In the German Navy, being proclaimed an “ace” was a fairly abstract notion, often shaped by the needs of propaganda. There was never any official regulation defining the conditions required to obtain this honorary status. Several factors were taken into account: the tonnage sent to the bottom, the number of ships sunk, the nature of the targets destroyed, the circumstances of those successes, and the number of patrols completed. This was all the more so because the Kriegsmarine never established a true system for officially confirming the victories claimed by its U-boat commanders. Above all, an ace was always a commanding officer, a fact that left his crew in the shadows, even though without them he would have achieved nothing.

Reinhard Hardegen was born on 18 March 1913 in Bremen and developed a genuine attraction to the sea at an early age. His father was a teacher of French, history, and geography, and at the time published several books, including biographies of famous sailors. Was this what led the young boy to join the Reichsmarine? In any case, in 1933, at barely twenty years old, he entered the naval academy at Flensburg-Mürwik as an officer cadet. That same year, he embarked aboard the light cruiser Karlsruhe, the fleet’s training ship, for a round-the-world cruise. On his return, he became a midshipman and, on 1 February 1935, was assigned to the aviation branch of the Kriegsmarine. He then received training as an aerial observer and pilot at Warnemünde and Parow, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In October 1936 he was promoted to lieutenant, and from 1937 he commanded an airfield belonging to Germany’s small naval air arm in Pomerania. Two events, however, would bring the young Hardegen’s flying career to a premature end.

First, in January 1939, Göring put an end to the development of this naval aviation arm independent of “his” Luftwaffe, summarising his view in a famous phrase: “Everything that flies belongs to me.” He therefore absorbed the Marineflieger, sending a number of naval officers back to their original service branch. Hardegen was one of them, but he was then in no condition to return to duty. During the year, the training aircraft in which he was flying, a Junkers W 34, crashed on landing. He survived, but suffered multiple injuries, had to be hospitalised, and spent six months bedridden. For the rest of his life, he would retain several after-effects: a shorter right leg and serious stomach problems requiring a strict diet. These should have ended his military career.

Nevertheless, in November 1939, the Kriegsmarine transferred him automatically - without him volunteering - into the rapidly expanding U-Bootwaffe. He trained with the U-Lehrdivision until June 1940, then attended a torpedo course with the 25th U-Flotilla in July and August. Reinhard Hardegen already had a certain seniority - more than five years’ service - which allowed him to gain his first operational experience aboard one of the best “front boats” of the moment, U-124, commanded by Georg-Wilhelm Schulz. He took part in the first war patrols of this Type IXB, based at Lorient, as Kommandantenschüler (commander-in-training) and I.WO (first watch officer) between August and November 1940. These two sorties were successful, with seven ships sunk in total, and Hardegen was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, and then the U-boat War Badge. The following month, he was promoted to Kapitänleutnant and received his own boat.

First Experience on U-147

On 11 December 1940, Reinhard Hardegen officially took command of U-147, a small, brand-new Type IID. The crew trained in the Baltic until late January 1941, and the submarine then joined the 3rd U-Flotilla, a combat formation based at Kiel. From there, U-147 sailed on 9 February 1941 for Bergen, Norway, arriving eight days later. Type II boats had very limited range - hence their nicknames, “canoes” or “dugouts” - and this “forward base” was intended to allow U-147 to operate effectively north of Scotland.

Hardegen left Bergen on 22 February 1941 and patrolled between the Orkneys and the Faroes, an area normally full of traffic. Unfortunately, this was also the time of the “torpedo crisis”1, and the Kaleunt experienced it bitterly on 24 February. Having come upon a large cargo ship, he fired a torpedo that failed to explode. Hardegen had no time to repeat the attack, because he had to dive urgently: what he had taken for a harmless merchantman was in fact an enemy destroyer! Events then accelerated. During the dive, the diesel exhaust valve was damaged, and the submarine had to surface to repair it if the crew was to survive a deep dive. U-147 therefore broke the surface only a few hundred metres from its opponent, which, in the darkness, did not detect her. The flooding caused by the damage had affected the main engines, forcing the crew to use the electric motors to get clear while repairs were carried out.

On the night of 2 March, U-147 encountered a straggler from convoy HX-109, the Norwegian steamer Augvald, and fired a torpedo at her. This time the explosion was devastating, and the ship sank in less than a minute. The submariners tried to find survivors to question, but to no avail: only one man had escaped death, lost on a raft, and would have to wait eleven long days before being rescued. A few days later, U-147 encountered two enemy merchant ships. She again attacked with torpedoes, but in vain: none of the “eels” fired exploded at the right moment. Dejected, the crew headed back to Kiel, arriving on 12 March.

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The Beginnings of U-123

For Hardegen, this return meant major changes. After a first experience as I.WO aboard U-124 and an initial command on a small boat, it was time for more serious business. In April he handed over U-147 and took command of a submarine technically far better suited to convoy warfare in the Atlantic: the Type IXB U-123. Commissioned in autumn 1940, this U-boat had so far been handled masterfully by Kapitänleutnant Karl-Heinz Moehle during four productive patrols in the Western Approaches. Would young Hardegen, aged 28, prove equal to a crew that was already so experienced? Apart from the replacement of the commander and the I.WO, the command cadre had changed little, which should allow him to find his feet quickly.

BdU2 assigned him the mission of patrolling along the west coast of Africa, in the central Atlantic. He was not the first U-boat sent to prey on that part of the ocean: Dönitz had already sent several Type IX boats there in January-February and again in April-May, and they had returned with excellent results. Convoys in the area were poorly protected, and submarines could remain on station longer than usual by refuelling discreetly en route in the Canaries.

On 8 June 1941, the boat sailed for what was to be her fifth war patrol. She did not get far. After a few days, her attack periscope failed, and, as it could not be repaired, the U-boat had to turn back. She sailed again on 15 June, this time for good. U-123 crossed the Bay of Biscay, ran down the Spanish and then Portuguese coasts, and on 20 June, level with the Strait of Gibraltar, encountered an isolated merchant ship. The opportunity was too good to ignore: at 20:10, Hardegen fired two torpedoes at the unlucky vessel. One hit in the machinery spaces, forcing the crew to abandon ship. A final torpedo was then fired to deliver the coup de grâce, but the ship refused to sink, and the submarine had to surface to finish her off with the gun.

Only then did the submariners realise their mistake. Survivors told them that the Ganda was not a British cargo ship, as they had believed, but Portuguese, and therefore neutral. When the incident became known, from 22 June onward, when the first survivors were picked up, this “error of judgement” triggered a diplomatic crisis Dönitz could well have done without. The Kriegsmarine blamed an imaginary British submarine, and, after U-123 returned, her war diary was redacted to remove any mention of the affair.

On 24 June, Hardegen refuelled from the German tanker Charlotte Schliemann in Las Palmas Bay, in the Canaries. Soon afterwards, he received information that U-69 had detected SL-78, a convoy running between Sierra Leone and Liverpool. U-123 joined the hunt, and the two U-boats attacked shortly before midnight on the 27th. Hardegen fired three torpedoes simultaneously at three different targets and sank two: the British PLM-22 and the Dutch Oberon. He now had to face a more numerous and aggressive escort than expected. For eleven gruelling hours, the submarine manoeuvred at great depth, 200 m (about 660 ft), to evade depth charges. She finally shook off her pursuers and raced north-west to regain an attack position on SL-78. She succeeded and sent Rio Azul to the bottom 200 nautical miles (about 230 mi / 370 km) from the Azores on the 29th. Hardegen believed he had sunk a Q-ship, but she was in fact an ordinary British cargo ship carrying 6,700 tonnes (about 6,600 long tons / 7,400 short tons) of iron.

He then headed south. In the middle of the night on 4 July, he encountered the Auditor, a straggler from convoy OB-337, and sank her with a torpedo. He passed through the Cape Verde archipelago on 10 July, then continued down toward Freetown. He operated in the area until the 25th, in company with U-66, but found no prey. In early August, the Type IXB began her return voyage. On the 10th, while running along the Moroccan coast, she was redirected with other “grey wolves” toward convoy HG-69, which had just been sighted. The pack assembled between the Azores and Gibraltar, then tried to break through the escort screen. It was all in vain. The defence foiled every attempt, and U-123 received a proper depth-charging: the submariners counted 126 depth charges, including 30 close explosions. The boat escaped destruction with only minor damage. It was time to go home, and U-123 reached Lorient without further incident on 23 August after 70 days at sea. For the good results of his patrols, Reinhard Hardegen was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class, that same day.

The crew was sent on leave for the whole of September, and U-123 did not put to sea again until 14 October. This time Hardegen had been assigned the North Atlantic as his patrol area. He was soon directed toward convoy SL-89. In the early morning of 21 October, he sighted a group of five large ships zigzagging at 13.5 knots and fired a spread of three torpedoes at one of them. Two hit, damaging what was actually the armed merchant cruiser HMS Aurania. The escort drove the U-boat off, while the Aurania corrected a heavy list that reached as much as 25°. In the panic, however, several men had been put overboard in a lifeboat, leading Hardegen to believe he had sunk his target. In reality, the auxiliary cruiser continued on at 8 knots, without concern for them. During the morning, Hardegen approached the lifeboat and took one sailor aboard for interrogation. That evening, however, the submarine was spotted by a British sloop, which informed a Sunderland flying boat in the area. The aircraft immediately dived on its prey and dropped two ASW bombs set to explode at 15 m (about 50 ft). U-123 was badly shaken but escaped serious damage. Thanks to her large fuel capacity, the Type IXB then ranged across the North Atlantic over the following month, from the Western Approaches to Greenland via Labrador, joining three different packs in succession but never again finding an opportunity to attack. Reinhard Hardegen returned to Lorient on 22 November with an almost empty scorecard.

War Against the United States

On arrival in port, Hardegen was caught up by the consequences of his 1936 aircraft accident. For several years, administrative services had been trying to prevent him from going to sea as commander because of the severity of his after-effects. Until then, the forms had always arrived too late: he had already left his course, boat, or home port before receiving them. This time, in Lorient, they were waiting for him. Dönitz was informed of the situation and exceptionally authorised Hardegen to conduct two more patrols before taking up a shore posting. The young submariner’s dedication and competence were thus rewarded, but this also, and above all, allowed BdU to include, at the last minute, a very capable commander in a major operation planned for the end of the year, codenamed Paukenschlag (“Drumbeat”).

It was December 1941, and the Third Reich had just declared war on the United States. At that time, BdU had no units in American waters. Dönitz therefore requested permission to extend his operational area to those supply routes carrying valuable cargoes (cotton, sugar, petrol, iron, steel, bauxite, and more) vital to American industry. There he intended to repeat his successes of 1940:

“We expected a great deal from it. […] It had to be assumed that some defence already existed because of the close collaboration between the two navies [the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy]. [The U.S. Navy], however, would lack experience and therefore combat value. We hoped that conditions would be at least as favourable as they had been a year or two earlier in British waters. But those conditions would necessarily change after a shorter or longer time. The Americans too would learn to defend themselves with ever increasing effectiveness. They would adopt the convoy system. Everything therefore dictated that we exploit this favourable situation as quickly and forcefully as possible before it changed. […] In the new operational area there were many focal points of shipping between which we could shift our attack very quickly. It was impossible for the enemy to be equally strong everywhere.”

Threatening the link with Britain in the North Atlantic, the busiest shipping route in the world, would indeed have a painful impact on the Allied war effort. Dönitz therefore planned a genuine submarine offensive against the main American ports between Halifax and Cape Hatteras. Beyond inflicting losses on Allied traffic, his aim was also to create a psychological shock comparable to Pearl Harbor. The main target, New York, lay 3,000 nautical miles (about 3,500 mi / 5,500 km) from Lorient. Type IXB and IXC boats had enough range to reach the area while retaining enough fuel to patrol there. Once on station, a Type IXB would still have about 60 m³ of fuel oil aboard (roughly 2,100 cubic feet, or about 15,800 U.S. gallons) equivalent to six or seven days’ steaming. A Type IXC would have a little less than twice that amount3. In both cases, the time on station was sufficient to cause serious damage. To do so, Dönitz requested permission to commit twelve submarines, a number he considered barely sufficient to create the expected shock. His proposal was rejected, because at the same time Hitler ordered a massive dispatch of U-boats, including many ocean-going types, west of Gibraltar and off Norway. At the end of 1941, out of 91 operational units, “for the first blows against the American coast, I was left with six U-boats, only five of which could be made available in French ports between 16 and 25 December,” Dönitz later explained. It is easier to understand why he allowed Hardegen to continue fighting despite his health problems.

The Revelation of Paukenschlag

Hardegen’s orders were to proceed to New York and intercept coastal traffic there. He was then to move off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with the same objective. To do this, he had no nautical chart of the great American port and no precise information from BdU. He had to make do with a small pocket atlas he had obtained himself. Dönitz had insisted that no attack be made during the crossing before arrival off New York, in order to preserve the element of surprise, unless the ship encountered was at least 10,000 GRT.

Assigned to the first wave, U-123 sailed from Lorient on 23 December and began a long, monotonous crossing of the North Atlantic, ending only around 10 January 1942 when the submarine arrived off Halifax. Hardegen was not yet in the prescribed operating area, but when he encountered the unescorted British cargo ship Cyclops on the 12th, in the middle of the night, 125 nautical miles (about 145 mi / 230 km) off Nova Scotia, he considered himself entitled to torpedo her. Sent to the bottom by two torpedoes, Cyclops may thus be considered the first victim of Operation Paukenschlag. For U-123, this was the beginning of a fruitful offensive along the East Coast. Between 12 and 19 January, heading south, the submarine sank five ships and damaged another without encountering serious resistance. At the time, the U.S. Navy had only three ships on alert between New York and Philadelphia and seven more off Norfolk. Defence was practically nonexistent, and U-boats were therefore free to move, as BdU itself noted:

“Destroyers did patrol the routes, but with such regularity that our boats soon learned the pattern and felt perfectly safe between two passages. There were depth-charge hunts, but they were never maintained long enough, although the shallow waters gave them excellent chances of success. Aircraft likewise completely lacked experience. Merchant ships used their radios freely, frequently giving their position and thus providing U-boats with valuable information on traffic.”

Daily coastal cover was then provided by only two air patrols of six aircraft each. Even so, to avoid detection, the Type IXB ran at night and lay on the seabed during the day. On 14 January at 04:48, Hardegen cruised south-east of Long Island. Thanks to the absence of blackout, he could use city lights without difficulty to correct his navigation. From the conning tower as he observed New York, the Kaleunt must surely have remembered those few days in 1933 when, as an officer cadet aboard the Karlsruhe, he had called at Manhattan during a round-the-world cruise. At 07:24, lights were sighted to port, just before fog reduced visibility to three nautical miles (about 3.5 mi / 5.6 km). Hardegen feared he was facing a destroyer, but it was in fact the Panamanian tanker Norness, bound for Halifax, unescorted and brightly lit as in peacetime. Two torpedoes were fired at her stern and hit. In all, it still took five torpedoes - two failed - to destroy the tanker. The coup de grâce was delivered at 09:10, and the Norness sank with all her fuel.

On the night of 14–15 January, U-123 ventured into New York harbour itself, but did not stay long because no worthwhile target appeared. Leaving the area the following morning, the submarine sighted a heavily laden, unescorted tanker: the 6,768 GRT Coimbra. Hardegen fired two torpedoes and quickly sent her to the bottom. On the 16th at 01:00, as U-123 was moving away from New York, the alarm sounded: an American aircraft had spotted the submarine on the surface and, once in range, dropped four bombs before the boat had fully submerged. None hit, and in his war diary the Kaleunt was able to write that “the Yankees still have a lot to learn.” To escape the patrols that were now bound to appear in the area, Hardegen resolutely headed south4. He ran along Virginia and then past Norfolk. It was on the 19th, off Cape Hatteras, that U-123 enjoyed its moment of glory. Between 05:16 and 12:01, she sank three merchant ships in succession and damaged a tanker. Shortly afterwards, the U-boat suffered mechanical problems: one of her diesels refused to run, forcing her to proceed on the surface at reduced speed for repairs. At that moment she was sighted by the Kosmos II, a huge Norwegian factory whaler, which not only reported her position by radio but decided to ram the German submarine. U-123 was in a very awkward position. Her tubes were not reloaded, her speed was too limited to run, and she could not dive because the shoal water and the deep draught of the Kosmos II - charging toward her target at 17 knots - would not prevent a ramming. The Norwegian was only 75 m (about 80 yd) from the U-boat when the faulty diesel finally decided to start. Hardegen immediately pushed the engines to full power to reach 18 knots, just enough to escape his pursuer. The chase continued for another hour before the factory ship finally released its grip.

On the 20th, short of torpedoes and fuel, U-123 headed home. BdU sent its congratulations by radio: “To the timpanist Hardegen. Bravo! Well played5. Dönitz.” The “timpanist” passed by Bermuda to reconnoitre the area, then received a new message on the 24th: he had officially been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. The crew hurried to make a metal decoration, which was presented to him in a brief ceremony. On the reverse, an inscription mentioned 16 ships claimed destroyed, with a total “score” of 110,209 GRT. The next day, the Type IXB intercepted the Culebra, an isolated British cargo ship from the dispersed convoy ON-53. Hardegen thought the prey easy and believed he could sink her quickly with gunfire, but then realised that the merchantman too had a gun. A real duel began at 600 m (about 650 yd), with U-123 also firing her machine guns and 2 cm (20 mm / 0.79 in) Flak gun. Better trained, the submariners won the fight, but their boat still took five direct hits, none of which penetrated the pressure hull. The Culebra was abandoned by her crew - who were never seen again - before sinking, while first aid was given to two U-123 crewmen wounded by a 2 cm (20 mm / 0.79 in) shell that had exploded prematurely in the Flak gun’s barrel.

An almost identical scene occurred on the 27th when the submarine encountered the tanker Pan Norway. U-123 opened fire from 2,500 m (about 2,700 yd / 1.55 mi), but had to endure several bursts of machine-gun fire in return. The Type IXB was hit several times without serious consequence, and the tanker was soon abandoned. The Germans, however, suffered another injury: one of the men tasked with receiving the empty 10.5 cm (105 mm / 4.1 in) shell casings lowered through the conning tower accidentally took one in the face, permanently costing him several teeth. It was the final incident of a long patrol. The U-boat moored at Lorient on 9 February without further trouble. The crew was sent to rest for a few weeks, then preparations began for a second “American” mission.

The ocean-going submarine sailed on 2 March, and in many respects this patrol resembled the previous one: a long outbound voyage and the interception of isolated ships off the East Coast, this time especially around Florida and Jacksonville. Attacks followed in rapid succession between 22 March and 17 April, with Hardegen prioritising tankers: six of the eleven ships attacked were tankers. On the 26th, he encountered one of the few American Q-ships then in service, USS Atik, and decided to attack in full knowledge of what she was. Like a good commander, he had observed that the “harmless cargo ship” was producing far too much smoke, in order to attract U-boats, and that she was steering for no port. Even so, he was surprised by his opponent’s aggression: though mortally torpedoed, she fought back to the end, and a machine-gun burst killed one of his men, Fähnrich zur See Rudi Holzer. When Reinhard Hardegen returned triumphantly to Lorient on 2 May, he had added eight more ships sunk and three damaged to his tally. He himself claimed ten ships sunk, a result rewarded as early as 23 April (by radio) with the Oak Leaves, and then, once back in port, with the U-boat War Badge with Diamonds, a rare award (with only 29 recipients in total), proving Dönitz’s particular interest in this commander not yet thirty years old.

A Shore and Political Career

Now an ace, with all the honours and “media obligations” this involved, Hardegen was invited in May to dine with Erich Topp and Hitler himself. The meal is said to have ended abruptly after the young commander all but reproached the Chancellor for the lack of priority given to the U-Bootwaffe. Later reprimanded by Generaloberst Jodl, Hardegen allegedly replied: “The Führer has the right to hear the truth, and I have the duty to bring it to him.” The attitude may demonstrate the submariner’s independence of mind, but it does little to prove the distance from Nazism he would later claim.

For the moment, the commander of U-123 had to deal with his boat. From 16 to 29 May, he took her to Kiel and then Stettin, calling at Bergen, Kristiansand, and Aarhus, for a long repair period. For Hardegen, the sea-going adventure was over. Dönitz had granted him a “reprieve” of two patrols, and that had now expired: BdU appointed him an instructor with the 27th U-Flotilla training formation based at Gotenhafen. In March 1943 he moved to the torpedo school at Mürwik, then supervised the development of acoustic and wire-guided torpedoes. From February 1945, he served as commander of the 1st Battalion of Marine-Grenadier-Regiment 6, an improvised unit formed to slow the British advance in the Bremen area. Shortly before the capitulation, he joined Dönitz’s staff at Flensburg.

Imprisoned in the United Kingdom, Hardegen returned to Germany only in November 1946, where he became a salesman. In the early 1950s, he created a trading company in the oil sector, then entered politics, helping to found the local CDU branch in Bremen. He served in the regional parliament for twenty years, from 1959 to 1979. Very active and a great traveler, he died at 105 years old in 2018, after having been for a long time the oldest living U-boat commander of the Kriegsmarine.

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From time to time, Action Stations steps outside strictly naval history, a deliberate breathing space to tackle other corners of military history.

Germany, May 1945. The Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht are collapsing under the combined pressure of the Allies, who entered Germany at the start of the year. Despite numerous delaying actions, cities fall one after another before the American juggernaut, which soon reaches the Austrian border. Yet despair, propaganda, and fanaticism sometimes push German soldiers to hold out at all costs…

The 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion was formed in late March 1942 in Arkansas. Initially equipped with towed 3-inch (76 mm) M5 anti-tank guns, it landed with them on Utah Beach on 19 September 1944. It crossed the Moselle six days later, then was abruptly sent to the Ardennes on 21 December to protect the XII Corps’ flank through January 1945. The following month, it re-equipped with M36 self-propelled tank destroyers. At the end of March, the “808th” crossed the Rhine and accompanied the 3rd Army’s advance to Erfurt and Nuremberg. Attached in April to the 65th Infantry Division, the battalion then pushed into Bavaria, following the Danube and driving ever farther east toward the Austrian border. Its objective was Linz ; and the mandatory crossroads on the way was Passau, a border city at the confluence of the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz1. It is across its bridges that one reaches Austria.

The city that saw Hitler grow up

The war is ending, but depending on the place, fighters still resist the American advance with stubborn determination. In Passau, the Donauzeitung - the local newspaper - calls for armed resistance: “All traitors and cowards will be put to death! Long live Germany, long live the Führer!” it headlines on 30 April, the day Hitler commits suicide…

Until then, the remnants of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich still controlled the region. From 29 April, however, under American artillery fire, they left the city’s defence to the local Volkssturm and the debris of routed military units. That does not mean Passau will fall like ripe fruit. The GIs may not realise it, but Hitler is considered a local “son of the soil” here: though born in Braunau, Austria, he lived in Passau as a child from 1892 to 1894, when his father was posted there as a Zolloberamts-Offizial, a senior customs official2. In the 1920s Hitler even returned several times during campaign tours; the region was largely sympathetic to him.

The American advance to Passau is particularly macabre. They discover mass grave after mass grave: 800 Buchenwald deportees executed in the picturesque town of Fürstentein; dozens of corpses of “traitors” summarily shot or hanged; and more. Added to this is the liberation of the auxiliary concentration camp at Pocking (190 survivors), those of Passau I, II and III, and Russian POW camps at Hacklberg, Jacking, Fatting, Rosenau and Tifenbach… Nevertheless, on 1 May 1945, American troops enter Hals, just north of Passau, a village Göring and his entourage have just left. The U.S. Army is then stopped by the Danube’s north bank: there are a few bridges, but a frontal assault seems too risky; better to try to take them from the flank.

Along the Danube

The 65th Infantry Division receives orders to take the city from the west and establish itself on the far side of the Inn. The division has advanced along the Danube’s south bank and is therefore well positioned to enter the border city through the only approach not bordered by a watercourse. With this in mind, a Task Force is formed.

Order of Battle for the Capture of Passau — May 1945

For the Germany campaign, the 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion distributed its line companies in support across the various formations of the 65th Infantry Division: A Company with the 260th Infantry Regiment, B with the 261st IR, and C with the 259th IR. The capture of Passau, however, required a suitable ad hoc unit. This Task Force brought together the 3rd platoon of the 808th’s B Company, part of the 1st Reconnaissance Platoon, the 2nd Battalion of the 261st Infantry Regiment, and C Company of the 748th Tank Battalion.

The Task Force assembled during the morning along the Danube, 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of the objective. At 10:00, an infantry company was sent farther to the south-west to complete the encirclement of the urban area and then launch an attack. Meanwhile, the rest of the Task Force, recon elements in front, advanced along the south bank. Resistance was initially nil, and infantrymen from two companies took advantage of this by riding on the armoured vehicles.

A few enemy riflemen spotted along the way were quickly eliminated, and the column entered the deserted city without difficulty. Streets were empty and silent; in places, sheets hung from windows like improvised white flags. The Task Force soon came into view of a bridge spanning the Danube. A foot reconnaissance was ordered; the patrol returned with eight prisoners. They reported a concentration of enemy troops to the south and south-west of the city. The Americans immediately prepared with mounting tension: infantry dismounted, and the armored vehicles got ready to seize the bridge before the Germans - now certainly alerted - could destroy it. At the last moment, the action was cancelled: the reconnaissance platoon leader had patrolled ahead by jeep and confirmed that the bridge had just been blown.

This pause could not be allowed to drag on: Passau was still not fully occupied, and the Germans must not be given time to barricade themselves. Indeed, while the Task Force had been halted before the destroyed bridge, snipers appeared, firing intermittently at the tanks. It had no immediate effect, but it raised the GIs’ stress level. Everyone scanned street corners and nearby windows, trying to locate the source. The order was soon given for the most forward vehicles to pull back and rejoin the rest of the small force, which used a square as its regrouping area. The tanks withdrew, firing about fifteen high-explosive rounds at hypothetical hidden shooters as they did so.

Snipers and urban combat

An infantry section was then sent into the city’s southern districts. After only a few blocks, the GIs suddenly ran into heavy resistance: intense small-arms and machine-gun fire struck them from several positions at once. In the narrow streets of the city centre, they took what cover they could: doorways, low walls, etc. Panic set in when two men fell wounded. Leaving the two unfortunate soldiers exposed in the roadway, the rest of the section fell back in disorder. Two Germans - civilians - and an American medic tried to go to their aid, but they too were taken under fire; one of the Germans was killed. The situation worsened. Meanwhile, four trucks towing anti-tank guns, accompanied by a jeep, burst into the square where the armoured vehicles were still parked. In panic, drivers and gun crews reported that their column had been engaged by enemy fire from buildings at the end of the street. They had taken losses: two trucks and one gun destroyed, another vehicle damaged.

The Tank Destroyer platoon leader ordered two of his four M36s to accompany him to the scene. They advanced by bounds, and the lead vehicle quickly reached the ambush site. Covered by the two tank destroyers, the reconnaissance platoon commander was able to establish an observation post (OP) in nearby buildings, along with three sniper positions on the street’s south side. Upper floors were empty, and the Americans quickly set up: binoculars, radios, and scoped Springfield M1903A4 rifles were discreetly positioned to cover the whole neighbourhood. The source of the fire was soon located and the coordinates transmitted to the first tank destroyer. It fired about fifteen rounds into the suspected building, while snipers provided precise cover fire, prioritising Panzerfaust teams. Indeed, the Panzerfaust was a true scourge for the thinly armoured M36: a well-placed hit would turn the vehicle into a giant lighter. Within minutes, GIs firepower neutralised the resistance; the Germans abandoned several buildings, allowing the column to evacuate men and equipment to a safer area.

Meanwhile, the two wounded soldiers were still lying in the street one block away. Their company commander asked the TD platoon and medium tanks for help recovering his men. A small, heavily armed column was quickly organised: two tank destroyers led the way, flanked on both sides by an infantry platoon; two Shermans, remaining back at the assembly area, were to cover the advance. To reach the wounded, five houses had to be cleared first.

The M36s bounded forward to the scene, halted, and opened fire, both with their 90 mm (3.5 in) gun and their 12.7 mm (.50 in) machine gun, to cover the infantry as effectively as possible. The GIs advanced cautiously. On the left, they stopped about 25 metres (80 ft) from the tank destroyers; on the right, they were quickly pinned down by automatic weapons fire. Bullets snapped and ricocheted off façades; the streets amplified the detonations; dust and smoke reduced visibility. In this tangle of alleys, danger could come from anywhere. When they were not flat on their stomachs with their noses in the cobblestones, the GIs raked windows and scanned upper floors, moving in measured steps to avoid being isolated. Both prey and hunters, the American soldiers had little information on who they were facing.

This was where the observation post proved invaluable. It had no difficulty spotting the machine-gun nest and passed its coordinates to the M36s. The tank destroyers saturated the position with 90 mm rounds, then engaged other targets located in the same sector. All were quickly neutralised, and the column prepared to resume its movement when, at that very moment, the company commander received an imperative order: “Do not go any farther; negotiations are under way for the city’s surrender.” The infantry took cover.

Interpreting this pullback as a sign of weakness, the German fighters opened up with everything they had. Their fire was accurate enough that the Americans suspected it was being directed by an observer ideally placed… Once again the OP was used: after a brief search, it spotted a well-hidden pair of binocular lenses protruding from a small opening cut into the clock face of a public building. A single 90 mm round smashed the delicate mechanism head-on, eliminating the “watcher.”

Gunfire continued to rage. Noise and smoke prevented precise localisation of the enemy, which was particularly worrying for the two M36s, prime targets for any reasonably experienced anti-tank team. The infantry was already stretched and was not numerous enough to protect the vehicles’ flanks. The operations officer of the Tank Destroyer Company had no choice but to urgently call in part of his headquarters personnel.

Duel with a Panzer IV

As the exchange of fire dragged on without clear result, the observation post soon spotted a Panzer IV approaching. The German tank advanced to a street corner and halted. It remained invisible to troops at street level, but it was there, 150 metres (165 yd) from the lead tank destroyer. Leaving the forward M36 stationary and ready, the Americans decided to use the second TD to flank the enemy armored vehicle. The tank destroyer moved to an intersection farther south-east so it could later dash forward and engage the Panzer by surprise. The vehicle advanced, making a wide detour through deserted, battered streets. It was only halfway to its position when it came under sniper and machine-gun fire. An instant later, the crew saw six grenadiers with rocket launchers, ready to strike. That was too much. The M36 had neither escort nor adequate protection: its open-topped turret made it highly vulnerable to grenades and plunging fire, not to mention anti-tank rockets. It had to withdraw at once.

The driver manoeuvred as best he could in the tight space and failed to notice a shell crater in the middle of the roadway. He hit it squarely, “planting” the vehicle and forcing it to stop. The moment was critical. Reinforcements were needed before the Germans understood what had happened. Two crewmen ran for help. Out of breath, they reached their main body and raised the alarm. The platoon leader and a few men immediately ran to assess the damage, ignoring German fire. Arriving winded at the scene, they witnessed an extraordinary sight: the gunner had saved the situation. Firing both the 12.7 mm machine gun and the 90 mm gun, he had broken the grenadiers’ assault, killing all six at point-blank range. All that remained was to extract the TD from its trap and reach the assigned intersection. Meanwhile, the Germans had apparently located the observation post and the American snipers in the buildings opposite. From its corner, the Panzer IV began engaging them; shells exploded against the façade, shaking the whole structure. Upstairs, falling rubble and plaster dust made observation impossible; in the street, smoke turned the air suffocating; fragments of stone, cement, and concrete rained down on the Americans.

