Black May (71 page)

18
. NARA, Boxes 1718–1719, Captain (D) Newfoundland, Form S.1203, Report of Attack on U-Boat, H.M.S. SENNEN, 6 May 1943, 0753 1/2.

19
. R. M. Coppock to author, London, 13 November 1996.

20
. Ibid.

21
. NARA, Boxes 1718–1719, Captain (D) Newfoundland, Form S.1203, Report of Attack on U-Boat, H.M.S. SENNEN, 6 May 1943,1255,1342,1405, 1436,1522.

22
. NARA, Boxes 1718–1719, Captain (D) Newfoundland, Form S.1203, Report of Attack on U-Boat, H.M.S. SPEY, 6 May 1943, 0747, 0802, 0815, 0916; NHB/MOD, Proceedings of the U-Boat Assessment Committee, April-June 1943, Précis of Attack by SPEY, 6 May 1943, 0940, f. 261, and notation by R. M. Coppock; Coppock to author, 13 November 1996; NARA, Roll 3386,
KTB-U-634,
15.4.43–23.5.43, 6 May 1943 for description of damage and injury to C.O.; NARA, RG 457, SRGN 17310, for U-634's F.T.

23
. The cease-operations message to
Fink
BOATS READ: BOATS ON HASENSCHAR CONVOY DISCONTINUE OPERATION. GROUP AMSEL 1 AND 2 HEAD FOR QU BC
33 [50°33'n, 39°15’w].
OTHER BOATS GO OFF IN EASTERLY DIRECTION
. See NARA, RG 457, SRGN 17278.

24
. PRO, DEFE-3, No. 512, 6 May 1943; ADM 223/16, U-Boat Operations, f. 88. In underscoring the importance of the first night, BdU repeated a finding of O.R.S. in Coastal Command, which reported in the preceding March: “The engagement between a U-boat pack and a convoy is what scientists would call an unstable equilibrium. If the surface escort gets a good start,
an entire pack can be beaten off with our air assistance: if the U-boats get a good start, the convoy will suffer very heavy losses.” PRO, CAB 86/3, The Value of the Bay of Biscay Patrols, Annex II. Air Operations in Defence of Convoys, f. 370.

25
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 6 May 1943. NARA, War Diary, German Naval Staff (.
Kriegstagebuch der Seekriegsleitung
), Operations Division, Part A, Volume 44 (microfilm), 5 May 1997.

26
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 23 May 1943; R. M. Coppock to the author, London, 13 November 1996.

27
. PRO, DEFE-3, No. 512, 6 May 1943.

28
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 6 May 1943; Dönitz,
Memoirs
, p. 339. In his British Admiralty and U.S. Navy Department-sponsored
U-Boat War
, Dönitz’s Staff Officer and son-in-law Günter Hessler stated: “The heavy loss of U-boats compelled us to regard this operation as a reverse”; p. 106.

29
. PRO, DEFE-3, Nos. 413, 619, 626, 663; NARA, RG 457, SRGN 17189, 17291,17307. For U-boat success estimates see prologue and chap. 2. Cf. Showell,
U-Boats Under the Swastika,
pp. 16–18; Tarrant,
U-Boat Offensive 1914–1945,
p. 151; and Mulligan,
Lone Wolf,
p. 221 and
n. 1.

30
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 6 May 1943.

31
. Hessler,
U-Boat War,
p. 106. The term
Metox,
from the first Parisbased French company that manufactured it, was used interchangeably with
Funkmessbeobachtungsgerät,
“radar search receiver,” abbreviated
Fu.M.B.

32
. Dönitz,
Memoirs,
p. 339.

33
. Hessler,
U-Boat War,
p. 106. The BdU war diary noted: “The recent increase in cases of damage to upper deck containers [of Type IXB and IXC boats] proves that more powerful depth charges are being used”; NARA, KTB-BdU, 6 May 1943.

34
. Ibid.

35
. This point is developed in Rohwer,
The Critical Convoy Battles,
pp. 199–200; and again in Rohwer and W. A. B. Douglas, “Canada and the Wolf Packs, September 1943,” in W. A. B. Douglas, ed.,
The RCN in Transition, 1910–1985
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), pp. 181–182.

