Black May (34 page)

In their wash-up on “Convoy No. 36” at the close of 6 May, Dönitz and Godt concluded that six boats had been lost in the
Fink
campaign—U
-638,
U-192, U
-123,
U
-331, U-630,
and U
-438.
“If none of
these boats report later, this loss of 6 boats is very high and grave considering the short duration of the attack. The blame can be laid mainly on the foggy period that began at 2100 [GST] on the 5th May.” If the fog had held off for six hours, they contended, the U-boats would have had “a really good bag that night,” but “the fog ruined everything.” They did not concede that staff meteorologists, from a year and a half of U-boat experience in the western Atlantic, not to mention book knowledge, should have known that where the Gulf Stream met the Labrador Current, causing warm water to mix with cold air, there was almost always opaque vapor, especially in the spring, and that the Grand Banks were renowned for their milk-white air. Nor did they concede that the same fog that blinded the U-boats made air cover from Newfoundland impossible for the enemy. Curiously, the Naval Staff at Eberswalde, not many kilometers from BdU,
did
anticipate the whiteout: “As the enemy is today entering the heavily fog-bound area, it is to be expected that only a small portion of the boats will be able to maintain contact.” This was on the 5th. Whether there was communication with BdU on the point is not disclosed in the extant records.
²⁵

The U-boat loss count would be even higher, by one, on 23 May, when BdU acknowledged that U-209, damaged by Canso “A” W 5 Squadron on 5 May, had foundered with all hands (probably on 7 May in the vicinity of 52°N, 38°W) during her desperate attempt to make base
²⁶
And one could add as well the loss of U-710, sunk by Fortress “D” 206 Squadron on 24 April during the first stage of the battle. The exchange rate of U-boats lost for merchant ships sunk in the two stages was alarmingly high, even given the inflated figures of ships sunk that were transmitted by Commanders to Berlin. The actual number of merchantmen lost to U-boats from ONS.5, beginning with
McKeesport
and ending with
Bonde,
was thirteen. The number reported to Berlin was nineteen merchantmen torpedoed and sixteen sunk (90,500 GRT), including Hasenschar’s erroneous count of two definites, including a corvette, plus two probables, which led Donitz and Godt to add to their “hard struggle” message, cited above: hasenschar is champion shot.
²⁷
That honor should have gone to Jessen
(U—266),
with three definites.

In either event, such high losses of one U-boat (using the low figure of six boats) for every 2.16 (using the actual figure of thirteen merchantmen) or 2.66 (using the claimed figure of sixteen) ships sunk was an attrition rate that could not be borne, and as Donitz stated later, “I regarded this convoy battle as a defeat.”
²⁸
More irreplaceable than the boats, and more critical a loss at this period of the war—one remembers the dangerously declining numbers of trained RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain—was the death toll of U-boat ranks and ratings: a total of 364 human casualties.

Also telling, apart from the number of U-boats sunk, was the number of boats damaged by escort action: Seven boats were so severely impaired they were forced back to base: U-386, U
—528,
U
—332
(in the first stage of the battle, 28 April-1 May),
U-648,
U
-732,
U
-358,
and U-270 (in the second stage, 4–6 May). As noted earlier, boats forced home were the tactical equivalents of kills in a convoy battle. Eleven other boats were roughly handled, suffering heavy to light damage:
U-413, U-314, U-648, U-438, U-226, U-223, U-533, U-634, U-266, U—267,
and U-575. These boats were removed from the scene for a time, either long or short, while they undertook repairs, and thus were not available during those intervals for operations. (Since Professor Blackett considered four boats damaged to be the equivalent of one boat sunk, by that measure 4.5 boats could be added to the tally of those sunk.) Also notable in the defense of ONS.5 were the twenty-odd occasions when U-boats were driven off or forced to dive; submerged, it bears repeating, they were greatly retarded in their ability to make nighttime attacks. And mention should be made of several boats, such as U-552 (Kptlt. Klaus Popp), that were forced to retire by reason of fuel depletion.