The Panzer soon shifted targets, hammering with its 75 mm (2.95 in) gun the house that separated it from the most advanced M36, the platoon leader’s vehicle. For the moment, the small building held, but repeated blows threatened to change that. Neither side wanted to move: changing position would mean exposing oneself and giving the enemy, for a brief instant, the chance to fire first. At 150 metres (165 yd), there would be no forgiveness. The situation was therefore locked. A small group of German soldiers armed with Panzerfausts tried to infiltrate behind the TD through adjacent alleys, but the GIs had set up a machine gun in a window to cover the vehicle’s rear, and the Germans quickly withdrew. The M36 fired intermittently, without tangible effect. Something had to break the stalemate.

The platoon leader’s M36 was ordered to roar forward, stop short of the corner, rev its engine, and then return to its original position. The aim was to lure the German tank into exposing itself. The diversion worked perfectly: hearing the sound of an armoured vehicle charging at full power in its direction, the Panzer IV left cover to confront it. That was exactly what the second tank destroyer, positioned on the far side of the block, was waiting for. It advanced and fired.

The gunner did not aim directly at his opponent but just above it, at a building façade that shattered, showering the Panzer with debris and blinding its crew’s episcopes. A clever shot but the German tank was positioned so that no direct hit could be achieved, and the dust cloud from the explosion made a second precise shot highly uncertain. Yet there was no time to lose. The TD gunner now proved the value of his artillery training: he fired four APC rounds3 at a particular angle. Two ricocheted off a wall and struck the Panzer IV. The tank immediately caught fire, and the M36s used the moment to withdraw. The fight was won: without armoured support, the Germans gradually pulled back, skirmishing with far less conviction than they had shown earlier in the morning.

Aftermath

The fighting lasted nearly five hours, during which the Task Force employed its full firepower. Snipers and machine gunners killed or wounded 30 enemy soldiers. The following day, Passau finally fell and 500 Germans surrendered. In another district, the GIs found a second Panzer IV abandoned and scuttled by its crew.

Generally uncomfortable in close combat within a three-dimensional urban environment, because of its thin armour and open turret, the M36 nevertheless proved at Passau that it could be used in urban warfare… but only under certain conditions: the 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion’s vehicles performed credibly, yet they required strong infantry escort (machine gunners, snipers, and observers) to clear upper floors and repel German grenadiers armed with Panzerfausts.

To learn more:

• Armor in Battle, U.S. Army Armor School, Fort Knox, Kentucky, March 1986.

• Rosmus, A., Out of Passau: Leaving a City Hitler Called Home, University of South Carolina Press, 2004.

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As the father of the U-Bootwaffe, Dönitz was also the man who laid down its tactical principles, including the famous “wolfpack” attack. Yet concentrating several submarines around an enemy convoy and sending them in simultaneously was not a risk-free method. It could happen that multiple boats found themselves in the same place at the same time, on intersecting tracks…

From September 1935 onward, Kapitän zur See Karl Dönitz, newly appointed head of the German submarine arm, issued tactical principles that would later shape U-boat operations during the Battle of the Atlantic. Among the ideas he set out, “group tactics” (Gruppentaktik) emerged as an ambitious and promising concept. Later called Rudeltaktik (“wolfpack tactics”) it was meant to allow submarines to attack enemy merchant ships sailing in convoy, the most effective and discouraging countermeasure developed by the Allies during the First World War. As Dönitz would later write in his memoirs, “a concentration of targets required a concentration of submarines.” In practice, an attack by several submarines had to be simultaneous, to overwhelm the convoy’s escorts by weight of numbers, and was generally to be carried out at night on the surface, after an underwater approach. This raised a host of organisational questions that would only truly be resolved after the war began: who commands the pack, and from where, shore or one of the boats involved? How do you communicate during the attack? What formation should be used? How many submarines are needed for an effective pack?

During the war, British and American submarines would also adopt “pack” attacks, but with notable practical differences. They established local tactical commands, whereas the Germans’ BdU (U-boat Command) guided boats to the objective by radio from the French coast, then granted each commander considerable freedom of action. Another major difference was the number of submarines grouped together. Ninety percent of American “packs” would consist of only three or four boats, occasionally rising to six or seven in a few rare cases. By contrast, Dönitz preferred numerically large groups, very often 10 to 15 submarines. This was due first to differences in operational theatres. Japanese convoys in the Pacific, and Italo-German convoys in the Mediterranean, usually contained only a small number of transports, around a dozen at most. Too many submarines attacking simultaneously in so limited an area could produce “unfortunate” situations: collisions, friendly-fire incidents, and so on. In the Atlantic, convoys were far larger and more spread out, often with more than forty freighters advancing in several parallel columns. The Allies’ aim was to form a wide rectangle whose flanks were as short as possible to reduce exposure to submarine attacks from the sides. This forced U-boats to strike from ahead or astern, but the very extent of these convoys also allowed them to attack en masse, from several directions at once, without fearing they would interfere with each other. Dönitz took full advantage: while many packs contained only three or four boats, others gathered more than twenty. The largest ever constituted - Panther, active in October 1942 - counted 34 U-boats. And in fact, combat accidents between U-boats of the same pack remained rare.

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In Pursuit of HX-217

One exception that proves the rule involved the Type VIIC U-221 and U-254. It began on 27 November 1942, when convoy HX-217 left New York for Liverpool with 33 merchant ships. Eleven of them soon returned to their departure port for various reasons, mostly mechanical. The convoy was then reinforced by eight more ships off Halifax, before leaving the North American coast and heading into the open ocean, where it met its protection force, Escort Group B6, consisting of two destroyers, four corvettes, and a Rescue Ship. Up to that point the weather had been tolerable, but from 2 December a dreadful storm struck the merchantmen. At that season this was common, even expected by seamen who hoped the very poor visibility would prevent enemy submarines from spotting them. And indeed, several U-boats were searching for HX-217.

First, there were the seven “grey wolves” of the Panzer wolfpack, formed on 23 November to intercept (unsuccessfully) convoy ONS-151. There were also the ten submarines of Draufgänger, formed on the 29th, which had just lost contact in the fog with another convoy. On 1 December, Dönitz redirected Draufgänger’s boats farther north to help Panzer on the route taken by ONS convoys. One of them, U-524, was equipped with an experimental radio receiver capable of intercepting very-high-frequency messages exchanged between ships of the same convoy using Talk Between Ships (TBS), a radio communications system introduced during the year. On the 4th, U-524 did indeed intercept a flow of exchanges among about ten interlocutors near grid square AJ 8766; in less technical terms, a convoy south of Greenland’s tip. Panzer was immediately sent to the area. Seas were rough and visibility dreadful; only on the 6th did U-524 gain the first visual contact. Conditions were still too bad to attack, so on the 7th the submarine shadowed its prey all day while awaiting reinforcements: five U-boats arrived before sunset, while Dönitz summoned Draufgänger’s units. They were expected during the night of the 7th or the day of the 8th, bringing the total number of attackers to 17. The Germans therefore hoped to maul the convoy. The Allied escort, however, had already detected two U-boats approaching on the 6th and braced for a hard night’s fighting.

At 18:00 on the 7th, U-524 opened hostilities with a first spread of torpedoes, all misses. The convoy was harassed all night, and at 01:25 on the 8th the same U-boat finally torpedoed the tanker Empire Spenser (8,194 GRT). The convoy commodore’s log offers grim detail: “At once, the entire area nearby [around the tanker] became a sea of flames and columns of dense black smoke rose to 150 m [about 500 ft]. The convoy continued straight ahead, as ordered (…). A great battle was taking place all around the convoy and within sight.” Yet at daybreak, no other merchant ship had been lost.

Same Place, Same Time

Another drama did unfold during the night, but its protagonists were German. On the evening of the 7th, U-221, a Type VIIC from Draufgänger, did make contact with the convoy in grid square AK 2551. She began a high-speed surface chase, a tactic that allowed her to close quickly without being detected by the escorts’ Asdic. Only her silhouette against the horizon might betray her, but darkness was deep and the weather especially bad, limiting the risk.

At 21:34, in sea state 5 (waves 2.5 to 4 m — 8 ft 2 in to 13 ft 1 in) and in a rain squall, the watch in the conning tower’s “bathtub” spotted another U-boat approaching at full speed on the starboard side. It was U-254, a Panzer’s boat executing a similar approach, but on a collision course. The war diary of U-221’s commander, Kapitänleutnant Hans Trojer, continues:

“We turned as much as possible, but we could not avoid a violent shock against the aft part of the pressure hull. (…) The other vessel remained afloat, but began to sink. We saw a few flashes of torchlight and about thirty men wearing life jackets (…). We switched on our searchlights and called for the men to remain calm. Constant cries for help. We threw a floating heaving line, but all attempts failed because of the heavy sea. Some of my own men, secured by lifelines, jumped in but could do nothing. Only one petty officer and three seamen managed to seize the lines and were hauled aboard despite seas breaking over the deck. It was U-254.”1

No one saw U-254 vanish beneath the surface, yet it was that night that 41 members of her crew perished, including all her officers.2

“After persisting in our efforts for two hours, during which the searchlights were used continuously, two star shells were fired east of our position and a ship switched on two searchlights.”

It was time to leave.

The collision had seriously damaged U-221, which was now unable to dive. She therefore left the combat zone as quickly as possible on the surface and contacted BdU to report the situation. BdU immediately authorised her return, and the U-boat reached Saint-Nazaire safely on 23 December.

Meanwhile, Dönitz reflected on the risk incurred by his “grey wolf” packs. In a note drafted on 8 December, only hours after the drama, he nevertheless reaffirmed his approach:

“For the first time during a convoy operation, a ramming incident has occurred between two U-boats, causing the loss of one of them. From what is known, this accident happened on a dark night and in a heavy sea, so the boat that struck the other cannot be blamed. The presence of so large a number of U-boats engaged in convoy operations has long made such damage possible. Consideration shows that, in general, it is not feasible to have more than 13 to 15 units on a single convoy. Any tactical limitation related to the number of attacking submarines - at the moment of attack, in the attack disposition - by which such collisions could be avoided, will be rejected, because the difficulties of convoy warfare do not permit applying even the smallest of these conditions. (…) all opportunities for attack must be exploited to the maximum. The maxim repeated again and again aboard U-boats - ‘to the target as quickly as possible, attack as often as possible, immediately exploit every chance to attack’ - must not be rejected for reasons of safety.”

Despite this near-fanatical call for relentless attack, the results of the Panzer and Draufgänger wolfpacks fell well short of BdU’s hopes. In the days following the collision of U-221 and U-254, up to 21 submarines would assail HX-217, destroying only one additional merchant ship, at the cost of two of their own.

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Colonised late, the island of Nauru lived a turbulent history, one that scarred both its people and its land. Successively dominated and exploited by Germans, Australians, and then Japanese, the local population suffered every kind of violence that the two world wars - and later modern hyper-consumer society - could unleash: forced labour, war crimes, famine, ethnic tension, public-health crises, and ecological catastrophe.

In 1886, Great Britain and the German Empire ratified a convention defining their respective spheres of influence in the western Pacific. For Berlin it was a diplomatic victory, because London finally acknowledged German rights over several territories then forming the protectorate of Deutsch-Neuguinea (German New Guinea): Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Northern Solomons, and so on. Two years later, tiny Nauru also fell under German control. Located in Micronesia, it was an isolated speck positioned along the line of demarcation between British and German possessions, a line running from the Solomons in the south to the Gilbert Islands in the north. Settlers exploited copra there, but in 1899 a New Zealand geologist discovered that Nauru’s limestone subsoil concealed an unexpected treasure: phosphate, a mineral then in high demand as a fertiliser. Early assessments were unequivocal: not only did Nauru hold an enormous deposit, its phosphate was also the purest in the world.

In 1906, a British company bought the mining rights and placed the island under strict control: almost the entirety of Nauru’s 21 km² (8 sq mi) of land was surveyed and then devoted to exclusive extraction of the precious ore. The roughly 1,400 islanders, of course, had no say. Soon, some 1,000 Chinese and Melanesian workers arrived1, supervised by around a hundred Germans and Britons. The island and its central plateau (rising to 71 m / 233 ft) became a vast open-cast mine, complete with railway, loading piers, warehouses, and the rest. Until 1914, extraction made the Pacific Phosphate Company prosperous. But when the First World War broke out, Nauru found itself completely isolated and unable to feed its inhabitants. The fifty or so Britons present were evacuated on 6 September, and three days later the Australian Navy took possession of the German island without bloodshed. Mining could thus continue uninterrupted for Britain throughout the war. In 1920, a new structure was created: the British Phosphate Commission (BPC), in practice managed by Canberra. Extraction became industrial and systematic, exhausting the most accessible seams one after another.

The German Threat

In 1940, the BPC exported one million tonnes of Nauruan phosphate (about 984,000 long tons / 1.10 million short tons), almost exclusively to Australia. Since the start of the Second World War, the island-continent sought to build up a strategic stock of fertiliser: Australian agriculture was actively supporting the British war effort. This did not escape the Axis, which aimed to strangle Britain economically: halting phosphate imports would strike a hard blow at enemy agricultural output. And it was easy because the ore left Nauru only thanks to a small specialised fleet of phosphate bulk carriers, necessarily loaded offshore. Nauru had no deep-water port, which prevented loading at a quay. Ships had to use metal cantilever structures, long overhanging conveyor piers extending far out above the sea, to fill their holds. Such operations were possible only in calm weather. Otherwise, ships had to wait offshore for wind and sea to ease; and the wait could be long, especially late in the year when equatorial storms raged.

To the frequent presence of such prey was added another vulnerability: Nauru had no coastal defences at all, because the League of Nations formally forbade Australia to fortify an island that did not officially belong to it. Finally, no escort or patrol vessel was permanently detached to protect it. In 1940, Imperial Japan was not yet at war, and Italian or German squadrons were far too distant to pose a threat, so Canberra believed. In reality, Japan - having signed the Tripartite Pact in September 1940 - would provide discreet logistical support to the Kriegsmarine from the territories it controlled in the South Pacific under League mandates: the Caroline Islands, the Palau, the Marianas (excluding Guam), and the Marshalls. In these island groups, the Japanese agreed to shelter and refuel German units sent to raid the region. At the start of the war, Berlin commissioned nine auxiliary cruisers for commerce raiding and ordered two of them to the South Pacific.

The HSK-1 Orion left first. She sailed in April, rounded Cape Horn in May, and reached New Zealand waters in June. On the night of the 13th to the 14th, she mined the entrance to Auckland harbour, then cruised nearby under various false identities, sinking three merchant ships and sending one prize back to Europe. The HSK-7 Komet departed Gotenhafen in July and reached the Pacific via the Arctic Ocean with the help of a Soviet icebreaker. It was at Lamotrek (an Eastern Carolines atoll under Japanese mandate) that, on 20 October, she rendezvoused with the Orion and the supply ship Kulmerland. The commanders of the two raiders and the auxiliary vessel then sailed under the Japanese flag and concentrated their efforts in the lightly protected waters around New Zealand. After 18 days on patrol, results were disappointing: they sank only two merchant ships by late November and then shifted sectors. The new objective was to attack phosphate freighters waiting off Nauru. But not only that: the Germans also planned to land a raiding party on the atoll to destroy the port infrastructure at Aiwo and the island’s radio station.

6 December: halfway between the Solomons and Nauru, the raiders intercepted and torpedoed the Triona, a BPC ship. Very quickly, the German commanders understood they would not be able to land on their objective: a violent typhoon swept the area and made any small-boat manoeuvre impossible. But that also meant phosphate freighters would be “running circles” offshore, waiting for weather calm enough to load ore.

Evening of 7 December: on reconnaissance, the Komet found and sank the Vinni by gunfire 14 km (8.7 mi) from Nauru, without her presence being detected by other ships.

8 December: at dawn the German flotilla regrouped off Nauru. In a few hours, the two raiders intercepted and sank three phosphate bulkers, either by gunfire or by placing explosive charges aboard them. From shore, island authorities witnessed explosions and sinkings, but - because of the typhoon - mistook the attackers for Japanese ships coming to aid vessels in distress. Their attempts to establish radio contact with the unknown ships failed. Stranger still, the raiders soon disappeared eastward without ever trying to identify themselves. 32 km (20 mi) from the island, the German commanders took stock. While waiting for weather that might allow a landing on Nauru, the Komet and the Kulmerland would refuel at Ailinglaplap (Marshalls), while the Orion pushed on to Ponape. For a week, the German ships found no prey, because Australia had begun to suspect something and rerouted its bulkers.

15 December: the three German ships reunited northwest of Nauru. The storm still raged, and the landing operation was finally abandoned. Instead, they decided to rid themselves of their prisoners (including several dozen women and children) by putting them ashore on Emirau, a remote atoll in the Bismarck Archipelago with no radio station.

21 December: the Germans very formally took possession of Emirau “in the name of the Reich” and landed 514 of their 675 prisoners2. They then split up: the Orion headed north with the supply ship, while the Komet steered south.

23 December: the Komet tried unsuccessfully to mine the entrance to the naval base at Rabaul (New Britain), then set course for Nauru.

27 December, 05:45: the German raider came in sight of the island and hoisted the Kriegsmarine ensign. Remaining at a distance offshore, she informed the Nauru authorities - who had come out to investigate - that she was about to bombard the port installations and that the area must be evacuated. Any use of radio to warn Canberra, she said, would be harshly punished. Panic swept through the Chinese quarter along Aiwo: workers fled within minutes to shelter in the phosphate quarries.

06:40: over the course of one full hour, the auxiliary cruiser fired roughly 200 shells at the cantilever structures, warehouses, silos, and fuel-oil tanks. The Komet then steered southeast and vanished over the horizon. Damage on Nauru was severe. The overhanging loading structures were badly hit - one was considered a total loss - while 12,000 tonnes of fuel (11,800 long tons / 13,200 short tons) poured into the lagoon and burned. Only one person was killed, but it would take ten weeks for phosphate production to resume. The fertiliser shortage created by the bombardment did not affect Britain alone. Australian and New Zealand agriculture suffered first, of course—but Japanese authorities (whom the German commander had not warned) also saw their main phosphate supply dry up at the same time. The Nauru attack strained diplomatic relations between Berlin and Tokyo, even as London quickly made up its shortfall by importing phosphate from Egypt, Banaba, French Polynesia, and elsewhere. The Kriegsmarine would not return to prowl those waters, and such initiatives were henceforth forbidden to raider commanders.

The Australian Transition

In Canberra, military authorities drew the lesson: from 1941 onward, convoys in that zone would be escorted, while Nauru, still beyond the reach of Australian air patrols, would receive regular visits from warships. The island even gained a garrison of a few dozen soldiers and a single artillery piece for defence. But Nauru remained too isolated, especially now that Japan’s entry into the war seemed inevitable. In March 1941, Canberra decided to evacuate the women and children of Western employees; they were transferred to Australia on 27 July. Phosphate extraction continued until early November 1941.

9 December 1941: only two days after Pearl Harbor, three Japanese aircraft appeared over Nauru. They came from the Marshalls, farther north and under Japanese mandate since 1920. This was not entirely surprising: a reconnaissance aircraft had been seen the previous day. But this time, the intruders raided the island’s radio station. Damage was negligible and there were no casualties; the population had been warned by radio from neighbouring Banaba.

10–11 December: Nauru suffered daily raids in which the Japanese dropped 51 bombs, exclusively on the radio station, which was finally destroyed. Phosphate mining installations were not targeted, showing that Tokyo hoped to seize them and exploit them for itself.

December 1941 – February 1942: the island was completely cut off from Britain’s other possessions in the region, possessions that were falling one after another (the Gilberts at Christmas, Rabaul in January, and so on). Not only were Nauru’s communications severed, Japanese aircraft “visits” became daily. In late January, Canberra decided to evacuate the Westerners still on the island. The final plan also took into account the Chinese miners, who were expected to be the first victims of enemy abuses.

23 February: the BPC bulk carrier Trienza and the Free French fast destroyer Le Triomphant reached Nauru. They embarked the 49 men of the small garrison, 61 Westerners, and 391 Chinese, but had to leave 191 other workers behind for lack of space. They promised to return for them; they never did. The Allies lacked ships in the region, and the operation was not considered a priority. BPC officials left after sabotaging the mining installations. Governor Chalmers remained with four other white colleagues.

The Japanese Occupation

11–15 May 1942: the Imperial Navy launched Operation “RY” to seize Nauru and Banaba. A small amphibious force3 from the 4th japanese Fleet sailed from Rabaul to arrive on the objective on 15 May. At the last moment, the Japanese detected the carrier force built around USS Enterprise and Hornet nearby. The American ships had indeed been dispatched after intercepting Japanese communications, to prevent any landing. With no air cover, the Japanese were forced to abandon the attempt and turn back. It was only a postponement: the Imperial Navy judged its posture too weak in the Gilberts and decided to occupy all the islands abandoned by the Allies in the area.

23 August: three waves of aircraft bombed Nauru by day. That night, they were followed by the cruiser Ariake.

24 August, 02:30: Governor Chalmers raised the white flag in surrender. A small contingent from the Ariake went ashore and formally took possession of the island.

26 August: another amphibious force4 sailed from Truk for Nauru and landed 300 japanese soldiers the next day. The five Westerners were placed under house arrest, and a heavy pall fell over the island: requisitions, rationing, beheadings, and forced labour quickly became daily reality. The new occupiers began by building what the island most lacked for defence: an airfield, essentially a simple runway, operational from January 1943. In parallel, they constructed bunkers, an underground hospital, and firing positions for their 152 mm (6-inch) coastal artillery. These works demanded manpower: 1,500 Korean and Japanese labourers were sent to Nauru and lived in deplorable conditions. The Chinese were treated worst. Nauruans were regarded more favourably, and efforts were even made to win them over: targeted propaganda, creation of a school, and so on. Yet despite the arrival of 72 civilian specialists, phosphate extraction did not resume. Sabotage of equipment and labour shortages (men being diverted by the military to other tasks) likely explain why the Empire of the Rising Sun would never profit from Nauru’s “treasure.” Japan came to regard the island only as one more defensive bastion in its perimeter.

25 March 1943: having regained the initiative in the Pacific over the previous year (battles of the Coral Sea and Midway), the Americans decided to retake lost ground, especially territories too close to Australia. Nauru’s airfield had been operational only three months when it was hit by a full-scale air raid: 15 aircraft were destroyed on the ground and installations badly damaged. In reprisal, the Japanese garrison’s deputy executed the five Western prisoners; their bodies were then burned on the beach5.

20 April: 22 Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the 7th Air Force, flying from the Tuvalu Islands, bombed Nauru again. The airfield and phosphate installations were heavily hit. From May onward, American raids became almost daily. They intensified in November, with bombers using the island as a practice target in preparation for the assault on Tarawa.

In 1943, the Japanese realised Nauru and Banaba had become too advanced in their defensive scheme and increasingly difficult to resupply. The population of these islands had also grown sharply since the war began: while Nauru had 3,000 inhabitants in 1940, it held more than 5,000 by June 1943. The garrison was too large for the island to feed everyone, and Japan decided in June to carry out major population transfers.

29 June: 600 Nauruans and 7 Chinese workers embarked at night (to avoid American air raids) on a cargo ship bound for the Truk Islands, 1,600 km (1,000 mi) farther north, an archipelago where the Imperial Navy had built one of its main bases. After five days at sea, the group reached the small island of Totiw, where it was abandoned to fend for itself. The exiles built a village and did their best to find food.

11 July: on Nauru, the Japanese executed the 49 patients of the leper colony to prevent any risk of contagion. This war crime remains the most serious in the island’s recent history.

Early August: 659 Banabans (Banaba too having become overcrowded after the arrival of a strong Japanese garrison) were sent to Nauru. As 1,200 new Japanese soldiers landed on the island, a second contingent of Nauruans (601 people) embarked for Truk. It would be the last transfer: the cargo ship was torpedoed by an American submarine on 11 September. Japan no longer had the means to “empty” Nauru of its islanders. Resupply of the island became extremely erratic and dangerous because of enemy submarine forces in the region. A cargo ship was sunk at the end of 1943, and the last vessel able to dock did so in January 1944. Meanwhile, public health deteriorated (drought, dysentery, malnutrition) under the constant threat of American air raids. This state of scarcity lasted a full year. Less accustomed, Japanese troops suffered more than the local population, but continued to rule with an iron hand.

Freed But Not Delivered

14 September 1944: two Japanese submarines managed to pass through the enemy blockade. They brought weapons and supplies. 600 soldiers were also evacuated around the same time. Conditions improved slightly with the return of the rainy season… and with supply drops by American propaganda services.

19 November: on the eve of the Tarawa landings, 90 American bombers carried out a major raid on Nauru to prevent Japanese aircraft from interfering with the amphibious operation. From the end of the month, bombings became rarer, then stopped completely in January 1945 after Tarawa was taken and the front shifted far to the northwest.

A Delayed Liberation

Nauru could have been liberated by U.S. forces as early as November 1943. The island was initially one of the objectives of Operation “Galvanic,” meant to secure the Gilbert Islands, and Tarawa in particular. The 27th Infantry Division was to land there but, after a detailed study of Nauru’s topography and the forces concentrated on it, the U.S. high command reversed the decision: the operation would have cost too many men for limited gain. It was judged preferable to eliminate the Japanese air threat by wiping the airfield off the map under a carpet of bombs, without launching an amphibious assault. Nauru thus became an early example - and a victim - of the “leapfrogging” strategy the Allies would use across the Pacific to bypass strongly fortified islands or those of limited military value.

9 December: a U.S. carrier Task Force returning from Tarawa bombed the island, destroying about a dozen aircraft on the ground and killing several islanders. Allied bombs are estimated to have caused around forty civilian deaths on Nauru during the war. In addition, around 300 Japanese died during the occupation, from disease or under bombs. Though health conditions improved somewhat, scarcity remained severe. Two Japanese soldiers deserted during 1945 by stealing a small boat. Around the same time, a Japanese officer is said to have altered a radio message ordering the liquidation of all Nauruans, thus saving the local population from a planned massacre.

15 August 1945: the garrison learned by radio of Japan’s capitulation and prepared to surrender. A white flag was raised on 21 August at the request of American aircraft frequently overflying the island.

13 September: eleven days after Japan’s effective capitulation, the Australian frigate Diamantina and two cargo ships appeared off Nauru. Japanese officers came aboard to offer their surrender before a mixed audience that included BPC officials and New Zealand representatives. The next day, 500 Australian soldiers went ashore to take possession of the devastated island.

3 October: the 3,745 Japanese prisoners were transferred by ship to the Solomons. Their embarkation led to violence, as Nauruans sought revenge for three years of occupation. Meanwhile, the BPC began restoring the island’s infrastructure, a task requiring major work. 500 Koreans were forced to remain on site to carry it out. In November, the Australian Army handed control of Nauru to a civilian administration.

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24 November: 777 islanders from the Gilbert Islands and Banaba left Nauru. Banaba was no longer habitable; its population was moved to Rabi, an island in Fiji. The following month, Nauruans exiled to Truk were gathered by the Australians, who discovered the appalling living and working conditions they had endured, and began investigating Japanese war crimes.

31 January 1946: only 759 survivors were repatriated from Truk to Nauru, barely more than half of those exiled in 1944. At that date, administrators counted 1,369 Nauruans - 500 fewer than in 1940. The Japanese occupation thus left an indelible mark on collective memory.

For Nauru, the war was now truly over. Reconstruction had begun, but phosphate extraction would not resume until 1947. The island was then under UN trusteeship, with administration delegated to Australia. Once again, exploitation of mineral resources by the BPC came at the local population’s expense, and a riot - led chiefly by the Chinese minority - broke out in 1948. A representative Nauruan council was created in 1951, but the island did not become independent until 1968. Yet from the early 1960s, the British and Australians knew perfectly well that they were exhausting the last phosphate deposits, and that extraction was inexorably destroying the local ecosystem. Plans were even drawn up (but never implemented) to relocate the population in the long term to various Australian islands.

From 1968 to 1975, phosphate prices soared, giving the newly independent republic and its citizens extraordinary income. In just a handful of years, Nauru became the second-richest country in the world in GDP per capita - behind Saudi Arabia. This windfall6 drove an extreme “Westernisation,” and consumer society replaced older ways of life in a few years. But in the early 1990s, Nauru was abruptly pushed to the edge: deposits were exhausted, phosphate prices collapsed, and investments meant to diversify the economy proved costly failures. With no remaining economic, industrial, or agricultural base, the micro-state declared bankruptcy in 2003 after a series of political and financial scandals.

Today, it is among the poorest countries on earth, facing acute health and social emergencies: ecological disaster, endemic unemployment, severe alcoholism, the world’s highest obesity rate, and more. The island survives partly thanks to subsidies Canberra pays it to host refugees and illegal migrants in detention centres before they reach Australia7.

Nauru is thus, at once, a dumping ground, a shantytown, and an open-air prison, where little hope seems able to emerge.

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The last months of the war would be violently turbulent for Dönitz’s “Grey Wolves.” Since 1943, Germany’s submarine fleet had suffered defeat after defeat, yet in early 1945 it still believed it could get back into the game with new submarines. In the end, it could not, and the U-Bootwaffe had to confront its future. Two options remained: scuttling or surrender?

Since its strategic failure in May 1943, the U-Bootwaffe had lost the Battle of the Atlantic. Struggling to operate from the Bay of Biscay, its units were caught off guard by the Normandy landings in June 1944. Dönitz’s hurried counterattack produced catastrophic results: two-thirds of the boats committed did not return, while Allied losses (12 transports, 4 landing ships, and 5 escorts) did nothing to alter the invasion’s course. The only positive outcome of this brief and bloody campaign was the first operational use of the Schnorchel, a device that allowed submarines to run on their diesel engines while remaining submerged. Thanks to it, the U-Bootwaffe’s staff believed it might return to the Atlantic in the medium term: as early as July, it sketched a “new submarine war” intended to cut off the Allied armies in France from their supply sources across the sea and across the Channel.

In reality, the inability to use the U-bunkers built in France and the need to operate from distant Norwegian bases reduced this ambitious plan to a coastal campaign in British waters. In strategic terms, Dönitz fell back on the political fanaticism of his crews: “A new submarine war must be and will be our most important objective in the war against the Western powers. That is why the Kriegsmarine and industry must work toward this end with fanatical energy.” Meanwhile, preparations amounted largely to administrative and logistical reorganisation: seven U-flotillas withdrawn from France were dissolved, and their boats concentrated into a new 33rd U-Flotilla based at Flensburg, not far from Kiel. Reprising the role he had already held in France, Kapitän zur See Hans-Rudolf Rösing arrived in Norway in September 1944 as Führer der U-Boote im Westraum (FdU West: “commander of the Atlantic units”). He also placed under his authority the 11th U-Flotilla operating in the Arctic, as well as submarines tasked with defending Norwegian waters. From October to December 1944, these U-boats carried out 31 sorties toward the British Isles or Iceland, but 12 never returned. They were generally boats manned by novice crews on their first war patrols. Across three waves, the U-boats sank only 10 merchant ships and 3 frigates in that zone.

Launched in haste, this “new submarine war” was in fact only a stopgap, intended to bridge the strategic and technical gap between the withdrawal from the Bay of Biscay and the arrival in service of new modern submarines: Type XXI and Type XXIII. It could only ever be short-lived, because the Allies quickly concentrated enormous resources around the British Isles. In January 1945, roughly fifty U-boats were operating in these sectors, but they suffered heavy losses for absurdly small results.

To ease their martyrdom, Dönitz committed everything he had. January saw the first operational deployment of the Seehund midget submarines, whose early attacks were bloody fiascos. And although the crews gradually gained confidence and experience in the following months, results remained derisory: from January to April 1945, the Seehund made 173 sorties, lost 35 units in combat, and sank only 13 merchant ships, a drop in the ocean compared to Anglo-American capabilities. Meanwhile, German motor torpedo-boat flotillas claimed 31 ships sunk across the whole of 1945 (mostly by mines). As for the last-generation submarines meant to reverse the naval war, they arrived too late. In the end, only six Type XXIII boats went on patrol between late January and mid-May, and achieved no tactical or strategic effect.

