U Boat Attack Logs by Pen and Sword Books Ltd

U-BOAT ATTACK LOGS A Complete Record of Warship Sinkings from Original Sources 1939–1945 Daniel Morgan & Bruce Taylor With a foreword by Professor Jürgen Rohwer

Introduction

xxii

in August 1944 (104). Once submerged, the commander’s only view of the world was through the periscope, difficult enough even if the target were not heading away from the U-boat. Though hydrophone data might give a broad picture of the bearing of a target and even its course to a skilled operator, visual contact was vital if accurate firing data were to be obtained. Essentially, the periscope was meant to be raised only when the U-boat was proceeding at reduced speed to avoid producing the wake and conspicuous Wasserfahne (lit. ‘water

plume’) that might quickly reveal its position. This was particularly the case in the Mediterranean where the phenomenon of a spiegelglatte See (‘mirror-smooth sea’) was a frequent and unwelcome reality. No surprise, therefore, that daytime attacks in this theatre tended to result from fortuitous approaches by the enemy rather than stealth by the U-boat, with HMSs Barham, Gurkha, Heythrop and Eagle (41, 46, 55 and 65) all falling into this category.

Specifications of U-boat types featured in the main entries* Type IA IIA Displacement (tons) Surfaced 862 254 Submerged 983 303 Dimensions (feet) Length 237.5 134.2 Beam 20.4 13.4 Draught (standard) 14.1 12.5 Maximum speed (knots) Surfaced 17.8 13 Submerged 8.3 6.9 Endurance (miles) Surfaced @ 8 or 10 knots 7,900/10 1,600/8 Submerged @ 4 knots 78 35 Armament Torpedo tubes (bow + stern) 4 + 2 3 + 0 Torpedoes carried (normal) 14 5 Deck gun (mm) 1 × 105 – Standard AA armament (mm) 1 × 20 2 × 20 Complement 44–46 22–24

IIB

IIC

IID

VIIA

VIIB

VIIC

IXA

IXB

IXC

IXC-40

279

291

314

626

753

769

1,032

1,051

1,120

328

341

364

745

857

871

1,152

1,178

1,232

140.1

144

144.4

211.6

218.2

220.1

251

252

13.4

13.5

16.4

20.3

21.3

22.3

22.6

12.8

12.5

12.8

14.4

15.4

15.7

15.4

12.7

17.9

17.7

18.2

18.3

7.4

7.6

7.7

7.3

3,100/8

3,800/8

5,650/8

6,200/10

8,700/10

8,500/10

10,500/10 12,000/10 13,450/10 13,850/10

3 + 0

4 + 1

4 + 1†

4 + 2

4+2

–

1 × 88

1 × 105

2 × 20

1 × 20

1 × 37 1 × 20

22–24

42–46

44–48

44–52

48–56

* For UA, see HMS Andania (10). † Note that two of the Type-VIIC boats featured in the main entries, U331 (HMS Barham, 41) and U431 (HMS Martin and HrMs Isaac Sweers, 72 and 74), were completed without the stern tube. Sources: uboat.net; Jak P. Mallmann Showell, U-Boats Under the Swastika (Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan, 1973); Eberhard Rössler, Geschichte des deutschen Ubootbaus (2nd edn, 2 vols, Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1986–7); and Robert C. Stern, Type VII U-Boats (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991).

Introduction

The business end of a Type-VIIC boat showing two of its five torpedo tubes. Note the characteristic vents forward and the saddle tanks abreast the conning tower, on which the snorting bull emblem of the 7th U-Flottille can just be made out. This photo, taken in dry dock under camouflage netting, dates from May 1943. BK

German torpedoes in the Second World War Although U-boats were fitted with a variety of ordnance including an 88- or 105-mm deck gun, an array of anti-aircraft armament and occasionally mines, the key weapon – and the one used against every warship treated in the main part of this volume – was of course the torpedo. These were fired from bow tubes (Tubes I, II and III in the Type IIs, with a Tube IV in the Type-I, Type-VII and Type-IX boats) and from the stern compartment (Tube V in the Type VIIs, Tubes V and VI in the Type-I and Type-IX boats), thereby giving the commanding officer the tactical freedom to engage from either end. A U-boat would leave harbour with all its torpedo tubes loaded and as many spares as could be carried, usually two in the early Type IIs, between six and nine in the Type VIIs, and up to sixteen in the Type IXs. These were stored internally at the expense of the crew who suffered extremely cramped conditions until they were expended. The Type VIIs and IXs were also modified to accommodate external reloads (two and four torpedoes respectively) between pressure hull and deck casing, though the fact that the boats had to be surfaced for several hours to effect the transfer made it an impractical option as the war progressed. For the first four years of the war the main weapons used by the U-Boot-Waffe were two straight-running torpedoes, the G7a (nicknamed the ‘Ato’) and the G7e (‘Eto’) which together accounted for every vessel covered in the main part of this volume until HMCS St Croix was destroyed by a Zaunkönig acoustic torpedo in September 1943 (86). The letter ‘G’ (short for Geradlaufapparat – ‘straight-running apparatus’) referred to the model number and denoted a diameter of 533 millimetres (21 inches), while the ‘7’ referred to its approximate length in metres (actually 7.18 metres or 23½ feet). Whereas the ‘a’ in G7a denotes the sub-model type, it being the first in that particular series (followed by a ‘B-to’ and ‘C-to’), the ‘e’ in G7e refers to its electric mode of propulsion. Designed in the early 1930s and refined shortly before the outbreak

xxiii

Loading a G7e torpedo in the forward compartment of the Type-IXB U103, 1942. BK

of war, the G7a was a development of the standard German torpedo, itself based on the original Whitehead torpedo. It was powered by a reciprocating engine driven by super-heated steam produced by the ignition of compressed air, petrol and water in a combustion chamber. The G7a was capable of a maximum speed of 44 knots and a range of 6,000 metres on its Schnellschuss (SS – ‘quick fire’) setting. It could also be set to run at 40 knots on the Nahschuss (NS – ‘close fire’) setting with an increased range of 8,000 metres, or set to the maximum possible range of 12,500 metres at a speed of 30 knots with the Weitschuss (WS – ‘remote fire’) setting. Although the G7a was the fastest torpedo employed by the U-Boot-Waffe during the Second World War, the exhaust gases given off as a consequence of its form of propulsion resulted in a visible trail of bubbles – a distinct tactical disadvantage in relatively calm conditions in daylight or on well-lit nights. Although conceived in the 1920s, the all-electric G7e torpedo did not enter service until 1936, after which it too received a number of significant enhancements before the war. Powered by lead acid wet

Fish out of water: stowing (or unstowing) a G7e torpedo in a Type-II U-boat, 1941. BK

24 HMS (ex SS) RAJPUTANA

Capt. F. H. Taylor, DSC RN Sunk by U108 (Type IXB), Kptlt Klaus Scholtz, 13 April 1941 Denmark Strait, 145 nm WNW of Reykjavik (Iceland)

Rajputana following her conversion to armed merchant cruiser. Two of her eight 6-inch mountings can be seen, most of which went into action against U108 on the morning of 13 April 1941. BfZ

Theatre North Atlantic (Map 1) Coordinates (of first attack) 64° 50' N, 27° 25' W Kriegsmarine code (of first attack) Quadrat AD 5582 U-boat timekeeping differential +2 hours Fatalities 42 Survivors 275+

Career For background on the armed merchant cruisers, see HMS Carinthia (8). Built by Harland & Wolff of Greenock for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., the liner Rajputana was launched on 6 August 1925 and completed in January of the following year. Destined for an uneventful career on the company’s Far East service, the outbreak of war found Rajputana at Yokohama from where she was ordered to Esquimalt, British Columbia for refitting as an armed merchant cruiser on 4 September 1939. By now reduced to a single funnel, she was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 16 December, just weeks after her sister Rawalpindi had succumbed to German gunfire in the Iceland–Faroes gap. Rajputana’s first duties were on the America and West Indies Station where she remained until joining the Bermuda Convoy Escort Force (subsequently Bermuda and Halifax Escort Force) in May 1940, and finally the North Atlantic Escort Force the following spring.