36
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Submarine Report No. 2, J. Kenneth Brook, Commodore, R.N.R., n.d. Brook erred in stating here that
Gudvor,
which arrived safely at St. John’s with
Pink
and
Sennen,
was torpedoed on 5 May, or on any date.

37
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Convoy ONS.5, Form S.1203, Report of Attack on U-Boat, H.M.S. JED, 6 May 1943, 2367. The last two escorts to make attacks
defending ONS.5, SENNEN and JED, would combine later, on 19 May, in sinking U
-954
(Kptlt. Odo Loewe). PRO, ADM 237/113, Continuation Report H.M.S. TAY, 6 May 1943, No. 18; Report of Proceedings, H.M.S. VIDETTE, 6 May 1943, p. 2.

38
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Commander in Chief, Canadian North West Atlantic to Secretary, Naval Board, Department of National Defence, Ottawa, Ontario, 9th July, 1943. Here the relieving force is named as WLEF, although, according to Milner,
U-Boat Hunters
, p. xi, the force name was changed in April 1943 to Western Escort Force (WEF). The exact position of WEST-OMP varied slightly from convoy to convoy; see DHIST/NDHQ, Convoy Reports, ONF. 238-ONS.8, 89/34, Volume 23, Directorate of History and Heritage; the writer is indebted to Ms. Gabrielle Nishigushi for this citation. The WLEF force was joined by the destroyer H.M.S.
Montgomery
on the 8th, taking over as SO, and by the corvette H.M.C.S.
Algoma
from the 7th to the corvette H.M.C.S.
Algoma
from the 7th to the 9th.

39
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Convoy ONS.5, Naval Message, CinCWA to PELICAN, 6 May, 2357; Report of Proceedings, H.M.S. PELICAN, 6–12 May 1943, Nos. 11–17.

40
. Ibid., Convoy ONS.5 Commodore J. Kenneth Brook, R.N.R., in M. V. “RENA” (NOR), Brief Narrative of Voyage, p. 2. On 15 May the Naval Control Service Officer (NCSO), Halifax, signaled Ottawa that S.S.
Lorient
(sunk by U-125 on 4 May) had not arrived there as scheduled; DHIST/NDHQ, Naval Message, NCSO Halifax to NSHQ Ottawa, 15 May, 1630 (microfilm). Interestingly, there is a German X-B-Bericht interception and summary of an Allied coded message to
Lorient:
“Port of destination for the steamer
Lorient (
4737 tons) was changed on the afternoon of 9 May to Boston”; Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau, RM 7/755, X-B-Bericht No. 22/43, Woche vom 24.5.-30.5.1943, folio 194r (s. X-B-Bericht 21/43).

41
. DHIST/NDHQ Naval Message FONF, St. John’s, to CinCCNA, Halifax, 9 May 1943, 2225 (microfilm).

42
. PRO, ADM 234/370, Convoy ONS.5, Battle Summaiy No. 51, Continuation Report, H.M.S. TAY, p. 36; Gretton,
Convoy Escort Commander
, p. 145.

43
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Convoy ONS.5, Report of Proceedings, H.M.S. SUNFLOWER, “Personnel,” p. 5.

44
. Ibid., Report of Proceedings, H.M.S. SNOWFLAKE, “Summary,” pp.
7–8
.

45
. Ibid., Report of Proceedings, H.M.S. PENN,
8 May 1943.

46
. Ibid., CinCCNA to Secretary, Naval Board, Department of National Defence, Ottawa, 9 July 1943, copy to CinCWA, p. 2.

47
. Ibid., Submarine Report No. 2, Commodore J. Kenneth Brook, p. 2.

48
. Gretton,
Convoy Escort Commander
, pp. 145–146.

49
. PRO, ADM 237/113, CinCCNA to Secretary, Naval Board, 9 July 1943, p. 1.