The complexity of these highly sophisticated craft, incessant bombing of ports, shipyards, and communications, intelligence delivered to the Allies by Ultra, and the increasing length of submerged transits (an average of 24 days in early 1945 to reach patrol areas)… everything conspired against Dönitz’s final plan. At this stage, his “new submarine war” was little more than empty words. The increase in losses in March and April in the Atlantic and the North Sea (practically one submarine lost for each ship sunk) determined Dönitz, at the end of April, to withdraw his U-boats from coastal waters. And in April, Dönitz recorded another failure: of the six Type IXC boats he sent to intercept Allied convoys off the U.S. East Coast, four were sunk and the other two returned empty-handed… The Kriegsmarine had played its last card and had already lost.

Dönitz, the Last Führer

From 23 January 1945, the few Kriegsmarine surface units still operational in the Baltic were ordered to take part in evacuating troops and civilians trapped by the Red Army in East Prussia. Operation Hannibal would last 15 weeks, during which the Reich’s territory shrank to a sliver. April and May 1945 were a long agony. With many Soviet naval units entering the Baltic and enemy air presence becoming ever stronger, the sea could no longer be treated as a “German inland sea” for training or moving U-boats. So, a general order to withdraw to Norway was issued to all operational submarines there. Rear Admiral Godt went to Bergen in early May to take command of all boats. This ‘transhumance’ did not escape Ultra either: the RAF concentrated all its resources on routes that were well known. With 56 U-boats lost, including 26 with all hands, April recorded the worst monthly balance sheet of the entire war.

On 20 April, as American and Soviet troops pushed inexorably into Germany’s heart, Hitler appointed Dönitz commander of the country’s North-West military zone. As an aside, around this same date he also asked him to fly some thirty K-Verbände combat swimmers into besieged Berlin to provide close protection: Hitler no longer trusted anyone in the SS and wanted “reliable men”… Several attempts between 27 and 30 April failed, and the operation was abandoned. Dönitz left Berlin on the 22nd to organise his zone’s defence, but the command of the units streaming in - amid indescribable chaos - slipped from his hands on the 27th, taken over by the Army High Command. On the evening of the 30th, Dönitz learned that Hitler - who had just committed suicide - had designated him as successor. Dönitz immediately intensified the evacuation of soldiers and civilians from Prussia, authorising for the first time “unrestricted use of fuel, with the exception of that reserved for submarines.” The U-boats were still expected to patrol the North Sea and Atlantic as bargaining chips in the inevitable capitulation negotiations—negotiations the “new Führer” hoped to conduct only in the West, in the vain hope of continuing the war in the East.

Operation “Regenbogen”

Berlin fell at the end of April, and the country was cut in two. Kriegsmarine units found temporary refuge in ports in northern Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands. Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was about to seize Hamburg and then Kiel, the main concentration point for German U-boats and surface units. Surrender was on everyone’s mind, but German naval culture favoured scuttling operational ships rather than abandoning them to the enemy: had not the Kaiser’s fleet famously scuttled itself at Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919 after surrendering to the British, rather than allowing its ships to be distributed among the victors? The tradition was not uniquely German: the French fleet scuttled itself at Toulon on 27 November 1942, and the Danish Navy did the same on 29 August 1943. In the German case, however, scuttling had been planned for years. Hitler repeatedly insisted that his soldiers should prefer death to captivity, and leave no weapon to the enemy. As early as 1943, the U-Bootwaffe created a secret ad hoc procedure: every unit had a duty to scuttle if its situation was desperate, or if it received the code word “Regenbogen” (“Rainbow”) from higher authority.

30 April: Dönitz ordered all commanders to prepare to destroy their boats, with exceptions for merchant ships and minesweepers. The order covered about 470 submarines, of which only 170 were still operational, mostly from the Norwegian coast. At this point, the crews did not yet know Dönitz was to replace Hitler; the Grand Admiral himself learned only early in the evening that Hitler was dead.

1 May: Dönitz formally took office as Reich President. Anticipating the expected order, three Type VIIC boats scuttled at Warnemünde near Rostock.

2 May: even as scuttling multiplied (29 Type XXI and 3 Type VIIC at Travemünde near Lübeck), the new Nazi head of state issued an order of the day calling on submariners to continue the fight, buying time to evacuate troops and civilians from Courland. In parallel, he instructed his new Kriegsmarine commander, Admiral von Friedeburg, to negotiate with Montgomery for a partial surrender of the zone under his control.

3 May: confusion reigned within the U-Bootwaffe, which struggled to direct operations because Germany lacked functioning radio transmitters. Rösing took over from Norway. The BdU also ordered all U-boats to leave Germany and sail to Norway to join him; immobilised boats were to make scuttling preparations. The order was carried out the same day at Kiel and Hamburg: 39 submarines (mostly Type XXI and Type XXIII) were scuttled.

4 May: with no room to manoeuvre, von Friedeburg was forced by Montgomery to sign an unconditional surrender (the “Lüneburg Convention”) for the units of the three services fighting in north-west Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Politically, it was a failure for Dönitz, who had hoped to negotiate a separate surrender and divide the Allies. Moreover, in exchange for ending air raids and mine-laying in the Baltic, the British demanded the immediate cessation of submarine warfare and the intact delivery of all U-boats. Dönitz was trapped: he could no longer issue the “Regenbogen” order. At 15:14, he transmitted to all submarines the order to cease hostilities and return to base, even as Rösing, now responsible for all submarines in Norway, prepared to destroy units that could no longer fight… That same day, two boats were scuttled in the Kiel Canal and two more at Flensburg.

5 May: while the surrender was due to take effect officially at 08:00, all U-boats received at 01:50 a new unsigned message from an unknown transmitter. Its author was never identified, but its content was unambiguous: “New situation. If possible, all U-boats to Norway. Otherwise, if in German or Danish waters, carry out Regenbogen after 08:00 today.” Was this a Dönitz initiative, a way of circumventing the Lüneburg Convention? He denied it in his memoirs: “The surrender was obeyed, except on a number of U-boats whose commanders sank or blew them up during the night of 4–5 May, before the armistice took effect. […] The commanders, convinced that I could have given this order only under constraint, believed they were acting in the way I would have wished.” In any case, eight minutes after this “anonymous message,” a counter-order was sent to cancel it: “To all U-boats: do not carry out Regenbogen after 08:00 today.” But it was already too late, and the initial order was widely followed: 11 Type II, 33 Type VII, 3 Type IX, 22 Type XXIII, 16 Type XXI, and the last four Walter prototypes scuttled that day along various points of the Baltic coast. In North Sea ports, however, U-boats surrendered rather than scuttle, out of time and means, with British troops close at hand. On the fortified island of Heligoland (or what remained of it after massive raids on 18–19 April 1945), seven elderly Type IID school boats and new Type VIIC and IXC/40 training boats were handed over intact by their crews, as were eight more at Cuxhaven (including two Type XVIIB Walter-propulsion boats). Only four Baltic-based submarines chose surrender that day: the Type XXIII U-2351 at Flensburg and three boats at Fredericia (Jutland), one of Denmark’s largest ports.

Finally, at 22:25, with nearly 200 voluntary scuttling deaths among U-boat crews already recorded in a single week, Dönitz broadcast an uncoded radio message to the entire submarine fleet: “My dear submariners! Six years of submarine war are behind us. You have fought like lions. Overwhelming material superiority has reduced us to a limited territory. Continuing the fight from the remaining bases is no longer possible. Submariners! Undefeated and unstained, you lay down your arms after a heroic battle without equal. We remember with deep respect our fallen comrades, who paid with their lives for their loyalty to the Führer and the Fatherland. Comrades! Preserve the esprit de corps with which you have fought bravely, stubbornly, and steadfastly for years for the good of the Fatherland. Long live Germany! Your Grand Admiral.”

6 May: matters calmed immediately. Only one further scuttling was recorded: Type VIIC/41 U-1008, en route to Norway, had been depth-charged the day before in the Kattegat by a Coastal Command aircraft. Too damaged to reach its destination, she was evacuated and sunk by her crew. At 20:26, Dönitz made a second radio appeal to his submariners (this time in code) recalling their heroic actions and the impossibility of continuing the fight. He ended with an explicit order: “Obey Order No. 2 broadcast on [specific frequencies] from the British coast. The return to Norway is cancelled.” Further coded messages followed, case by case, to clarify orders.

The succession of orders and counter-orders had, unsurprisingly, sown confusion among crews not all alongside. Most scuttled units had been newly delivered or in repair. But most operational boats were at sea, either heading for Norway, or returning to Germany after their final Atlantic war patrol, or even in the Indian Ocean for some Type IX boats. For them, nothing had changed: they still had to evade enemy air patrols and Escort Groups, whose orders remained the hunt and destruction of U-boats. Around twenty German submarines were sunk “on mission” between 2 and 6 May ; proof that the war at sea raged more fiercely than ever. For anyone still doubting it, Rösing issued a final radio warning: “Expect attacks […] off Norway. Our own ASW measures remain in effect.” It was apparently in this context that the last U-boat of the war was lost in operation: on 6 May at 18:39, Type XXI U-3523 was surprised in the Skagerrak by an RAF B-24 Liberator, depth-charged, and sunk with all 58 crew.

The Last Success of the U-Boats

On 30 September 1944, Oberleutnant zur See Vockel took possession of Type XXIII U-2336 and began training her crew at Hamburg. As the training period ended, he was killed in an air raid on 30 March 1945, and replaced by Kapitänleutnant Klusmeier who had lost his own boat, U-2340, in the same bombing. Klusmeier was one of the most experienced Type XXIII commanders: as a BdU staff officer, he had early championed these small Elektroboote, helped develop their tactical doctrine, and participated in exercises aboard several of them.

To familiarise the new crew - now combining men from two different boats - two additional weeks of training were granted. U-2336 finally sailed on 18 April, reaching Kristiansand on the 23rd. A week of sea exercises followed to train the crew in Schnorchel operations. On 1 May, the boat weighed anchor with orders to patrol the estuary off Edinburgh.

With defective radio gear, Klusmeier did not receive the BdU order to stop operations. On the 7th, he arrived submerged off the Isle of May, guarding access to the Firth of Forth. There he detected a small convoy coded EN-91. U-2336 approached slowly to 1,500 m (about 1,640 yd) and then advanced at silent speed (under 4 knots) to fire her torpedoes at three-minute intervals at targets less than 500 m away (about 550 yd). Both torpedoes hit, sinking the Norwegian cargo ship Sneland I and the British Avondale Park, the last victims of the U-Bootwaffe. U-2336 then withdrew cautiously, evading escorts dropping depth charges “blind.” Three hours later, she began her return voyage without having been detected. She surfaced only on 12 May off the Norwegian coast, to discover that the war was over. Soon escorted by Allied aircraft, she reached Kiel on the 14th, after two weeks at sea.

Preparing the Surrender

7 May: at 02:41 in Reims, the unconditional surrender of German armed forces was signed by Generaloberst Jodl as representative of Reich President Dönitz. Among other provisions, both sides agreed on a surrender procedure for U-boats still on patrol or in transit; it would be broadcast every two hours. All units at sea had to surface and surrender to the nearest Allied forces as quickly as possible, identifying themselves by radio (on dedicated frequencies) and reporting their position every eight hours. They also had to hoist, prominently, a black or blue surrender flag by day and show navigation lights at night. Ammunition was to be thrown overboard; torpedoes and mines neutralised; and gun breechblocks removed. The Allies again insisted on taking U-boats intact and on strict compliance with instructions.

The British estimated they might seize up to 160 U-boats (at sea or in port in Germany and Norway) and organised accordingly:

• Submarines in the Western Approaches or the North Sea were to proceed to Loch Eriboll, a deep-water anchorage on Scotland’s north coast—remote and easily defended. The Royal Navy had maintained a secondary base there since the Great War and, from August 1944, intended it as an internment site to avoid congesting the heavily used Scapa Flow. German submarines were ordered to follow one of two pre-plotted routes to avoid interfering with surface-ship traffic and to arrive at Eriboll between sunrise and three hours before sunset.

• Loch Eriboll was the main rendezvous point, but others were designated. Beaumaris Bay (Anglesey, Wales) was to receive submarines in the Irish Sea; boats in the Channel were to go to Weymouth; boats in the Baltic to Kiel. Submarines operating in the Mediterranean would be gathered at Gibraltar; and boats in other Atlantic sectors not mentioned were to proceed to one of three rendezvous points off the U.S. East Coast (off Nova Scotia, Maine, and Maryland).

8 May: anticipating the official capitulation at noon, Rösing broadcast at 01:25 a radio message forbidding U-boats to put to sea or to be transferred between bases, and reiterating the ban on scuttling. Confidential documents were to be destroyed, while weapons, equipment, Enigma machines, and current codes were to be preserved. At 13:20, he issued final instructions: “Codes and messages handed over to the Anglo-Americans and the Russians. Transmissions in plain language. Take into account very-long-wave broadcasts from Rugby [the British transmitter] which will soon transmit our messages.”

Operation “Pledge”

9 May: on the first day, 95 boats surrendered, most of them in Norway, but also U-510, trapped in the Saint-Nazaire pocket. The Allies were not yet present at Narvik, and to avoid reprisals against submariners by the local population, the 15 submarines there were transferred to Trondheim on 15 May, under Kriegsmarine escort! Meanwhile, Type VIIC/41 U-1105 was the first submarine still at sea to surface (on the 9th at 09:07) and report its position. She reached Loch Eriboll the next day under escort, shortly after two other boats had reported in. On the British side, the U-Bootwaffe’s surrender was codenamed Operation Pledge. The 21st Escort Group was responsible for receiving and escorting the defeated boats to the Scottish anchorage; it was reinforced on the 19th by frigates from the 9th (Canadian) Escort Group to cope with the influx, though far fewer submarines arrived than expected. In May 1945, 33 U-boats were temporarily interned at Eriboll; the total may have reached around forty in June. Each boat was inspected and formally disarmed before being sent on to a military anchorage, either Lough Foyle (Lisahally) in Northern Ireland or Loch Ryan on Scotland’s west coast.

9 May – 30 June: the effective surrender of the U-boats took place largely between 9 and 19 May. Crews handed over their boats en masse; very few chose scuttling. Once disarmed, submarines captured in Danish and Norwegian waters were sent in groups to Loch Ryan or Lisahally and, from 24 May, also to Scapa Flow once it became clear Norwegian ports were completely clogged with units awaiting transfer. From 30 May to 5 June, 64 “Norwegian” submarines passed through the Orkneys before proceeding to Lisahally or Loch Ryan. All “Grey Wolves” based in Denmark or Germany still seaworthy (i.e., 35 boats) were gathered at Wilhelmshaven and transferred into the Irish Sea in June. Other rendezvous points saw little use: only two patrolling submarines surrendered at Gibraltar, three at Portland; to these were added seven boats returning to a Norwegian port at the end of patrol, and nine more arriving at a Canadian, U.S., or Argentine port.

By late June 1945, the U-Bootwaffe was already only a bitter-glorious memory. In addition to the 28,000 of 40,900 submariners engaged during the war who died in combat - and the 5,000 more languishing in POW camps - the submarine fleet itself no longer existed. Of roughly 1,200 U-boats commissioned between 1935 and 1945, 784 were destroyed in operations (or in port by air raids), and more than 200 are believed to have been scuttled at the end of the conflict. In total, 156 German submarines surrendered to the Allies in May and June 1945. 137 of them would be sent to Lisahally or Loch Ryan before being distributed among the victorious navies.

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For their war effort, the British generally showed a great deal of pragmatism, making things roll, fly, or sail that other nations would have refused to bring into service. Yet they also had their share of outlandish schemes, some of them endorsed by Churchill, such as “Habakkuk.” But the Prime Minister also had a lot (too much?) imagination. Roosevelt used to say: “Winston has a hundred ideas a day, three or four of them good; the trouble is, he doesn’t know which ones”.

1942. The war is raging in the Atlantic, where Britain is losing dozens of merchant ships every month despite intense efforts to protect them. In the face of repeated U-boat attacks, the convoy system and the arming of hundreds of escorts of every size still do not seem enough. The main culprit is an “Air Gap”, a geographical zone in the heart of the North Atlantic, still beyond the reach of Allied aircraft. German submarines therefore concentrate their deadly work there in near-total impunity. Destroyers and corvettes are on the front line against this underwater danger. Yet experience has shown that the aircraft is the true predator of the submarine. The Royal Navy has therefore ordered escort carriers specifically designed to accompany its convoys, but the first ships are still under construction… Engineers are also working on very long-range aircraft to close the Air Gap with patrols flying out of Ireland, Iceland, or Canada—but those machines will not be available immediately.

Alongside these conventional military programmes, the British also created various R&D units to propose innovative solutions to the technical, tactical, and strategic problems they faced. Thus, as plans for the reconquest of Europe slowly took shape, Combined Operations, led by Lord Louis Mountbatten, felt the need for mobile naval-air bases capable of supporting a vast amphibious operation. Starting from the simple idea of an aircraft carrier, the concept quickly drifted toward that of an artificial floating island, with far greater surface area and endurance. Churchill - always enthusiastic about military innovation - was captivated:

“The advantages of one or more floating islands used solely as aviation fuel depots are so obvious that they need not for the present be discussed. There would be no difficulty in finding where to employ such a stepping-stone in any of the war plans now under consideration.”

If the Prime Minister was so enthusiastic, it was because Geoffrey Pyke (director of programmes on the Combined Operations staff) had presented him with an almost unbelievable way to obtain, at low cost, an “unsinkable” aircraft carrier: build it not from steel, but from ice.

A new Ice Age?

It would be a gigantic artificial iceberg with propulsion, living quarters, holds, magazines, and a flight deck. Why ice? Because it is abundant, easy to find and shape, naturally buoyant, and can be remarkably strong. Against a block of ice, damage from bombs or torpedoes would have limited effect, and repairs could be done on the spot without reaching a distant dockyard, very simply: pour water into the breach and make it freeze… Pyke also claimed such ships would not be very expensive, and that their very nature would free designers from the usual weight-and-size constraints imposed by steel hulls. He imagined an “iceberg aircraft carrier” 1,200 m long (4,000 ft) and 180 m wide (600 ft)!

Churchill and Mountbatten quickly approved the study of the project under the codename “Habbakuk”, almost certainly a reference to the “minor prophet” of the Old Testament, Habakkuk (spelled correctly in English, but misspelled by Pyke), through whom God announced the accomplishment of an unimaginable work. In September 1942, a committee was formed to examine feasibility. The first idea was to cut enormous blocks of ice from the pack and then, in northern latitudes, build a gigantic wooden mould to be filled with water that would freeze solid in extreme temperatures. But experts calculated that ice alone would not be strong enough to form a ship’s hull.

Scientists on the committee then proposed mixing wood pulp or sawdust into the water before freezing it, producing a substance, named Pykrete in Pyke’s honour, with strength comparable to concrete. Laboratory tests in April 1943 showed that a mixture of 86% water and 14% wood did indeed yield excellent results and had low thermal conductivity, an indispensable quality for a mass of ice intended to “sail” in the waters (cold, but not freezing) of the Atlantic Ocean. The idea was retained, but needed development. For that, the British sought help from Canada, the only Allied country combining ideal climatic conditions in its Arctic regions, with the staggering quantities of freshwater (its many lakes) required by “Habbakuk.” In early 1943, a British delegation flew to Ottawa and began working with the Canadian National Research Council and the Montreal Engineering Company. Scientists quickly calculated that manufacturing such a mass of Pykrete under natural temperature conditions would take no less than seven years, even in the best case. Studies therefore shifted toward designing refrigeration systems capable of producing the required quantity and thickness of ice.

Several hull concepts were considered: a floating refuelling base 900 m long (3,000 ft) for very long-range aircraft; a giant aircraft carrier (600 m / 2,000 ft); an advanced fighter base (450 m / 1,500 ft); and a very large tanker/cargo ship. All would be gigantic, of course impossible to berth in a port (making the cargo version rather pointless), but “unsinkable.” As complexity grew, only the aircraft-carrier version was soon retained, with the goal of construction during the winter of 1943–1944.

Technical Data / “Habbakuk” Aircraft Carrier (estimates)

• Displacement: 2,113,000 tonnes (≈ 2,000,000 long tons / 2,300,000 short tons)

• Length: 609.5 m (≈ 2,000 ft)

• Beam: 91.5 m (≈ 300 ft)

• Draught: 45.7 m (≈ 150 ft)

• Propulsion: 16 boilers; 26 propellers

• Speed: 6 knots

• Armament: AA mounts with 20 mm Oerlikon, 40 mm Bofors, and 101.6 mm (4-inch) guns (numbers unknown)

• Facilities: flight deck 548 × 76 m (≈ 1,800 × 250 ft); 4 hangars 305 × 24 × 6 m (≈ 1,000 × 80 × 20 ft); 1 elevator 30.5 × 30.5 m (≈ 100 × 100 ft); 150 twin-engine aircraft

Technical Data / Implacable-class HMS Indefatigable (for comparison)

• Displacement: 32,630 tonnes (≈ 32,000 long tons / 36,000 short tons)

• Length: 233.6 m (≈ 766 ft)

• Beam: 34.9 m (≈ 115 ft)

• Draught: 8.9 m (≈ 30 ft)

• Propulsion: 8 boilers; 4 propellers

• Speed: 32.5 knots

• Armament: 55 × 20 mm Oerlikon mounts; 44 × 40 mm 2-pdr “pom-pom” mounts; 16 × 114.3 mm (4.5-inch) guns

• Facilities: flight deck 231 × 27 m (≈ 758 × 89 ft); 2 hangars 138/63 × 19 × 4 m (≈ 453/207 × 62 × 13 ft); 1 elevator 13 × 10 m (≈ 43 × 33 ft); 1 elevator 13 × 6.7 m (≈ 43 × 22 ft); 81 single-engine aircraft (1945)

Icebreaker

To move a mass estimated at more than two million tonnes of ice, engineers planned 26 propellers mounted along both sides of the hull in turbo-electric pods producing 33,000 metric horsepower (≈ 32,500 hp)—all to reach only 6 knots. An onboard refrigeration plant had to be designed, along with a labyrinthine network of piping to maintain the structure at the ideal temperature, while living quarters, machinery spaces, and hangars required dedicated insulation.

The hull was to be fine-ended fore and aft, with the Pykrete held in place by wooden sheathing and flanked on each side by insulating material. This enormous block would be hollowed out in six places to install hangars, propulsion, electrical and refrigeration plants, fuel and ammunition stowage, workshops, and spaces for crew and airmen. These compartments would be safe from bombs and torpedoes, protected by a Pykrete thickness of at least 12 m (≈ 40 ft). Steel also entered the design: for the navigation/operations island, the vast central elevator, and the many AA turrets (around forty, depending on sources).

The expert committee estimated the required quantity of Pykrete at 3 million m³ (≈ 4 million yd³), at a cost of £23 million, excluding equipment, machinery, and insulation, an expense not everyone at the Admiralty welcomed. But the problems did not end there: no one really knew how to manufacture and shape such a peculiar hull. Some suggested building it up by stacking multiple layers of ice in a giant wooden mould; others proposed pumping the water/sawdust mixture into the mould and freezing it; still others imagined assembling the hull from already frozen blocks. The first two solutions required investing in facilities that still had to be designed; the last was judged risky due to likely insufficient strength.

Whatever the method, the required resources were enormous. The Canadians estimated that a single Habbakuk unit would require 300,000 tonnes of sawdust (≈ 295,000 long tons / 330,000 short tons), 25,000 tonnes of cork sheets for insulation (≈ 24,600 long tons / 27,600 short tons), 35,000 tonnes of timbers and planking (≈ 34,450 long tons / 38,580 short tons), and 10,000 tonnes of steel (≈ 9,840 long tons / 11,020 short tons).

Moreover, the “unsinkable” character promised by Pyke was far from assured. Some tests suggested that the equivalent of a torpedo-blast hole (i.e., a breach of 7 m² ≈ 75 ft²) would expose so much Pykrete to seawater that it would melt at an alarming rate: 4.5 tonnes per hour (≈ 4.4 long tons / 5.0 short tons per hour) in water at 18°C (64.4°F). Worst of all would be damage to the refrigeration plant, which would eventually cause part of the hull to break up and produce catastrophic instability.

Despite these poor results from an initial small-scale model tested in Great Britain, it was decided to build a larger prototype in Canada’s Jasper National Park, which contains major glaciers and several lakes. Giant blocks of ice were manufactured and assembled into a hull 18 m long (59 ft), 9 m wide (29.5 ft), with a displacement of 1,000 tonnes (≈ 984 long tons / 1,102 short tons), requiring a small refrigeration installation to keep the Pykrete at the right temperature. Built by a group of conscientious objectors, the work proved laborious and the result disappointing: water seeped into the refrigeration pipes, whose complexity made the whole arrangement relatively fragile.

Meanwhile, the Canadian National Research Council surveyed sites capable of hosting construction of a full-scale Habbakuk. By then, people were talking about a shipyard project costing several tens of millions of dollars and employing roughly 8,000 workers. Ideally, the site would be a far-northern Canadian port with good road access, a railway line, a power station, and a cold, stable climate. Alas: after much searching, only one site seemed suitable, and it was icebound five months a year. Faced with so much adversity, in December 1943 the committee recommended abandoning the project, concluding that it would ultimately require resources far too great for the expected benefit.

Too expensive, Habbakuk had also become unnecessary, because the strategic situation in the Atlantic had evolved. By late 1943, the British fleet had escort carriers in service, received considerable help from the Canadian and U.S. navies, and had gained the upper hand over the U-Bootwaffe from May onward. The introduction of long-range patrol aircraft and the use of the Azores as an air base also helped close the Air Gap over the North Atlantic. The Royal Navy therefore gave up its iceberg aircraft carrier without hesitation, leaving Churchill with only one piece of ice: the one in his whisky!

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Bringing merchant ships and escort vessels together is one thing; organising an efficient ocean crossing is another. To cope with increasingly sophisticated U-boat attacks, as well as major logistical and strategic constraints, the British had to adapt: convoys grew steadily larger, and escort forces increased in both numbers and effectiveness.

The Admiralty assumed control of all British merchant shipping from 26 August 1939 and introduced the convoy system as soon as war began. Under this system, for ships assigned to convoys, the Ministry of War Transport determined cargo and destination. In each departure port, a Naval Control officer allocated every ship to a specific convoy mainly according to its type (tanker, cargo ship, liner, etc.) and speed: ships making 7 to 9 knots joined a slow convoy; from 10 knots upward, a fast convoy. All routes were designated by two- or three-letter codes that sometimes (but not always) hinted at their meaning. HX convoys did indeed sail from Halifax, as did the fast HXF series (“F” for Fast). SC did not mean “Slow Convoy”: it indicated a North American origin, more precisely the Sydney area in Nova Scotia (Sydney Cove). As assembly points, destinations, and convoy types multiplied, more than 450 different codes had to be created (each followed by a running number), from AB to ZT. Certain ports used so frequently that they were assigned letter identifications, sometimes modified during the war for various reasons: HX designated Halifax–UK routes; OB, later ON, covered UK–Halifax. HG and OG were reserved for Gibraltar–UK and return, SC for Sydney–UK. Other series included KJ (Kingston–UK), OS and SL (UK–Freetown and return), and the famous PQ and QP (UK–USSR via the Arctic and return) until November 1942, when they were renamed JW and RA. An S added to the code meant Slow; an F meant Fast.

The Admiralty was able to dispatch a few small, limited convoys as early as 7 September 1939, but it was not until October that the system became truly operational. Air cover was provided out to 200 nautical miles (about 230 mi / 370 km) from Ireland’s south coast for convoys sailing toward America, and only 100 nautical miles (about 115 mi / 185 km) for Gibraltar convoys, simply because there were not enough flying boats. At that time, North Sea patrols absorbed a very large (perhaps excessive) share of available aircraft, all the more so because Coastal Command possessed only one long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft: the Sunderland. The first inward convoys were launched on 14 September from Freetown, on the 16th from Halifax, and on the 26th from Gibraltar. Many merchant ships were still sailing independently, and the Sunderlands of 15 Group were swamped with distress signals from U-boat attacks. Meanwhile, each convoy leaving the east coast was escorted, from dawn to dusk, by at least one maritime patrol aircraft.

How did a “typical” convoy work?

The Convoy Commodore directed the convoy’s movement from the ship at the head of the centre column. Before every sailing, a meeting was held under the authority of the port’s Naval Control officer. All merchant captains attended, along with the Commodore and the commander of the ocean escort. Each received a copy of the sailing order; technical issues were reviewed, as were weather forecasts and likely threats. Signal codes to be used in emergencies were defined, and each master was handed a sealed envelope containing secret routing instructions.

A convoy sailing from Great Britain was often made up of ships scattered across several ports, assembling at the entrance to St George’s Channel, a process that could take several hours. It then formed a rectangle wider than it was long, reflecting the main threat these ships faced: submarine attacks on the convoy’s flanks. To present the smallest possible target while keeping the same number of ships, the solution was to widen the convoy’s front by increasing the number of columns. To keep columns short, each contained only three to five ships, with the longest columns placed at the centre. Columns were separated by 600 to 1,000 m (about 660 to 1,090 yd): far enough for escorts to manoeuvre and to reduce collision risk, yet close enough to remain defensible. Within each column, ships were separated by 400 to 800 m (about 440 to 875 yd), depending on conditions. A convoy of 35 merchant ships could therefore occupy a very large area: roughly 6,500 m (about 7,110 yd / 4.0 mi) across the front and 3,000 m (about 3,280 yd / 1.9 mi) on the flanks. Early in the war, it was considered difficult (if not impossible!) to manage convoys larger than 35 ships. That ceiling would rise steadily as escorts became more capable and more numerous. The largest convoy of the war was HX 300 (July–August 1944) with 166 ships.

By concentrating escort vessels around a large number of merchantmen, the convoy system saved the Royal Navy’s scarce resources—but it also had drawbacks. The simultaneous arrival of dozens of ships clogged ports and slowed loading/unloading. Above all, convoys required formation steaming, something most Merchant Navy masters had little experience of. They had to conform to the speed of the slowest ship and plod along at roughly 8 knots, maintaining station in all conditions. To make this feasible, convoys were ordered to zigzag only when necessary. Frequent course changes, though effective against torpedoes, would otherwise shatter the formation and multiply collisions, already a significant risk in heavy weather or during night attacks. In 1939–1940, ships capable of 15 knots or more (rare) were initially kept out of convoys, on the assumption they could cross independently and evade U-boats by speed alone. Experience proved otherwise, and they were eventually integrated. Ships unable to maintain even the mandatory 8 knots were, as far as possible, not used.

1940 to 1942: constant evolution

Until July 1940, convoys were escorted by British-based units only as far as the 17th meridian west, nearly 1,900 km (about 1,180 mi) from London. That limit shifted west to the 19th meridian in October 1940. Using refuelling bases in Iceland later allowed escorts to reach the 35th meridian west in April 1941. More serious was the existence of a vast area in the centre of the North Atlantic beyond effective air cover: the famous “Air Gap”. It was a perfect hunting ground for U-boats, largely free from aerial patrols until 1943.

An HX convoy sailed every four days and took 17 days to cross Halifax–Liverpool; a faster convoy needed four days less. For all these reasons, convoy tracks were relatively predictable. From September 1940 onward, U-boats multiplied wolfpack attacks, often at night and on the surface, against Atlantic convoys that were still too lightly escorted. The loss of 32 merchant ships from SC 7 and HX 79 between 18 and 20 October 1940 led the Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches, Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, to conclude:

“Our escorts were too few in number and insufficiently equipped to meet the enemy’s new methods of attacking on the surface at night, particularly when the convoy was scattered and visibility poor.”

From 1939 to 1940, average monthly tonnage sunk nearly doubled from 105,000 GRT to 203,000 GRT. Over the same period, average monthly crew losses quadrupled, from 125 to 470 men. To these alarming figures were added: merchant fleets falling under enemy control (French, Dutch, Norwegian), systematic attacks on neutral shipping supplying Britain, and growing numbers of damaged ships waiting in port for repair. By autumn 1940, British imports had fallen by one third. In the first half of 1941, British shipping losses remained severe (almost 2 million GRT), as did those of other Allied merchant fleets (825,000 GRT sunk) and neutral shipping (over 100,000 GRT). Merchant ships were disappearing faster than new construction could replace them. To reduce exposure to German submarines, all convoys were rerouted to approach Britain north of Ireland, farther from French coasts and therefore judged safer.