Background of the attack On 27 March 1941 Rajputana sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia in

Deadweight 7,521 tons Gross tons 16,644 Dimensions 570' × 71.25' × 28.75' Maximum speed 17 knots Armament 8 × 6"; 2 × 3" AA company with HMS/m Tribune, the pair serving as the initial escort to convoy HX117 bound for the Clyde. Having handed the convoy over to the main escort at longitude 25 degrees West on the evening of 9 April Rajputana altered course north-west towards her assigned patrol area in the Denmark Strait. Also in the Denmark Strait was Kptlt Klaus Scholtz in U108, patrolling with special instructions to attack armed merchant cruisers. U108 first sighted Rajputana early on the 11th and the log excerpt which follows describes no fewer than five separate attacks on her by Scholtz over the next two days. These were made possible because the armed merchant cruisers tended to patrol along fixed courses which were reversed every twelve hours, a regularity of operation that had helped account for HMS Andania (10) the previous June. The first two attacks went undetected by Rajputana though on each occasion Capt. Taylor unwittingly frustrated his pursuer by assuming a zigzag course and maintaining speeds that either spoilt Scholtz’s aim or left him trailing in her wake. However, Scholtz was not be denied and U108’s sixth and eighth torpedoes finally spared his blushes on the morning of the 13th.

24 HMS (ex SS) Rajputana 13 April 1941

War Diary of U108, patrol of 3 March–2 May 1941: PG 30104, NHB, reel 1,080, pp. 636–8 Date, time 11.iv 0945

Details of position, wind, weather, sea, light, visibility, moonlight, etc.

Incidents

Qu. AD 5352

A plume of smoke in sight at a bearing of 0° true which we attempt to close. A steamer, inclination 180°, which presently alters course to starboard, new course 60°. We haul ahead. Visibility is extremely variable due to rain showers and for a while the vessel disappears from sight. When she reappears she is sailing on a reciprocal course. Again we attempt to haul ahead. I assume she is an auxiliary cruiser on Denmark Strait patrol.1 1200 Qu. AD 5327, wind SW 4, Day’s run: 190 nm on the surface, 5 nm submerged = 195 nm. sea 4, strong swell, good visibility, squalls 1300 Vessel once again alters course by 180° or so, thereby confirming my assumption that she is an auxiliary cruiser. As it is pointless trying to haul ahead I take up position behind her, trying to follow the same course line. 1600 Qu. AD 5319, wind SW 3, Auxiliary cruiser disappears from sight in a squall. I plough on. sea 3, partly overcast, intermittent squalls, medium to good visibility 1723 Auxiliary cruiser re-emerges from the squall, inclination 80°, range some 8,000 m. Alarm dive so as to remain unsighted. At periscope depth I establish that the vessel has altered course further in our direction, with an inclination of perhaps 40°. I decide to attack; sea is smooth, minimal swell, not a breath of wind. 1808 Qu. AD 5321 A twin salvo (both G7e) from range of 2,000 m, inclination 100°, enemy speed 13 knots, not possible to get closer given the great initial inclination of the target. They both miss; by hydrophone it appears they passed ahead of her so we must have overestimated her speed. She is an auxiliary cruiser of roughly 10,000 GRT,2 camouflage painting, single funnel, two high masts, passenger superstructures amidships, four cargo hatches, a small derrick on the fo’c’s’le. Bridge is set some distance from the funnel. Perhaps 130 m in length – quite similar to M.S. No. 328/Nector [sic].3 Auxiliary cruiser has not noticed torpedoes and soon after turns away to port. 1940 Surfaced. 2000 Qu. AD 5324, wind W 4, sea 3, partly overcast, good visibility 2025 Our boat lies directly on the auxiliary cruiser’s course, inclination 0°. We dive in preparation for attack. Just as the range closes to around 5,000 m the auxiliary cruiser alters course to starboard by 90°. Attack has to be abandoned. 2239 We surface and pursue target’s wake. Auxiliary cruiser temporarily disappears from sight. 2340 Alarm dive – auxiliary cruiser sighted at 30° on the starboard bow, inclination 10°, bows right, emerging from the mist. Attack attempted, but the night attack periscope is out of action and I can see nothing with the main attack periscope. It’s now getting dark. Hydrophone contact is of poor quality, making it impossible to gain a clear picture of the enemy’s various courses. 2400 Qu. AD 5323, wind SSW 4, sea 4, partly overcast, Scholtz intermittent showers, visibility otherwise good 1 HM armed merchant cruiser Rajputana. 2 A rare case of a U-boat commander dramatically underestimating the size of his target, Rajputana being of 16,664 GRT. 3 Scholtz may be referring to the Ocean Steamship Co.’s Nestor, though at 14,629 GRT and 580 feet in length she was considerably larger than the 10,000 GRT and 130 metres (427 feet) stated here, even if much closer to Rajputana’s actual size. A more probable alternative is the freighter Nestor (2,446 GRT), converted by the Kriegsmarine in 1941 to a Sperrbrecher (‘barrage breaker’) magnetic-mine clearance vessel used to escort surface vessels and U-boats in the approaches to their bases. Although Scholtz’s ‘M.S.’ abbreviation (Minenschiff – ‘minelayer’) and Nestor’s length (110 metres, 360 feet) lend some support to this identification, it should be stated that Nestor’s Sperrbrecher code number was 21 rather than the 328 mentioned here.

90 Date, time Details of position, wind, weather, sea, light, visibility, moonlight, etc. 12.iv 0022

24 HMS (ex SS) Rajputana 13 April 1941 Incidents

We surface as we can neither see nor hear anything. We dive again immediately; auxiliary cruiser is positioned at a relative bearing of 110°, range 3,000 m, inclination 90° bows right, our boat silhouetted against the bright western horizon. We withdraw. 0047 We surface. Auxiliary cruiser no longer in sight. A summary of the day: given the changing courses and speeds of the auxiliary cruiser a daylight attack can only be carried out if luck is on our side given that the enemy alters course constantly, usually reversing her course before our boat has completed her manoeuvre from the limit of visual range to a satisfactory submerged firing position. Where our twilight attack is concerned, our impressions on surfacing are that this would have succeeded had the night attack periscope been serviceable. As the night is too bright for a surface attack, with a full moon blazing through the clouds, yet is at the same time too dark for an underwater attack with the main attack periscope, I decide to use the hours of darkness to withdraw to the north and charge the batteries, so that we are well placed to seek contact once again and attempt a further daylight attack. 0400 Qu. AE 1771, wind ENE 3, Boat has reached her most northerly latitude of 66° 43' N. Indeed, the watch officer only just manages sea 3, partly cloudy, good to avoid an ice floe that sticks up some 2 m above the surface. We turn about due to dangers posed by visibility, hail and squalls ice. 0800 Qu. AD 2995 1000 Qu. AD 2997 Enemy in sight. Visibility is at first impaired due to showers but is then very good, about 15 nm. 1200 Qu. AD 5321, wind NE 5, Day’s run: surface 135 nm, submerged 17 nm = 152 nm total. sea 4, swell, snow and squalls, good visibility 1300 Enemy alters course towards us, inclination 10°. 1305 Dive to commence attack. 1325 Enemy changes course by 90°. Given my range of approx. 5,000 m I find myself once more in a hopeless position. Still submerged, I retreat. 1453 We surface. Enemy no longer in sight. I set off in pursuit. 1600 Qu. AD 5324, wind ENE I intend to re-establish contact before dark and then attempt a night attack. 5, sea 6, cloudy, squalls, good visibility 1700 Auxiliary cruiser once again in sight, course roughly 200°. 1850 Qu. AD 5316 Enemy no longer in sight. Again, set off in pursuit. 2000 Qu. AD 5318, wind NE 4, Once again we encounter substantial ice floes which lie mainly beneath the surface. sea 5, partly overcast, good visibility 2014 Enemy in sight, inclination 10°, bows right. We dive to attack. 2046 We fire third torpedo, a G7e, inclination 105°, enemy speed 8 knots, from a range of approx. 1,000 m. Either I miss or the torpedo runs under the target. 2048 We fire fourth torpedo, also a G7e, inclination 120°, enemy speed 5 knots, range roughly 800 m. This too misses, either because of a misjudgement of the vessel’s speed or because torpedo runs under the target. But from this range the shots should have hit even with substantial coordinate errors. Gauging enemy’s speed has become very difficult. As we ascertain by following in her wake, auxiliary cruiser is altering her speed constantly, and the changes are often substantial. Due to the strong swell I opted for a depth setting of 4 m but this may also have caused the torpedoes to run under the target. We reload torpedoes. 2308 We surface. Enemy no longer in sight. 2400 Qu. AD 5346, wind NE 4, sea 3, medium swell, Scholtz cloudy, good visibility 13.iv 0030 Enemy in sight ahead, sailing at high speed. We try to cling on to her wake. No chance of gaining advance position due to enemy’s high speed. She temporarily disappears from sight despite our making 14 knots.