50
. PRO, ADM 234/370, Convoy and Anti-Submarine Warfare Reports, Battle Summary No. 51, Admiral Sir Max K. Horton, K.C.B., D.S.O., CinCWA, to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 20 July 1943, pp. 28–29.

51
. Ibid., p. 38; also NARA, Boxes 1718–1719, Captain (D) Newfoundland, ONS.5—Comments of Senior Officer, Close Escort, n.d. The compliment that immediately follows this quotation in the present narrative is drawn from John Terraine,
U-Boat Wars,
who also states, appropriately, that “this two-and-a half-ringed officer won a battle that an admiral or a general could be well pleased with”; p. 598 and n.162.

52
. PRO, ADM 237/113, CinCCNA to Naval Board, 9 July 1943, p. 2.

53
. Ibid., pp. 2–4.

54
. PRO, ADM 234/370, Convoy and Anti-Submarine Warfare Reports, Battle Summary No. 51, Commodore (D) Western Approaches to CinCWA, Londonderry, 20 June 1943; C-in-CWA to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 20 July 1943, pp. 28–30; ADM 237/113, Naval Message, CinCWA to Escorts ONS.5, 6 May 1943; in ibid, see also CinCWA to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty 20 July 1943, proposing that an instructional film be made of this “classic” on the basis of track charts and other data, which proposal Their Lordships turned down on 29 September 1943. A congratulatory message was sent to the ONS.5 escorts by CinCCNA Rear Admiral Murray at Halifax, who called attention to results achieved with minimum of air cover due to impossible weather at [bases?]; ibid., Naval Message, 6 May 1943. Another compliment for the best effort so far came from NSHQ, Ottawa, on the following day.

55
. PRO, ADM 234/370, Convoy and Anti-Submarine Warfare Reports, Battle Summary No. 51, Captain J. A. McCoy, R.N. (SO), EG3, to CinCWA, 9 May 1943, p. 44; ADM 237/113, CinCWA to The Secretary of the Admiralty, 14 June 1943.

56
. A reproduction of the St. John’s
Daily News
article is given in Bailey, ed.,
Battle of the Atlantic,
p. 64. See
The Times,
Thursday, 13 May 1943, p. 4.

57
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Naval Message, Churchill to Escort of ONS.5, 9 May 1943.

58
. PRO, ADM 223/88, Use of Special
Intelligence in Battle of Atlantic, Convoy ONS.5, April-May 1943, f. 278, n.d.

59
. Roskill,
War at Sea,
Vol. II, p. 375.
The Sunday Times
review may be found in the edition of 8 February 1959, p. 13. In more recent years the Horton-Winn-Roskill view has been widely accepted (though perhaps not in Roskill’s extravagant expression) by naval historians on both sides of the conflict as well as on both sides of the Atlantic. See, for example, W. A. B. Douglas and Jürgen Rohwer, “Convoys, Escorts,” in Boutilier, ed.,
RCN in Retrospect,
p. 229; J. David Brown, “The Battle of the Atlantic, 1941–1943: Peaks and Troughs,” in Timothy J. Runyan and Jan M. Copes, eds.,
To Die Gallantly: The Battle of the Atlantic
(Boulder, CO: WestviewPress, 1994), p. 156; Philip Lundeberg, “Allied Co-operation,” in Howarth and Law, eds.,
Battle of the At/antic,
p. 360; Syrett,
Defeat of the German U-Boats,
p. 96; and Milner,
U-Boat Hunters,
who concluded: “In a single night the mystique of the Wolf Packs was broken”; p. 38.

60
. PRO, ADM 237/113, Convoy ONS.5, Report of Proceedings, Third Support Group (EG3), 9 May 1943.

C
HAPTER 8

1
. The writer has relied on a small collection of documents, what may be called the Raushenbush Papers [hereafter RP], in possession of his widow, Joan Raushenbush, in Sarasota, Florida, for the use of which he is greatly indebted. Raushenbush changed his first name from Hilmar Ernst and the spelling of his surname in the 1920s. Solberg (1894–1964) also served at the time as Officer in Charge of Readiness Division, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe.