British merchant tonnage lost

• June 1940: over 265,000 GRT

• July 1940: over 265,000 GRT

• August 1940: over 265,000 GRT

• September 1940: over 300,000 GRT

• October 1940: over 300,000 GRT

• November 1940: over 300,000 GRT

• December 1940: over 265,000 GRT

• January 1941: 210,000 GRT

• February 1941: 316,000 GRT

• March 1941: over 360,000 GRT

• April 1941: over 360,000 GRT

• May 1941: over 385,000 GRT

• June 1941: 270,000 GRT

From May 1941 onward, the system was well established. A standard convoy sailing from Nova Scotia to Britain was escorted by the Royal Canadian Navy to the Western Ocean Meeting Point (WOMP)—a rendezvous area off Newfoundland where the mid-ocean escort took over. At the Mid-Ocean Meeting Point (MOMP), around the 35th meridian west off Iceland, that escort group was replaced by a third, which carried the convoy to the Eastern Ocean Meeting Point (EOMP) on the 18th meridian west. There, a final group escorted the convoy through the Western Approaches to its British port.

In September 1941, the U.S. Navy proposed that convoys supplying the British Isles merge with American convoys resupplying troops based in Iceland since July, so they could benefit from U.S. destroyer protection between WOMP and MOMP. From mid-1942, after the United States entered the war, New York replaced Halifax as the main departure port. The convoy then sailed to the Halifax Ocean Meeting Point (HOMP) to meet its Canadian, British, or American escort. That escort accompanied it to the EOMP (around the 18th meridian west), where a British force then took over for the final leg.

Giant convoys

By late 1942, an Admiralty operational research study - commissioned to improve convoy efficiency - concluded that despite rising escort numbers, protection was still insufficient. The report argued it was better to increase convoy size rather than increase convoy frequency, concentrating escorts more effectively: fewer convoys, but bigger ones; more escorts, but not in proportion to merchant numbers. Calculations suggested losses would fall sharply: by half for merchant ships and by roughly one quarter for warships. The Admiralty followed this logic, gradually increasing convoys from 30–35 ships to 50–55, or more, maintaining a five-abreast column formation. 55 merchants in 11 columns produced a convoy about 9,000 m wide (about 9,840 yd / 5.6 mi)—with column length unchanged at 3,000 m (about 3,280 yd / 1.9 mi).

Escorts were strengthened by a few additional ships (often placed astern) and rose from four to six units to ten, and even twenty if one includes armed trawlers and auxiliaries (minesweepers, Rescue Ships, etc.). These escorts were heavier than before: corvettes were now often accompanied by destroyers or frigates. Escort vessels typically operated about 6,500 m (about 7,110 yd / 4.0 mi) off each flank and 10,000 m (about 10,940 yd / 6.2 mi) ahead of the convoy. The covered area thus formed a large quadrilateral roughly 22 × 13 km (about 13.7 × 8.1 mi).

Air cover improved as well, beginning in September 1941 with the integration of the first escort carrier (HMS Audacity). That still did not fully protect against surface threats—rarely used by the Kriegsmarine, but potentially devastating in specific circumstances. To reduce that risk, the Royal Navy created support squadrons of cruisers, battleships, carriers, and destroyers tasked with patrolling near the most dangerous sectors and covering convoys at a distance. The Admiralty relied heavily on these forces to protect the Murmansk convoys against a sortie by the Tirpitz or one of her consorts.

Training and Organisation of the Escort

Any new escort vessel entering service first passed through the HMS Western Isles training centre at Tobermory, run by Commodore Sir Gilbert Stephenson, a retired vice-admiral who had escorted Atlantic convoys early in the war and was infamous for driving trainees hard. It took 18 days of intensive training to prepare a corvette crew properly, including 35 hours of ASW and anti-aircraft exercises, 37 hours of live-fire training, and 160 hours of classroom instruction. From late 1942, ships then sailed to Larne in Northern Ireland for technical training before joining an Escort Group. Between missions, Escort Groups returned to Northern Ireland for tactical exercises and manoeuvres not covered at Tobermory. The King’s Regulations nevertheless insisted that protecting the convoy took priority over destroying the attacker—specifically to prevent escorts from dispersing in prolonged hunts that might ultimately leave the convoy unprotected.

The Admiralty considered creating Support Groups, so-called “hunter-killers”, to patrol the central Atlantic and remain available to reinforce convoys in trouble. But this concept only became practical in March 1943, once enough ships were in service to form five Support Groups. These were more homogeneous than Escort Groups and usually consisted of ships of the same class, combining speed and firepower so they could dash to a threatened convoy and break up a concentration of U-boats. Thus, the 1st Support Group relied mainly on River-class frigates, while the 2nd Support Group used primarily Black Swan sloops.

In operations

Escorts were organised in groups under the supervision of the senior officer responsible for their home base. Each group was led by a Commander or Captain, who also commanded his own ship. Depending on availability, Escort Groups could be made up of very different ship classes. In July 1940, the system was still thin: only one escort was present in one convoy out of two. By October, average escort strength rose to two ships per passage. To protect the 20 convoys organised that month, only 9 destroyers, 10 sloops, 10 corvettes, and 18 armed trawlers were available. One year later, mass production had changed the picture: 45 corvettes, 30 destroyers, and 96 sloops or trawlers were in service. This made it possible to protect each convoy with six escorts, as the 5th Escort Group did in April 1941 for HX 122, for example.

Availability fell during winter months because harsh conditions quickly wore down ships and crews. In March 1943, HX 229 was intercepted while defended by only three destroyers and two corvettes. By July, availability rose sharply again, averaging 7.5 escorts per convoy (82 escorts at sea for 11 convoys), including modern frigates. In November 1940, escorts were instructed to position themselves in a ring about 2,700 m (about 2,950 yd / 1.7 mi) from the convoy. Formations naturally varied with escort numbers and visibility. In the typical daytime case of seven escorts, the planned layout was:

• three ships 3,700 m (about 4,050 yd / 2.3 mi) ahead and on each side of the convoy’s rectangle;

• two more positioned between them at 60° and 2,700 m from the convoy;

• the final two astern, 3,700 m behind.

A U-boat overtaken by a convoy had little chance of catching up for a submerged attack, but the two “sheepdogs” at the rear could manage stragglers and assist damaged ships. At night, the arrangement shifted: only one escort remained forward, while the rear screen was strengthened. By 1943, radar had become widespread across escort forces, allowing a tighter cordon. If escort strength was sufficient, a detachment could be sent up to 11,000 m (about 12,030 yd / 6.8 mi) ahead to scout. Asdic range was only 2,300 m (about 2,515 yd / 1.4 mi), often preventing complete coverage of the convoy’s immediate surroundings.

In dangerous waters, convoys and escorts zigzagged to disrupt torpedo solutions. In 1940 the Royal Navy listed 43 zigzag patterns, 14 of which were usable by convoys. Pattern No. 15, for example, could be applied by any convoy - slow or fast - in heavy seas or poor visibility: the convoy held its normal course for exactly five minutes, then turned 30° to port for ten minutes, then 30° to starboard, then another 30° to starboard five minutes later. Five more course changes followed within the hour. The convoy ended up having covered 91% of the distance it would have made on a straight track. Pattern No. 16 was even more complex, with 16 course changes of 15°, 25°, 30° and 35° over more than two hours, and was therefore used only in daylight when crossing heavily infested U-boat areas. By the end of the war, merchant ships zigzagged less and less, but escorts continued to do so to widen their Asdic coverage.

ASW Tactics

The Western Approaches Tactical School, under Commander Gilbert Roberts, developed multiple escort deployments around convoys with two goals: detect attackers quickly during their approach (before they struck the merchants), and respond effectively after an attack by hunting the enemy before it slipped away. This was not easy: it required accounting for available technology, U-boat attack methods, and weather/seasonal conditions (rough seas or calm, overcast or clear, day or night). Below are the main tactics used by the Royal Navy between 1940 and 1943.

Raspberry

From 1940, the British observed U-boats slipping through the escort screen ahead of the convoy, submerged and at night. There they fired into the inner columns, then dived deep, went silent to evade Asdic, and let the convoy pass over them. They would then surface astern to resume the attack. After a torpedoing in the centre, flank escorts, on signal, immediately turned back outward to reach the convoy’s rear. They passed the torpedoed ship’s position, then turned 180° again to form an Asdic patrol line across the convoy’s width, aimed at catching the U-boat that had deliberately allowed itself to be overtaken in order to reload.

Buttercup

German submariners could also attack the flank columns, preferably at night on the surface, a less risky method than infiltrating the convoy. To counter this, the famous 36 Escort Group leader Frederic “Johnny” Walker devised Buttercup, a risky but effective tactic designed to force U-boats down. When a merchantman on the flank was torpedoed, Walker ordered all flank escorts to turn 90° outward and sprint away from the convoy while firing Snowflake flares continuously to illuminate the area. If no intruder was seen, they resumed station after twenty minutes. If a submarine was detected, it usually dived—much to the escorts’ satisfaction, because at night a submerged U-boat was slower, and at that period sonar could often detect it more reliably than radar could detect a surfaced boat. Results were good, but double-edged: illumination also helped the attacker locate convoy and escorts precisely.

Pineapple

This responded to a common situation: a whole group of submarines detected waiting ahead of a convoy. Once the enemy was located, the forward escort screen charged straight ahead at full speed, pulling away from the convoy while firing flares continuously. The sudden rush forced U-boats to dive—but the escorts were then moving too fast for effective Asdic detection. Now positioned between the escorts (which had surged past them without detecting them) and the convoy, the submerged U-boats typically attacked, believing the screen had been cleared. When the escorts had reached four nautical miles (about 4.6 mi / 7.4 km) beyond their original position, they turned back toward the convoy at reduced speed to search effectively with Asdic.

Artichoke

An improved variant of Raspberry for cases where a ship in the convoy centre had been torpedoed. Rear escorts advanced up the convoy columns while maintaining alignment, while forward escorts made a rapid turn to meet them. This had to be done at the maximum speed compatible with Asdic—15 knots at most. Flank escorts turned outward. The gaps between columns were thus searched by Asdic from both directions. If no U-boat was found, the attacker had likely dived and let itself fall behind either to escape or reload. Escorts reaching the rear then continued straight ahead along the wake of the last merchant ships, passing one nautical mile (about 1.15 mi / 1.85 km) beyond the convoy’s position at the moment of torpedoing before turning back. They returned at the most recommended Asdic speed. The U-boat was often still in the convoy wake at shallow depth and had little chance of escaping.

Creeper (Creeping Attack)

While commanding the 36 Escort Group in 1942, Johnny Walker identified a problem with Asdic: it searched ahead of the escort ship, while depth charges could be dropped only astern or on the beam. A submarine could exploit the “blind angle” created by the escort’s hull to change course at the last moment and evade. Walker’s solution was the Creeping Attack, requiring two ships: one maintained Asdic contact without passing over the target, while a second ship—its own detection gear silent—approached as quietly as possible (“creeping”) so as not to warn the submarine. On the first ship’s signal, the second dropped its depth charges on a target that had heard nothing. Demanding in training and coordination, it was extremely effective.

Plaster (Barrage Attack)

In early 1943, after taking command of 2 Escort Group, Walker devised Plaster (also called Barrage Attack) to compensate for his ships’ technical/material limits. Three sloops aligned abreast swept a suspected area, dropping a continuous stream of depth charges set to different depths at five-second intervals—essentially a naval equivalent of a land artillery barrage. It helped compensate for the limited destructive power of depth charges, which generally had to explode within 10 m (about 33 ft) of a U-boat’s hull to cause serious damage. By “carpeting” a sector in seconds, Walker increased the chances of damaging the enemy. The drawback was enormous expenditure: up to 80 depth charges in a single pass (across all escorts involved).

Beta Search

In 1942, Commander Tait of the destroyer HMS Harvester, leading Escort Group B3, observed that a lone U-boat was often detected ahead or on a flank, holding a safe distance, likely to radio the convoy’s course and speed to other submarines. After about two hours, it typically dived, having sent a message that (each time) began with the Morse letter “Beta.” Tait and Roberts concluded this was a contact report. Their countermeasure was simple: the escort waited until the submarine had transmitted and dived, then sprinted at full speed to the last known position. Meanwhile, the convoy altered course to move away and shake its tracker. Now submerged, the U-boat was limited to only a few knots, allowing the escorts to search a relatively small area with Asdic. The U-boat could not remain at periscope depth and had to dive deep to evade; if not sunk on the first attack, it would often not surface until nightfall, without having regained the convoy. Surprise was essential: once the enemy was detected, escorts maintained constant course and speed until it dived. Only then did they charge. The U-boat’s hydrophone operator would struggle to distinguish the escorts’ approach from the background noise of the merchant ships; only exploding depth charges would reveal that it had been tracked for some time.

Step-aside

The appearance of German Zaunkönig acoustic torpedoes in 1943 demanded an immediate response. These torpedoes were designed specifically to target aggressive escorts. The British developed a material countermeasure: the Foxer noisemaker towed behind ships to decoy the torpedo. In parallel, WATU developed a manoeuvre for ships making 7 to 24 knots (below and above that range the risk was considered negligible). Roberts inferred from early reports that Zaunkönig likely used a 60° hydrophone arc. He also assumed U-boats would fire toward the convoy, slightly ahead to account for its movement. If an escort detected a surfaced submarine at night by radar, it initiated Step-aside: first firing flares to illuminate the area, convoy, and escorts. The “grey wolf” would likely launch an acoustic torpedo to remove the nearest escort before attacking the merchants. The escort then turned 150° away and ran at 15 knots, opening distance both from convoy and submarine and slipping out of the torpedo’s sensor cone. After travelling one nautical mile (about 1.15 mi / 1.85 km), it made a wide detour on a course parallel but opposite to the torpedo’s probable track, working back toward the U-boat. During that interval, the submarine—having fired—would typically have dived and could not have moved far. The escort now had a strong chance of detecting it by Asdic and attacking before it escaped too deep. The “step aside” proved highly effective, and many U-boats fell victim to it in the war’s second half.

From 1943 onward, tactics continued to evolve. If an escort gained a close hydrophone contact ahead of the convoy, it was to counter-attack immediately while alerting other escorts. If the contact was distant, it was to refine identification first, then raise the alarm and attack. Thus, if an escort gained an Asdic contact at night, it would manoeuvre to try to obtain a radar contact as well: if it did, it could be confident the enemy was surfaced, making pursuit easier. Conversely, if an escort spotted a torpedo wake, it was forbidden to chase the U-boat before first reporting the sighting to the convoy.

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From time to time, Action Stations! will present a frigate class currently in service. This week, let’s turn our attention to China and the Jiangkai II Class / Type 054A.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was created in 1949 with Soviet material and human support: the USSR sent several thousand military advisers to China and delivered numerous vessels until the end of the 1950s. It was only from 1970 onward that China’s naval budget rose sharply, allowing the fleet to field ever more surface combatants—including large numbers of frigates. The earliest commissions were Soviet Riga-class units, then, from 1966, local Type 065 copies. The PLAN could then concentrate on improving the quality of its embarked weaponry, as frigates formed the backbone of its surface fleet.

The early years were difficult. A first model armed with surface-to-air missiles - designated Type 053K (NATO: Jiangdong class) - proved disappointing, and it was not until the mid-1970s that genuinely effective equipment entered service. Between 1975 and 1995, China built 33 “modern” frigates in successive sub-variants : Types 053H, 053H1, 053H1Q, 053H2 and 053H1G (NATO: Jianghu I to Jianghu V)1. Each ship carried four, then six, and finally eight anti-ship missiles: first SY-1s (Chinese copies of the Soviet P-15 Termit), then SY-2s from 1991, and finally supersonic YJ-83s. Here again, performance was initially limited, and it was only in the mid-1980s that the latest ships received air conditioning, an ASW helicopter, and surface-to-air missiles.

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A Response to the Taiwan’s Frigates

Despite this clear qualitative leap, at the dawn of the 1990s the Type 053 frigates were still under-armed. At the same time, Taiwan embarked on an arms race and acquired, between 1993 and 1998, six ultra-modern units from the French firms DCNS (today Naval Group) and Thomson-CSF (today Thales). This Kang Ding class - at the centre of the infamous and bitter “Taiwan’s frigates” corruption scandal - was based on the French La Fayette-class, highly innovative at the time, with stealth at the core of its design.

Seeing the risk of its own frigate force being outclassed, the PLAN responded by developing a supposedly equivalent new model, the Type 054 (NATO: Jiangkai I). The first ship was laid down in 1999, only three years after the Taiwanese Kang Ding entered service. The Type 054 clearly borrowed from it, both in overall lines (enclosed superstructures with no portholes) and in size (around 3,800 tonnes - about 3,740 long tons / 4,190 short tons) as well as propulsion (diesels built under licence from the same French engine maker, SEMT Pielstick). Much of its electronics were also of French design, including surface-search and fire-control radars and the TAVITAC combat management system developed by Thomson-CSF.

In terms of armament, the Type 054 essentially inherited the final Type 053 fit: eight YJ-83 anti-ship missiles, an octuple launcher for short-range HQ-7 surface-to-air missiles (a Chinese variant of the French Crotale), and a 100 mm (3.94-inch) forward gun, again a copy of French equipment. The aft hangar housed a Harbin Z-9C, a copy of the Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) AS365 Dauphin.

Two ships entered service in 2005, but no further units followed. By then, China had already cancelled the originally planned orders in favour of a modernised version, the Type 054A (Jiangkai II). The Type 054 was indeed the modern frigate China lacked - multi-role and, at the time, unmatched within the PLAN for radar discretion - but major improvements were still possible, notably in anti-air warfare, and more broadly by replacing most French equipment with fully indigenous solutions.

The PLAN’s Workhorse

The Type 054A programme was ambitious from the outset: it called for the construction of at least 24 ships to replace the oldest units of China’s ocean-escort force. Production was to be rapid and was split between two geographically distant, administratively independent shipyards : Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Shanghai) and Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding (Guangzhou/Canton) ; each of which had already built one Type 054.

Jiangkai II production began in 2005; the lead ship was launched in 2006 and entered service in 2008. Keels were then laid at a high tempo: thirty frigates were delivered by 2019, and ten more followed by the end of 2022 - forty Type 054As commissioned in fifteen years! These frigates are not all identical, however, as they were produced in successive batches incorporating specific features and/or upgrades:

• Batch 1 (2008)2: four units powered by French-origin diesels ;

• Batch 2 (2010–2013): twelve ships with an entirely Chinese-built propulsion plant, plus a redesigned bow and hull plating for improved stealth ;

• Batch 3 (2015–2018): ten ships with upgraded close-in self-defence weapons and fitted with a towed sonar, giving them significantly improved ASW capability. They are sometimes unofficially referred to as Type 054A+ or Type 054A2 ;

• Batch 4 (2018–2019): four ships incorporating a new generation of electronic warfare system ;

• Batch 5 (2022–2023): currently ten frigates, but potentially ten more, making Type 054A the second most-produced warship class in service worldwide (50 units!), behind the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (73 in service out of 92 planned).

The apparent “pause” in commissions between 2019 and 2022 is partly explained by the delivery to Pakistan of four Tughril-class ships derived from the Chinese frigates (Type 054A/P) by Hudong-Zhonghua. It also reflects a broader reorganisation of naval production: since 2019, both shipyards have been overseen by the same administrative entity, which may have assigned the future of the Type 054A programme to Huangpu Wenchong alone (but still to be confirmed).

A Balanced Multi-Role Frigate

The Type 054A retains the Jiangkai I hull but redesigns it in places to further reduce radar cross-section (RCS). With 4,050 tonnes combat displacement (about 3,986 long tons / 4,464 short tons) and an overall length of 134.10 m (440 ft), it has the same basic dimensions as its predecessor. Propulsion remains CODAD (Combined Diesel And Diesel), originally using four SEMT Pielstick 16 PA6V-280 STC diesels and, from the fifth unit onward, Chinese equivalents built under licence by Shaanxi. This configuration gives a maximum speed of 27 knots and a range of 4,000 nautical miles at 18 knots (about 4,600 mi / 7,400 km), broadly comparable to foreign counterparts.

Technical Data — Type 054A (Jiangkai II)

• Overall length: 134.10 m (440 ft)

• Beam: 16 m (52.5 ft)

• Draught: 4.50 m (14.8 ft)

• Combat displacement: 4,100 tonnes (4,035 long tons / 4,519 short tons)

• Max speed: 27 knots

• Range: 4,000+ nautical miles at 18 knots (about 4,600+ mi / 7,400+ km)

• Crew: 165-180 officers and ratings

Visually, the easiest way to distinguish a Jiangkai II from a Jiangkai I is its weapons fit (though sensors also differ). Designed primarily for fleet air-defence of Chinese carrier and surface action groups, the Type 054A’s main weapon system is the 32-cell H/AKJ-16 vertical launch system for HQ-16 medium-range surface-to-air missiles, with a range of 40 km (about 25 mi / 22 nmi). The VLS is installed conventionally on the foredeck, forward of the bridge block. The navalised HQ-16 is designed to engage aerial targets at altitudes of 15 to 18 km (about 49,000 to 59,000 ft) and, more specifically, sea-skimming anti-ship missiles flying at very low level (less than 10 m / 33 ft above the surface). Vertical launch also provides 360° coverage even in complex coastal geography. For Chinese frigates, this system provides, finally, a truly modern area air-defence capability.

HQ-16 is paired with the ship’s main radar, the Type 382 (H/LJQ-382), a 3D air- and surface-search set mounted atop the single mast3. Note that from 2012 onward, these VLS cells can reportedly be “mixed” with CY-5 or YU-8 anti-submarine weapons which, on the model of the American ASROC, deliver a lightweight ASW torpedo.

Immediately ahead of the VLS sits the H/PJ-26 76 mm (3-inch) gun turret at the centre of the foredeck. It is a substantially improved Chinese copy of the Soviet AK-176 rapid-fire gun (120 rounds per minute) dating from the 1970s. Introduced in 2003, the H/PJ-26 differs notably through its composite turret, redesigned for lower RCS. It can engage land, surface, or aerial targets (including missiles) thanks to the Type 347G fire-control radar on the roof of the bridge.

Forward of the gun are two Type 87 six-tube 240 mm (9.45-inch) anti-submarine rocket launchers for close-range ASW defence, with a maximum range of 5 km (about 3.1 mi / 2.7 nmi) and a total of 36 projectiles. Reloading is manual, and firing uses data provided by the ship’s sonar suite: an H/SJD-9 hull-mounted active/passive sonar and, from the 17th ship produced, the first Chinese-designed low-frequency passive towed sonar (H/SJG-206), plus a variable-depth active/passive set (H/SJD-311).

Between the bridge block and the funnel are two angled quadruple launchers—one to starboard, one to port—for a total of eight YJ-83 anti-ship missiles. With a Mach 2 terminal sprint, a range of 180 km (about 112 mi / 97 nmi), and sea-skimming flight at 5 m (about 16 ft), this supersonic missile is a credible surface-strike weapon. It is associated with the Type 366 surface-search radar - currently regarded as the PLAN’s most capable - reportedly superior to the Russian MR-331 Mineral-ME on which it was modelled. It is said to detect a sea-skimming incoming missile out to 35 km (about 22 mi / 19 nmi). The radar is installed under a radome atop the bridge.

Aft superstructures house two triple Type 7424 torpedo-tube mounts for 324 mm (12.8-inch) YU-7 torpedoes, one on each beam.

Point-defence against incoming missiles is provided, on the first two production batches (sixteen ships), by two Type 730 Gatling-style CIWS mounts. Installed on either side of the funnel (and/or on the roof of the aft hangar), these turrets consist of a 7-barrel 30 mm (1.18-inch) H/PJ-12 gun plus radar, optical, and infrared tracking systems. With a rate of fire of 5,800 rounds per minute and a range of 3,000 m (about 3,280 yd / 1.9 mi), they form the Chinese frigates’ “last ditch” defence against sea-skimming missiles.

From 2015, they were replaced by a modernised third-generation system: the Type 1130 CIWS, with an 11-barrel 30 mm (1.18-inch) H/PJ-11 gun, a striking rate of fire of 11,000 rounds per minute, and improved accuracy. The Type 1130 is said to be able to shoot down a Mach 4 missile out to 4,000 m (about 4,370 yd / 2.5 mi).

Missile defence is complemented by two H/RJZ-726 rotary launchers mounted on the roof of the aft superstructures, each capable of firing 24 countermeasures: electronic (chaff), hydroacoustic, optical (smoke), or infrared (thermal).

Finally, as on all modern frigates, the stern includes a flight deck and a helicopter hangar for a single aircraft: either a Kamov Ka-28 or a Harbin Z-9C ASW helicopter.

China has already fielded a successor design, the Type 054B (Jiangkai III), intended to carry the concept forward with a larger hull and a more modern sensor-and-weapons suite. For now, however, this “next step” is only a limited step: the class has entered service in just two ships, suggesting a cautious transition, more of a bridge and a proving ground than an immediate, large-scale replacement for the Type 054A.

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In November 1939, a lone British passenger liner has a bad encounter in the North Atlantic. Strangely enough, she is in those waters for the very purpose of intercepting enemy shipping. She has just been armed for war and given the status of an “auxiliary cruiser,” to bolster the Royal Navy’s strength alongside other liners of the same kind. Yet when faced with two heavy German warships, HMS Rawalpindi could have tried to save herself by running. Instead, she chose to fight—under no illusion about her chances of surviving.

Arming merchant ships for war is not a new idea. As far back as Antiquity, Greek city-states did not hesitate to employ merchant galleys in combat; the same was true in the Middle Ages, when cogs and carracks could carry cargo, or serve as privateers—or pirates—depending on the opportunities that arose. Without going that far back, Britain’s experience with the concept dates at least to the East Indiamen of the eighteenth century. Chartered by the English East India Company to carry goods and passengers between India and the metropole, these large sailing ships were armed well enough to deter trouble, whether sailing in convoy or alone. During the Napoleonic Wars, these Indiamen—painted to resemble warships—fought the French alongside the Royal Navy, which even purchased some of them and converted them into ships of the line.

In 1856, the Treaty of Paris abolished privateering but recognised the right of signatory states to arm merchant ships—generally cargo vessels—provided they flew the national flag and their crews were officially part of the country’s navy. Such ships were then known as auxiliary cruisers. In the late nineteenth century, as European naval powers engaged in an expensive arms race, they required major shipping companies to design liners strong enough to be fitted with artillery, so they could be converted in wartime into fast auxiliary cruisers. Thus, in 1895, at the Kaiserliche Marine’s request, one of the first four liners of the German HAPAG company, the Normannia, underwent fifteen days of trials during which she was armed with eight 152.4 mm (6-inch) guns, two 89 mm (≈ 3.5-inch) guns, and six 37 mm (≈ 1.5-inch) guns. It is therefore unsurprising that during the First World War both the British and German navies mobilised a number of liners as troop transports, hospital ships, or auxiliary cruisers. As early as 1914, the Royal Navy requisitioned seven ships from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O)1 and converted them into “Armed Merchant Cruisers” (AMCs). These ships had certain attractive qualities: they were far faster than most warships of the day and large enough to remain seaworthy despite the addition of artillery. On the other hand, their hulls had little or no armour; their optical equipment was basic; and, above all, their coal consumption was such that they could have burned through the Admiralty’s entire reserves in three months if they had operated at maximum speed!

Blockade and the Northern Patrol

These AMCs largely replaced British cruisers in thankless, long-duration missions on secondary fronts. The most important was enforcing the blockade meant to prevent units of the Kaiserliche Marine from reaching the Atlantic and to ensure that merchant ships entering the North Sea were not trading with Germany. The United Kingdom had prepared for this blockade for years and, in 1914, opted for a “distant” blockade—beyond the range German destroyers could reach after steaming all night—so Royal Navy units could patrol at a safe distance while remaining close to their bases. In practice, Britain’s geographic position was an insurmountable obstacle to any attempt by the German fleet to break into the Atlantic: to reach the ocean, Germany had to choose either the English Channel—an extremely risky route given how heavily mined and watched it was—or the GIUK line2 north of Scotland, a longer route but one far less densely patrolled by British units.

Guarding this GIUK line largely fell to the Northern Patrol, a cruiser squadron tasked with controlling traffic passing between northern Scotland and Norway from its base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. At the outbreak of war, the Northern Patrol consisted only of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, with eight elderly Edgar-class protected cruisers, soon reinforced by the first requisitioned AMCs. More reliable, faster, more comfortable, and possessing better seakeeping—no small advantage in the turbulent Norwegian Sea—the AMCs gradually relieved the Edgars until the United States, the principal source of contraband destined for Germany, entered the war in 1917. The blockade then became far less useful, and the remaining AMCs saw their missions evolve: they now mainly escorted slow transatlantic convoys against U-boat attacks.

In short, in an emergency the AMCs provided a practical answer to a shortage of major warships, thanks to their performance and relative versatility. They could carry out repetitive but essential ocean patrol and escort duties, freeing destroyers and cruisers for tasks where they were more valuable. Thus, from August 1914 until the 10th Cruiser Squadron was dissolved at the end of November 1917, the Northern Patrol inspected nearly 13,000 merchant ships—something that would not have been possible without the 33 AMCs assigned to it. These missions were usually not especially dangerous, but in any confrontation with the enemy the risks could quickly become fatal: of the roughly 70 Armed Merchant Cruisers mobilised during the war, about twenty were sunk at sea, in the vast majority of cases by U-boats. After peace returned, these militarised liners—often in poor condition after years of intense service—went back to their owners, and many were scrapped soon afterwards.

In the 1920s and 1930s, however, the Royal Navy did not forget the assistance these ships had provided, and the Admiralty developed a mobilisation plan for any future conflict. From August 1939 onward, more than fifty British merchant ships were requisitioned to be converted into auxiliary cruisers. The Admiralty prioritised large, modern transatlantic liners with high top speed, excellent endurance, and superstructures suitable for mounting guns. When the Second World War began, the British government imposed a specific labour agreement on the civilian mariners aboard these AMCs—now under Royal Navy command—applying to each individual on a specific ship. Under the T124 Agreement, these Merchant Navy men became, officially, “naval auxiliary members of the armed forces” and were therefore struck off the conscription lists. They retained their rank and pay, but had to submit to military discipline—though far looser than aboard regular warships. In 1940, the need for manpower and relief crews became so great that the agreement was revised (the T124X Agreement) so sailors could be transferred from one ship to another “for the duration of the present emergency.”

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HMS Rawalpindi

Reconstituted in early September, the Northern Patrol was tasked with patrolling a far broader area than in the First World War: its operating zone stretched from northern Scotland and Ireland to the Norwegian Sea, via the Shetlands and the Faroe Islands, and as far as Greenland and Iceland—including the Denmark Strait. Its 7th and 12th Cruiser Squadrons (the latter renumbered 11th in October) assembled twelve old cruisers and light cruisers dating from the Great War (Caledon, Danae, Ceres, Carlisle, Hawkins, and Emerald classes), designed for the calmer waters of the North Sea rather than the far rougher Norwegian Sea and North Atlantic. Not only were they slow and poorly armed, their range was also too limited for their theatre. Their constant back-and-forth to refuel meant they were too few to form a watertight cordon: only two ships covered the 200 nautical miles between the Shetlands and the Faroes, and three others patrolled the 250 nautical miles between the Faroes and Iceland. The Royal Navy therefore decided to replace these old cruisers as quickly as possible with AMCs—more numerous, faster, longer-legged, and ultimately only slightly less well armed.