24 HMS (ex SS) Rajputana 13 April 1941

0400 Qu. AD 5536, wind NE 4, sea 3, swell, overcast, good visibility 0715 Auxiliary cruiser in sight dead ahead, now sailing reciprocal course. 0740 Dive to attack. 5th torpedo, a G7e, inclination 90°, enemy speed 8 knots, range 800 m. Misses. 0743 6th torpedo, a G7e, inclination 120°, enemy speed 12 knots, range 600 m. A hit between the after mast and funnel. Huge flames accompany the detonation. After part of the ship is burning accompanied by clouds of smoke. Later this abates. On attacking we experienced strong variations in trim due to heavy swell and had to run at half speed to keep the boat stable. After the detonation the auxiliary cruiser fires at the periscope with her deck guns – we can hear the impacts inside the boat. I can see the shots being fired from the promenade deck above, presumably 8.8- and 2-cm calibre.4 Auxiliary cruiser now only just has way on, holding same course. 0800 Qu. AD 5582, wind ENE They also seem to be using hydrophones to direct their fire whenever our periscope is lowered. 5, sea 4, mainly overcast, Impacts heard all around the boat. average visibility, freshening 0823 7th torpedo, G7a, inclination 113°, enemy speed 3 knots, range 1,800 m. A dud. Torpedo could be heard with hydrophones for only five seconds, whereas all the others could be heard clearly for the duration of their runs. So clearly headed towards the seabed after 100 m of its run. 0930 8th torpedo, G7e. A coup-de-grâce shot for the stopped auxiliary cruiser. Hits. Impact not observed as boat briefly dips below surface. I manoeuvre around her bows. Vessel assumes heavy list to port and settles deeper by the stern. They’ve stopped firing. I take the view that no further torpedo is called for and that the ship will sink, particularly in these heavy sea conditions. I decide to head off, course 250°, and have another look later from the far horizon. Further cruising at periscope depth can’t be justified given the difficult conditions for holding the boat’s trim, not to mention the obviously expected air surveillance. Particularly in the absence of a sky search periscope.5 1101 Loud detonation nearby. As the possibility of aircraft can’t be ruled out I dive to T = 45 m, though judging by the sound it can’t have been a depth charge or aerial bomb.6 We hear nothing else. I assume that it must have been an explosion on board the auxiliary cruiser (magazine).7 1200 Qu. AD 5559 Day’s run: surface 161 nm, submerged 23 nm. Total = 184 nm. 1300 Propeller noises at a bearing of 240°, high revolutions, presumably a destroyer.8 1400 Propeller noises have shifted astern and died away. 1456 We surface 9 nm from scene of sinking. I head in her direction. Dead ahead a single high mast appears, followed by another at 300° on the starboard bow. Doubtless destroyers at scene of sinking.9 No sign of the auxiliary cruiser. She must have sunk. 1518 We head off in the opposite direction. 1520 Alarm dive due to approaching aircraft, though she didn’t spot us. I assume that flying boats from Reykjavik are searching for us in wide circles around the scene of the sinking. 4 Rajputana was armed with 6-inch mountings together with a pair of 3-inch (‘12-pounder’) guns which would equate with Scholtz’s ‘8.8-cm calibre’. The 20mm Oerlikon gun was not mounted. 5 The sky search periscope (Luftzielsehrohr) was another name for the night search periscope (Nachtzielsehrohr), which Scholtz earlier reports as being unserviceable. 6 By ‘T = 45 m’ Scholtz seems to be recording a dive of 185 metres (607 feet); for a full discussion of the ‘T =’ notation, see Reading the Kriegstagebücher, p. xxxvii. 7 As this entry corresponds with the time Rajputana sank, the detonation recorded by Scholtz could be attributed to a boiler explosion as she went down. 8 Presumably HMS Legion; see below. 9 Legion is the only vessel recorded by the British as reaching the scene of the sinking.

The sinking Following a ‘phenomenal crash’ on her port side Rajputana came to an immediate stop, losing all power and assuming an immediate list of about ten degrees. The torpedo had struck abreast the engine rooms, tearing a large hole in her side which rapidly flooded both these and the after boiler room. A number of distress signals were transmitted

to the Admiralty reporting that the engines were disabled and both engine rooms, the after stokehold and No. 4 hold flooded. Although a mine was initially suspected, the duty chief yeoman of signals spotted U108’s periscope four minutes after the hit and Rajputana immediately opened fire with her 6-inch guns. As Scholtz’s log makes clear, these maintained a spirited volume of fire practically to the end. In contrast

24 HMS (ex SS) Rajputana 13 April 1941

A survivor’s view of Rajputana going down shortly before 0800 (British time) on the morning of 13 April. The second shot shows the final plunge with men visible among the flotsam in the foreground. Bruce Taylor collection

to the seven that preceded it, the torpedo that finished Rajputana off at 0730 (0930 log time) was spotted approaching at a leisurely pace by those on deck; so slowly, in fact, that an unsuccessful attempt was made to detonate it with the starboard 12-pounder. Striking between No. 4 and 5 holds, the explosion opened up the starboard side to the upper deck and immediately flooded the after part of the ship. At 0750 Capt. Taylor made another signal requesting ‘immediate assistance, abandoning ship’ in position 64° 50' N, 27° 01' W. Barely had the last of Rajputana’s men got clear than she sank by the stern with ‘a tremendous rush of water’. It was just before 0800 British time, a little over two hours after the first hit. B.d.U. commended Scholtz for his exemplary tenacity in pursuing Rajputana, though in light of six misses was less complimentary about his marksmanship which was considered to require ‘further attention’.

Fate of the crew Scholtz’s sixth torpedo instantly claimed the lives of three of the engine room staff. Another man believed missing was later found swimming beneath the gratings, and an advert for Eveready batteries subsequently placed in the American media recorded how Stoker 1st Class Frank C. Davidson of Truro, Nova Scotia had used a torch to rescue shipmates from a flooded compartment. It is not known how many casualties were sustained as a result of the second hit. The speed of the sinking complicated efforts to get the port side boats away, some of them wallowing back under the promenade deck as Rajputana drifted to leeward. When she disappeared some minutes later the water was strewn with the boats, oil drums, wreckage and struggling men shown in the photos above, but most of those in the water found a berth. Thanks to the prompt and accurate transmission of distress signals by Capt. Taylor, a search was immediately instigated and a majority of the survivors were spotted by a Sunderland flying boat later that morning. Picked up by HM destroyer Legion that afternoon, they were safely in Reykjavik by evening though Lt Daniel Hanington RCNR recalling having shivered off twenty-nine pounds of his girth in the intervening period. It has not proved possible to corroborate the claim by Charles Hocking (see below) that thirty-four men were rescued by a second vessel and eventually returned to Canada. However, one of the ship’s boats was never seen again and among those lost was Rajputana’s peacetime master, Cdr C. T. O. Richardson RNR, retained as the ship’s navigating officer following her conversion for war service.