Finally, the records disclose a failing that was endemic to the U-boats in this period and for some time prior: most were not pressing their
strength in numbers
and most were not
taking their shots.
Although
Fink
boats made approximately forty attacks, the vaunted BdU wireless control system seems never to have directed more than fifteen boats at a time into close contact with the convoy, the usual number brought to bear being no higher than nine. In the late forenoon of the 5th, BdU
had expostulated: there are forty of you. And the boats in contact correctly reported the convoy’s position and base course all through the battle, as Enigma intercepts disclose. What was the problem? Was it perhaps the low level of command experience, previously noted, that inhibited the effective maneuver and attack of certain boats? Or did low fuel levels in many boats perhaps induce a caution that led those Commanders “to lose the name of action?” Or did the aggressive behavior of the escort screen, which punched as often as it counterpunched, simply succeed tactically in holding the majority of boats at bay? The textual record would support all three possibilities.

In W/T transmissions to Berlin on 5/6/7 May, a significant percentage of the boats reported large numbers of unexpended torpedoes. It is not unusual to read, for example, in the traffic from
U-223
and U
-378
on 5 May: 12 e torpedoes, 2 a torpedoes, their full complement for a VIIC boat; or in that from U
-514
on 6 May: all torpedoes, or in that from U
—231
on 6 May: all eels. (This was a longtime besetting weakness of the U-boat force, of which only a little more than 50 percent of boats
actually engaged in combat operations
sank or damaged an Allied vessel during the war.)
²⁹
That so large a concentration of boats, deployed in such favorable position, should have come up short in torpedo launches must have cast a pall of doubt over BdU planning for future operations.

Fog was not alone to blame for the defeat. Dönitz and Godt stated, “The operation against Convoy No. 36 also had to be broken off because of enemy radar.” It was obvious that in low-visibility conditions the convoy escorts had been able to readily locate the positions of surfaced U-boats, and without the boats learning of their exposure by means of the standard Metox search receivers. The surface escorts, and aircraft, too, it was reasoned, must be equipped with some new kind of detection equipment. Finding an answer to this problem was of “decisive importance” for submarine warfare. “To sum up,” they wrote on 6 May:

Dönitz’s son-in-law Günter Hessler, who served on Godt’s operations staff, wrote after the war that staff thinking at the time was that the Allies were using either a radar wavelength beyond the capacity of the Metox to detect (which was correct) or a nonradar device such as infrared rays. He expressed the dismay of the staff that in the just-completed operation, “surface escorts alone had sufficed to inflict grave losses on an exceptionally strong concentration of attackers.” Where the Allies spoke of the “U-boat menace,” the Germans now spoke of the “radar menace.” Unless that menace could be quickly and effectively countered, Hessler said, the position of the U-Bootwaffe would become “desperate.”
³¹

In his
Memoirs,
Dönitz, too, stated that in further convoy operations conducted in poor-visibility conditions, which were a common occurrence in the North Atlantic, the U-boats would be helpless. The Allies’ radar advances, furthermore, would enable convoys to take effective evasive action.
³²
And radar was not the only technical problem the Germans had to face at this juncture. Hessler informs us that there was consternation expressed after Convoy No. 36 about the fact that British warships were now equipped with powerful new deep-plunging D/Cs as well as with Hedgehogs, about which BdU had learned earlier from decryption, agents, and practical experience. The panoply of weapons arrayed against the U-boats was increasingly sophisticated and effective, particularly since new tactical refinements to “under-water location,” or asdic, had made possible accurate depth charge pursuits on days and at times “when there was fog.”
³³

In their 6 May appreciation Dönitz and Godt also took serious
notice of the danger posed to U-boat patrol lines by Allied air escorts, which had “always forced our submarines to lag hopelessly behind” convoys and had prevented them from scoring hits, “especially when naval [surface] and air escorts cooperated efficiently.” They predicted correctly that “the only remaining [air] gaps will be closed within a reasonable length of time by land-based planes, or at any rate by using auxiliary aircraft carriers.” Finally, the Dönitz/Godt wash-up deplored the fact that except for the Pi 2 magnetic influence pistol and a few other minor innovations, “as yet we possess no really effective weapon.” This was a stunning concession. They concluded: “The submarine’s struggle is now harder than ever, but all departments are working full out to assist the boats in their task and to equip them with better weapons.”
³⁴