One such AMC was the passenger liner SS Rawalpindi. Built in 1925, she belonged to a class of four ocean liners (with Ranpura, Ranchi, and Rajputana), the first P&O liners equipped with refrigerated chambers—more than necessary, since like her sisters the Rawalpindi was designed for the “Indian Run,” the route linking London to Bombay. Despite a displacement of 16,697 GRT, a length of over 166 metres (≈ 545 ft) and a beam of more than 21 metres (≈ 69 ft), she could make 19.6 knots while carrying 307 first-class passengers and 288 in second class. For almost fourteen years she carried passengers and mail to India and Southeast Asia without notable incident. Everything changed on 26 August 1939, when the Royal Navy requisitioned all four ships of her class in anticipation of a war about to begin.

The Rawalpindi underwent a rapid refit in London until 19 September to convert her into an AMC. The ship kept her name (now preceded by HMS to denote her Royal Navy service) but lost her after funnel—perhaps to reduce weight and save fuel, since she would not be operating at maximum speed on future convoy-escort duties and thus would not need all her boilers. She did, however, receive an “Emergency Equipment” package—issued to half of the 51 requisitioned AMCs—consisting of eight old 152.4 mm mounts (BL 6-inch Mark VII, range 12,800 m) and two 76.2 mm anti-aircraft guns (QF 3-inch 20 cwt). Distributed across the ship’s decks, these guns—at best dating back to the Great War—had no armoured shields. Furniture, woodwork, and light partitions were removed to make room for wooden ammunition magazines and an optical fire-control system. The only protection added consisted of sandbags and splinter plates around the bridge, the steering gear, and the machinery spaces.

Around the same time, her sister ships received similar equipment. The four liners were then dispersed as needs dictated: HMS Ranpura went to the Mediterranean, HMS Ranchi to the Indian Ocean, and HMS Rajputana to convoy escort in the Atlantic. The Rawalpindi joined the Northern Patrol in October. She retained much of her crew, since many were already members of the Royal Naval Reserve, but her commander was replaced by Captain Edward Kennedy, a Great War veteran recalled from retirement for the occasion.

In October the ship was ready. She sailed to her patrol zone southeast of Iceland. On the 15th, she was one of thirteen Northern Patrol AMCs scattered between Greenland and Scotland. On the 19th, she cruised the Denmark Strait with the Scotstoun and Transylvania when she intercepted the Gonzenheim, a 4,574 GRT German tanker that had left Buenos Aires days earlier in an attempt to reach Germany. Her crew preferred to scuttle the ship before a Rawalpindi’s boarding party could take possession. The AMC then resumed her laborious patrol, which was to carry her north of the Faroe Islands. On the morning of the 23rd, she intercepted and inspected a Swedish cargo ship—neutral, but found in violation of the blockade—and placed a prize crew aboard to take her to Britain. The Rawalpindi was then part of a cordon of five Royal Navy ships deployed between Iceland and the Faroes; she was also the easternmost—an alignment that would seal her fate.

The Mission of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

On the other side of the North Sea, in Germany, the Kriegsmarine had received a clear mission as early as September 1939 for its major surface units: they were to operate in the Atlantic and wage war on British commerce. The Deutschland and Graf Spee had sailed even before the outbreak of hostilities, so they would be ideally positioned when the time came. The German naval staff expected their actions to have “an immediate effect through the capture and destruction of numerous merchant ships and the annihilation of enemy convoys”3. If the Deutschland’s cruise was cut short by mechanical issues, the other “pocket battleship” enjoyed a promising start in the South Atlantic. Hunted by British and French naval forces, she slipped discreetly into the Indian Ocean in early November.

The Kriegsmarine then judged it opportune to create a diversion to draw off some of the units sent in pursuit by sailing Germany’s two capital ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to simulate a breakout into the North Atlantic. Rear Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, flying his flag in the Gneisenau, received orders to strike—with the Scharnhorst—those enemy defences that had been thinned out, first and foremost the Northern Patrol. The objective seemed well within reach, given how little aggression the Royal Navy had shown so far. However, the ships were ordered not to push deeper, because until the Bismarck and Tirpitz became operational they represented the bulk of Germany’s naval strength capable of opposing an enemy incursion into the North Sea or the Baltic. As a secondary task, they were also to assist the Deutschland if necessary on her return route, and to help any merchant ship attempting to reach a German port.

21 November, 14:00: the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau leave Wilhelmshaven and the Jade Bay with a destroyer escort, heading north-northwest. The weather deteriorates the next day, allowing the two ships to avoid detection. Their speed must be reduced to 20 knots, while their escorts—too light for such seas—turn back. The Luftwaffe also has to cancel reconnaissance flights intended to locate any opposing naval forces.

22 November, 00:00: the “terrible twins” struggle through the Shetland Strait in a raging sea that limits their speed to 12 knots. From midday, their course bends farther west, until they round the Faroes to the north in the early hours of the 23rd. The weather has improved considerably and they regain a speed of 17 knots.

An Unequal Fight

23 November, 08:00: the course is set for Iceland and, as they enter the Northern Patrol’s operating zone, Marschall orders the two ships to separate by 20,000 metres in order to sweep a broader sector. At the same moment, a few nautical miles farther north, the Rawalpindi resumes her route. She has been informed that the Deutschland is cruising somewhere in the North Atlantic; if encountered, she is to refuse battle and radio the ship’s position to the Home Fleet so a battle squadron can be dispatched to intercept.

15:07: the northernmost of the two German ships, Scharnhorst, sights smoke on the horizon and steams straight toward it.

15:30: with the sun low, the Rawalpindi is heading east when the lookout in the crow’s nest reports a ship far off the starboard bow. Assuming it is likely the Deutschland, Captain Kennedy sounds action stations. He also orders a hard turn to port at full speed to open the range and disappear into a fog bank.

15:51: the British auxiliary cruiser radios a contact report to the Home Fleet, stating that an enemy battlecruiser has been sighted. The Rawalpindi also tries to lay a smoke screen to speed her disappearance—but in vain: the canisters fail to produce any smoke. The ship then turns to starboard to hide among the drifting icebergs in the area. In reality, it is too late: the Scharnhorst is already moving to cut off her escape to the west. By flashing lamp, the AMC receives an order to stop, reinforced by a warning shot across her bow. Kennedy’s only answer is to continue his desperate manoeuvres and send a second radio message claiming—incorrectly—that the ship sighted is the Deutschland. The Scharnhorst repeats the order, again without effect, perhaps because the Rawalpindi’s captain has just spotted a second ship on the starboard bow and mistakes it for a friendly cruiser coming to his aid. His signals officer quickly kills that last hope: the second ship is the Gneisenau, which means the British AMC is now trapped between the two most powerful German warships in the region. For Kennedy, surrender is not an option. According to a witness on the bridge, he said aloud: “We shall fight both of them, they’ll sink us, and that will be that. Goodbye.”

16:03: aboard the Scharnhorst, now only four nautical miles from her prey, Kapitän zur See Kurt Caesar Hoffmann sends the Rawalpindi a radio message ordering her to abandon ship. It is ignored. A second identical message meets the same silence. “The captain of that auxiliary cruiser must be mad,” Hoffmann thinks, “to believe his eight old 6-inch guns can compete with the eighteen modern 280 mm pieces of his two opponents…” As he prepares to open fire for lack of any other solution, his thoughts are interrupted by a detonation: the Rawalpindi’s four port-side guns have just fired at the Gneisenau—without scoring a hit. A second salvo is quickly directed at the Scharnhorst, again without result. At the same moment, the Scharnhorst opens fire and hits with her first salvo, smashing the boat deck, killing almost everyone on the bridge, and destroying the radio room. Kennedy survives miraculously, but his ship can no longer transmit by radio.

16:07: a second salvo from the Scharnhorst destroys the main-battery fire-control position and one of the starboard guns. The third hits the engine room, cutting power throughout the ship. As a result, ammunition hoists can no longer lift shells to the guns, and the guns themselves receive no firing data. Kennedy orders the seven remaining guns to fire independently, with every available man helping to hand-carry shells from magazine to mounting. Each shell weighs 45 kg, so the rate of fire inevitably drops, but during the brief exchange one of the auxiliary cruiser’s guns manages to land a hit on the Scharnhorst’s quarterdeck, causing minor damage.

16:11: the Gneisenau opens fire in her turn. As the Rawalpindi’s guns are knocked out one by one, fires rage from bow to stern; firefighting systems are put out of action and the steering gear jams. The ship is clearly doomed, yet she still does not sink—her underwater hull has not been hit. With two men, Kennedy leaves his post to try to lay a smoke screen from aft; he is killed in the attempt.

16:16: Chief Petty Officer Humphries gives the order to abandon ship. A boat carrying some forty wounded capsizes as it reaches the water, throwing its occupants into the freezing sea. Then, as only three other lifeboats have just been lowered, the Scharnhorst fires a final salvo: one shell explodes in the forward magazine, causing a massive blast that breaks the ship’s keel. The burning wreck begins to sink as her executioner turns sharply aside to avoid her. The turbulence of the Scharnhorst’s wake swamps the boats. The two German ships finally spot them and turn back to pick up survivors.

17:18: the Germans have recovered only 27 survivors from two boats when the search is abruptly halted. In the darkness, German lookouts have seen the silhouette of a warship; the area must be left as quickly as possible. The third boat, with its eleven occupants, is later rescued by the Chitral, another Northern Patrol AMC.

A Fruitless Pursuit

The Royal Navy did receive the Rawalpindi’s radio messages and quickly diverted several units—not to save the AMC, whose fate already seemed sealed, but to intercept the detected battlecruiser. For more than an hour, the cruisers HMS Newcastle, Delhi, Norfolk, and Suffolk have been racing at full speed toward the transmitted coordinates. HMS Newcastle (herself a Northern Patrol unit) arrives first and sights the Gneisenau at a distance. Keeping prudently clear, the light cruiser follows her as she and the Scharnhorst withdraw northward into a fog bank. Still believing it is the Deutschland returning to Germany, the Newcastle sends a report so better-armed ships can intercept. The Admiralty reacts promptly, converging a veritable armada on the sector.

19:30: the battleships HMS Nelson and Rodney, the heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire, and six destroyers leave the Clyde with orders to cut off the enemy’s presumed route off Norway. Meanwhile, the light cruisers HMS Southampton and Edinburgh sail from Rosyth with five destroyers to patrol between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, while HMS Sheffield weighs anchor at Loch Ewe to head for the enemy’s last known position. Northern Patrol ships are also placed on alert and are to receive reinforcements from Belfast and Scapa Flow.

20:00: HMS Rawalpindi sinks, taking 238 crewmen down into the depths. On the Gneisenau’s bridge, Admiral Marschall expects the entire Home Fleet to pursue him. He therefore abandons the mission and decides to slip back to Germany as discreetly as possible. Several favourable factors—none of them of his making—aid him. First, most British heavy units are too far away to catch the “terrible twins.” Second, at that date the closest British cruisers are not yet fitted with radar, which would have helped them maintain contact during the dreadful storm that rises on the night of 23–24 November. HMS Newcastle and Delhi lose track of the Germans after they steer east and then northeast. On the 25th, the German ships finally head south, hug the Norwegian coast, and reach Wilhelmshaven on the 27th without being intercepted.

On 18 December, in a radio address, Churchill compares the scuttling of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee—which had sunk the day before in the River Plate estuary—to the tragic but heroic end of the Rawalpindi: “Once in port [the Graf Spee] had the choice of submitting in the ordinary way to internment, which would have been unfortunate for him, or of coming out and fighting and going down in action, like the Rawalpindi, which would have been honourable for him.” For the Armed Merchant Cruisers, the Rawalpindi’s sacrifice—heroic though it was—marked, if not the beginning of the end, then at least a clear realisation of their extreme vulnerability, confirmed a year later by the destruction of HMS Jervis Bay by the Scheer. Their importance within the Royal Navy’s defensive system declined from 1941 onward when, at American request, many AMCs were reconverted into large fast troop transports shuttling to North Africa and Europe. By late 1942, the British retained only thirteen AMCs, patrolling secondary theatres in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

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In late 1941, the Japanese were at the gates of Manila following a lightning campaign that caught American forces completely off guard. The city’s fall was only a matter of time, and it was crucial to make Philippine gold and silver disappear before the Imperial Army could get its hands on them. But how?

On December 23, 1941, MacArthur declared Manila an open city, as a result of which all equipment and troops still present in the capital were redirected to Bataan. Warehouses that could not be emptied were set on fire; Colonel Willoughby, of the US Army Intelligence Bureau G-2, was tasked with transferring — with the assistance of a team from the US Army Finance Office — the Philippine national treasury as well as all assets held by the Philippine Central Bank to the fortified island of Corregidor. Until then stored in the severely bombed Fort Santiago, this treasure consisted largely of gold currency (at least 320 gold bars worth approximately $7 million), silver (between 187 and 469 short tons1 in ingots, Philippine pesos, and centavos worth at least $12 million), as well as paper currency ($3 million in US dollars, $28 million in Philippine securities, and $38 million in Treasury bonds), precious stones, and other valuables2.

Gold Rush

There was no time to waste, and Willoughby assembled a motley flotilla to transfer the treasury from Manila to Corregidor. Most vessels were tugboats or small civilian craft, but the fleet also included the presidential yacht Cassiano; together with the Don Esteban, they transported the equivalent of $41 million. Loading everything took four full nights, and the flotilla set out at nightfall on December 27 to avoid detection by enemy aircraft. At Corregidor, a total blackout made unloading an agonizingly slow process: each vessel had to moor at the North Dock to offload its precious cargo before making way for the next ship. The procedure was laborious, and it took two full nights and an entire day for the treasure to be finally secured in two cellars. From there, the 154 short tons of pesos were transferred to the underground complex at Malinta, while private funds were sent to the center of the island, to a concrete structure located just below a heavy mortar battery. The remaining bars and paper securities were eventually distributed among various vaults in the southern section of Malinta Tunnel. Willoughby’s team spent January 1942 cataloguing and sorting bars, coins, and banknotes. Two problems quickly arose: the serial numbers on banknotes and paper securities had to be recorded before being destroyed so they could be reissued in the United States. But how to dispose of such an enormous mass of paper? For lack of a better solution, three open-air incinerators were put to use; mountains of banknotes were burned there in an apocalyptic atmosphere. The other challenge was getting rid of the gold before the Japanese set foot on the island — which could not be long in coming. Sinking it at sea was considered, but with some effort the enemy might retrieve it... What to do?

At that time, the US Navy had undertaken to resupply the forces engaged at Bataan and Corregidor through the only means available to it given the Japanese blockade: its submarine fleet. The USS Trout was a submarine of the recently commissioned Tambor class. Commanded by Lieutenant Commander Frank W. Fenno, she had been conducting her first patrol off Midway at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Following mechanical problems, she was in dry dock at Hawaii for a propeller replacement when, on January 10, 1942, the division commander informed Fenno that his boat had been selected to deliver a cargo of ammunition, food, and medical supplies to Manila Bay. The mission was urgent, as Corregidor’s anti-aircraft defenses were short of shells for their 3-inch (76.2 mm) guns capable of reaching 29,500 feet: Japanese aircraft were overflying American positions at 22,000 feet, with no fear of American anti-aircraft fire, which had on hand only shells fitted with older fuzes that could not reach beyond 19,700 feet.

All That Glitters...

Fenno therefore wasted no time preparing his submarine and departed for the Philippines on the morning of January 12. He had on board 3,517 rounds for the 3-inch guns, as well as 500 cases of food and medical supplies of all kinds. To carry as much as possible, the Trout had offloaded all her reserve torpedoes, keeping only those already loaded in the tubes. Similarly, to facilitate unloading, the shells had been removed from their crates and stacked in the torpedo and maneuvering rooms. The Trout reached Midway quickly, where she put in for a few hours to refuel and carry out minor repairs, then on the 16th headed toward the Bonin Islands (present-day Japanese Ogasawara archipelago, of which Iwo Jima is a part), passing them on the 21st. Six nights later, a lookout reported a bright light off the port bow. Battle stations were called, and the submarine closed on the light source; so close to the Bonins, such a vessel could only be Japanese, and at 1,500 yards, the commander fired a torpedo... which missed its target. The Trout closed to within 600 yards of the intruder, which turned out to be a Japanese ASW patrol boat! The submarine then withdrew as quietly as possible, apparently without having been detected.

She sighted Corregidor on the afternoon of February 3, but remained submerged until nightfall. At 7:45 PM, she surfaced close to San Jose Bay on the southern coast of Corregidor. She first had to navigate through two minefields — one belonging to the Army, the other to the Navy — and that is why she waited for a “guide.” This turned out to be a torpedo boat, PT-34, faithfully at the rendezvous and tasked with piloting the submarine. Following such a fast craft in total darkness proved no easy feat, but the Trout eventually moored discreetly at the island’s South Dock at precisely 8:34 PM. The munitions were unloaded in the minutes that followed at a furious pace, taking advantage of the absence of enemy activity. By midnight, everything was done, and the Trout was ready to leave. But to do so, she needed ballast. The shells she had been carrying had provided the displacement necessary to perform emergency dives or to remain submerged and thus evade the Japanese blockade. The submarine was now considerably lighter, and any dive would be, if not impossible, at least far slower. She had taken on two reserve torpedoes, but that was not enough. Fenno requested 27.5 short tons of ballast. Sandbags would have been ideal, but Corregidor needed them far too badly to reinforce its defenses. The problem was passed up to a naval attaché, Lieutenant Commander Parker, who immediately put to Philippine Vice President Sergio Osmena — then taking refuge on the island — an original idea: why not use the central bank’s gold as ballast — bars that no one knew what to do with and that were taking up a monstrous amount of space? They could thus be discreetly transferred to Pearl Harbor and eventually to a port on the US West Coast.

A $10,000,000 Ballast

Osmena gave his agreement by telephone to MacArthur, who invited Commander Fenno ashore to work out the details. In the dead of night, the Malinta Tunnel buzzed with activity: Fenno and Lieutenant Gunn, his engineering officer, were briefed on the plan by MacArthur and Admiral Rockwell, while Colonel Willoughby was roused from sleep and sent to prepare the transfer. Everything had to be finished before dawn. All available men formed a chain to pass the ingots to two flatbed trucks. Present were Treasury employees, soldiers, and Filipino dock workers, as well as Willoughby and his wife, officers, and more. One by one, the yellow metal bars disappeared from the South Mine Dock into the belly of the USS Trout. The operation took time, but by 2:50 AM, 319 ingots and 630,000 silver pesos were stowed in the forward and aft battery compartments of the submarine. There was no time to lose: ten minutes later, the Trout left the dock, moved out 3 nautical miles, dove to 130 feet... and settled on the bottom. Fenno had arranged with Willoughby to resume loading the following night at a rendezvous point at sea in San Jose Bay. In the meantime, the submarine had to vanish so that the Japanese would remain unsuspecting. With morning came the wait: “all day long, the men scanned the skies for enemy aircraft, anxiously watching for the telltale signs of an air raid,” Colonel Willoughby’s wife would later testify. “The submarine was not far away, and they knew that in tropical waters, submarines could be spotted even at great depth. They were watching for the single aircraft the Japanese sent over Corregidor every day to take aerial photographs.” Underwater, the Trout’s crew took the opportunity to rest after thirty-six hours on watch. Night fell quickly at those latitudes, however, and once total darkness had settled in, a PT boat was quickly loaded. It then quietly slipped away from the dock and patrolled the designated rendezvous area for three hours. It finally located the submarine, and the transfer resumed immediately. It lasted only fifty minutes, despite an increasingly rough sea. The USS Trout now had on board valuables worth $10 million, along with diplomatic mail of the utmost importance, and she hastened to return to depth and move away from Corregidor and the Japanese blockade forces.

Silence Is Golden

Fenno now held a letter forwarded to him by Philippine President Quezon, asking him to transfer his cargo to the United States and place it at the disposal of the Secretary of the Treasury. That was indeed what the commander intended to do — but in due course. With 22 short tons of precious materials on board, the temptation to head directly for Hawaii was very real, but when he had left Pearl Harbor, his superiors had assigned him a combat mission — the resupply of Corregidor had been intended merely as a parenthesis in their minds — and he still had to carry it out. The submarine therefore headed for the East China Sea. The monsoon had begun, and conditions deteriorated considerably, slowing the boat, which did not reach her patrol sector until February 10. That day, at 4:25 PM, she spotted a Japanese cargo ship of 2,700 tons, the Chuwa Maru, crossing 35 nautical miles (40 miles) north of Taipei. She fired three torpedoes (at 2,000 yards, 690 yards, and 600 yards respectively). The last two struck home, sinking the USS Trout’s first victim. After an evasive maneuver to the south, the submarine headed back northeast and patrolled for eight days in the East China Sea in appalling weather: continuous rain, poor visibility, and worse. Any hunt was of course impossible, and on February 15, Fenno pushed north toward the Bonin Islands. On the 19th, while cruising in the vicinity of that archipelago, a light was reported; but the commander had learned his lesson on the outbound leg and cautiously approached what he believed to be the lure light of an ASW hunter. He ordered a dive to periscope depth at 9:00 PM and fired two torpedoes from a safe distance. In vain. Worse still — the ship’s sonar indicated that the target had also launched a torpedo! The Trout dove to 120 feet and heard a second torpedo pass overhead. The commander then returned to periscope depth, reacquired his target, and fired one last torpedo. The third attempt was the right one: an explosion briefly lit up the ocean; the crew distinctly heard the characteristic sound of a ship going down (the Trout would be credited with a 200-ton patrol vessel), as well as the engines of another fleeing at full speed.

The submarine then set course for home — a peaceful voyage undisturbed by any contact until the appearance, two days out from Pearl Harbor, of the USS Litchfield, an old ASW destroyer serving as escort for submarines in Hawaiian waters.

Golden Rule

On the afternoon of March 3, 1942, the submarine came alongside the light cruiser Detroit, onto which were soon transferred the 8.8 short tons of gold and 13.2 short tons of silver from the Philippine Central Bank. The light cruiser would then depart for San Francisco, where she would deliver the entire cargo to the Treasury Department. For the submariners, arriving at Pearl Harbor was a genuine relief: the USS Trout had completed a 51-day patrol, certainly marked by port calls and successful torpedo attacks, but the presence of all that gold had begun to weigh heavily on the commander’s shoulders. In a fine irony of fate, several days later he discovered a forgotten ingot wedged in a corner of his submarine — a “poisoned gift” he wasted no time delivering to the Treasury in exchange for a receipt.

For the success of this very special mission, Washington issued a cascade of awards: the Trout received a Presidential Unit Citation, all 70 members of her crew the Silver Star, and her commander the Navy Cross as well as the highly coveted Distinguished Service Cross. The gold had stirred passions, however, and a year or two later Fenno decided to assert what he considered to be the law of the sea: for the “salvage” of the precious cargo, his crew should be entitled to a percentage of its value. Traditionally, that was indeed the maritime custom, but the US Navy had a ready-made answer: one month after the Trout’s fruitful mission, it had “clarified” its maritime salvage rules, and this particular case was no longer a salvage but a “government-to-government transfer,” which entitled no one to any compensation whatsoever.

Gold-Diggers

The story was not quite over. A large portion of the Philippine silver remained stored on Corregidor: millions of dollars in pesos and centavos were still waiting in the Malinta Tunnel. And the island’s fall was only a matter of time. So, between March 12 and May 6, General Wainwright organized the disappearance of those tons of precious metal: for several nights in a row, the besieged garrison loaded the silver onto barges, which were then scuttled offshore at a carefully recorded location in 130 feet of water. The operation succeeded in making all stocks disappear into Caballo Bay. The Japanese found only a tiny fraction, using prisoners of war as divers — who were anything but eager to oblige their captors: to celebrate the capture of the Philippines, the Emperor had about a hundred of these pesos restruck and offered as gifts to certain soldiers; they bore the inscription “Commemoration of the Philippines Expedition, Year 2602.” When the Americans retook the island in 1945, they recovered approximately $3 million before the end of the year; then in 1947, veterans mounted a salvage operation — apparently of modest returns — and the Philippine government continued where they left off, though the exact results remain unknown to this day (perhaps 8 million coins recovered). Stories still circulate claiming that $3 million in pesos are still waiting for the skilled diver who can find them off Corregidor.

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From time to time, Action Stations steps outside strictly naval history, a deliberate breathing space to tackle other corners of military history. Since everyone is talking a lot about helicopters and air warfare these days (with the war in Iran), I thought it would be a good idea to revisit an American aircraft that revolutionized this field in the 1960s. Especially since Iran was one of its users…

Iroquois and Sioux on the Warpath

In 1962, in the Vietnamese jungle and rice paddies, the U.S. Army could now rely on a new means of tactical transport: the HU-1A Iroquois helicopter, later redesignated UH-1 and nicknamed the Huey. A few months later, the machine that was supposed to do little more than medical evacuation was being used mainly as a battlefield taxi. The GIs quickly found flaws: lightly protected—or not protected at all—it was especially vulnerable when putting troops on the ground, because at that moment it could not return fire effectively. It therefore needed an escort.

A stopgap solution was found quickly: a number of UH-1s were armed with rocket launchers, grenade launchers and machine guns to make attack runs around landing zones. Nicknamed “gunships” by the GIs, these aircraft became indispensable as American involvement in Vietnam grew ever larger; the Army leadership began thinking about a helicopter designed specifically for air-to-ground strikes.

A little earlier, in June 1962, Bell had presented Pentagon officials with an intriguing prototype: the D255 Iroquois Warrior, which looked like a helicopter with the fuselage of a two-seat jet grafted onto it. Its streamlined body, very narrow cockpit and tandem seating made it fast, even though it reused many UH-1C components—its rotor system, engine and transmission in particular. This reduced development costs while relying on proven technology. Its weapons load was substantial: a remotely operated nose turret for grenade launchers, a belly mount for a 20 mm cannon, and external pods for anti-tank missiles and rockets. In short, Bell’s demonstrator looked like an excellent ground-attack aircraft—and it caught the Pentagon’s attention. The concept still had to be turned into a real programme.

With that in mind, Bell proposed in December 1962 the Model 207 Sioux Scout, based on the military version of the Bell 47 (built in 6,000 examples in many variants). The Bell 47 was notably the first helicopter to serve as a medical evacuation aircraft in Korea from 1950 to 1953, and it remained in service in many countries. The Model 207 retained the Iroquois Warrior’s strengths: two M60 machine guns in a chin turret, stub wings for weapon pods or external tanks, and a tandem crew (pilot in the rear and gunner/copilot in the front). A demonstrator flew in July 1963. The Army tested it in early 1964, but although it was highly manoeuvrable, it was judged too small, insufficiently protected and underpowered for the role envisioned for air-mobile brigades. In October, the Army launched a competition for an ambitious heavy attack helicopter programme: the Advanced Aerial Fire-support System (AAFSS). It was won by Lockheed with the AH-56 Cheyenne, which would never enter service and was cancelled in 1972.

The AH-1G Huey Cobra

True to its approach, Bell held its course by developing - on own funds - a new streamlined, narrow, light and agile aircraft: the D262 (Model 209), essentially a redesigned, smaller version of the D255. The original two-blade 540 rotor received a stability augmentation control system; the fuselage profile around the turbine followed the Sioux Scout’s lines; the landing skids were retractable; and the fuselage used aluminium honeycomb for lightness. Despite undeniable paper advantages, the “209” still had to prove itself. In January 1965, Bell invested one million dollars to build a demonstrator despite losing the AAFSS competition. Vietnam was validating Bell’s preference for small, reliable aircraft, while Lockheed struggled with a complex, costly and overly innovative programme. The U.S. Army soon realised this and, fearing it would not field attack helicopters for several years, asked several manufacturers for an interim aircraft that could be put into production quickly. When the Model 209 rolled out in September 1965, it arrived at exactly the right moment. In April 1966, convinced by a series of tests, the U.S. Army ordered 110 examples for $20.5 million. The Model 209 was then redesignated UH-1H before being renamed in July as the AH-1G (“A” for Attack; “G” identifying the variant). Until then, U.S. Army helicopters had all received nicknames taken from Native American peoples (Sioux, Cheyenne, Iroquois). But for legal reasons (Piper Aircraft also used Native names), the Pentagon had to choose something else. In Vietnam, however, the gun-armed UH-1 Hueys were already being called “Cobras.” The new attack helicopter replacing them would therefore become the Huey Cobra.

Designed for series production, it differed from its predecessor in several ways: the skids were fixed; the canopy was plexiglass rather than armoured glass; the rotor blades were different; and the cockpit was protected by ceramic armour side panels. The helicopter was powered by a Lycoming T53 gas turbine—designed by the German engineer Anselm Franz (the father of the Junkers Jumo 004, the Third Reich’s first turbojet produced in series, notably for the Me 262)—the same engine as the UH-1, delivering 1,100 hp. It could reach 227 km/h and cover 574 km. Above all, it provided formidable fire support: the stub wings gave the aircraft excellent stability, making it a highly appreciated firing platform.

The first examples came off the line in June 1967 and were sent to Vietnam two months later. Their rocket salvoes and the accuracy of their fire proved particularly lethal to the Viet Cong, and pilots appreciated the helicopter’s small footprint and manoeuvrability, which allowed it to land in extremely tight spaces. The first “kill” credited to a Cobra was a Viet Cong sampan sunk in the Mekong Delta on 4 September 1967… during a training flight. Its moment of glory came on 8 October, when two AH-1Gs of the 334th Armed Helicopter Company, escorting ten Iroquois, prevented the Viet Cong from attacking the troop transports with devastating fire. Better still, they destroyed four bunkers and fourteen sampans.

A Modular Arsenal

Early operational feedback was therefore very positive. A further 838 Cobras were ordered in October 1968, then another 170 in January 1970, and a final 70 in 1971. The Marines also ordered 38 AH-1Gs, enabling them to wait for a future navalised version. Between 1967 and 1973, Bell would thus produce 1,226 Cobras for the U.S. Army and the USMC. The design was so sound that over six years of production it saw only three minor changes:

• The original chin turret, the M64 (manufacturer designation: TAT102A), carrying a 7.62 mm M134 Minigun (21° elevation, 50° depression, 230° azimuth), was soon replaced by the smaller M28 (TAT141), which could mount either two 7.62 mm GAU-2B/A Miniguns, or two 40 mm M129 grenade launchers, or one of each (25° elevation, 60° depression, 230° azimuth). It was so well liked that it spawned several sub-variants and would still equip the AH-1Q and AH-1P/S.

• The tail rotor moved from the left to the right side of the fin for improved stability in flight.

• The two landing lights in the nose were replaced by a single retractable light.

In Vietnam, many Cobras were configured as “Light Scout” for reconnaissance or escort missions: under each stub wing, an M18 machine gun (1,500 rounds) and a pod of seven 70 mm Mk 4 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets. If they replaced that loadout with two 19-rocket Hydra 70 pods on each side, they were called “Heavy Hog” and could launch 76 70 mm projectiles in a single pass (fire-support mission). In late 1969, 377 Cobras were equipped with the M35 weapon subsystem: an M195 six-barrel 20 mm rotary cannon (a shortened version of the M61A1 Vulcan) fixed under the left stub wing, fed by 950 rounds stored in the fuselage and controlled either by the gunner or by the pilot. The M35 was very often paired with an M18E1 Minigun fixed under the right stub wing.

The AH-1J Sea Cobra

The Marine Corps did, however, have one major criticism of the Cobra: it was single-engine. The USMC operated it from amphibious assault ships, and the aircraft often had to fly long distances over water before reaching its target. Better, then, that it not be vulnerable to engine failure—and the best solution was two engines, so one could compensate if the other stopped. In May 1968, the USMC ordered 49 examples of a navalised version, the AH-1J Sea Cobra. Development would take time, and unable to wait, the Marines sent their AH-1Gs to Vietnam the following year. Feedback was enthusiastic. “I flew several missions [escorting CH-46s] before coming back from one of them with a bullet strike on my Cobra,” recalled a veteran. “The AH-1G was not often fired at, because the enemy had learned it wasn’t very prudent to shoot at a gunship. […] The Cobra really was a saviour for many Marines on the ground as well as for the CH-46 and CH-53 that supported them. Honestly, I don’t know what the Corps would have done without it.” In May 1971, the last USMC AH-1Gs still in Vietnam returned to North Carolina after two years of intensive use.