U108 and Klaus Scholtz

Built by AG Weser of Bremen and commissioned in October 1940, U108 was commanded for her first eight frontline patrols by Kptlt (Korvettenkapitän from November 1941) Klaus Scholtz. The combination was a highly successful one, U108 sinking twenty-five ships for a total of over 125,000 tons between February 1941 and August 1942. The good endurance of the Type-IXB boats served U108 well and she scored heavily in US and Caribbean waters during Operation paukenschlag. Awarded the Knight’s Cross in December 1941 (to which the Oak Leaf cluster was added on leaving U108 in September 1942), Scholtz was given command of the 12th Flotilla based on Lorient, which office he held until this force was disbanded in August 1944. He attempted to get his men back to Germany but they were captured in France in September, Scholtz spending the next nineteen months in US captivity. He later joined the newly created Bundesmarine, retiring in 1966 as a Kapitän zur See. Klaus Scholtz died in May 1987. U108 enjoyed scant success in her last three patrols under Korvkpt. Rolf-Reimar Wolfram, being assigned to training duties in September 1943. She was sunk in a US bomber raid on Stettin on 11 April 1944, and though raised was decommissioned and eventually scuttled there on 24 April 1945.

Sources Admiralty, Enemy Submarine Attacks on HM Ships, 1941 (TNA, ADM 199/160) —, Reports of HX Convoys (TNA, ADM 199/178) Hocking, Charles, Dictionary of Disasters at Sea during the Age of Steam Including Sailing Ships and Ships of War Lost in Action, 1824–1962 (2 vols, London: Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, 1969), pp. 577–8 Kerr, George F., Business in Great Waters: The War History of the P. & O., 1939–1945 (London: Faber and Faber, 1951) Middlemiss, Norman L., P. & O. Lines [Merchant Fleets, no. 44] (Newcastle upon Tyne: Shield Publications, 2004) Osborne, Richard, Harry Spong and Tom Grover, Armed Merchant Cruisers, 1878–1945 (Windsor, Berks.: World Ship Society, 2007) Poolman, Kenneth, Armed Merchant Cruisers (London: Leo Cooper, 1985) Westell, Dan, ‘Memoirs Offer a Personal Glimpse into Navy Battle’ [obituary of Rear-Admiral D. L. Hanington, survivor]: http://www.craigmarlatt. com/canada/security&defence/navy-news2.html

25 HMS (ex SS) CAMITO

Cdr A. A. Barnet, RNR Sunk by U97 (Type VIIC), Kptlt Udo Heilmann, 6–7 May 1941 North Atlantic, 600 nm W of Land’s End, Cornwall (England)

The Elders & Fyffes banana boat SS Camito seen leaving Avonmouth in the 1930s. The survivor of a U-boat attack in the First World War, she succumbed to U97 in the Second. Bruce Taylor collection

Theatre North Atlantic (Map 1) Coordinates (of attack) 50° 40' N, 21° 30' W Kriegsmarine code (of attack) Quadrat BE 1372 U-boat timekeeping differential +2 hours Fatalities 2 in Camito, 26 in Sangro Survivors 126

Career For background on the ocean boarding vessels, see HMS Crispin (22). Built for Elders & Fyffes Shipping by Alexander Stephen & Sons of Linthouse, Glasgow, the coal-fired banana boat SS Camito was launched in April 1915, entering service as an escort vessel that same year. She had an eventful career, beating off an attack from U82 on 15 June 1917 and striking a mine laid by U79 off Aran Island, County Galway on 13 August. After the Great War Camito took up the cargo and passenger duties between Britain and the Caribbean for which she had been designed, serving in this capacity throughout the interwar period. In 1940 she was again requisitioned by the Admiralty and refitted as an ocean boarding vessel, thus making her one of the handful of merchantmen to have seen naval service in both world wars.

Background of the attack On the evening of 3 May 1941 HMS Camito, then patrolling in the Western Approaches, intercepted the Italian tanker SS Sangro which quickly struck her colours and surrendered. Laden with fuel oil, the 6,466-ton Sangro was a valuable prize and Cdr Barnet lost no time in sending aboard a prize crew of twenty-six men and notifying the Admiralty of his capture. He was ordered to make for position 50° 00' N, 20° 22' W to rendezvous with HM corvettes Orchis and Heather on the evening of the 5th. However, the passage of Camito and Sangro to

Deadweight 6,750 tons Gross tons 6,833 Dimensions 426.25' × 54.25' × 17' Maximum speed 15.5 knots Armament 2 × 6"; 1 × 3" AA; 4 × .303" the meeting point proved to be a difficult one. Sangro had problems with her steering gear and the vessels twice came close to colliding in poor visibility on the night of 4–5 May. Similar difficulties were experienced the following night. The resulting delay might not have affected the issue except that Camito, keeping British Summer Time, had been sending her position in GMT, while Orchis and Heather were using Mid-Atlantic Standard Time (GMT –2 hours). The efforts of the two corvettes to make the rendezvous with Camito were therefore frustrated first by an inaccurate assessment of her relative position and then by poor visibility. The matter was complicated by difficulties in signalling, with Camito apparently working not in Auxiliary Code but in Fleet Code, which only Heather could decipher, all signals having to be re-encrypted in order that Orchis could read them. Subsequent investigation revealed that Camito should in this instance have been using standard naval codes and timekeeping. Whatever the case, all this unwittingly played into the hands of Kptlt Udo Heilmann whose war diary for 5 May reveals that U97 sighted first Heather and Orchis heading south-south-west and then Sangro and Camito steering north-east just twenty minutes later, the vessels having clearly missed each other. Still en route to his assigned patrol area, Heilmann baulked at the prospect of attacking Heather and Orchis while they sailed in company but had no such qualms where Camito and her prize were concerned.

25 HMS (ex SS) Camito 6–7 May 1941

War Diary of U97, patrol of 1–30 May 1941: PG 30093, NHB, reel 1,077, pp. 131–2

Date, time Details of position, wind, Incidents weather, sea, light, visibility, moonlight, etc. 5.v 1600 Qu. [BE] 1611, wind N 5, sea 3–4, overcast, variable visibility, 1,007 mb 1625 An improvement in visibility. We surface and head towards our allotted operational area. 1725 Qu. [BE] 1298 A vessel heaves into sight at an acute inclination of 40° on the starboard bow, course roughly 210°. Shortly after sighting this vessel we see a second one steering the same course. We can identify both vessels as small escort types, apparently a U-boat hunter pairing.1 They keep altering course. I turn away and withdraw to the south. 1745 Qu. [BE] 1532 A steamer appears at an acute inclination dead ahead. I now turn to the west to ascertain whether it is part of a convoy or sailing on its own. Further observation reveals a pair of steamers sailing in company, course north-east.2 Because of the U-boat hunter group nearby I decide to maintain remote contact and only move in to attack on the surface under cover of darkness. 2000 Qu. [BE] 1531 Maintaining contact is becoming difficult due to the rapidly changing visibility and the heavy seas breaking over the boat. Contact temporarily lost as a result. 2057 Alarm! The two steamers loom up out of a wall of rain. Our boat is very close and is forced to dive. Both vessels are steering strong zigzag courses. It’s quite possible that we’ve been spotted.3 2122 Surface and re-establish contact. While the first steamer is maintaining a consistent course and speed, the second vessel is constantly altering speed, and sometimes veering off at bearings that diverge up to 90° from the mean course.4 Once dusk falls the two steamers start zigzagging more consistently as well as less frequently. 2400 Qu. [BE] 1299, wind N 5, sea 4, overcast, visibility variable, light showers, Heilmann 1,010 mb 6.v We establish course and speed of rear steamer while hauling ahead. 0202 Qu. [BE] 1372 Attack on rear steamer (size approx. 5,000 GRT).5 Spread of two torpedoes fired (G7e). Shot coordinates: enemy speed 7 knots, inclination 89.6°, range 800 m. Two misses because enemy speed overestimated. Enemy apparently noticed our approach and reduced speed. I turn away immediately so as to get a stern shot in. Single shot (G7a). Shot coordinates: enemy speed 5 knots, inclination 93°, range 600 m. Misses as vessel stops and goes astern. Again I manoeuvre ahead and attack once more. 0240 Qu. [BE] 1372 Single shot (G7a). Shot coordinates: enemy speed 2 knots, inclination 78.7°, range 800 m. 48 seconds later a very powerful, high-pitched detonation with a large column of flame. It strikes slightly abaft of amidships. It seems as though torpedo must have struck on the waterline, or just slightly below, because the column sent up by the explosion and detonation were abnormal. We noted up to three separate detonations in the boat. Steamer continues at slow speed, then turns gradually towards us. A number of different lights are showing on deck. The torpedo doesn’t seem to have made a great deal of difference to the steamer – she’s not settling any deeper, or listing. Based on these observations and the behaviour of the vessel during the day I assume that she is a U-boat decoy.6 So I decide to abandon my efforts with this vessel and work my way over towards the other one. 0353 Qu. [BE] 1348 Attack on 6,000 GRT tanker.7 1 These two were almost certainly HMSs Heather and Orchis, vainly trying to rendezvous with Camito and Sangro. Interestingly, while U97 sighted both groups within twenty minutes of each other, the corvettes did not locate survivors from the Sangro until more than twenty-four hours had passed. 2 SS Sangro and HMS Camito respectively. 3 It is clear from Admiralty records that U97 had not in fact been spotted. 4 SS Sangro showing the effects of her defective steering gear. 5 HMS Camito of 6,833 GRT. This and all subsequent torpedoes were fired by U97’s First Watch Officer, Kptlt Burkhard Hackländer, who went on to sink HMS Matabele while in command of U454 (see 47). 6 Camito was in fact an ocean boarding vessel. 7 SS Sangro of 6,466 GRT.