They gave no hint, at least here, that they feared insecure W/T communications; although, in fact, Allied cryptographic sources played no role in the defense against
Fink
, and most naval Enigma from 5/6 May was not decrypted until the 9th. They made no mention, either, of HF/DF, which, despite ample cryptographic and operational evidence, both BdU and Naval Intelligence analysts continued to believe was limited to shore-based installations. Refusal to admit the possibility of shipand aircraft-borne HF/DF had yielded substantial tactical advantage to the Allies, and would continue to do so.
³⁵
Nor did they mention that their long-established principle of concentrating the largest possible number of boats on an individual convoy—in this case nearly one-half of the whole Atlantic force—rather than make fewer attacks on a greater number of contacts had let six other convoys pass unmolested, and had immobilized the attacking force for a week afterward, during which time boats had to be refueled or replaced.

Nor was there any mention in the BdU war diary, or in Hessler’s recollections of the BdU mind in early May, of a decline in crew morale and confidence resulting from recent reversals. As shown in the prologue, this was a recurring subject of speculation in the OIC Tracking Room in London, where, at least since 19 April, Rodger Winn had observed in W/T traffic what he thought was an increasing anxiety among Commanders.

So far, by the close of 6 May, the beleaguered circle held. Surviving U-boats in the mid-Atlantic regrouped to fight another day, and another night. As the deadly duel continued, there was no question of the fighting spirit exhibited on either side.

While they had no way of knowing about BdU’s order of 1140 halting offensive action, no doubt the B7 and EGi escorts were aware during the late forenoon and early afternoon hours of the 6th that an eerie peace had drifted out from the enveloping fog. There had been no known German torpedo attack against a merchant ship or escort since 0527, when U-192 (Happe) launched a brace of stern tube eels at
Loosestrife.
The U-boats were still about, as
Pelican, Sennen
, and
Spey
had proved, detecting three on the surface between 0551 and 1244, but there had been no observations of periscope wakes or torpedo tracks, which one might have expected on the daylit sea, even in its gauzy cover. Most of the boats appeared to be lying doggo below, outside of asdic range. By an ironic twist, which most hands probably noted, during the preceding night it was the U-boats that had become the quarry, and the escorts the hunter. Perhaps no one was more elated to receive that understanding than Commodore Brook, on
Rena,
who entered a condensed account of “this big Convoy Battle” in his final report, and set down the score as he learned it from
Tay.
³⁶

What was left to do, besides mopping up attacks by
Sennen
at 1244 and by
Jed,
which would make the final D/C attack on a probable U-boat contact at 2357 that night, was the collecting of merchant ships that had become scattered in the black and the fog, and the refueling of
Vidette
from
British Lady
beginning at 1130.
³⁷
That completed, the convoy proceeded without incident toward the Western Ocean Meeting Point (WESTOMP) at 48°11
‘N,
45°39'W, east of St. John’s, where Canadian warships out of Newfoundland were scheduled to relieve the ocean escort. At 1500, Sherwood’s Mid-Ocean Escort Group B7 and
Brewer’s First Support Group were joined by the Canadian Western Local Escort Force (WLEF), W-4. They were four corvettes, by name: H.M.C.S.
Barrie
(SO),
Galt, Buctouche,
and
Cowichan
,
³⁸
All the assembled forces together with the convoy columns continued toward WESTOMP, the Navy and Merchant Navy crews of B7 and ONS.5 now having every reason to sense the approaching end of a near three-week ordeal, during which they reached and surpassed the human equivalent of PLE. Their stained, worn ships, having survived both the lash of a stern, impartial sea and the bitterest convoy battle of two world wars, rose and dipped with a sober gravity.