Meanwhile, Bell worked on the Sea Cobra. Beyond twin-engine propulsion, the USMC requested a rotor brake for deck landings and, above all, a new turret armament, judging the existing one too “light” for its missions. In 1968, Bell proposed a “heavier” version featuring a Pratt & Whitney TwinPac T400 (two 900 hp gas turbines coupled together) and a new chin turret armed with the three-barrel M197 20 mm cannon (derived from the M61 Vulcan). Minor changes were then made to integrate the new powerplant and turret (18° elevation, 50° depression, 220° azimuth), which increased the AH-1J’s weight by more than 200 kg. In addition, the stub wings now had four hardpoints for rockets, bombs, Miniguns, and so on. Between 1969 and 1970, the Sea Cobra underwent extensive USMC testing. In February 1971, the first four helicopters were sent to Da Nang and then took part in Operation “LAM Son 719” in Laos as escorts. In 1973, twenty new Sea Cobras were ordered, and the last would be delivered in 1975.

Iranian Cobras

In 1971, Bell delivered 202 AH-1J International Cobras to the Shah’s army—an export version. These helicopters differed from USMC aircraft by using a T400-WV-402 turbine (1,675 hp) and a stronger transmission. In addition, one third of them had TOW capability. But in 1979 Iran became an Islamic republic, and around a hundred aircraft were lost in the war initiated by Iraq. They nevertheless played a key role in stopping Iraqi offensives in 1988. That same year, two helicopters were destroyed by Soviet MiG-23s after violating Afghan airspace. Thereafter, Iran had only about fifty operational Cobras, largely because of the U.S. embargo on essential spare parts. To keep using a helicopter that had proven itself, Tehran began producing missing parts locally, then developed national programmes to modernise avionics and onboard systems.

The Cheyenne Trail: AH-1Q and AH-1S

In autumn 1972, after nearly six years of development, the Army cancelled its AAFSS heavy anti-tank helicopter programme. Lockheed’s AH-56 Cheyenne was too expensive, too complex, too innovative—in short, far from operational—while the Pentagon urgently needed such an aircraft. In the event of war with the USSR, stopping the “red armored tide” in the famous Fulda Gap would require supporting forward-deployed ground forces in West Germany with a dedicated anti-tank aircraft to restore a measure of balance. In the medium term, that role was intended for the AH-64 Apache, but the aircraft was not yet ready. So, for lack of anything better, the Army turned to the Cobra as an anti-tank platform. Tests showed the choice made sense: at night and/or at low altitude, the Cobra was an outstanding tank hunter. Its weak point was vulnerability to anti-aircraft fire, so it needed escort.

In March 1972, the Army asked Bell to integrate the BGM-71 TOW weapon system on the Cobra. This recent wire-guided missile had been intended for the Cheyenne. Bell modified a platform previously studied for the UH-1 and adapted it to the Cobra under the designation M65. It included a four-missile launcher pylon mounted under each stub wing—without preventing the carriage of Mk 4 rockets—and a gyrostabilised telescopic sighting unit in the nose to guide shots. Note that the pilot’s helmet also received an auxiliary laser sighting system. The result was highly satisfactory, and in 1974 the Army ordered the conversion of 101 AH-1Gs into AH-1Q “TOW Cobras” for more than $59 million. It was soon planned to bring the total number of conversions to 290, but early field feedback confirmed what tests had shown: the two pylons and eight missiles (more than 220 kg) weighed the Cobra down, making it less manoeuvrable at low altitude in tactical flight. To address this, Bell replaced the original engine with a much more powerful turbine (1,800 hp), the T53-L-703—requiring changes to the transmission as well. In total, 290 AH-1s of the G or Q types were modified into AH-1Ss. In 1976, the Pentagon ordered new overpowered Cobras, recognisable by their flatter canopy (older models had a rounded canopy) and by the shape of the nose fairing.

Variations on a Theme

After the AH-1S entered service, the “TOW Cobra” family continued to grow, with each new version improving on the previous one. The AH-1P/E/F were therefore updates—necessary in the middle of the Cold War—but they did not fundamentally revolutionise the Cobra’s offensive capabilities.

• AH-1P: between 1977 and 1978, Bell delivered 100 modernised aircraft to the Army, with a new engine, a new transmission, a composite rotor, tapered blades, and a cockpit designed for nap-of-the-earth flight.

• AH-1E: between 1978 and 1979, 98 new aircraft were delivered with a “universal” M97 chin turret for the three-barrel M197 20 mm cannon already used on Sea Cobras. This version also carried a new 70 mm rocket-launcher weapon system.

• AH-1F: from 1979, Bell converted 387 AH-1Gs and produced roughly 143 new aircraft, about fifty of them for the National Guard. They incorporated all previous improvements plus a completely new electro-optical suite and various refinements (Stinger missile capability, rotor-level wire cutter, etc.).

King Cobra, Super Cobra, Viper

The Cobra rendered good and faithful service, but the Army still regarded it as an interim solution before the operational arrival of a heavy anti-tank helicopter designed specifically for the mission. Since the Cheyenne’s cancellation, however, no other project had found favour at the Pentagon. Bell therefore proposed working on a heavier, modernised version: the Model 309 King Cobra. In September 1971, Bell built two prototypes—one single-engine and one twin-engine—combining the best of the Cobra and the Sea Cobra. Externally, it differed from the AH-1J with a “buzzard beak” nose and a ventral fin. Above all, it was 40% heavier than its predecessors and introduced welcome innovations: a large-capacity 20 mm ammunition drum, quieter rotor blades, improved night and infrared vision, helmets with integrated sighting, and more. Nevertheless, in summer 1972, the U.S. Army definitively rejected the project.

To preserve the experience gained, Bell continued working on a heavy demonstrator intended to compete with the future Apache. The Model 409 was designed to carry a 30 mm cannon and up to 16 TOW missiles, possibly laser-guided Hellfires. It was also fully armoured, and its sensors were optimised for night combat. After a crash during tests, Bell lost the competition to Hughes’s Apache in 1976—but it used its research to offer the Marines an improved Sea Cobra: the AH-1T combined the Model 309’s fuselage, engine and transmission with the Army “TOW Cobra” anti-tank capability and armour, plus new electronic terminals for flying, aiming, firing and evasive manoeuvres. The AH-1T entered USMC service progressively from October 1977. Deployed to Lebanon in 1982, it was above Grenada (West Indies) in 1983 that it truly saw combat.

That new version still did not fully satisfy the Marines, who looked to the Apache to complement their aviation fleet. “Too expensive!” Congress replied in 1981; the USMC therefore turned again to Bell for the AH-1W Super Cobra, an updated AH-1T. Eighty-five new aircraft were delivered in the early 1990s to serve as escort and all-weather fire-support platforms: air-to-ground (TOW and Hellfire) and air-to-air (Sidewinder). Night-fighting capability was massively improved through advanced sensors, electronic countermeasures and state-of-the-art radar systems. In 1996, 180 AH-1Ws were in turn converted to the AH-1Z Viper standard: third-generation thermal imaging, laser designator, automatic decoy dispenser, a “TopOwl” helmet designed by BAE Systems, and more.

Cobra’s Venom

After Vietnam, Grenada and Lebanon, the Cobra was used intensively during the First Gulf War against Iraqi tanks: 91 Sea Cobras and 140 Army aircraft destroyed hundreds of armoured targets (more than 200 for the AH-1W alone) for the loss of three helicopters (through accident or malfunction). In 2001, the Army permanently retired its Cobras; only the USMC could deploy AH-1s to Afghanistan, and then again to Iraq two years later. They proved exceptionally reliable there, and none was shot down though many were hit by heavy machine-gun fire or light anti-aircraft weapons. The USMC finally retired the AH-1W SuperCobra in October 2020, but continues to operate the AH-1Z Viper. In 2026, the U.S. Marine Corps is clearly betting on continued modernisation of the Viper by giving it the right weapons for today’s threat envelope, especially in the maritime domain : under NAVAIR’s Precision Attack Strike Munition (PASM) effort, the USMC is moving to arm the AH-1Z with L3Harris “Red Wolf” launched effects, designed to deliver kinetic or non-kinetic effects and, crucially, to push reach out to over 200 nautical miles (about 370 km), a step-change compared with traditional helicopter munitions that typically operate at much shorter ranges.

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In the aftermath of the Great War, Germany was forbidden to possess a submarine force. Yet it would work clandestinely to resurrect its U-Bootwaffe—by designing new submarine types, but above all by training a new generation of submariners. A long, methodical effort whose results would be felt as early as 1939.

From 1925 onward, Germany resumed U-boat design—covertly, because the Treaty of Versailles (1919) barred it from building and operating submarines. While engineering teams worked discreetly from abroad on plans for new boats, Korvettenkapitän Canaris ordered the creation of an organisation tasked, among other things, with gathering existing training material for future crews. At its head, Admiral Spindler devised a training programme and, from 18 to 21 May 1927 at the Flensburg-Mürwik Naval Academy, organised three three-hour lectures for 24 junior officers in training. During these sessions, would-be U-boat commanders were shown films shot aboard SM U-35 and U-139 during the First World War. Around the same time, a number of future senior engineer officers (Leitender Ingenieur, or LI) received appropriate technical training.

Rebuilding Training Structures

In autumn 1927, the German Navy considered a practical, sea-going training scheme for future submarine commanders—but it lacked the means. To circumvent Versailles, the Reichsmarine relied on Spanish contacts to quietly expand its technical know-how in submersible construction, and to train submariners in required specialities (radio, mechanics, torpedomen, etc.). Delays in Spanish shipyards, then the political fallout of the Lohmann affair1, slowed the project. It only took concrete form in early 1929, when a course was finally delivered in Kiel to 60 young junior officers. Drawing on First World War experience, the lectures taught the fundamentals of submarine warfare. At the same time, however, the dedicated training track for LIs was cancelled.

During the year, Spindler was replaced by Admiral Schottky, who tried to implement training on various simulators—among them U-Boot-Zerstörer, First World War-era anti-submarine motor launches. It was still makeshift. Only in summer 1930 did a number of active or retired officers gain meaningful practical experience by taking part in sea trials of two submarines designed for Finland—Vetehinen and Vesihiisi—from the small port of Turku. The following year, tests of the E-1 submarine (ordered but ultimately refused by Spain) were again used to train German technical cadres, still in close cooperation with naval manufacturers. Schottky expanded the submarine-warfare curriculum at the Mürwik Naval School and the Kiel Naval Academy, multiplying courses for three distinct audiences: officer cadets, staff officers, and ratings/mechanics. These “courses” remained lectures and short stages; only from 1932 onward was a genuine submariner training programme put in place.

The numbers involved were tiny. Each year, two sailors and one engineer officer were to receive an intensive 12-week course comprising 207 teaching hours and one to two hours per day on simulators. Trials of the Finnish Vesikko—technically very close to the future Type II U-boat—continued to train new German personnel in 1933–1934. In 1933, a first course for future commanders began: three months of theoretical and tactical instruction, plus additional training on the gyrocompass, target localisation by hydrophone, and so on.

That autumn, with the planned laying-down of the first two U-boats, Reichswehrminister von Blomberg ordered the creation of a submariner school at Kiel-Wik, which began work on 1st October with eight officers and 70 to 80 petty officers and sailors. To mask its true function, the establishment was called the “anti-submarine warfare school” (Unterseebootsabwehrschule, UAS) and was administratively attached to the Torpedo Inspectorate (Torpedoinspektion, TI). Theoretical instruction covered hull construction, stability, load distribution, and the use of ballast tanks, trimming tanks, and so on. Apprentice submariners received basic torpedo instruction, while officers learned to use the periscope. Mechanics followed a dedicated technical track focused on engines and propulsion.

The school had a few land-based simulators (periscope, gyrocompass, helmsman station, etc.), but even more ingenious devices existed for practical courses: elderly minesweepers had been converted into “surface submarines” by adding a closed, blind bridge—essentially a navigation/operations control room—equipped with a periscope, a submarine steering gear, and an engine installation consisting of half that of a Type II.

In anticipation of building six coastal U-boats in January 1935, a new intake was formed in October 1934. From then on, German submarine-arm manpower expanded relentlessly: 214 students in summer 1935, then 794 in October of the same year. That made it possible, from summer 1936, to man fourteen Type VII and two Type II submarines, all dedicated to training.

On 21 May 1935, with Germany’s remilitarisation now out in the open, secrecy was no longer the issue, and the UAS became the Submarine School (Unterseebootsschule, US). From 6 June 1935, all submarine matters—training excepted—were placed under Kapitän zur See Karl Dönitz, who would shape the arm into a weapon suited to modern war. He created a first combat flotilla, “Weddigen,” with U-7 to U-12, which then conducted training patrols of four to twenty days at sea. The flotilla also trained crews in torpedo firing and combat tactics.

Soon the numbers to be trained were such that Kiel-Wik’s facilities became too small. In May 1937, the US moved to a new training centre at Neustadt (Holstein), and in November the school was split in two. It retained its training flotilla (Unterseebootschulflottille) responsible for individual instruction and tactical exercises, but shed what would become an anti-submarine warfare unit (Unterseebootabwehrverband). The school doubled in size in the years leading up to war as the U-Bootwaffe increased its number of flotillas. From June 1938, seven flotillas were operational, and crews accumulated experience through more frequent sea time.

In February 1940, with the Atlantic war in full swing, the US was attached directly to the U-boat arm command (Befehlshaber der U-Boote, BdU) under Dönitz. In May it was renamed 1st Submarine School (1. Unterseebootsschule), then in June 1st U-Training Division (1. U-Lehrdivision, 1. ULD) and transferred to Pillau (Poland). Seven months later, a 2. ULD was formed at Gotenhafen, and a third at Pillau the following year. In total, four such divisions (each with a flotilla of U-boats attached) would be created before the end of the conflict—each able to accommodate up to 4,000 students at a time.

The Naval Hitler Youth (Marine-Hitlerjugend)

The year 1933, which saw Hitler become Chancellor, brought an explosion in Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend, HJ) membership, turning it into a true mass organisation with 2.3 million youths enrolled by year’s end. The HJ—already supervising 60% of German youth over the age of ten by 1935—would oversee more than 90% after 1939, with 7.3 million members. While sister structures existed for younger children, the Hitlerjugend proper concerned adolescents aged 14 to 18. After that, boys were expected to enter one of the Nazi Party’s “adult” organisations, or join the Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, RAD), then the Wehrmacht.

The HJ’s primary purpose was to provide political instruction and genuine military preparation. Highly centralised, it nonetheless diversified its activities to supply the armed forces with young people trained for specific needs: HJ-Gebirgs (climbing and skiing) prepared for the Gebirgsjäger (mountain troops), while HJ-Motor (driving and mechanics) taught car and motorcycle operation for future candidates to motorised units. In the same way, through the Marine-HJ, the Kriegsmarine offered river and maritime navigation training and allowed youths to take part in naval exercises aboard training ships.

Created as early as 1935 and led by retired Vice-Admiral Adolf von Trotha, the Marine-HJ would exceed 60,000 teenagers at its peak in 1943–1944. It was officially open to all German youths, but most members came from the northern coastal regions. They paid slightly higher dues than other HJ branches to offset the greater cost of maritime activities. The Marine-HJ helped bypass manpower limitations imposed on the German Navy by the Treaty of Versailles by giving the most capable youths basic maritime skills relevant to merchant navigation and warship service. The Marine-HJ also included two transport-focused subgroups:

• Reichsbann BS (B for Binnenschifffahrt, inland navigation) for river links;

• Reichsbann S (S for Seefahrt, maritime navigation) for open-sea transport.

In 1935, the Reich Sea Sports School (Reichsseesportschule) opened south of Berlin in a region rich in lakes and waterways. A second structure was then opened on Lake Constance. By 1943, there would be six such institutions across the country. Young people were held to higher standards there than in other HJ specialities, because chart work, celestial navigation, and seamanship require calm, lucid temperaments. A strict selection process aimed to ensure that each Marine-HJ member earned a nautical certificate and was fit for future service in the Kriegsmarine. Course content was determined by the German Navy, and until 1939, certification required participation in a Baltic naval exercise aboard the Horst Wessel, a Kriegsmarine sail training ship. The youths learned, among other things, to tie maritime knots, transmit messages by semaphore or flags, use ship fittings, and master basic navigation: compass use, coastal piloting, buoyage and its functions, navigation lights, chart reading, recognition of Kriegsmarine ranks and uniforms, and more.

A sociology of recruits

Statistical studies based on crew lists paint a striking portrait of U-boat men, especially in terms of geographical and social origins. While inhabitants of major Hanseatic ports (Kiel, Hamburg, etc.) were well represented, it was central Germany—particularly Saxony—that provided the greatest number of recruits. These men typically grew up in Protestant families of artisans or skilled workers, rarely in military households, and generally had only elementary schooling.

A sailor initially enlisted in the Kriegsmarine for four years, during which he could rise through the ranks and become a junior petty officer. The best-rated could reach senior petty officer status at the end of a further twelve-year period. This was highly theoretical: war generally accelerated promotions and turnover. After the severe losses of 1940–1941, very few submariners could boast fifteen years of service in their arm.

High unemployment in 1930s Germany swelled the number of volunteers seeking to join the Kriegsmarine, which helps explain why the U-Bootwaffe could be especially demanding in selection. Before the war, entry conditions were straightforward: German citizenship, a clean criminal record, being unmarried, aged 17 to 23, and in excellent physical condition (wearing glasses was disqualifying). In addition, “a prior work experience is sought”: former merchant seamen were valued, but so were skilled workers, engineers, and technicians specialised in metalwork. Having belonged to the Marine branch of the Hitler Youth and/or having completed the Labour Service (RAD) were major advantages.

Selection criteria were stricter still for the submarine arm. Before the war, around 13,000 men joined the Kriegsmarine each year. If one third applied to the U-Bootwaffe, only 60% were accepted. In 1939, Dönitz thus commanded crews of highly motivated professionals—true volunteers, competent and qualified. That began to change from 1941. Heavy personnel losses over the preceding two years forced the arm to enrol more and more volunteers: unskilled workers, youths with no nautical background, and so on. Yet despite the demands of submarine service, harsh living conditions, and catastrophic loss rates, there would always be candidates for the U-Bootwaffe. Regime propaganda and the carefully cultivated image of an elite arm certainly attracted the “best” in the early period, but as the war progressed motivations became far more prosaic. From 1942, many volunteered “by default” for the Freikorps Dönitz—one of the arm’s nicknames—to avoid the slaughter of the Eastern Front, not realising that U-boat loss rates were just as dreadful. The U-Bootwaffe only slightly lowered its physical standards during the war; in 1944, it still accepted only 37% of applicants. In fact, it never faced a manpower crisis thanks to three complementary solutions:

• drawing on volunteers through propaganda, as noted;

• retaining the petty officers and officers it had trained;

• increasingly pulling in personnel from other Kriegsmarine branches—sometimes against their will.

Volunteer inflows quickly became insufficient to cover losses, and the Kriegsmarine—competing with the Heer and Luftwaffe for manpower—had to turn to conscription. From mid-1941, the U-Bootwaffe thus received more and more recruits who had not asked for submarine service. Many also came from other naval branches. Sailors and officers who survived the destruction of their surface unit in combat were often transferred to submarines with no possibility of refusal. This was the case, for instance, for crews of destroyers sunk at Narvik in 1940—but they were far from the only ones. By 1945, only 36% of serving U-boat commanders had spent their entire careers in the submarine arm; the others had previously served in one or more other Kriegsmarine branches.

“As one petty officer testified, crews were made up of 80% genuine volunteers until 1942, and slightly less after that,” explains Jean Delize in Les Hommes des U-Boote2. “Those with technical specialties were the first to be assigned to the submarine arm, from spring 1940 onward, without their preferences ever being asked. […] And senior petty officers responsible for propulsion […], if they met the medical requirements, were assigned directly to U-boats. Those who had completed […] their initial enlistment and did not wish to renew it were sometimes selected and designated by their divisional chief to extend their service.”

Often, the only choice offered to a sailor retained was the type of boat he would serve on. Wolfgang Hirschfeld, future radio operator on U-109, recalled3: “I was given a choice—the only one I can remember during my service in the U-Bootwaffe: did I want to sail on a Type VII or a Type IX? Veterans urged me to pick the former: ‘My boy, choose the Type VII—they give you a better chance of survival. They dive ten seconds faster, and patrols are shorter.’ But simply because I like a bit of comfort, I chose the larger model, and when I saw the cramped conditions Type VII crews had to live in, I didn’t regret it.”

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Training—and How It Changed

A new recruit began with basic naval instruction provided by the Kriegsmarine (seamanship, communications, etc.), then continued with six months of apprenticeship at the U-boat school (technical courses, first aid, survival equipment, etc.). This period would shrink considerably as the war progressed in order to replace losses as quickly as possible. A separate six-week course was specifically designed for future cooks (one per U-boat).

Those seeking to become petty officers were selected from the ranks after two to three years of impeccable service. Their instruction lasted three to ten months, after which they joined the Friedrichsort Marineschule, which turned them into non-commissioned officers generally more competent and seasoned than officer cadets (who nonetheless outranked them). They studied theoretical navigation, underwent infantry training (deemed essential to learn obedience—and how to give orders), physical training, and above all technical instruction on diving planes, engines, and propulsion. They were expected to know their boat thoroughly.

To become officers, candidates first had to pass a particularly demanding physical aptitude test, which typically eliminated around a quarter of applicants. Valid for the entire Kriegsmarine, basic training lasted five months, followed by four months at sea aboard one of the fleet’s sailing training ships. Graduates emerged with the rank of Seekadet and then joined a surface unit for the duration of a cruise which—in peacetime—could last up to nine months. On return, future officers entered the Mürwik Naval Academy for seven months of training, at the end of which they received the rank of Fähnrich zur See (midshipman). To serve aboard a U-boat, they then had to complete a dedicated three-month course alternating one week of theory with one week of practical drills, to reach a minimum of 17 days spent at sea. Training was conducted aboard Type II school boats until mid-1943, when they were replaced by Type VIICs.

Officers received advanced training in submerged navigation. While they spent only a few hours studying the technical and mechanical aspects of their future boats, they received detailed instruction in combat tactics and torpedo firing. Depending on speciality, they also had to complete courses in meteorology, ship recognition, navigation (chartwork, celestial navigation, etc.). Engineer officers, for their part, had to pass various exams before entering a five-month technical course followed by a six-month posting to a major surface unit. Only then could they become Leutnant (Ing.).

In peacetime, future submarine commanders received tactical instruction at Mürwik, then returned to sea for a semester before becoming Oberfähnrich, a rank they held for three years, before promotion to Leutnant zur See. War profoundly altered this training, deemed too long. At Neustadt, prospective commanders trained on a simulator: a conning-tower cell fitted with a periscope, gyrocompass, firing computer, and helm. The student could view combat images through the periscope and transmit orders and firing data via the instruments. A simulated torpedo launch stopped the exercise so choices and errors could be analysed. Only after simulator training did students move on to live launches.

“Crew”?

“Crew” was the name given to officer-cadet intakes in the Imperial Navy, the Reichsmarine, the Kriegsmarine, and—today—the Federal German Navy. For example, cadets who attended officer school in 1922 were part of Crew 22. In hindsight, the most famous intake was undoubtedly Crew 31, which conducted an ocean training cruise aboard the light cruiser Karlsruhe from December 1931 onward. It included 29 officer cadets, several of whom would become U-boat aces: Heinrich Bleichrodt, Robert Gysae, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, Fritz-Julius Lemp, and Günther Prien.

An example : the case of Günther Prien

From 1929 onward, Germany faced social and economic catastrophe. A monetary crisis drove unemployment sharply upward4. Thus, just as Günther Prien earned his merchant-marine master’s licence at age 24, he found no employment. In August 1932, lacking prospects, he joined a voluntary RAD labour camp. Unlike the youths around him, he had already worked and possessed a strong sense of authority and hierarchy, which explains why he quickly became a team leader. The work mainly involved digging drainage trenches to dry marshland. The parallels with his future life as a U-boat commander are striking: considered “old” though not yet 30, he led a group of young men barely out of adolescence, all living under the same harsh conditions, far from everything. It was at this time that he learned the Reichsmarine was recruiting among merchant-marine officers—an unexpected chance to return to sea.

For several years already, the German Navy had worked quasi-clandestinely to regain manpower and power forbidden to it since 1919. In the early 1930s it had not waited to develop, in great secrecy, various classes of surface ships and submarines. To man them required well-trained crews—and thus competent officers and petty officers. The Reichsmarine had only one training ship for that purpose: the three-masted barque Niobe. On 26 July 1932, however, the sailing ship capsized off Fehmarn Island in the Baltic during a sudden squall, killing 69 cadets and instructors. The catastrophe abruptly deprived the Admiralty of both officer cadets and a ship to train new recruits—the Niobe had carried 350 cadets each year. To fill the gap without falling behind its development plan, the Reichsmarine decided to open its doors to a small number of merchant-marine officers (around fifteen, initially). This would bring in experienced men and buy time to build new training ships5.

In January 1933, Prien applied. His record was good, his physical condition strong, and he entered the German Navy on 16 January 1933 as an Offiziersanwärter (officer candidate)—officially with the rank of an ordinary seaman. He completed basic instruction, became Fähnrich zur See in March, and sailed on a training cruise aboard the light cruiser Königsberg, used for cadet instruction. In April 1935 he became Leutnant zur See, and in October he transferred to the U-Bootwaffe. For the arm, this was a period of major change: Hitler had launched massive rearmament, and the Reichsmarine became the Kriegsmarine. But for new arrivals, there was no question of joining an operational boat immediately; first came the U-boat school at Kiel-Wik. In late February, cadets finally set foot aboard a real submersible. This instruction period lasted nearly two years.

In early 1937, Prien was promoted Oberleutnant zur See and joined U-26, commanded by Werner Hartmann, as 1st watch officer—the executive officer. U-26 was one of only two Type IA boats in service, commissioned in May 1936: an ocean-going prototype (intermediate in size between Types VII and IX) used mainly for training and propaganda, since it proved poorly manoeuvrable and slow to dive. Yet the U-Bootwaffe urgently needed ocean-going designs. With the Spanish Civil War raging, it had to send several boats to protect German interests there. On 6 May 1937, U-26 sailed from Bremen for a first “Spanish” patrol on the Atlantic coast through June, followed by a second from July to August. Both provided the young officer with real “live” experience. Hartmann praised his deputy as a competent, meticulous submariner and a leader of men. In autumn 1938, Prien finally received his first—and only—command: the Type VIIB U-47. Throughout spring 1938, he trained his boat first in Kiel Bay and then in the Baltic. All his men had volunteered for the U-Bootwaffe, and their motivation quickly bonded them.

Training a crew

Once men were trained in their respective specialties and career tracks, the next step was to make them function as a single body serving a single machine: a crew that knew its boat and had internalised the necessary reflexes. As one account put it: “We had to move in the tightest space and find our way among the most varied and complex installations. We had to learn our way around. Every pipe had its specific purpose; you had to know where it came from, where it went, and what it did. We were made to crawl under steel floor plates, clean the bilges, and do all the filthiest work imaginable.”6 The goal was to acquire the speed of execution and precision of manoeuvres demanded by modern submarine warfare—without even mentioning the “tactical sense” that commanders had to master in anticipation of combat. For Karl Dönitz, such schooling was only useful if conducted under conditions close to reality, and he early on demanded that practical and tactical exercises complement theoretical instruction: “From 1 October 1935, training of the Weddigen Flotilla was carried out according to the following principles: submarines had to be able to remain at sea for long periods, in sectors as far away as possible, and in all weather conditions. […] The semester was divided into complementary phases. […] For example, each boat had to execute 66 simulated submerged attacks and the same number on the surface before beginning, in December 1935, the first phase of live firings.”7

Instructors also taught students navigation in enemy waters, emergency dives, returning to periscope depth, by day and by night. Wolfpack tactics were on the programme from 1937 onward, and crews—hardened by endless exercise cycles—absorbed numerous tactical principles: how to maintain contact, evade a convoy’s escort, operate in complete silence, when to initiate a deep dive, how to use the deck gun and flak weapons, and so on. These courses lasted a full year and, according to one commander, “the knowledge acquired in that single year of intense training—during which crews were pushed to the limits of human endurance—was the foundation […] upon which the future structure of the U-Bootwaffe was later built. […] When it became obvious that Great Britain might oppose us militarily, tactics were modified to reflect open-ocean combat conditions and the introduction of the convoy system. But the broad principles remained unchanged. The striking feature of that training year, 1935 to 1936, was that it eradicated from the minds of all commanders and their crews an inferiority complex that had likely prevailed among them until then, as well as the idea that the U-boat had been outclassed and rendered powerless as a weapon of war by recently developed anti-submarine measures.”

Training conditions were so close to combat that losses were not uncommon. Heinz Schaeffer recalled some exercises with horror: the submarine “had to undergo all sorts of new ordeals, as was customary in certain specialised formations. For example, during diving manoeuvres, certain engines were stopped and lights were cut on the instructions of naval engineers. It often happened that various manoeuvres had to be carried out in complete darkness, because it had been seen in operations that lights could go out in some cases. When the new submarine had satisfied the tests, it was designated for the training flotilla. Our boat had just successfully undergone all these trials […]. Only the final test remained: the ‘tactical’ examination, considered the most important. It lasted fifteen days and represented a harsh ordeal for the boat and the crew. Later, when I took part as a supervising officer, the flotilla undergoing the examination lost two boats out of twelve, and three others returned to base with serious damage.”

Finally, it should not be forgotten that some early-war crews already had experience in a combat zone. From September 1937 to April 1939, 15 U-boats conducted 47 so-called “neutrality” patrols in Spanish waters during the Civil War. These provided valuable experience, particularly to crews of the 7th U-Flotilla, from which several future aces would emerge, including Prien and Kretschmer. This first experience was complemented in spring and summer 1939 by a series of large-scale Atlantic exercises initiated by Dönitz.

Then, in 1939–1940, two combat-training flotillas were created at Danzig, while a tactical training school was established at Gotenhafen, not to mention various specialised instruction groups (gunnery, mechanics, etc.) scattered across other Baltic ports. A true “German Mare Nostrum” during the Second World War, the Baltic was heavily used by the Kriegsmarine to accustom recruits to the sea and train crews in waters beyond the enemy’s reach. But in early autumn 1944, the Soviet advance along the Baltic coast ended this strategic depth so vital to the U-Bootwaffe, which would gradually lose the ability to use the Baltic to train future submariners—ultimately and drastically degrading the quality of their instruction.

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There are stories we know are false - yet we love telling them as if they really happened - and true events we happily embellish to make them funnier or more thrilling. The tale of the destroyer that nearly sank USS Iowa with Roosevelt aboard is one of those: the core is real, but it has ballooned into a grotesque legend stuffed with approximations, apocryphal details, and contradictions. Let’s try to separate the true from the false, the likely from the dubious, by retracing the nonetheless extraordinary sequence of events behind this naval anecdote.

Thursday, 11 November 1943

Washington, 21:30: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt leaves the White House in a discreet ballet of cars. With him are his confidant and chief diplomatic adviser Harry L. Hopkins; Admiral William D. Leahy, chief of staff of the U.S. armed forces; Rear Admirals Wilson Brown and Ross T. McIntire, respectively FDR’s naval aide and personal physician; General Edwin M. Watson, his military aide and private secretary; and Lieutenant Commander George A. Fox of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. The presidential party is small—but for security reasons. FDR is about to cross the Atlantic to attend two successive inter-Allied conferences, and it would not do for American journalists or German spies to confirm his departure. True, the Battle of the Atlantic has largely been won, but U-boats still prowl parts of the ocean—and it would be beyond awkward if they intercepted and torpedoed the ship carrying FDR and his entourage… Accordingly, many military and political advisers and diplomats are already waiting for Roosevelt in North Africa, or will join him by other routes. The Atlantic crossing is only one leg of the journey: after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, FDR is to land at Mers el Kébir and from there fly to Tunis, then take a second flight to Cairo. He is scheduled to spend four days there to meet Generalissimo and Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek, as well as the British delegation led by Churchill, to agree on Japan’s surrender terms. Finally, he will fly on to Tehran, where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—the “Big Three”—are to discuss strategy against Germany, and in particular a possible landing in Normandy in June 1944 to relieve the Soviets by opening a Western Front.