0503

25 HMS (ex SS) Camito 6–7 May 1941

Single shot (G7e). Shot coordinates: enemy speed 5 knots, inclination 82°, range 500 m. Hits amidships after 30 seconds with a powerful detonation. Immediately after the explosion tanker is clearly observed to be blazing brightly. The glow of flame can be seen for a long time afterwards, even from a great distance. I now return to the position from which I attacked the first steamer. She’s still there – steering back and forth at very slow speed, her course constantly altering. There are a large number of empty drums floating in the water that have clearly come from the steamer. So she probably was a decoy vessel or something similar which should be treated with a great deal of caution. As such, I decide against sacrificing more torpedoes and head off to the south-east, altering to the south-west once dawn breaks. Weather report transmitted to B.d.U.

The sinking Despite Heilmann’s fears there is no evidence that Cdr Barnet had any idea he was being stalked by a U-boat until Camito was struck on the starboard side abreast No. 3 hold at 0050 ship time. No casualties were inflicted nor did Camito initially appear to have suffered fatal damage. Though the port engine was disabled, the starboard unit remained serviceable and early reports suggested that its damaged twin could be quickly repaired, which proved to be the case. Of greater concern was the steady flooding of the shaft tunnels, while water was also entering through the main engine room bulkheads. Course was initially set to regain contact with Sangro when a huge explosion ahead revealed that she too had been torpedoed. Cdr Barnet recalled ‘a sheet of flame high in the sky illuminating the sea for many miles around’. Incorrectly assuming that the entire crew had perished in the conflagration, he immediately altered course and made off on both engines at a speed of seven knots to avoid a similar fate. However, it was the ocean rather than U97 that proved to be Camito’s undoing, Heilmann having long since disappeared to the south. By the afternoon of the 6th the wind had reached Force 7 and the sea was ‘breaking unremittingly on the deck’. Fearing a second torpedo, at daybreak on the 7th Cdr Barnet ordered Camito’s lifeboats to be lowered with the majority of the ship’s company while he remained on board with a skeleton crew. By early afternoon Camito had shipped so much water that he had no option but to pass the order to abandon ship. According to Orchis’s timekeeping, she sank at around 1430, approximately in position 50° 14' N, 21° 45' W and about twenty miles south-west of where Sangro had met her fate. The Officer Commanding Northern Patrol, Rear-Admiral E. J. Spooner, made much of Camito’s failure to position herself at a safe distance from Sangro prior to the attack and questioned her slow speed, a point reiterated by the Court of Enquiry, which also commended Cdr Barnet and his ship’s company for doing all in their power to save the ship. However, the confusion which resulted in three ships spending almost a day trying to locate each other in the same area of ocean without realising that they were using different timekeeping to relay their positions (with an additional code complication) seems to have passed without comment. That this situation should recur after the rescue of survivors of HMS Crispin (22) had been delayed by comparable disjunctures in February suggests either a significant failure of organisation or more likely the Admiralty’s determination to keep the operation of its ocean boarding vessels secret.

Fate of the crew In view of Heilmann’s extreme caution when dealing with British

Heilmann (in white cap) brings U97 back to St-Nazaire on 30 May 1941 from the patrol during which Camito was sunk. To the right the pennant corresponding to Camito reads U-Boot Falle (‘U-boat trap [ship]’), as recorded in the log. Note U97’s seahorse emblem on the conning tower. BK

warships, the fact that he elected to attack Camito at all no doubt had much to do with the failure of Heather and Orchis to effect a timely rendezvous with her on 5 May. On the other hand, Orchis’s appearance at 1520 on the 7th was just as instrumental in saving the majority of her crew in what were now appalling conditions. After rescuing Cdr Barnet and his skeleton crew from their rafts, Orchis proceeded at full speed to the estimated position of the lifeboats which had been set adrift with the bulk of the ship’s company more than seven hours earlier. The first was sighted at 1645 and the last (showing her position in increasingly poor visibility with an Aldis lamp) at 1830. All those who abandoned ship on the 6th were saved, a remarkable achievement in the prevailing conditions. However, the two men who went down with Camito did so in particularly regrettable circumstances. Taking advantage of damage to the wardroom bar and a relaxation of ordinary supervision, the ratings in question found two bottles of whisky and proceeded to drink themselves into an insensible condition. As they could neither be roused nor safely lowered when the time came for Camito’s skeleton crew to abandon ship, they were reluctantly left to their fate as the vessel foundered. For her part, Heather was sent ahead to rescue the crew of the Sangro though not one of Camito’s prize crew of twenty-six men survived the ordeal. The four men rescued by Heather not far from where Sangro sank were all members of her Italian complement.

208

53 USS JACOB JONES (i)

Lt Cdr H. D. Black, USN† Sunk by U578 (Type VIIC), Korvkpt. Ernst-August Rehwinkel, 28 February 1942 North Atlantic, 25 nm SE of Cape May, New Jersey (USA)

Jacob Jones at an idyllic anchorage in the Pacific between the wars, far from her loss to U578 in the North Atlantic. BfZ

Theatre US coastal waters (Map 1) Coordinates 38° 42' N, 74° 29' W Kriegsmarine code Quadrat CA 5458 U-boat timekeeping differential +6 hours Fatalities 138 Survivors 11

Displacement 1,160 tons Dimensions 314.25' × 31' × 9.25' Maximum speed 35 knots Armament 6 × 3"; 5 × .5" AA; 6 × 21" tt

Career For design notes on the Wickes-class destroyers, of which USS Jacob Jones was one of 111 units, see HNorMS Bath (30). The USS Jacob Jones (DD-130) was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corp. at Camden, New Jersey on 21 February 1918 and launched on 20 November that year by Mrs. Cazenove Doughton, great-granddaughter of Commodore Jacob Jones, a hero of the War of 1812 against Britain. Jacob Jones was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 20 October 1919, leaving that port for her shakedown cruise on 4 December. Her training completed at Pensacola, Florida on 3 January 1920, Jacob Jones sailed for the Pacific where she was to remain for the next ten years. Assigned to the Pacific Fleet’s Destroyer Force at San Diego, she spent her first months operating along the California coast on anti-aircraft and firing exercises before entering Mare Island Navy Yard near San Francisco for refit and repair in August. Temporarily placed in reserve, Jacob Jones resumed duty with the Destroyer Force on 18 June 1921, with which she remained until decommissioning on 24 June 1922 along with much of her class as a consequence of the recently signed Washington Naval Treaty. This might have been the end for USS Jacob Jones, as indeed it proved for many of her sisters, but on 1 May 1930 she was recommissioned after eight years in mothballs and trained as a plane guard for the US Navy’s nascent aircraft carrier fleet. Following a refit at Mare Island in

