Black May (6 page)

In London, Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the heavy sinkings “deplorable.”
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His Anti-U-Boat Warfare Committee invited an explanation for the lack of air cover provided Convoy TS.37 from Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt., M.P., Secretary of State for Air. Sinclair responded that, “Bad weather was responsible for the absence of air escort during the night on which the 7 ships had been sunk.”
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Inside U-515, as the opening day of May drew to a close, Werner Henke received a
Funkspruch
(wireless signal) from BdU in Berlin acknowledging his report of the sinkings. It consisted of one word: BRAVO. Henke recorded his and the crew’s reaction to it:
Große Freude im Boot
—“Great elation in the boat.”
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At midnight GST on 30 April/1 May, twenty-seven-year-old Kptlt. Harald Gelhaus, Commander of the Type IXB U-107, was on the surface pursuing a fast (“15 to 16 knots”), zigzagging, independent steamer on a northeasterly course in 47°49'N, 22°02'W, about 560 miles southwest from Cape Clear, Ireland. He was on his thirteenth
Feindfahrt
(war cruise), his tenth as a Commander. This steamer was his first target sighted since departing base at Lorient, France, on 24 April, and he still had his full complement of torpedoes fore and aft. If he had had to attempt this pursuit from astern, he might not have overhauled the target while it was still dark, since his own maximum speed under diesel power was only marginally better than the steamer’s. Fortunately, though, he stood at bow ahead position, and his only real problem would be in figuring out the steamer’s zigzag pattern. He writes in his KTB:

As the steamer zigzagged to the west, the swell made it hard to keep him in the binoculars. Gelhaus made up his mind to attack with a three-eel fan shot (
Fächer)
when he next zigzagged east. But when that altered course came, it was so sharply to the east that Gelhaus’s bow was out of position, and he had to use his stern tubes, V and VI. Those two torpedoes were released at 0300 GST on a bearing of 70°, but with a variance of 6.4° between them; speed of target 16 knots; range 1,500 meters; running time 80 seconds:

Gelhaus learned that the ship carried one 4.7-inch gun and two 12-pounders, though none was fired, and that the Captain was, apparently, still on board. “We took no prisoners,” he wrote, “because we had no room on board.” Because the vessel was still floating after an hour— its position having been sent out repeatedly by the ship’s radio operator together with the distress call SSS … SSS … SSS (Struck By Torpedo)—Gelhaus put yet another eel into her hull, hitting the waterline below the front edge of the bridge after a 42-second run. This time the vessel broke apart and the midship descended below the surface,
leaving only the bow and stern visible. “I consider the steamer as having been sunk,” he wrote, “because its chances of making port are extremely unlikely, but complete sinking will still take a while due to the amount of insulation.” He reported as much to BdU, adding that he still had nine Etos and six Atos together with 161 cubic meters of fuel remaining.
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More precise information about M.V.
Port Victor
and her ordeal comes from her Master, Captain W. G. Higgs, who, with the Chief Officer, was the last to leave her. The 12,411 GRT motor vessel had actually sailed from Montevideo on 17 April with a refrigerated cargo of 7,600 tons and a general cargo of 2,000 tons. The crew numbered 99, including nine Naval and three Military Gunners, who, like so many other D.E.M.S. gunners, never got off a shot either for lack of time or because they never saw their assailant. The passengers, sixty-five in number, included twenty-three women and children. The first of Gelhaus’s torpedoes struck in the engine room on the port side while the ship was steaming at 16¾ knots, on a mean course of 055°, Zigzag Pattern No. 11. The explosion was accompanied by a brilliant flash that illuminated the whole ship for a split second and a large column of water that cascaded over the upper deck. The No. 4 lifeboat collapsed in the chocks and the No. 6 boat, which was “swung out,” disappeared from view. Electrical power failed, and with the engine room flooding, the port engine stopped. With no one in the engine room answering the telephone, the Chief Engineer stopped the starboard engine using remote controls on the upper deck.