22:38: the convoy arrives at Quantico Naval Base (Virginia), a few dozen kilometres south of Washington, and the VIPs board USS Potomac, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel converted into the presidential yacht in the 1930s. She gets under way shortly thereafter, protected only by a submarine chaser, and makes her slow way downriver. Is the President of the United States really going to cross the ocean aboard a cutter barely 50 metres long, with virtually no escort? Of course not. The Potomac is merely meant to carry her passengers to a secret rendezvous point at the confluence of the river and Chesapeake Bay, where they will transfer to a more suitable—and far better protected—ship. All of it shrouded in secrecy, because since the arrest of an eight-man German spy ring in New York in the summer of 1942 (Operation “Pastorius”), a kind of acute “spy mania” has been gripping the nation’s security services.

Friday, 12 November

03:36: USS Potomac drops anchor off Cherry Point, a short distance from the mouth of the Rappahannock River. It is pitch-black, but the watch make out—five nautical miles to the south—the dark mass of a large battleship at anchor. To cover every contingency, the U.S. Navy has not done things by halves: for the occasion it has mobilised its newest and largest ship, USS Iowa. Commissioned only in February 1943 and fresh from a brief mission off Newfoundland, she has just completed two weeks of maintenance at Norfolk Navy Yard to prepare to receive the President. Roosevelt has suffered from Guillain–Barré syndrome since 19211, an inflammatory autoimmune disease of the nervous system that left him with partial paralysis of the lower limbs. Though he sometimes appeared in public walking with braces or a cane, physically supported by an aide to conceal the deterioration of his health, in private FDR preferred to use a wheelchair. Iowa’s commanding officer, Captain John L. McCrea, gave up his own quarters to the President for the voyage, and modifications had to be made aboard the battleship. A large bathtub fitted with handrails was installed in place of the traditional shower—making the Iowa the only American warship of the period equipped in that way—and an external lift was assembled on the starboard side, between the first two twin 127 mm mounts, to allow Roosevelt access to the conning tower.

08:51: the Potomac comes alongside the Iowa to starboard and the VIP transfer is completed quickly. FDR is the last to leave the yacht, with no fanfare and no guard of honour, using a specially designed platform that sets him down on the battleship’s main deck. As the Potomac departs—tasked with giving the impression that the President is still aboard for a week of relaxation and fishing—USS Iowa gets under way and heads for Hampton Roads to take on fuel. In the previous days, to steam up the Chesapeake, the big battleship had had to pump out part of her fuel oil to reduce draught to the bay’s depth. Aboard, FDR is joined by the chiefs of the three services—General George C. Marshall (U.S. Army), Admiral Ernest J. King (U.S. Navy), and General Henry H. Arnold (USAAF)—as well as around twenty advisers and analysts. The peak of America’s military and political hierarchy is now concentrated on a single ship.

17:43: the Iowa is joined by her anti-submarine destroyer screen and anchors at Mooring B late in the afternoon. After 19:00, two tankers complete her refuelling. For security reasons, the general officers and Roosevelt are instructed not to go on deck during these operations, so they will not be noticed by the tankers’ crews.

22:30: refuelling is complete, and the Iowa must wait another hour for the high tide that will allow her to enter the Chesapeake estuary. Informed of the schedule, FDR asks Captain McCrea a favour: “You know, John, today is Friday. (…) I’m just sailor enough to share the seafaring superstition that Friday is an unlucky day. Do you think you could delay our departure until Saturday?”

Saturday, 13 November

00:01: the order is given to weigh anchor, and four minutes later USS Iowa and her three destroyer escorts begin their long transatlantic voyage. According to some sources, an incident occurred during departure: while the three Fletcher-class destroyers were still moored alongside, the middle ship—USS William D. Porter—supposedly mishandled her movement and her anchor slightly damaged one of her two sister ships (Cogswell or Young), crushing plating and a lifeboat skid, perhaps even a whaleboat. The William D. Porter would have got away with a bent anchor. But the accident—mentioned in none of the ships’ logs—may well have been invented outright. Once past Cape Henry, the Iowa settles at 25 knots so the escorts can keep station without driving their engines hard, which would have severely reduced their far more limited radius of action2 compared to the battleship’s. That is why three successive escort groups are planned over the voyage: the Cogswell, Young and William D. Porter will accompany the Iowa to Bermuda; they will then be relieved by three other destroyers to take her to the Azores; and those in turn will be replaced by a final trio of the same class for the last leg. The battleship and her escorts form Task Group 27.5 under McCrea.

05:22: the sea is rough and aboard USS Iowa one man suffers a minor injury after a fall. Since departure, radio silence is enforced between the ships so the enemy—especially U-boats—cannot locate them. Aboard the battleship, one third of the crew is constantly at action stations to react quickly in case of an encounter. While the logs mention a boiler problem aboard the William D. Porter that temporarily prevented her from holding position in formation, nearly all post-war accounts replace this mundane malfunction with a far juicier story: as sea conditions deteriorated, an explosion followed by a great geyser of water supposedly erupted astern of the convoy. The destroyers immediately began anti-submarine manoeuvres—but the suspense was short-lived. After a few minutes, the William D. Porter allegedly confessed, with disarming innocence, that one of her depth charges had shaken loose and gone over the side; it then exploded when it reached the depth to which it had been preset. No official report mentions such an event, and the authors who present it as authentic never provide a precise time. It is true that such an explosion could have compromised Task Group 27.5’s discretion—for instance by revealing its approximate position to any U-boats prowling the area. But its seriousness should not be overstated: the next day, the ships would conduct a full-scale anti-aircraft exercise without anyone raising objections on “discretion” grounds. Another version claims that not long afterward a larger-than-usual wave struck the destroyer broadside, flooding a boiler and hurling a man overboard. The unfortunate sailor could not be recovered, and the William D. Porter’s captain supposedly broke the sacred radio silence to inform USS Iowa of his problems—earning a blistering rebuke from Admiral King, famously severe. Again, it is possible, but nothing supports it—especially since King was not the officer handling Task Group 27.5 at the time; Captain McCrea was.

Sunday, 14 November

14:00: after an uneventful night and morning, Roosevelt asks for a demonstration of the battleship’s firepower and the crew’s skill. FDR began his political career as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913 and always loved the maritime world, spending long periods from 1934 onward aboard his presidential yacht to fish or quietly host political figures. McCrea therefore orders an anti-aircraft drill: weather balloons are inflated and launched from the Iowa and, once they are at a safe distance, the battleship opens a furious fire. Some balloons drift within range of the destroyers, which join in to shoot them down.

14:36: this is the moment USS William D. Porter truly enters the history books. Her captain orders the demonstration to conclude with a simulated torpedo attack against the Iowa, about 6,000 metres away on the port side. It is more than likely that the exercise is not intended to impress Roosevelt, but simply to train the destroyer’s crew. The drill is not especially “visual”: the team responsible for the torpedo tubes (two quadruple mounts, in this case) is supposed to remove the primers from the tubes, making it impossible for a torpedo to be ejected. The point is chiefly the aiming procedure. Official sources are sparing about the true sequence, but it is now generally assumed that after two successful simulated launches (with no torpedoes entering the water), a crewman either could not—or forgot to—remove the primer from the third tube, causing the torpedo to eject immediately. As the Mark 15 races at full speed toward USS Iowa, a subordinate asks Lieutenant Commander Wilfred A. Walter, the destroyer’s commanding officer: “Did you authorise that launch?” Walter stares as he spots the straight torpedo wake and stammers a denial. Panic spreads on William D. Porter’s bridge. A single torpedo was unlikely to sink the Iowa outright, but it could cripple her, inflict casualties, perhaps even kill the President observing the exercise from the main deck. Walter first orders the battleship to be warned by signal lamp3 to avoid breaking radio silence. But whether the message was wrong in the confusion or the operator mistransmitted it, aboard the battleship no one understands what the destroyer is trying to say. A second message is sent—again misunderstood. With time running out and no other option, Walter finally transmits a radio warning: “Lion, Lion, turn to starboard!” (Lion was Iowa’s code name within Task Group 27.5.) This breach of procedure surprises but does not immediately alarm the battleship; further exchanges are needed before Iowa’s bridge grasps that there is real danger. Roosevelt is present and asks for his wheelchair to be rolled up to the rail so he can watch the approaching wake. As tension rises and fearing an assassination attempt, Secret Service agents protecting him allegedly drew their revolvers—an entirely useless precaution against a torpedo 7.3 metres long and weighing 1,742 kg. Meanwhile, McCrea orders the only sensible manoeuvre: a hard emergency turn at maximum speed—port according to some authors, starboard according to others.

14:40: USS Iowa turns early enough for the danger to pass quickly. The torpedo finally detonates 3,000 metres astern of the battleship, in her wake. But the legend rolls on, and it becomes difficult to separate what happened from what was invented later: the Iowa—perhaps even the other two destroyers—supposedly trained all guns on the wretched William D. Porter, and an inquiry allegedly ordered by Admiral King supposedly led to the entire crew being arrested in Bermuda, followed by a thorough investigation of “the affair” (or the succession of affairs, if one includes the alleged departure damage, the man overboard, the accidental depth-charge explosion, the first improper radio message, and finally the torpedo launch). None of this is proven.

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Monday, 15 November

09:15: in reality, Bermuda is simply the planned destination for the three destroyer escorts, which will be relieved in Task Group 27.5 by USS Hall, McComb and Halligan for the second leg of the voyage. The William D. Porter therefore had to stop there to refuel in any case. It does appear, however, that the inquiry found Chief Torpedoman Lawton Dawson—then responsible for the No. 2 quadruple torpedo-tube mount—guilty of serious negligence, and a court-martial sentenced him to a heavy term of fourteen years’ hard labour. Informed of the case, FDR reportedly granted him clemency, since this was clearly an accident, not an attack.

The anecdote ends here. In the days that follow, the Iowa completes her crossing without incident, under heavy protection, and reaches Oran. President Roosevelt attends the Cairo Conference and then the Tehran Conference, before returning to the United States in December 1943—still aboard the famous battleship. For her part, USS William D. Porter remains in Bermuda from 16 to 23 November before returning to Norfolk to prepare for transfer to the Pacific. Wilfred A. Walter is not relieved of command—as one might have expected after such a string of blunders, which tends to suggest those blunders never occurred—and from 1944 onward the destroyer takes part in the Aleutians campaign and then in the Philippines. She earns four battle stars for bravery in combat, which again contradicts the simplistic refrain found in many articles: an inexperienced crew led by an incompetent officer. What is true, however, is that the story of the torpedo fired at the Iowa made the rounds of the U.S. Navy more than once, and the destroyer could not easily shake her image as a clumsy, badly commanded ship. Whenever she entered a port or joined a formation, other ships competed to greet her with jokes: “Don’t shoot—we’re Republicans!” they would say, a reference to FDR’s membership in the Democratic Party.

USS William D. Porter met her fate during the Battle of Okinawa when, on 10 June 1945 at 08:15, she was struck by a kamikaze and so badly damaged that, after three hours of fighting fires, the crew had to abandon ship. The destroyer sank twelve minutes later. Remarkably, there were no fatalities—a small miracle for a vessel supposedly so unlucky.

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In the 1930s, the German Navy sketched out numerous naval construction programmes, many of which would never leave the drawing board. Among them, the Type XI U-boat is a textbook example of what can happen when neither strategic concepts nor the underlying technologies have been sufficiently tested beforehand.

Germany’s defeat in 1918 imposed extremely harsh conditions. Among other things, the country had to surrender its entire submarine force, and from January 1919 onward any boats still under construction or being delivered were to be destroyed or dismantled. Article 191 of the Treaty of Versailles further stipulated that “the construction or acquisition of any kind of submarines, even for commercial purposes, shall be forbidden to Germany.” To circumvent the clause, Berlin decided in July 1922 to create a specialised design bureau, soon installed in the Netherlands. Named Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (“Engineers’ Office for Shipbuilding,” or IvS), it was in reality a front company run by the AG Vulcan and Krupp shipyards in liaison with the Reichsmarine. Its purpose was to continue developing submersibles for export by exploiting the fact that its engineers were not working in Germany but abroad. In the second half of the 1920s, IvS designed for Spain the E-1, a large double-hulled submarine of 745/965 tons, powered by 1,400 hp diesel engines, capable of 17 knots on the surface, with an endurance of 7,000 nautical miles at 10 knots.

A Long Development

In autumn 1932, Germany launched a naval rearmament programme intended to produce a genuine battle fleet by 1938. For its submarine arm, the Admiralty envisaged three types of boats: a small coastal unit derived from the Finnish Vesikko1 (the future Type II), an intermediate 500-ton torpedo boat copied from the Vetehinen (the future Type VII), and an 800-ton ocean-going submarine inheriting the E-1’s qualities.

German designers set about improving the Spanish boat’s plans: they redesigned the conning tower to reduce the silhouette, repositioned the deck gun, fitted tubes compatible with 53.3 cm torpedoes, and housed the mine load in “wet wells” arranged under the deck. The pressure hull was now fully welded, and specialists estimated a construction time of two years and a cost of 4.5 million Reichsmarks per unit. After much hesitation, it was decided in the summer to build ten of these new 800-ton boats, designated Type IA.

To save time in case war broke out, the German Navy clandestinely began major preparatory work on submarine construction: from 1933, spare parts for two Type IAs were produced and stored at Kiel, pending the order to assemble them. The two units were launched in 1936 but quickly revealed undeniable flaws: despite the weight savings produced by welding the hull, U-25 and U-26 had an excessively long dive time, were difficult to handle underwater due to chronic instability, and were plagued by mechanical problems. Disappointed by the Type IA—on which it had pinned high hopes after the E-1’s promising results—the Kriegsmarine decided to abandon further production.

At the beginning of 1934, even as the Type IA’s failure was already taking shape, the Germans accelerated the development of submarine mines that could be laid through 53.3 cm torpedo tubes. The project suffered serious delays but was finally brought to completion in the second half of the 1930s, making it possible for all U-boat models—whatever their size—to lay naval mines during patrols. Design offices then launched a programme for a heavily armed “heavy” submarine that would carry either torpedoes or mines depending on its mission. This decision came from the Admiralty, setting it against the new head of the German submarine arm, Admiral Dönitz, who argued that the U-boat force did not need a large minelaying submarine but rather a long-range attack boat able to carry many torpedoes: “Despite my objections, the High Command thought it better to build very large submarines—cruisers of about 2,000 tons—with very long range, carrying a large number of torpedoes and, above all, capable of fighting on the surface with guns. They were to have priority in the construction programme.”

This large-displacement U-Kreuzer was an ocean-going minelayer project known as Type III, developed from the Type IA plans to save time—though extensive improvements were intended. The specification required a major increase in torpedo/mine capacity and in endurance. The Kriegsmarine therefore contemplated lengthening the Type IA by 7.5 m to add a storage compartment for thirty TMA moored mines—or 45 TMB mines (in addition to those that could replace torpedoes in the forward and aft tubes)—between the stern compartment and the electric-motor room. In total, the Type III was expected to carry up to 54 TMAs, or 75 TMBs, if it carried no torpedoes. It would have been about 80 m long and displaced 880 tons surfaced, but would have approached 1,000 tons once fully provisioned for a long patrol.

By late June 1934 the project was on track—but only briefly. By the end of 1935, the Type IA’s shortcomings finally led the German naval staff to abandon the programme because of the design difficulties—and therefore the cost and time it would have required. The Type III would never be built, even though the Kriegsmarine would desperately revive the idea in 1945, considering displacement figures of 1,500 or 2,000 tons—partly because a watertight hangar large enough for two small motor torpedo boats (12.5 m long and 10 tons each) was now envisaged aft of the conning tower. Germany’s surrender would end this oversized project.

Technical Data - Type III (1935)

Displacement (surfaced/submerged): 880 t / 970 t

Length: 79.9 m

Beam: 6.20 m

Draught: 4.35 m

Propulsion (surfaced/submerged): 2 MAN diesel engines / 2 electric motors

Power (surfaced/submerged): 3,080 hp / 1,000 hp

Speed (surfaced/submerged): 18.5 / 9 knots

Endurance (surfaced/submerged): 12,000 nautical miles at 10 knots / ?

Maximum diving depth: 200 m

Fuel carried: 100 t

Armament: 6 torpedo tubes (4 forward, 2 aft); 14 torpedoes; up to 54 TMA mines or 75 TMB mines (in place of torpedoes); 2 × 10.5 cm deck guns; 1 × 2 cm flak gun

The cancellation of the Type III left the submarine-mine projects without a dedicated platform—even as their development continued. Thus, in early 1937, the Germans were working on the Sonder-Mine A (SMA), a 1,600 kg moored mine (including 350 kg of explosive) with magnetic firing. The Kriegsmarine then examined the feasibility of a new large minelaying submarine suited to the SMA. This became the Type X, for which two versions with mine shafts were developed (Types XA and XB) in 1937–1938. Both boats had excellent endurance and carried a substantial mine load, but were under-armed in torpedoes and artillery—making them unsuitable for commerce raiding.

The Kriegsmarine therefore decided to develop a “complementary” ocean-going submarine: an U-Boot-Kreuzer operating alone in distant waters, capable of attacking enemy shipping with gunfire—its firepower intended to match that of an auxiliary cruiser—and then disappearing underwater to evade pursuit.

This type of project was not entirely new. In the interwar period, many major naval powers studied the combination of heavy guns and submarines. The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty was notably vague about the calibre of submarine deck guns, which, on paper, made it possible to arm submarines with 203 mm guns like cruisers. For countries with colonial empires or distant possessions, the goal was to design a true “submarine cruiser,” relatively versatile and autonomous, with very long range. Britain had begun building three submarines armed with a single 305 mm gun in 1916 (the M class), followed by the large experimental X1 with four 132 mm guns in two twin turrets. France, for its part, designed the Surcouf in the late 1920s. With her twin 203 mm turret, a trainable triple torpedo mount, and a hangar for a Besson MB411 reconnaissance seaplane, she was then the heaviest submarine in service anywhere in the world.

In German planners’ view, their U-Kreuzer would be sent into the least monitored enemy waters—those around the most distant colonies—particularly along African and American coasts, but also into the White Sea (against the USSR), along the Norwegian coast, in the western Mediterranean, and so on, to rack up victories and sow disorder in maritime traffic and the metropolitan supply chain. To conduct such missions, the boat required artillery powerful enough to engage an auxiliary cruiser at 10,000 m. That in turn demanded guns that could be brought into action and ready to open fire as soon as the submarine broke the surface.

Engineers hesitated: four 15 cm guns or five 12.7 cm guns? In any case, anti-aircraft protection was to be provided by two 3.7 cm guns. The submarine would also carry four torpedo tubes, with a substantial load of torpedoes and mines. The Navy required tropicalisation and long-range radio equipment. The project was launched in summer 1937 and received the name Typ XI. The german navy then refined its requirements: the deck armament would consist of four 15 cm guns in two non-watertight twin turrets. These turrets could be installed either both forward, or on either side of the conning tower, but in all cases had to retain maximum traverse.

From 7 July 1937 onward, international diplomacy affected the project: Germany had just ratified a naval agreement with the United Kingdom requiring that submarines thereafter either displace no more than 2,000 tons or be armed with guns no larger than 13 cm in calibre. Engineers therefore changed tack, proposing an armament of four to six 12.7 cm guns distributed among several turrets (for example, two triple turrets). But placing that many guns on a submarine’s deck was only part of the equation. The design offices faced major problems in fire control, stabilising the platform while firing, feeding ammunition to the guns, and so forth. If each gun had to fire ten rounds per minute, then 250 shells per barrel had to be carried and stowed inside the hull in a way that did not compromise overall stability—while still allowing rapid delivery to the deck when needed. And that was before counting the 4,000 rounds for the flak weapons.

Another challenge was protecting the conning tower. On U-boat designs of the period, the conning tower was largely a light outer casing enclosing a smaller access trunk, generally armoured against bullets and small-calibre shells. Given the Type XI’s offensive mission set, however, the Germans considered it necessary to armour their conning tower against direct hits from 13 cm guns and to protect the upper part of the pressure hull against splinters.

Engineers used the ocean-going Type IX U-boat as their starting point, but introduced numerous changes. They judged that the pressure hull had to be strengthened: it would be built from 21.5 mm plating, whereas Types VII and IX used 18.5 mm plates. They then redesigned and enlarged the aft section of the pressure hull: space was created by cutting and welding two cylindrical hull sections into a “figure eight” shape to install eight powerful diesel engines. To balance this major aft weight, the electric batteries (248 cells) were installed under the floor of the forward compartment.

The Type XI’s underwater armament matched that of the Type IX, but because it lacked external watertight containers, its carried torpedoes were limited to twelve. Where the new design truly differed was its artillery: it ultimately featured two twin 12.7 cm turrets linked to an armoured director and fire-control dome, topped by a rotating rangefinder protruding slightly above the conning tower. All three positions were accessible only from inside the boat. Anti-aircraft defence (Flak) was assigned to two single 3.7 cm mounts placed just aft of the conning tower, and one 2 cm flak gun mounted atop it.

The Type IX conning tower was also heavily modified: it became tall and spacious enough to house two levels opening into the control room. The lower level served as the submarine commander’s cabin; the upper level was a surface watch platform, semi-open or enclosed depending on the variant. To ease movement for flak crews, the bridge was fitted with two access hatches and pierced by four periscopes: the standard attack and observation scopes found on any U-boat of the period, plus two dedicated to the boat’s artillery.

One drawback of the Type XI as designed was its large “air draught”—the height of the structures above the water when surfaced—making it visually conspicuous. Several months earlier, however, chief engineer Hans Vogel had imagined a system of buoyancy reserves distributed in the lower part of the hull (so that these ballast spaces would not be pierced by gunfire or explosions), allowing the submarine to hold station easily in a half-submerged condition, with the pressure hull remaining 1 m below the surface. The concept promised two advantages: the silhouette would be less conspicuous (only the conning tower and turrets would be visible), and the pressure hull would also be protected from enemy fire by a “water cushion” that would drastically reduce the velocity of incoming projectiles.

Technical Data - Type XI U-Boat Cruiser

Displacement (surfaced/submerged): 3,140 t / 3,930 t

Length: 115 m

Beam: 9.5 m

Draught: 6.2 m

Propulsion (surfaced/submerged): 8 MWM diesel engines / 2 electric motors

Power (surfaced/submerged): 17,600 hp / 2,200 hp

Fuel capacity: 500 t

Speed (surfaced/submerged): 23 / 7 knots

Endurance (surfaced/submerged): 15,800 nautical miles at 12 knots / 50 nautical miles at 4 knots

Armament: 6 torpedo tubes (4 forward, 2 aft); 12 torpedoes; 2 twin 12.7 cm gun turrets; 2 single 3.7 cm mounts; 1 × 2 cm flak gun; 1 Arado Ar 231 seaplane

Complement: 110 officers and ratings

The Arado Ar 231 Seaplane

As early as 1915, the Germans had experimented with operating seaplanes from their U-Kreuzer. The idea was to give submarines dramatically expanded scouting range, enabling them to intercept convoys or enemy squadrons with certainty. After the First World War, and once the submarines handed over as reparations had been received, several other major powers launched similar studies with mixed results: Britain converted HMS M2 into an experimental seaplane carrier (with a watertight hangar), but the vessel vanished at sea in 1932. In France, the Surcouf was never quite satisfactory, and the concept was largely dropped after her2. Throughout the 1930s, the Japanese commissioned around ten seaplane-carrying submarines whose missions during the Second World War drifted away from those usually associated with “submarine cruisers”: the objective was soon less about detecting enemy dispositions and more about serving as forward bases for two or three seaplanes tasked with bombing and harassment missions against the enemy fleet. That doctrine culminated in 1942 with the I-13 (AM class) and I-400 types.

It was within this conceptual lineage that the Kriegsmarine required its future Type XI to carry a seaplane intended to provide aerial reconnaissance, detecting targets—and predators—at long range. The difficulty was to design an aircraft small enough that stowage aboard would not compromise the submarine’s handling, while still allowing rapid, simple launch and recovery. Where other nations had favoured adding a bulky deck hangar, the Germans chose an innovative solution: their single-seat seaplane would be stored in disassembled form inside a watertight cylindrical container 2.25 m in diameter and 7.5 m long, positioned vertically inside the hull between the conning tower and the forward turret.

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This arrangement had several key advantages: it did not disrupt water flow while submerged, it preserved adequate stability on the surface (a deck hangar would have raised the centre of gravity), and it did not require major changes to the external layout, since only a large hatch had to be cut into the centre of the hull for the container’s opening. The solution, however, demanded a light aircraft that was easy to handle. The specification required assembly and disassembly in two minutes, and total launch-or-recovery time of no more than six minutes—because a submarine, necessarily stationary on the surface during these evolutions, was extremely vulnerable.

Arado proposed the Ar 231: an all-metal parasol-wing monoplane whose twin floats folded alongside the fuselage while the wing panels folded over the fuselage, one above the other with a slight vertical offset. The aircraft was unarmed, and its parts had to be assembled manually before being lowered into the water using a demountable crane positioned to starboard of the conning tower. On paper, the Ar 231 met the Navy’s requirements, but trials conducted in 1941 with six prototypes showed that the seaplane would in reality have been of very limited use to the Type XI. Underpowered and too fragile, it could not remain airborne with winds above 20 knots, and in fresh winds (3–4 m seas) it was impossible to recover the seaplane without it colliding with the submarine. This explains why it was abandoned in early 1942 in favour of the Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Bachstelze autogyro for the Type IXD2 U-boat.

Technical Data - Arado Ar 231

Length: 7.81 m

Wingspan: 10.18 m

Height: 3.12 m

Weight (empty / take-off): 833 kg / 1,050 kg

Powerplant: 1 inverted inline 6-cylinder air-cooled Hirth HM 501; 1 fixed-pitch two-bladed propeller

Power: 160 hp

Ceiling: 3,000 m

Max speed: 170 km/h

Range: 500 km

Endurance: 4 hours

Complement: 1 pilot

The End of the Programme

In September 1937, the Kriegsmarine approved launching Type XI production from October 1938, with delivery planned for October 1940. It quickly became clear, however, that this class of U-boats was complex and expensive to build—and therefore could only be produced in small numbers if Germany did not want to clog its shipyards and delay the entry into service of Type VII and IX attack submarines, which Dönitz had made a priority. The third version of Plan Z therefore envisaged building only seven Type XI U-boats deliverable by late 1943, rising to a total of nine units by late 1945. Production was assigned to Weser AG (Deschimag) at Bremen and divided into three blocks. The first four examples were officially ordered in January 1939 and designated U-112 to U-115. In May, it was decided that all Type XIs would eventually join the 20th U-flotilla, a formation not yet in existence, which would be based at Wilhelmshaven.

When war broke out in September 1939, the U-boat arm revised its construction programme to meet its most urgent needs as quickly as possible. The Type XI was now far from a priority, and Dönitz doubted the model’s capabilities: in a letter to the High Command, he judged that “opportunities to use its artillery are more than uncertain.” He suggested stripping the boat of its turrets to give it higher speed and greater endurance, allowing it to serve as a “long-range U-boat” to locate enemy convoys in the Atlantic and escort German surface squadrons. With this challenge, the entire U-Kreuzer concept took a blow. The submarine cruiser was simply not suited to the Battle of the Atlantic that was now beginning; Dönitz primarily needed torpedo attack submarines that could be mass-produced. Accordingly, the Type XI programme was cancelled in autumn 1939—and it would never resurface.

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To shepherd the transport convoys bound for Murmansk, the Royal Navy deployed escorts in the freezing Arctic Ocean—armed trawlers, destroyers, and also light cruisers, because only the latter could effectively stand up to German destroyers. In waters lashed by constant storms and closely watched by the Kriegsmarine, clashes were rare, usually brief, and never ended as hoped.

If the origins of the County-class cruisers lay in the constraints of the Washington Naval Treaty, those of the Fiji class were directly linked to the Second London Naval Treaty of 1937. That agreement imposed a maximum displacement of 8,000 tons for cruisers, forcing the Royal Navy to halt production of the Southampton series (Town class) and design a new class of light cruisers soon known as the Crown Colony class. In reality, their plans were simplified derivatives of the Southamptons: they retained the triple 6-inch (152.4 mm) turret (twelve guns in four turrets) on a smaller hull—very similar in outline, though with a distinctive transom stern. To remain within the 8,000-ton limit, the designers opted for extensive welding and a sharp reduction in armour, both vertical and horizontal. The secondary battery was limited to four twin 4-inch (101.6 mm) mountings.

Torpedo tubes and rapid-fire quadruple 40 mm “pom-pom” mountings were only installed once war had begun, when Britain decided it would no longer abide by the treaty clauses. This hurried addition was not ideal: the fire-control system was not modified, and the after main turrets were not slaved to any dedicated director. HMS Trinidad was one of five ships ordered in December 1937; six more would follow in 1939. The first eight units of the Crown Colony class (eleven ships in all) formed the Fiji group (named after the first cruiser commissioned), while the last three belonged to the Ceylon group1.

They call me Trinidad

HMS Trinidad’s operational life was brief—seven months of active service—but exceptionally eventful. It began on 1 December 1937, when London placed a contract for a light cruiser with HM Dockyard at Devonport. She was the first Crown Colony-class ship ordered from a Royal Dockyard, though she was quickly followed by four more vessels, each built by a different yard, all named after British Crown Colonies.

Laid down the following April, Trinidad would be the last of this first batch to be commissioned, in October 1941. Why the delay? Because the cruiser took a bomb on her quarterdeck during a Luftwaffe raid on the Plymouth dockyard in April 1941, damage severe enough to require transfer to Rosyth for repairs. That extra time in dock allowed technicians to fit two new radars: one for main- and secondary-battery fire control, the other for air warning.

The addition of “pom-poms” and torpedo tubes naturally pushed the ship well beyond the treaty displacement, and Trinidad’s fighting displacement rose to around 10,000 tons. Her speed does not seem to have suffered, but her stability—already delicate—became problematic: so much weaponry and equipment was packed onto such a compact hull that the superstructure was dangerously top-heavy. Several Fiji-class captains faced the same issue and typically mitigated it by keeping fuel tanks full as ballast, or even landing an anti-aircraft gun or other instruments deemed non-essential.

After a month’s work-up with the 10th Cruiser Squadron, the Trinidad and her crew were assigned in January 1942 to escort Murmansk convoys. In the Arctic winter—the ideal season for slipping merchantmen to the USSR as discreetly as possible—conditions were brutal for sailors, but Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine units had a far lower chance of intercepting them.

The first convoy of 1942, PQ-8, was to bring eight heavily laden freighters into the Barents Sea. The Trinidad covered them with two destroyers. Sailing from Iceland, the escorts joined the convoy on the 11th; the passage was uneventful until the 16th, when one freighter was damaged by a U-boat torpedo. The next day, one of the destroyers, HMS Matabele, fell victim to the U-454 just a few miles from Murmansk. Mortally torpedoed, she went down with almost her entire crew—only two survived. The cruiser could do nothing and reached the Soviet base safely the same day.