November Jacob Jones sailed south for Panama on 4 February 1931 where she undertook plane guard duty for the carrier Langley before transiting the Panama Canal for manoeuvres in the Caribbean and then in the Chesapeake Bay. The rest of the summer was spent with Destroyer Division 7 along the New England coast before she made her way to Boston Navy Yard for refitting in October. Jacob Jones passed the next three years on fleet duty, mainly in the Caribbean, the highlight being an assignment as escort during President Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbor’ visit to Haiti in the summer of 1934. In December she entered Norfolk Navy Yard for refitting, emerging as a training ship for midshipmen from the US Naval Academy, Annapolis in May 1935. Service with the Atlantic Fleet continued, the ship operating first out of New York and then Norfolk from 1937, her officer-training duties interspersed with manoeuvres and exercises off the eastern seaboard of the United States and in the Caribbean. In October 1938 Jacob Jones quit Norfolk to join Squadron 40-T, the force which since September 1936 had been charged with protecting US interests and citizens in Spain during the Civil War. Assigned mostly to the Western Mediterranean, it was not until October of the following year that she returned to the United States, war having by now broken out in Europe. Patrol and escort duty continued along the east coast and in the Caribbean until she was refitted at Norfolk in the spring of 1940. In April of that year she joined the Neutrality Patrol in

53 USS Jacob Jones (i) 28 February 1942

the Atlantic, being reassigned to officer-training duties in June and then ordered to New London, Connecticut in September for anti-submarine sonar training at the Atlantic Fleet Sound School which was completed at Key West, Florida early in the new year. Returning to the Neutrality Patrol in March 1941, she spent two months in the waters separating Key West and the Yucatan Channel before joining the US Navy’s guard of the Vichy-held islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles. Following a two-month refit at Norfolk, on 1 December Jacob Jones sailed for convoy escort training off New England after which she transferred to Argentia, Newfoundland on 12 December for escort duty with Destroyer Division 54 of Destroyer Squadron 27, Atlantic Fleet. Her first action came while escorting the minesweepers Albatross and Linnet en route to join convoy SC63 on 5 January 1942, an underwater contact heralding a prolonged though unsuccessful depth-charge attack. Her next convoy, HX169 to Iceland, was scattered by a violent storm, Jacob Jones proceeding independently to Hvalfjörður which she gained low on fuel and despite compass failure on the 19th. The return voyage with three merchantmen suffered similar tribulations, the convoy becoming dispersed in mountainous seas. Jacob Jones reached Argentia on 3 February in company with a Norwegian merchantman, though not before making a second unsuccessful attack on a suspected U-boat contact. Further convoy duty with ON59 at length brought her into Boston for repairs on 8 February, these completed at Norfolk on the 18th. Meanwhile, catastrophic losses of US merchant shipping had caused Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews, Commander of the Eastern Sea Frontier, to establish a roving anti-submarine patrol off the US coast which in turn brought ‘Jakie’ to her final assignment. A first

209

sortie on 22 February resulted in an attack on a submarine contact off the Ambrose Lightship during which Jacob Jones unavailingly expended her inventory of fifty-seven depth charges. Five days later she sailed from New York for the very last time.

Background of the attack Among the eighteen U-boats ordered to American waters in February 1942 as part of Operation paukenschlag (‘drumroll’) was Korvettenkapitän Ernst-August Rehwinkel’s U578. Her maiden success came off New Jersey when the unescorted tanker R.P. Resor was sunk east of the Barnegat Light in the early hours of 27 February. The burning wreck was sighted by USSs Dickerson and Jacob Jones which had left New York that afternoon on a search and patrol mission between Barnegat Light and Five Fathom Bank. Jacob Jones, recently assigned to anti-submarine patrol duty, searched the vicinity for two hours but found no survivors. She then resumed her course southward to Cape May and the Delaware Capes, reporting her position on the evening of the 27th before commencing radio silence. Nothing more was heard from her and despite the rescue of a handful of survivors it needed the capture of German records for the precise circumstances of her loss to be revealed. These showed U578 to have been closed by an enemy vessel at approximately 1025 log time (0425 ship time) on the 28th, thereby affording Korvkpt. Rehwinkel the chance to claim a second victim in twenty-four hours. Still uncertain whether it was a cruiser or destroyer, Rehwinkel brought U578 into a firing position and shortly before 1100 demolished his target with a double hit.

War Diary of U578, patrol of 3 February–25 March 1942: PG 30613, NHB, reel 1,124, pp. 660–11

Date, time 28.ii 0800 0810

Details of position, wind, weather, sea, light, visibility, moonlight, etc.

[Qu.] CA 5456

0900 1025

1029

1050

Incidents

A brightly lit steamer heaves into sight on the port bow steering a northerly course. A Swedish vessel, probably the Gullmaren.2 I keep well clear. Course 180°. A blacked-out vessel in sight on the starboard bow steering a course more or less reciprocal to our own. We turn to assume a parallel course. Battle Stations. I haul ahead to carry out a surface attack. We have a favourable position against the backdrop of a dark horizon in the east. The moon is largely obscured by light cloud an hour before it sets. Light is good but a little hazy. Tubes I, III and V ready to fire. I gradually form the impression of a typical cruiser silhouette.3 The inclination remains too fine to make out any details. I alter course to 230° to attack with a spread of two torpedoes, depth 3 m as per target assessment. I have brought forward the attack because it will be light in two hours and I want to retire to deeper water in good time. We are now very close as a result of a slight overestimation of enemy inclination. It’s now critical that I keep to the pursuit curve at dead slow speed. But she plays into our hands. It is remarkable that the enemy has not spotted us despite our favourable position.

1 See p. xv for reproductions of the original log showing Rehwinkel’s attack (entries 1050 and 1057) together with the corresponding torpedo report (Schussmeldung). 2 A freighter of 3,397 GRT. 3 The confusion is owed to the similarity in proportions and layout between the Omaha-class cruisers (7,050 tons, 556 feet) and the Wickes-class destroyers (1,090 tons, 314 feet). Though of very different size, each class shared the same distinguishing feature of four upright stacks disposed in pairs. See the entry for 1057 and nn. 5, 7 and 9 for more on this.

53 USS Jacob Jones (i) 28 February 1942

210 Date, time Details of position, wind, weather, sea, light, visibility, moonlight, etc. 1057

1200 1236 1305

Incidents

Qu. CA 5458, wind NW 3, sea 3, almost overcast, moon appearing occasionally between clouds. Fairly good visibility, not altogether clear.

Spread of two fired on attack course 240°.4 After firing I order both engines utmost speed ahead and hard aport. Doubts arise both before firing and once torpedoes are running as to whether this really is a cruiser. The rather hazy light against us makes identifying details difficult so these can only be made out as the inclination becomes broader. Torpedo officer definitely believes he can make out destroyer features, particularly the island, though this is also a feature of the Concord class.5 Four funnels can be clearly distinguished. The Brückenmaat is convinced it is a cruiser based on her silhouette, size and guns.6 My impression of a cruiser’s silhouette and dimensions remains unaltered although I was unable to concentrate on the details in the last few minutes due to manoeuvring considerations. After a running time of 34 sec. a hit approximately amidships. A powerful explosion follows immediately accompanied by a thick, black, oily cloud of smoke which sprinkles us with oily soot. This is immediately followed by a second hit just forward of the stern which in turn sets off a series of nine very powerful explosions. Presumably either depth charges or mines, these have a powerful effect on our boat and we suffer a number of electrical failures as a result. We are forced to retire through a cloud of smoke. As soon as this has cleared we see small pieces of wreckage still burning. We withdraw, course 120°, at ¾ speed then at half speed. Still the doubts persist. Obviously we would love to have sunk a cruiser and the fact that the torpedoes worked with depth settings of 3 m appears to bear this out. According to our Weyher [sic], the four funnelled destroyers have a maximum draught of 2.8 m.7 On the other hand both range and angle Dark once moon has set, of spread suggest a destroyer. Torpedo run was timed at 57/100 which is why I first reported 57 sec. good visibility running time.8 This equates to a target range of almost 900 m, which strengthened my original view. However, the running time was actually only 34 sec. – or some 500 m – which ultimately counts for more than any amount of wishful thinking.9 Qu. CA 5494 Day’s run: surface 85 nm, submerged 24 nm. Two distant detonations. Dawn breaking. We dive to proceed under water.

