Exhaustion
Lieutenant W.H. Willson,
RCN, of HMCS Skeena remembers how he felt after the battle
for SC 42 had ended:
I was so God damn
exhausted I could hardly think straight. ...... I'd been up for
the first and the middle [watches] and I had to go on the morning
and I'd probably have to get up for an alarm, at nine o'clock
[that] morning. A series of sinkings and continuous ringing of
that bloody [alarm] bell. Get out of your cart and come up. People
don't realize there is a point at which you cease to function
with any rational approach at all. You're just going through the
motions and that's what you can do to a crew if you take them
and put them at action stations, run them around for an hour,
send them below, twenty minutes later, call them to action stations
again; and that's how fast ships were going up, one goes up here,
one goes up there. By that time you had submarines in the middle
of the fleet [convoy], firing out in all directions.
Ice – A Terrible
Enemy
Lieutenant Latham
B. Jenson, RCN, describes the perilous situation that ice caused for
HMCS Niagara during a voyage from St. John to Halifax in the
winter of 1942-1943:
The trouble with
freezing spray is that it compounds itself exponentially. The
more iced-up the ship is, the greater the area on which the spray
freezes and the greater the top weight. Eventually, the weight
increases so much that there is a real possibility of rolling
over. An ordinary wire rope, say one inch in circumference, starts
with a thin film of ice and rapidly grows. Our guard rails had
become an icy bulwark. It was a dangerous situation.
There was nothing
to be done but to call all hands and get them on deck with whatever
they could find to pound off the ice. Soon the pitch darkness
was filled with bundled-up people with hammers, baseball bats,
shovels, axes, rolling pins and who knows what else, all pounding
and banging, seeming to make little progress. By eight o'clock
it was getting light and the ship was still covered with ice.
The chief boatswain's mate said to me that the hands were going
to quit and have some breakfast. I replied in rather a loud voice,
"Fine, you tell them to enjoy it because it will probably be the
last meal they will have." Everyone kept right on pounding and
within an hour or two the ice was diminished and the ship felt
much better. By that evening, we were alongside in Halifax.
Merry Christmas
Lieutenant R.L. Hennessy,
RCN, of HMCS Assiniboine recalled that his destroyer was immediately
ordered to sea after having completed a refit at Halifax. On Christmas
Eve, Assiniboine left the refit yard and was
towed across to
the Dockyard [to be] ammunitioned from barges all day. The Dockyard
wanted to do a normal day's work and then go back at it the next
day. We said, "The hell with that! Tomorrow is Christmas. We'll
do the whole job." Of course we started with no ammunition on
board as all, so we had to do the whole job from scratch and,
when you're doing that from barges it's a hell of a slow process.
We certainly spent half the night doing that. We'll draw a curtain
over some of the activities on Christmas Day, 1941.
On Boxing Day we
went up to Bedford Basin and degaussed, then down to the compass
buoy and swung ship to correct the magnetic compass, completed
storing, and by 1600 we were sailing to join a convoy. About eighty-five
percent of the ship's company had never been to sea in their lives.
Most of them couldn't have been more than eighteen years old --
just a bunch of babies.
We had heavy weather
and it was very nearly twenty-eight days before we set foot on
dry land again.
The Sinking of U-210
Lieutenant-Commander
J.H. Stubbs, RCN, commanding officer of the destroyer HMCS Assiniboine
reports on the surface battle he fought against a U-boat on 6 August
1940:
I closed [the]
U-boat to ram at full speed. ......
He opened fire
with all his guns and for about 35 minutes the action continued
at a point blank range of about 100 to 300 yards. A second degree
fire broke out on the starboard side of the break of the forecastle
and spread almost to the bridge and through the sick bay flat.
The enemy took constant evading action and I was forced to go
full astern on the inside engine to prevent him from getting inside
our turning circle, which he was obviously trying to do.
It was impossible
to depress the 4.7" guns sufficiently at this range, but I ordered
them to continue firing, more to keep the guns' crews busy while
under fire than from any hope of hitting. One hit was gained on
the conning tower however.
During most of
the action we were so close that I could make out the Commanding
Officer on the conning tower bending down occasionally to pass
wheel orders. A gun's crew appeared on the deck and attempted
to reach the forward gun but our multiple .5's [.50 calibre] successfully
prevented this.
I turned as quick
as possible to find him surfacing again but slightly down by the
stern, still firing and making about 10 knots. After a little
manoeuvring, we rammed him again well abaft the conning tower
and fired a shallow pattern of depth charges as we passed. Also
one 4.7" shell from 'Y' Gun scored a direct hit on his bows. He
sank by the head in about two minutes.
Read what the Reviewers
said about the first edition of:
In
Peril On The Sea
This elegantly illustrated book tells the tale of real Canadian heroism,
when we were disproportionately involved in the war for freedom. It's
beautiful, and a sad reminder of how far we have fallen.
Ezra Levant, Western Standard, 27 September
2004
Imagine yourself winning the Second World War. You're "standing a
watch" on the open bridge of a tiny ship that is heaving on the storm-ravaged
North Atlantic. You're cold, wet, exhausted, and responsible for protecting
dozens of merchant ships and hundreds of lives from the fear U-boats
out there in the dark. ...... In Peril on the Sea ... is the story
of the critical role and painful maturation of Canada's fledgling
navy in the Battle of the Atlantic. ...... By the end of the war,
Canada's navy, which had grown from 13 vessels and 3,000 personnel
to 434 vessels and 92,000 personnel, was the third largest in the
world. This book, intended for a general audience, is a windfall ......
[and] ...... Aside from solid history, there are hair-raising personal
accounts, informative sidebars, and dozens of photographs, illustrations,
and maps.
Michael Clark, Quill & Quire, July 2003
[This book] is a solid and remarkably comprehensive account, worthy
of investment as a companion not only to volumes already on the shelf,
but also to the new official history.
Graves succeeds admirably at reducing the complexities of strategic
and tactical, technological and bureaucratic administrative issues
to a story that should prove understandable, if not outright interesting,
to novice and veterans alike. His prose is engaging, and the book
is visually appealing, the well-spaced text laced with many superb
photographs and the lovely pen-and-ink sketches of famed naval artist
Latham B. "Yogi" Jenson. Each chapter ends with a "chronology" of
first-hand accounts that add a wonderful touch of humanity to an easily
cold and mechanical subject. ...... Especially useful are a number
of "technical sections" ... that explain in simple language the fundamental
importance of such subjects as convoy organization, the workings of
submarine detection equipment ... radar and ASDIC (sonar), the role
of operational intelligence ... and detailed descriptions of the corvettes
and their U-boat quarry.
Specialists ... can join a new generation of general reader[s] in
admiring one of the most useful and handsome volumes yet to appear
on the subject.
Lieutenant-Commander (Retd.) Richard Gimblett,
International Journal of Maritme History