Captain Higgs had a distress message sent by wireless, which was acknowledged, while he personally threw the Confidential Books and Wireless Books overboard in weighted boxes. He then went to the embarkation deck, where the passengers were assembling at boat stations. When the remaining boats were lowered to that deck, Higgs ordered them loaded and lowered. The first to go down was No. 2 boat on the port side with about fourteen women and an Able Seaman in charge. Just as it was being lowered down the falls, however, the second torpedo struck just under it. The blast and the column of water discharged flung most of the boat’s occupants into the sea, where they had
to swim vigorously against being sucked into the large hole made in the hull by the explosion. Most of the younger women managed to overcome the suction and reach a nearby raft. Two middle-aged women did not.

When the passengers had been lowered, Higgs gave orders for the crew to abandon ship. The third torpedo to hit the ship exploded under No. 8 boat and completely wrecked it, the Second Officer being the only survivor (“injured and badly shattered”) of the eight or nine crew who were in it at the time. The rest of the crew were able to abandon on the other boats and four rafts, after which Higgs and the Chief Officer went down the starboard ladder and jumped into the sea, where they were hauled on board No. 5 boat. From that heaving perch Higgs watched the U-boat approach No. 1 boat, which was in the charge of the Bosun. (The U-boat, Higgs said, was “freshly painted dark gray with no distinguishing marks on the conning tower”—although Gelhaus said in an interview in 1997 that the conning tower bore the device of four aces.)

While he hid his cap and prepared to remove his uniform coat, Higgs listened to the conversation between the Commander and the Bosun. Asked where was the ship’s Captain, the Bosun answered that he was probably still on board. In answer to further questions, the Bosun gave the name, tonnage, age, route, and cargo of the ship. Hearing women’s voices, the Commander expressed surprise. On being told that there were women and children passengers, the Commander said that they “had no business to come to sea.” Then, after apologizing for not being able to take anyone on board and wishing the survivors a “good voyage,” he steamed off. Higgs later described the Commander as physically a “big man,” and said that while he interrogated the Bosun, a U-boat crewman kept a handheld machine gun trained on the lifeboat.

When the Bosun’s boat encountered No. 2 boat, he found that it held several gravely injured men and that the morale of the occupants generally was very low. The Bosun transferred into it Able Seaman Daniels, a tall strong Irishman with a keen sense of humor. Though Daniels had been a bit of a problem to Higgs on several occasions during
the voyage, he quickly redeemed himself in No. 2 boat, where he threw overboard two dead bodies and made the wounded as comfortable as possible, including the Second Steward, who had an arm broken in three places, and a 74-year-old Church of England Canon, who had a deep cut on his head. To everyone in the boat, his cheerfulness and good nature were an inspirational lift. “In a time like this,” Higgs said, “I could not have wished for a better man.” When daylight came and No. 2 boat brushed by No. 5, containing the Chief Officer, Daniels asked him if the Official Log had been lost. When told yes, it had, Daniels said, “Good, the Old Man won’t be able to fine me when we get back now.”