2
. Roskill,
War at Sea,
Vol. Ill, Part I, p. 263; PRO, AIR 41/48, Peyton Ward, “R.A.F. in Maritime War,” Vol. IV, p. 83.

3
. RP, “Memorandum for Mr. [Oscar A.] de Lima,” 17 pp., 18 November 1948.

4
.
Blackett, Studies of War, p. 238

5
. RP, Commander Oscar A. de Lima, “Subject: Stephen Raushenbush of the U.S. Navy,” 7 pp., 25 June 1961.

6
.
Quoted in Price, Aircraft Versus Submarine, p. 116.

7
. RP, “Memorandum for Mr. de Lima,” p. 2.

8
. NARA, KTB-BdU, 5 March 1943. Naval operations analyst Dr. Brian McCue calculates that had
Naxos-U
gone into service in April only seven additional merchant ships would have been lost as a result;
U-Boats in the Bay
of Biscay: An Essay in Operations Analysis
(Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1990), p. 148.

9
. PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)86, War Cabinet, Employment of Aircraft Against U-Boats in the Bay of Biscay. Prepared under instructions of Captain T. A. Solberg by Stephen Raushenbush, 22 March 1943. In an Intelligence Report dated 14 April, called in Washington an “Alusna,” Raushenbush advised the Navy Department that in the document cited above he had erred in predicting that each of 150 U-boats entering the transit channel would receive 2.4 attacks. The accurate number was 1.8. See NARA, RG 38, Chief of Naval Operations, Intelligence Division, Secret Reports of Naval Attachés, 1940–1946, File F-6-e, Stack Area 10W4, Box 252, Folder “Anti-Submarine Operations, Great Britain, Various 1943–1944,” Intelligence Report (Alusna Report 579), Naval Attaché, London, 14 April 1943 [hereafter Alusna].

10
. PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)99, War Cabinet, Anti-U-Boat Warfare, The Bay Patrol, Note by the Paymaster-General [Cherwell], 30 March 1943. Raushenbush commented in a private note in 1948: “[Cherwell] seemed unable to understand that the estimated number of sightings of U-boats by planes would suddenly jump from the current ratio (about 1 sighting for 100 sorties) to a much better ratio with the new radar”; RP, Memorandum for Mr. de Lima, 18 November 1948. The historian of operational research during the war, Ronald W. Clark, offers a somewhat harsh appraisal of Cherwell;
Rise of the Boffins
, pp. 29–30.

11
. Blackett, “Evan James Williams, 1903–45,”
Studies of War,
pp. 235–239.

12
. The Admiralty’s plan and Raushenbush’s comparison page are given in NARA, RG 38, Alusna, 11 March 1943. In it Raushenbush identifies the Admiralty plan as coming from O.R.S. Coastal Command, no doubt because it was while still at Coastal that Williams initiated the plan and because in its text he refers to earlier O.R.S. studies. Furthermore, the Admiralty’s Memorandum supporting the Williams proposal spoke of it as resulting from “previous investigations by Coastal Command … “; PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)98. When O.R.S. (then under the direction of Professor Waddington) also presented a plan, on 22 March, its numbers were different, as was its conclusion, viz., that the Bay Offensive, by comparison with protective cover given to menaced convoys, was a waste of Coastal’s assets. See PRO, CAB 86/3, A.U.(43)84, The Value of the Bay of Biscay Patrols, Note by Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Coastal Command. In their two plans Raushenbush and Williams employed fundamentally the same statistical methodology, multiplying the density of surfaced U-boats per square mile by the search rate of
Allied aircraft in square miles per hour so as to obtain sightings per flight hour; then using experience-based percentages to predict what fraction of sightings would be converted into attacks, what percentage of attacks would result in damage to the U-boats, and what percentage of damaged boats would be destroyed; then, after finding the number of U-boats destroyed per flight hour, dividing the total of U-boats whose destruction was sought by that number to obtain the number of flight hours required, which flight hours could be turned into a specific requirement for aircraft. Dr. Brian McCue to author, 6 July 1997. Dr. McCue is owed and is given here the warmest of thanks for his expert explanation of the statistical methodology employed by Raushenbush and Williams.