4 The spread was fired by U578’s First Watch Officer, Lt.z.S. Raimund Tiesler. 5 The USS Concord was a unit of the Omaha-class light cruisers (see n. 3). The torpedo officer was Lt.z.S. Tiesler. 6 The Brückenmaat (‘bridge mate’) was the senior rating of the four-strong bridge watch. 7 Rehwinkel is referring to the Weyer warship recognition manual with which all U-boats were equipped. He may not be accounting for the fact that Jacob Jones was fully loaded and her tanks brimful of oil fuel on sailing from New York the previous afternoon. 8 ‘57/100’ refers to 57 per cent of a minute (i.e. 34 seconds), which Rehwinkel initially misinterpreted as 57 seconds. 9 In other words, Rehwinkel and his bridge watchkeeper believed they were seeing a larger vessel further off, but the much shorter running time of 34 seconds supported Lt.z.S. Tiesler’s contention that the target was in fact a destroyer at shorter range. As it proved.

The sinking The first torpedo struck Jacob Jones on the port side abaft the bridge, apparently causing a secondary detonation in the magazine. The effect of these two virtually simultaneous explosions was to destroy the chart room, the bridge and the officers’ and petty officers’ quarters – indeed ‘everything forward from the point of impact was sheared off and sank rapidly’. As Rehwinkel corroborates, the second torpedo struck almost simultaneously ‘approximately 40 feet forward of the fantail and sheered off everything above the keel plates and shafts [and] destroyed the crews’ quarters located in that section’. The overall impression was one of ‘unbelievable damage’. In the words of one survivor, ‘Number 1 stack and the bridge were gone. Number 2 stack was laying over against the galley deckhouse, and the deck over Number 1 fireroom was rolled up against the galley deckhouse. The deck over the forward compartments was rolled up against the machine gun nest over the top of the engine room.’ The condition of the ship left none of the survivors in much doubt that her fate was sealed and the fact that all of her officers were immediately killed or incapacitated put any damage

control measures out of the question. But surprisingly in view of her age and the extent of the damage inflicted, Jacob Jones remained afloat for about an hour after the attack and it was not until 0600 that she upended and sank. An entry in the Eastern Sea Frontier War Diary for March 1942 noted uncertainty as to the circumstances of Jacob Jones’s loss and dwelt on the possibility that ‘the German[s] picked up a secondary signal from the radio used on the listening watch’. Rehwinkel’s log makes no mention of any such assistance but another observation in the War Diary was closer to the mark: How much the element of bad luck entered into her sinking, none can be sure. The normal watch was set and ‘apparently on the alert.’ No man saw any evidence of a submarine and no man saw even the wake of the torpedoes before they struck. It is quite possible that the meeting between the destroyer and the U-boat was simply ill fortune.

It is perhaps ironic that Jacob Jones shares with her namesake DD61 the dubious distinction of being the first American destroyer lost to the U-Boot-Waffe following the entry of the United States into the

53 USS Jacob Jones (i) 28 February 1942

211

war, the latter having been sunk by the first U53 on 6 December 1917. DD-130 was also the first US naval vessel lost in combat in Atlantic coastal waters, as DD-61 was the first US destroyer ever lost to enemy action. Their memory was perpetuated in the shape of an Edsallclass destroyer escort of the same name launched in November 1942 (DE-130) together with a USS Black and USS Marshall of the Fletcher class (DD-666 and DD-676), launched in March and August 1943 in honour of Lt Cdr Hugh Black and Lt Cdr Thomas W. Marshall Jr who lost their lives as commander and executive officer respectively of the second Jacob Jones. Her wreck lies in 120 feet of water, a mass of twisted wreckage. The stern section is almost unrecognizable. The midsection is sitting upright. The boilers and engine are still visible, although most hull plates appear to have been blown off. The midsection torpedo tubes still have torpedoes in them. Gun shells are often found in the sand and surrounding wreckage. The bow is on its side with a relief of about 10 ft. Visibility is generally very good, sometimes in excess of 100 ft, averaging 30 ft or so. She is routinely visited by sunfish, turtles, and tuna.

Fate of the crew The vast majority of Jacob Jones’s ship’s company met a swift end, killed instantly in the primary and secondary detonations caused by U578’s two torpedoes or carried to the bottom in the severed bow. The only officer recorded as having survived the explosions, Assistant Engineer Ensign Norman C. Smith, was so badly wounded that ‘he was practically incoherent at all times until his death’. Those who survived, all from the midships section with the exception of Machinist’s Mate 2/c Thomas R. Moody (the sole escapee from the after engine room), attempted to abandon ship but found it no easy task since there were insufficient able-bodied men available to slip the boats, their efforts hampered by debris, loose rigging and great quantities of oil across the deck. Around thirty men eventually got away in as many as six rafts, though that containing Radioman 3/c Albert E. Oberg and two others narrowly escaped being dragged down with the wreck: Near the forward end of what remained of the ship we became caught on jagged metal. In the struggle to get off we lost our paddles and drifted in a semicircle around to what was left of the stern. Just before it sank the stern end started to rise and we drifted toward it. The propeller shafts stuck out above us like giant drumsticks. A piece of hull came up under our raft and started to lift us. We got free a few minutes before it went down. As it went down, the wash pushed us out and free of the wreckage.

However, further calamity awaited the occupants of the most crowded rafts. In testimony provided to the 4th Naval District Intelligence Office at the US Naval Air Station at Cape May, New Jersey the following day (1 March), MM 2/c Moody, who had been flown in on the afternoon of the sinking, stated that he abandoned ship in a life raft, which had been thrown over the starboard side; that this raft contained 15 other members of the crew, including Ensign Smith; that when the ship sank this raft was so close to her that when the depth charges went off they were apparently right under the raft; that many of the men on the raft received fatal injuries from these terrific concussions; and that eventually only 3 of the original 15 survived.

The same detonations inflicted casualties on other rafts by blasting their occupants into the water. No distress signal could be sent before the ship went down and

U578 sails from St-Nazaire on her penultimate patrol on 7 May 1942, two months after sinking the Jacob Jones. Rehwinkel (in white cap) stands on the conning tower which sports the snorting bull first borne by U47 (see 2) and adopted by the 7th U-Flottille after her demise in March 1941. DUBMA

the approach of a weather front that morning would in all probability have doomed the survivors had they not been sighted by a US Army reconnaissance plane at 0810 – three hours after the attack and before Jacob Jones was even missed. The pilot reported the sighting and the approximate position of the survivors both to a shore station and to USS Eagle 56, a wooden-hulled vessel of the Inshore Patrol (G132). Two picket boats were dispatched from Lewes and a lifeboat from Indian River Inlet (both Delaware), but only Eagle 56 rescued any survivors, picking up twelve men within four hours of the attack, one of whom succumbed before she reached Cape May. Rising seas forced Eagle 56 to break off the search at 1100 and an operation to locate further survivors over the next forty-eight hours failed to add to the meagre tally of eleven men.

U578 and Ernst-August Rehwinkel Built by Blohm & Voss at Hamburg and commissioned in July 1941, U578 made five frontline patrols under Korvkpt. Ernst-August Rehwinkel. The first of these (in the Barents Sea) was unsuccessful, the only episode of note being the ramming of U578 by the Soviet patrol craft SKR-25/Briz off the Kanin Peninsula on 26 November. Her next patrol in the North Atlantic enjoyed no better success, but 1942 saw an upturn in U578’s fortunes as part of the U-Boot-Waffe’s second ‘Happy Time’, her third and fourth patrols yielding a total of four merchantmen and the Jacob Jones off the eastern seaboard of the United States. These, however, would mark the limit of her success. Having sailed from St-Nazaire for the North Atlantic on 6 August 1942, U578 disappeared shortly after, presumably while crossing the Bay of Biscay. No explanation for her loss has ever emerged though a mine appears the most likely cause. An attack by an RAF Wellington of 311 (Czech) Squadron against a U-boat off Cape Ortegal (Spain) on 10 August, previously reckoned to have been responsible for U578’s loss, is now believed to have been directed against U135, which suffered only minor damage. Ernst-August Rehwinkel was posthumously promoted Fregattenkapitän.