At 0700 GMT, with five lifeboats and three rafts collected, and, on Higgs’s order, a tot of rum being passed around to each person, someone cried, “Aircraft!” Higgs called to the crew of each boat to throw over a red smoke flare. Within minutes the aircraft, a B-24 Liberator of RAF Coastal Command, turned in their direction and circled the lifeboats and their clouds of red smoke. After signaling that help was coming, the aircraft departed, but returned every two hours to give reassurance. In the early afternoon the Liberator dropped a package containing food, water, and a note saying that a destroyer should reach their position about 1750. The note ended: “Best of luck and drop us a line when you get back,” signed by the eight men of the air crew. Shortly after 1700, H.M.S.
Wren
hove into view, made a wide circle around the lifeboats listening with her asdic for any U-boat that might be lurking below, then began taking the survivors on board, a process completed by 1730. When the destroyer made port at Liverpool on 4 May, Higgs reported his fatal casualties: seventeen in number, including the old Canon, who couldn’t make it. “All my Engineers, Officers and men behaved extremely well,” he stated, “and I cannot speak too highly of the magnificent conduct of all my passengers.”
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Interviewed in 1997, Gelhaus said that he received a letter from Captain Higgs in 1948, asking how U-107 had been able to hit him since his ship was traveling at high speed and zigzagging. Higgs also wrote that the first coup de grace torpedo had hit on the port side just as a lifeboat on that side holding women and civilians was being lowered.
Gelhaus expressed regret at learning that, and explained simply, in his interview for this book, ”
Aber da hätte ich nichts dafür gekonnt, denn es war ja dunkel”
—“I could not have done anything about it because it was dark.” He said that in 1955, during a business trip to England, he intended to visit Higgs, who had invited him to do so, but found there that he had died, and that his wife had moved to an unknown address.
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On the same 1 May, U-659, commanded by Kptlt. Hans Stock, was patrolling 380 nautical miles west-northwest of Cape Finisterre (“land’s end”), the rocky promontory at the most westerly point of Spain. A Type VIIC, U-659 was one of eleven boats that had been formed by BdU into
Gruppe Drossel
(Group Thrush).
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Stock’s orders called for him eventually to break through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, but his first duty since the boat slipped her moorings at Brest on Easter Sunday, 25 April, was to form part of the
Drossel
disposition in a controlled operation against Allied coastwise traffic on the U.K.-Gibraltar-West Africa run. At night on 1/2 May the
Drossel
boats were advised by BdU that a British cruiser-minelayer, H.M.S.
Adventure,
was somewhere in their neighborhood. Stock decided against pursuing the faster vessel.

No smoke plumes appeared on the second day, but early on 3 May, following her regular forenoon exercise dive to correct trim, U-659 received an F.T. (
Funktelegraphie
, wireless message) that a reconnaissance Focke-Wulf 200 Kondor aircraft of
Fliegerführer Atlantik
based in western France had sighted a southbound convoy of eleven cargo ships and six escorts in position approximately 44°N, 14°W. Stock moved eastward at full (flank) speed (
äußerste Kraft
) to the attack. About 1400 GST, he learned from BdU of the presence of a second southbound formation, consisting of twenty-seven vessels, in nearly the same position as the first. Stock decided to go after the second set of targets instead. Before midnight, as the sea state was deteriorating, he ordered another dive to adjust trim.
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“Clear the bridge!” The dive order sent the bridge watch scrambling down the conning tower hatch. The Watch Officer, last man through,
pulled the hatch closed and wheeled the spindle home in its bed. Meanwhile, in the
Zentrale
(control room) below, the Chief Engineering Officer (L.I.) had ordered, “Vent main ballast!” and slammed the ball of his hand against the dive bell, which shrilled throughout the boat. At once, two dozen pairs of hands in the control room and aft in the engine and maneuvering rooms whirred among banks of red and black valve wheels, overhead vent levers, and panel switches to open the external ballast tanks to water, cut off the outside air intakes and exhaust valves for the diesel engines, and engage the E-motors for underwater running.

Stock probably instructed the L.I. to level off at periscope depth, while he himself checked a stopwatch against both the column of mercury in the periscope elevation indicator and the needle on the
Tiefenmesser
, or depth manometer, expecting to see thirteen meters of water put above the hull inside thirty seconds. Facing the hull on the starboard side, two planesmen operated brass buttons, up and down, that controlled protruding bow and stern hydroplanes, which, like an aircraft’s horizontal stabilizers, caused the submerging U-boat to pitch at a certain angle. Soon, with the diesels’ roar and vibrations stilled, only a faint hum heard from the E-motors aft, and every crew member silent at his diving station, the sea closed over U—659.