54 HMS Naiad 11 March 1942

212

Sources US Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, USS Jacob Jones: Torpedoed and Sunk (NA, RG 38, Records of the Chief of Naval Operations, World War II War Diaries, Entry A1 353, War Diary for 4th Naval District, 28 February 1942) —, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval History, History of USS Jacob Jones (DD 130), together with other material including survivor interviews (NHC, Box 408) Wilde, Cdr E. Andrew, Jr, USNR, ed., The USS Jacob Jones (DD-130) in World War II: Documents, Photos, Survivors Interviews (Needham, Mass.: privately, 2006); also on: http://www.destroyerhistory.org/flushdeck/ ussjacobjones/research130.html

Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, I, p. 515 DANFS, III, pp. 484–5; also on: http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/j1/jacob_jones-ii.htm and http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/dafs/DD/dd130.html Friedman, Norman, US Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History (2nd edn, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2004) Morison, United States Naval Operations, I, p. 132 Parkin, Robert Sinclair, Blood on the Sea: American Destroyers Lost in World War II (New York: Sarpedon, 1995) Roscoe, US Destroyer Operations, p. 74 Webpage devoted to USS Jacob Jones: http://www.destroyerhistory.org/flushdeck/ussjacobjones/index.html

54 HMS NAIAD

Rear-Admiral Philip Vian, DSO** RN, Capt. G. Grantham, DSO RN Sunk by U565 (Type VIIC), Oblt.z.S. Johann Jebsen, 11 March 1942 Eastern Mediterranean, 30 nm NE of Sîdi Barrâni (Egypt)

Naiad seen during her service with the Home Fleet between July 1940 and April 1941. Jebsen’s torpedo struck her on the starboard side between the funnels. IWM

Theatre Mediterranean (Map 3) Coordinates 32° 00' N, 26° 19' E Kriegsmarine code Quadrat CO 9221 U-boat timekeeping identical Fatalities 77 Survivors 591

Displacement 5,450 tons Dimensions 512' × 50.5' × 14' Armour 3" belt; 1–2" decks and bulkheads Maximum speed 33 knots Armament 10 × 5.25" DP; 8 × 40 mm AA; 5 × 20 mm AA; 6 × 21" tt

The Dido-class cruisers By 1935 it had become obvious that the British fleet had no effective defence against the new and more powerful aircraft that were entering service in Europe, Japan and the United States. To remedy this the Admiralty ordered designs for an anti-aircraft cruiser equipped with the new 5.25-inch dual-purpose gun, a weapon that promised highangle fire up to seventy degrees on a power-loaded mounting with advanced fire control. The result was the Dido class, of which sixteen

were eventually built to two designs. The Didos were popular in the Service but the class proved poorly suited to the addition of wartime equipment and battle experience revealed serious deficiencies in design, particularly as to subdivision of the engine spaces which contributed to the loss of four of its members to torpedoes, Naiad and Hermione (63) among them. Nor did the 5.25-inch mounting meet expectations, with an operational firing rate of only eight rounds per minute and training and elevating capabilities too slow for effective anti-aircraft

54 HMS Naiad 11 March 1942

fire. For all that, the class had a fine record in the Mediterranean in particular and many an air attack was broken up by barrages of heavy if not especially accurate fire.

Career Ordered under the 1936 estimates from Hawthorn Leslie’s yard at Hebburn-on-Tyne, HMS Naiad was laid down in August 1937 as the first member of her class. She was launched in February 1939 but damage sustained during air raids on 10 April and 22 May 1940 delayed completion until July of that year. Naiad was immediately assigned to the 15th Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet which spent the next ten months on patrol and escort duty in the North Sea and the North Atlantic. The highlight of an arduous winter at sea came on 28 January 1941 when she sighted the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau south of Iceland but lost contact in bad weather. By the time Naiad emerged from a spell under repair on the Tyne that spring she and the 15th CS had been earmarked for transfer to the Mediterranean Fleet. On 26 April Naiad joined one of the major transMediterranean convoys, Operation tiger, escorting it as far as Malta where on 9 May she became Rear-Admiral E. L. S. King’s flagship for the desperate defence of Crete. During the latter episode Naiad participated in the mauling of a German troop convoy on 22 May before being damaged by air attack later that day. Following repairs at Alexandria Naiad resumed the convoy escort and offensive operations in the Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean which filled the rest of her days. Among these was her action with the destroyer Guépard off

213

Sidon in June during the British campaign against Vichy Syria, shore bombardments in Lebanon and at Halfaya in support of Operation crusader in July and November respectively, and participation in the brief engagement known at the First Battle of Sirte on 17 December. Meanwhile she had become flagship of Rear-Admiral Philip Vian who assumed command of the ‘Fighting Fifteenth’ in November 1941.

Background of the attack On 9 March 1942 the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, received reports (later proved false) that a cruiser escorting an Italian convoy bound for North Africa had been damaged by air attack off Malta. Accordingly, early on the 10th Rear-Admiral Vian led Force B (Naiad, Euryalus, Dido and nine destroyers) out of Alexandria to attempt an interception. Force B rounded Cyrenaica without incident but when no contact was made Vian turned for home later that day, his force joined by the cruiser Cleopatra and the destroyer Kingston from Malta. However, the enemy were now fully alerted to the presence of Vian’s force which was relentlessly bombed throughout the daylight hours of the 11th though without suffering any damage. Among the shadowers was U565 which picked up the British squadron on her hydrophones that afternoon and maintained contact until dusk. As darkness fell Oblt.z.S. Johann Jebsen penetrated the destroyer screen, shifting his target continuously. Only a routine zigzag manoeuvre carried out by Force B at 2000 caused a last-minute switch from one of the destroyers to the squadron flagship herself.

War Diary of U565, patrol of 21 January–17 March 1942: PG 30601a, NHB, reel 1,121, pp. 535–6 Date, time 11.iii 1600

Details of position, wind, weather, sea, light, visibility, moonlight, etc. Qu. CO 9213

Incidents

At 1210 we pick up a hydrophone bearing at 310° which becomes increasingly powerful as the afternoon draws on. As the bearing remains fixed I keep to the same course. As it turns out, we have located the same warship group reported by air reconnaissance in Qu. CO 5384 at 1330. I would estimate the group to be steering a course of 130°. 1809 Qu. CO 9212 We surface as the strength of the hydrophone bearing leads me to believe the group will soon heave into sight. I want to attack on the surface as that gives me the best chance of acquiring the right firing position. I begin by simply tracking what I think to be its easterly course (110°); this is what the hydrophone bearing seems to suggest, and besides it’s still too early to attack. 1826 A destroyer appears at a bearing of 190° true, her course taking her towards the main group. At a bearing of 310° true we can see flak and what we presume to be clouds of smoke. We bear north to ensure we remain unobserved. 1845 We alter course to 90°, gradually converging. 1850 Battle Stations! 1921–1924 Dive to listen through hydrophones. Fix obtained at bearing 295° true. 1930 Course altered to 0°. 1946 Qu. CO 9221, easterly To port three shadows appear steering roughly 130°. I try to haul ahead of the group but I daren’t wind, mirror-smooth sea, attempt it at high speed due to phosphorescence. A large vessel, a cruiser by the looks of it, is heading strong sea phosphor straight towards me at 0°.1 As I can neither get free of her nor haul sufficiently far ahead to get a shot escence, misty, visibility in I prepare to attack the next destroyer along on her starboard side, which has an inclination of 60°, approx. 2 nm bows left.2 Just as I am turning towards the latter, however, the whole group alters course to port. I turn to port and fire a spread of four torpedoes, but at the cruiser (probably Leander class) because the 1 HMS Naiad. 2 Apparently HMS Zulu.