A week later the Trinidad sailed again to escort the return convoy, QP-6, which arrived without notable incident in early February. She then returned to Greenock, and on the 11th put to sea for the waters between the Faroes and Iceland, ordered to deter any breakout attempt by German raiders into the North Atlantic. At month’s end, she escorted a group of minelayers; in early March, she cruised off Jan Mayen with HMS Liverpool to search for the Tirpitz during a sortie. The search found nothing, but did allow a temporary reinforcement of convoy QP-8, which had lost a merchantman. Finally, from 11 to 13 March, she was once more deployed to the Arctic with several destroyers to hunt the Tirpitz, reported north of Trondheim after her aborted sortie—Operation “Sportpalast”—against PQ-12 and QP-8.

In short, up to this point the Trinidad had lived the typical, not especially rewarding operational routine of a Royal Navy light cruiser in early 1942: a steady tempo of convoy escort and area patrols, with little or no action—understandably, since German forces in the Arctic were still thin on the ground. It took March and the failure of “Sportpalast” for the German posture to change. And it would not remain quiet for long…

HMS Trinidad — Technical Data

Crown Colony (Fiji group) light cruiser

Laid down: 21 April 1938

Launched: 21 March 1940

Commissioned: 14 October 1941

Lost: 15 May 1942

Standard Displacement : 8,666 t

Full load Displacement : 10,617 t

Overall length: 169.31 m

Beam (waterline): 18.90 m

Draught: 6.04 m

Machinery: 4 Admiralty boilers; 4 Parsons turbines

Output: 72,500 shp

Max fuel oil: 1,700 t

Speed: 32.25 knots

Range: 6,520 nautical miles at 13 knots

Armament: 4 triple 152.4 mm turrets; 4 twin 101.6 mm mountings; 2 quadruple 40 mm “pom-pom” mountings; 2 single 20 mm Oerlikons; 2 triple 533 mm torpedo-tube mountings

Aviation: 1 catapult; 2 Supermarine Walrus seaplanes

Complement: 733 officers and sailors

Convoy PQ-13

From January 1942 onward, the Kriegsmarine gradually concentrated in Norway two destroyer flotillas, motor torpedo boats, the battleships Tirpitz, Scheer and Lützow, and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. In addition, twenty U-boats were assigned to the “north Scotland–Iceland” patrol area, with the March mission of halting Allied imports to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. Hitler also demanded that Göring provide long-range reconnaissance aircraft, dive-bombers, and torpedo bombers. The latter would take time to arrive, and it was only at the end of May that Luftflotte 5’s concentration in the region was complete.

This strategic shift, under way from March, boded ill for the Arctic convoys—especially as their tempo had been accelerated at Soviet request. Between 21 March and 21 May, no fewer than eight convoys, totalling 163 merchant ships, were due to make the passage.

Knowing the German order of battle in the area, the Royal Navy planned heavy protection for the first of these convoys, PQ-13. Its nineteen merchantmen would be guarded by a close escort of one destroyer, two armed trawlers, and three minesweepers. At distance, a Home Fleet force under Vice-Admiral Curteis would cover the operation with two battleships, a battlecruiser, an aircraft carrier, two cruisers, and an eleven-destroyer screen—primarily to fall upon the Tirpitz should she attempt to intercept PQ-13. Between PQ-13 and Curteis’s force, a closer support group would also cruise, able to reinforce the convoy rapidly in case of attack by lighter German units. To accompany the destroyers HMS Fury and Eclipse in that role, the Admiralty assigned HMS Trinidad.

PQ-13 sailed from Reykjavik on 20 March and was joined three days later by its support force, which had departed from Seydisfjordur in Iceland. PQ-13 was expected to cross paths in the Barents Sea with QP-9, which had left Murmansk on the 21st with nineteen empty freighters. From the 23rd onward, QP-9 was battered by a violent storm—one major reason why none of the U-boat attacks encountered en route succeeded.

PQ-13 enjoyed four days of clear weather before becoming the plaything of atrocious conditions. “The waves rose like enormous mountains of water, 20 to 25 metres high,” recalled Ronald Adds, one of Fury’s sailors. “Then there was the cold. Freezing spray turned to ice as soon as it hit the superstructure, decks, and guardrails. […] At times there was so much ice—up to 7.5 cm thick in places—that there was a danger of capsizing.”

That was exactly the fate of the Sulla, one of the minesweepers, which vanished suddenly with all hands on 24 March halfway between Jan Mayen and the Norwegian coast. The gale was so fierce that in three days it scattered the convoy over 150 nautical miles. Curteis’s heavy units fought so hard to stay within reach of PQ-13 that they were now short of fuel—yet unable to refuel at sea. They had to return to Iceland to bunker on the 27th, leaving the convoy’s protection to the smaller escorts and to the cruisers Nigeria and Trinidad, which tried as best they could to gather the stragglers south-west of Bear Island.

It was in this sector that a German reconnaissance aircraft from 2./KüFlGr 406 finally sighted several ships and alerted Marine-Gruppenkommando Nord2. Orders were immediately issued to the six U-boats of the “Ziethen” wolfpack (one of which had in fact just been destroyed by QP-9) to form a barrier line off the North Cape. The next morning, the submarines maintained contact, and KG 30 dispatched Junkers Ju 88s. The weather had improved, and the aircraft quickly found several ships; during the afternoon they sank two and damaged a third.

At around 10:00 on 28 March, a Blohm & Voss BV 138 flying boat sighted the Trinidad and transmitted her position to bombers taking off from Banak (Finland). The cruiser came under attack two hours later and had to repel several air strikes through the afternoon, finally slipping away under cover of a snow squall. The situation for the scattered escorts was chaotic, all the more so as the weather deteriorated again…

When “the Arctic admiral” Hubert Schmundt received confirmation on the morning of the 28th that a convoy was entering the Barents Sea in scattered order, his first thought was to order the Tirpitz and the available heavy cruisers to put to sea. But he quickly faced reality: based at Trondheim, they were roughly 850 nautical miles from PQ-13 and would arrive too late and/or short of fuel.

Unwilling to let such an opportunity pass, he instead ordered the Zerstörer-Gruppe Arktis—the 8th Destroyer Flotilla (Kapitän zur See Pönitz), based at Kirkenes, only 60 nautical miles west of Kola Bay—to sail. It was the best option: these modern, powerful Type 1936A destroyers should be able to intercept the merchantmen easily, and they were strong enough to defeat armed trawlers, minesweepers, and British destroyers—and even the Trinidad herself if they attacked in force, with their five 15 cm guns.

The Zerstörer Attack

16:00: Operation “Cerberus” was launched on the afternoon of 28 March. The destroyers Z-24, Z-25, and Z-26 weighed anchor. Pönitz embarked in the Z-26, commanded by Ritter von Berger, and headed north at high speed. With neither radar nor regularly updated enemy positions, the three destroyers formed a line to sweep a three-mile front—a meagre width explained by atrocious visibility as night fell.

22:45: The Germans came upon the lifeboats of the Empire Ranger, one of the freighters sunk that morning. They rescued 61 survivors who were taken aboard the Z-24.

00:00: Shortly after midnight, the Z-26 sighted an isolated freighter, the Bateau, and sent her to the bottom with two torpedoes. Thirty-seven men died; seven survivors were picked up by the Z-25.

06:45: On the morning of the 29th, after a U-boat had reported a few hours earlier that it had sighted eight heavily escorted merchant ships, the Trinidad was 80 nautical miles farther east with the destroyer Fury, trying to round up four additional stragglers. She was making 20 knots due east—straight into a snow squall that happened to conceal the three German destroyers approaching from the opposite direction at 17 knots.

08:43: Trinidad’s radar operator detected three ships closing rapidly, still 6.5 nautical miles away. Captain Saunders was not especially surprised: during the night, the naval intelligence officer in Murmansk had radioed that a Soviet submarine had seen three destroyers heading toward the convoy. Saunders sounded action stations and alerted the Fury.

08:49: Still in line ahead, the German destroyers emerged innocently from the murk in front of the British. The Trinidad turned to starboard to bring her guns to bear and opened well-aimed fire on the Z-26 in the centre of the formation, now about 2,500 metres away. A 6-inch salvo struck the Zerstörer abaft her funnel. Fires broke out on the superstructure. Von Berger replied quickly: two 15 cm shells hit the cruiser just under Y turret, above the waterline. But the Z-26, badly damaged, could not endure the incoming fire; von Berger turned hard to starboard and fled into the first snow squall available. HMS Trinidad shifted fire to the Z-24, but both German destroyers soon followed their leader into the pea soup fog, not before launching a fan of seven torpedoes to cover their withdrawal. To avoid them, the cruiser turned to starboard and lost contact. Following in her wake, HMS Fury had not taken part in the brief fight. The Trinidad had shipped some water but nothing irreversible, and Saunders set off in pursuit of the German destroyers—entering an area of heavy storm. With the Z-24 and Z-25 fleeing at full power, the British cruiser chose instead to concentrate on the Z-26: farther away but slower, because of her damage.

09:22: Tracked by radar and struggling with serious fires, the destroyer was caught within thirty minutes. Visual contact was confirmed at two nautical miles, and the Trinidad opened fire after taking station to starboard of her target. With all guns bearing—especially the port-side 4-inch mountings, very effective at that range—the cruiser hammered the Z-26 with repeated salvos. The Zerstörer tried to evade by zigzagging, but in vain: within minutes her three after guns were destroyed and her bridge shattered. She ceased replying to Trinidad’s fire. The cruiser closed to less than 1,500 metres and followed a parallel course to administer the coup de grâce with torpedoes. The port triple mount was brought to bear, but ice had jammed the mechanisms; when the firing order was given, only one torpedo left its tube. Unfortunately, it would have been better had it remained frozen in place: after running less than 200 metres submerged, it broached and—before the horrified eyes of the crew—described a sharp arc back toward its launcher like a boomerang. Unflappable to the end, Saunders, who had followed its track through binoculars, turned to his executive officer: “You know, it looks remarkably like one of ours.” HMS Trinidad could do nothing. The torpedo struck amidships. The explosion tore a 12 by 6 metre hole in the hull, destroyed the forward boiler rooms, and killed 32 men. The cruiser—apparently the first in history to be struck by one of her own torpedoes—took a heavy port list (17 degrees), and her speed fell to 8 knots. Saunders broke off the action at once, allowing the destroyer to vanish into the mist.

10:00: The fight had brought the cruiser closer to the main body of what remained of PQ-13. While HMS Eclipse went after the Z-263, the Trinidad, under Fury’s protection, rejoined the other escorts at low speed. The crew worked frantically on essential repairs. Saunders soon headed for Kola Bay. The list was reduced, but speed did not exceed 14 knots before dropping to 2 knots when seawater entered the boilers. It was only at 12:30 on 30 March that the ship reached Murmansk.

A Russian Interlude

HMS Trinidad would remain immobilised for a full month, in a Soviet port subjected daily to Luftwaffe bombing. For the crew, rest was limited—especially as the cruiser had to be made seaworthy. The fact that the explosion had indeed been caused by one of her own torpedoes was confirmed when the detonator was found near one of the boilers…

Soviet resources were insufficient for major dockyard work, and Saunders had to order steel plates from the United Kingdom to patch his ship’s hull. As early as 8 April, the cruiser Edinburgh left Scapa Flow to escort PQ-14 with the necessary material, delivered on the 19th. In the meantime, the bodies of the 32 men killed were committed to the sea by the minesweeper HMS Niger, to the sound of two bugles playing The Last Post. Emergency repairs lasted until 2 May—when the crew learned of Edinburgh’s loss only a few dozen miles from Murmansk. The Germans had at last avenged the Z-264.

Until 13 May, Saunders prepared for the return voyage intended to take the cruiser back to Scapa Flow for proper repairs. The passage could only be made at reduced speed: Murmansk dockyard workers had performed near miracles by bolting the steel plates to lengths of railway track used as bracing, but only two of the four boilers were operational. Rear-Admiral Bonham-Carter, commanding the 18th Cruiser Squadron, hoisted his flag in the Trinidad and embarked several dozen survivors from the Edinburgh.

Trinidad Is Still My Name

The cruiser sailed on 13 May with four destroyers—HMS Foresight, Forester, Somali and Matchless. The lesson of HMS Edinburgh—which had attempted to run alone for discretion—had clearly been learned. Nevertheless, the small force had limitations: several escorts had taken damage in recent days, and the Trinidad could not make more than 20 knots. They were meant to rendezvous with a covering force (four cruisers) west of Bear Island, then with a Home Fleet force screened by thirteen destroyers. The Soviets also promised air cover over the first 200 nautical miles.

From the 14th onward, while the Trinidad was still only 100 nautical miles from the coast, two reconnaissance aircraft were seen in the distance. The absence of Soviet aircraft was obvious. An hour later, two U-boats were sighted: one to the north-west, between the force and the pack ice; the other shadowing the British ships. Neither took risks; they were there only to maintain contact and wait for the Luftwaffe to strike.

It did not take long. Very quickly the ships came under incessant attacks by formations approaching from every direction. The torpedo bombers of I./KG 26 failed to score a hit, but in a dive-bombing attack—helped by the sheer number of assailants—one Ju 88 from III./KG 30 managed to place at least one bomb near the cruiser. The bomb(s) detonated close to the section of hull weakened by the earlier torpedo damage, and major fires broke out at once. The situation deteriorated so fast that Bonham-Carter ordered abandonment. HMS Foresight and Matchless came alongside to embark first the Edinburgh survivors, then Trinidad’s crew. The Matchless was then ordered to administer the coup de grâce. She fired two torpedoes into the burning wreck, which soon disappeared bow-first into the icy waters off the North Cape. HMS Trinidad ceased to exist.

The fatal raid killed 63 sailors, including 20 from the Edinburgh. Rear-Admiral Bonham-Carter, for his part, saw the cruiser’s destruction as the continuation of a grim run: as an escort commander, this was the fifth ship he had lost. In May 1942, the Royal Navy had lost two light cruisers in the same waters—proof, if any were needed, that in the Arctic Ocean the situation was worsening. The ordeal of convoys PQ-16 and PQ-17 would make that painfully clear in June and July.

On the same subject, we recommend :

• an oral compilation entitled ‘Great Naval Battles of the Second World War-The Story of HMS Trinidad’;

• the oral testimony of one of the sailors from the Trinidad.

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At sea, some decisions leave no room for forgiveness. When a destroyer squadron commander orders his ships to make 20 knots in thick fog while hugging the coast, a simple miscalculation can lead to disaster. But when human and technical errors pile up, catastrophe is no longer merely possible—it becomes inevitable.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures…
—William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Act IV, Scene 3)

Along the California coast, summer was slowly giving way to autumn. Aboard the warships anchored in San Francisco Bay, many sailors welcomed the change: the previous three months had been a relentless cycle of sea time, and the coming bad season promised rest. The formations of the U.S. Battle Fleet1 had not been idle—especially Destroyer Squadron 11 (DESRON 11), one of its two destroyer squadrons. From February to April, the group’s 19 ships took part in the U.S. Navy’s first Fleet Problem, a large-scale air–sea wargame conducted off Panama. They then carried out torpedo exercises off San Diego, before escorting Battle Division 4 to Seattle in late June. In early September, the destroyers covered roughly half the return trip toward San Diego— their home port—and called at San Francisco.

DESRON 11 consisted of recent destroyers, commissioned between 1918 and 1920 and belonging to the Clemson class, designed for anti-submarine warfare. Recognisable by their four funnels, these ships—95.8 m (about 314 ft) long and displacing around 1,300 t (about 1,280 long tons / 1,430 short tons) in fighting trim—were in practice employed mainly as fleet escorts thanks to a high top speed (32, even 35 knots). Unfortunately, crews rarely had the chance to push the machinery that hard: budget constraints required commanders to economise on fuel, and thus to steam at reduced speeds—around 15 knots for direct transits between ports, for example.

Since July 1922, the squadron had been commanded by Captain Edward H. Watson, an experienced officer of nearly fifty, a veteran of the Spanish–American War and the Great War, and a recipient of the Navy Cross. He had already commanded many ships (a repair ship, two battleships, and a gunboat), but his July 1922 appointment to DESRON 11 brought a new responsibility: commanding an entire flotilla. Yet the squadron was both new and undermanned, with budget constraints directly affecting crew complements. A Clemson-class destroyer could theoretically carry up to 131 officers and men, but in September DESRON 11 was short by nearly a third. USS Delphy, on which Watson flew his broad pennant, began the year with only about half its authorised crew. In short, over recent months the commander’s main task had been to train his men and turn the squadron into an effective unit—no easy matter. During the summer, one of his ships had collided with another unit of the Battle Fleet, an accident that always casts a poor light on the rest of the group—and on its commander.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

On the afternoon of 7 September, Watson convened his commanding officers. The final leg down to San Diego was on the agenda, and he wanted to use the cruise to build his flotilla’s experience. The destroyers would have to follow the California coast to Point Conception, then alter course to port and take the Santa Barbara Channel, thereby avoiding the Channel Islands scattered along the shoreline off Los Angeles. At 15 knots in fair weather, there was nothing especially complicated about it.

But Rear Admiral Sumner E. W. Kittelle, commander of the Battle Fleet’s two destroyer squadrons, had just passed on welcome news: the Navy had entered a new fiscal year, meaning penny-pinching would ease for a while. With fuel no longer a concern, a cruising speed of 20 knots was now permitted. Watson took this as more than permission—if not an order, then a strongly implied expectation. After the unfortunate collision earlier that summer, he was keen to restore his reputation, and he saw a chance to show zeal by setting a record passage. To keep the group at 20 knots, Watson would even detach three destroyers that could not maintain the pace due to mechanical issues.

Another item concerned communications protocol. His ships were equipped with a modern radio-navigation aid that allowed reception of signals from shore-based radio beacons (radio “ranges”) transmitting from known positions. In theory, receiving signals from two different stations allowed a ship to obtain bearings more easily and accurately than by optical triangulation. In practice, Southern California at that time was covered by only a single beacon, so the information was incomplete. Traffic in the area was also heavy, and the beacon station was swamped by calls from civilian and naval vessels. Watson therefore decided that only the lead destroyer—his own—would communicate with the beacon; the others would simply follow his track. They could communicate among themselves by radio, but not on the beacon’s frequency.

Pride and Prejudice

On 8 September at 07:00, fifteen destroyers sailed from San Francisco in company with DESRON 12. Watson ordered his units in Squadron Cruising Formation No. 5: three columns abreast, with the leader ahead in the centre. The two squadrons stood offshore and soon began short-range combat exercises.

11:00 - the formations separated and proceeded on their respective routes. Aboard Delphy, her commanding officer, Commander Hunter, and his navigator, Lieutenant Blodgett, quickly noticed that the gyrocompass had failed. They therefore had to rely on the magnetic compass alone—without realising that it was not especially reliable. Their bearings were in fact off by two degrees: acceptable in the abstract, but soon to have serious consequences.

11:30 - navigators visually sighted the lighthouse at Pigeon Point at about two nautical miles (about 2.3 mi). The destroyers were now making 20 knots.

14:15 - Hunter contacted the radio beacon for a fix and realised that the position computed by the station differed significantly from his own estimate. Was he closer to shore than he believed? A quarter of an hour later, the destroyers passed abeam of Point Sur lighthouse—but without seeing it, though the men could sense land nearby from the tell-tale coastal haze. Hunter corrected course; nevertheless, a visual check was needed. Blodgett suggested closing the coast to identify the next seamark2 properly (Point Piedras Blancas lighthouse). Hunter refused—perhaps because it would have forced him to reduce speed. He was an experienced navigator and knew these waters well; his calculations, he believed, would be enough to bring the destroyers safely into the Santa Barbara Channel. Then the weather worsened and the sea built, tossing the destroyers. It was not dangerous, but this “liquid obstacle” distorted the calculation of the ships’ speed3—and therefore their position. Add the current and the wind, and by early afternoon Hunter was overestimating speed by about two knots (21 instead of 19). Faced with a commander so confident, Lieutenant Blodgett had little influence. Watson was therefore the only man who might have pushed his subordinate toward caution—yet Watson had launched into an engrossing discussion with a diplomat acquaintance he had taken aboard in San Francisco.

For four long hours, the destroyer column pressed on without Hunter judging it necessary to contact the Arguello Point beacon again to refine his position. The commander of DESRON 12, following the same track far behind, would do so three times—and reduced speed to 15 knots. During the afternoon, USS John Francis Burnes (DD-299) developed boiler trouble and had to slow. Wanting to keep 20 knots, Watson authorised her to leave the flotilla and proceed to San Diego independently at reduced speed.

16:27 - Watson also ordered the remaining fourteen destroyers into a single column (Squadron Cruising Formation No. 18) . Delphy led the four other ships of her division (DESDIV 33), followed by the nine destroyers of DESDIV 31 and DESDIV 32.

DESRON 11 Column at Honda Point

Destroyer Division 33 (5 ships): Delphy (DD-261), S. P. Lee (DD-310), Young (DD-312), Woodbury (DD-309), Nicholas (DD-311);

Destroyer Division 31 (5 ships): Farragut (DD-300), Fuller (DD-297), Percival (DD-298), Somers (DD-301), Chauncey (DD-296);

Destroyer Division 32 (4 ships): Kennedy (DD-306), Paul Hamilton (DD-307), Stoddert (DD-302), Thompson (DD-305).

Overcast skies and mist prevented sextant fixes, and without anyone realising it, the squadron was edging closer and closer to the coast. One piece of equipment might have warned of the danger: the depth sounder measuring water under the keel could have alerted Delphy’s bridge that the 50-fathom line (about 300 ft / 90 m)—the boundary between deep water and shoals—was near. But the device could only function at speeds below 20 knots. A solution would have been to ask John Francis Burnes, which had just left the flotilla, to pass her own soundings—yet neither Hunter nor Watson felt it necessary.

19:00 - however, Delphy sent a request to the radio beacon, but the station—overloaded—did not reply immediately.

The Devil’s Jaw

Within the column, commanding officers began to grow uneasy. They had made their own navigation calculations, and their results did not match Hunter’s. One of them raised the issue with Watson by radio; in doing so he occupied the squadron frequency at the very moment the radio beacon tried to contact Delphy with its fix—which therefore never reached its intended recipient.

20:00 - Watson radioed Admiral Kittelle to report his position. Procedure called for Kittelle to verify the information, but for such a routine passage he did not—removing one of the last remaining safeguards.

Around the same time, the commanding officer of USS Stoddert—perhaps at Lieutenant Blodgett’s prompting, as he had disagreed with Hunter from the start—asked the radio station for his position twice (at 20:11 and 20:32). Watson now believed he was abreast of Point Arguello, but the fix showed he was still well to the north—and closer to shore than expected. The information was passed to the commander, who refused to believe it and demanded confirmation. Messages continued back and forth with the beacon until 20:39, but Hunter chose to disregard them. He was in fact so convinced he had rounded Point Arguello that he now worried about the proximity of San Miguel Island: if the column was to enter the Santa Barbara Channel, it would soon have to turn to port to avoid the first of the Channel Islands (in reality about 33 nautical miles—around 38 mi—south of Point Arguello). His anxiety was heightened by the afternoon’s distress call from the mixed cargo ship Cuba, which had accidentally grounded on reefs off the island’s west coast. A brief discussion followed between Watson, Hunter, and Blodgett. Despite Blodgett’s pleas for caution, Watson believed he should reach the channel entrance by 21:00, and he ordered that at that time the column would make an almost right-angle turn to port, maintaining 20 knots. He then returned to his cabin to resume his conversation with his guest, while DESRON 11 continued on its fatal course.

20:58 - Hunter received one last message from the Arguello Point station placing him three nautical miles (about 3.5 mi) north of the station and only half a nautical mile (about 0.6 mi) from shore. It seemed so improbable that he dismissed it. He should not have: the channel entrance was notorious for dangerous currents and strong winds—hazards mariners had feared since the sixteenth century. Spanish explorers called this stretch of coastline the Devil’s Jaw. North of Point Arguello lay another rocky promontory, Honda Point. Fringed with reefs, it was even nicknamed Point Pedernales (“Flint Point”) by locals, so jagged was its relief.

Taken at the Flood

21:00 - Hunter put Delphy’s helm over and turned 95° to port. The rest of the squadron—strangely not warned in advance of the course change—was momentarily surprised, but S. P. Lee quickly fell into Delphy’s wake, less than 300 m (about 330 yd) astern, followed closely by Young. Soon, thirteen destroyers in single file turned 95° at 20 knots—following their leader straight toward the coast, straight toward Honda Point. Two minutes later, they saw him vanish into the mist. After that, events unfolded with brutal speed.

21:04 - USS Young literally impaled herself on a submerged reef only a few dozen metres from the rocky shore. At 20 knots, the impact was appalling: the destroyer stopped dead, several sailors were thrown into the sea, and a large breach opened on the starboard side. So much water poured in that the ship capsized in under two minutes.

21:05 - USS Delphy ran aground so violently off Honda Point that she broke in two at the engine room. The stern section was swallowed immediately. Arriving just behind, USS S. P. Lee had only enough time to stop and put her helm hard to port to avoid collision. She in turn grounded on the rocks. Her hull was ripped open by reefs on the starboard side, and she came to rest less than 10 m (about 33 ft) from the cliff with a 35° list.

21:06 - Aboard Delphy, shock gave way to disbelief. Hunter believed he had struck San Miguel Island, and Watson hurriedly began sending warning messages to the other destroyers. He ordered them to turn immediately 90° to port to reach the Santa Barbara Channel, which he now believed lay farther north than expected. It was already too late for USS Woodbury and USS Nicholas. The former tried to avoid the shore by turning to starboard, but smashed head-on into exposed rocks less than 200 m (about 220 yd) off Honda Point. The latter turned to port, but could not prevent the inevitable: driven by current and surf despite every effort by her commanding officer, she grounded not far from S. P. Lee, though much less violently.

The entirety of DESDIV 33 had thus thrown itself onto the coast—but the disaster was not yet over. Moments later, DESDIV 31 arrived at full speed upon the scene. The lead ship, USS Farragut, grasped the situation and stopped immediately. She even went astern to avoid being set in by the current. In doing so, she collided with the destroyer behind her, USS Fuller. Sheering aside, Fuller struck reefs head-on, and the impact wrecked her machinery. Damaged but still afloat, Farragut cleared the danger zone with USS Percival and USS Somers, which had also avoided the worst4. There would be one final victim, USS Chauncey, near the rear of the same division. As she tried to slow by every means possible, the surf drove her so forcefully against Young that the port propeller of the overturned wreck tore into Chauncey’s hull at the engine room, causing an immediate, total loss of power. Without propulsion, the destroyer was doomed, and she grounded a few metres south of Honda Point.

The commanding officers of DESDIV 32 had been far more prudent. In recent hours they had followed by radio the exchanges between Delphy and the Arguello station, and decided to let the rest of the column pull ahead once they saw the other destroyers disappear into the mist. It was a wise decision: when USS Kennedy took soundings, she found only seven fathoms (about 42 ft or 13 m) under her keel and ordered her formation to stop. None of the four ships of DESDIV 32 suffered any damage.

C’est pas l’homme qui prend la mer

With seven destroyers totally wrecked, 23 dead (3 on Delphy and 20 on Young) and many wounded, the Honda Point disaster caused a sensation. It was the U.S. Navy’s greatest peacetime loss of ships—a catastrophe equivalent, financially, to an outright loss of $13 million (roughly $180 million in today’s dollars). The Navy quickly mounted salvage efforts to recover anything that could be saved (weapons, ammunition, papers, instruments, tools, and so on). Deemed beyond recovery, the wrecks were scrapped.

Eleven officers appeared before courts-martial: the seven commanding officers who lost their ships; the commanders of DESDIV 33 and DESDIV 31; and the squadron commander and navigator Blodgett. In November, Watson, Hunter, and Roesch (of Nicholas) were found guilty of serious faults, ending any chance of promotion for the remainder of their careers. Watson, moreover, did nothing to soften the verdict—taking full responsibility for the catastrophe. The other officers were acquitted.

Meanwhile, voices rose to denounce the “real” culprit: a tsunami supposedly generated by the massive earthquake that devastated the Kantō region—from Yokohama to Tokyo—on 1 September. Having killed more than 105,000 people on the far side of the Pacific, it was said to have caused such major oceanographic disturbances that DESRON 11 was still suffering their effects a week later… Such was the thesis advanced by some commentators, who—in an era of fervent isolationism—were quick to point to an “foreign” danger, moreover one originating in Japan, to protect the Navy’s honour.

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Between 1939 and 1942, German submarines were hit by a strange epidemic of torpedoes malfunctioning in seemingly random ways: some detonated prematurely, while others struck their targets but failed to explode. The failure rate was so high that some U-boat commanders preferred to return to base rather than fight with weapons this unreliable. The Kriegsmarine launched a long technical investigation—one that would produce more than a few surprises.

In September 1939, the Kriegsmarine fielded two standard torpedo types for its U-boats, distinguished chiefly by their propulsion. The older model was the G7a, a Whitehead-type “steam” torpedo from the TI series. Nicknamed ato, the G7a was driven by the combustion of a fuel—decalin (decahydronaphthalene)—in air supplied by a compressed-air flask. The combustion produced enough gas and steam to power a four-cylinder engine, which in turn drove two contra-rotating six-bladed propellers. Three speed-and-range settings were available, depending on the desired maximum run:

· 6,000 m at 44 knots. Known as Schnellschuss, this maximum setting was prohibited in operations because it overheated the torpedo’s engine;

· 7,500 m at 40 knots;

· 12,000 m at 30 knots.

The G7e TII (nicknamed eto) used electric propulsion. The Germans had developed an early electric torpedo model as far back as 1918, which allowed work on the G7e to begin in the early 1920s under deep secrecy. As with everything related to submarines at the time, this development took place outside Germany because of the Treaty of Versailles: the design offices Mentor Bilanz (later Ingenieurbüro für Wirtschaft und Technik GmbH, or Igewit) and NV Ingenieurskaantor voor Scheepsbouw (IvS) were based in the Netherlands but run by Germans. Trials began in 1923 and the plans were approved in 1929, with production starting that September in Sweden (Karlskrona), again for reasons of discretion. Only from 1932 onward did eto construction shift to Germany, with genuinely intensive production from August 1934 (to arm the first U-boats due for delivery in 1935).

The G7e was powered by a heavy lead-acid battery1 (711 kg). Its 52 cells fed an electric motor of about 100 hp, which drove a pair of contra-rotating two-bladed propellers. The torpedo also carried compressed air in a small bottle to operate the gyroscopes that controlled depth and direction. Once charged and preheated to 30°C, an eto could run 5,000 m at 30 knots (versus only 3,000 m at the same speed “cold”). Its key advantage was that it produced no tell-tale bubble wake rising to the surface—unlike “air” torpedoes—making it a particularly stealthy weapon with an almost undetectable track. As a result, eto was widely used in daylight, while ato was mainly fired at night to conceal its wake. The initial TII series was soon replaced by an improved TIII version which, during the war, served as the basis for several variants, including the TIIIa with an improved battery providing 50% greater range (i.e., 7,500 m).

A Dual Designation System

German torpedoes had two official designations. A given weapon could be identified both:

· by the letter “T” (Torpedo), followed by a Roman numeral and sometimes a lowercase suffix (for example, TIIIa);

· by a three-character alphanumeric code. Since 1910, the first character was always the letter “G”, recalling the device’s basic model, followed by a number indicating the torpedo’s approximate length, then a lowercase letter for the propulsion system: “a” for Atemtorpedo, or ato (“air/steam torpedo”), “e” for electric torpedo, or eto.

Thus, the early-war TI “steam/air” torpedo was also called G7a, while the electrically powered model was a TIII / G7e.

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Despite their very different propulsion systems, the G7a and G7e shared a great many components. Externally, they looked very similar—largely because both were designed to be fired from the same tubes, stored in the same spaces, and handled with the same tools. Their dimensions were identical: a diameter of 533 mm and a length of 7.16 m; the G7e was simply a little heavier (1,603 kg versus 1,538 kg). Both carried the same 280 kg explosive warhead (or a dummy charge of the same weight for training), the same guidance system, the same depth-keeping instrument, and the same impact detonation system—the Pi1 firing pistol.

Until the end of 1942, German torpedoes had no true guidance system. Their run was necessarily straight, and only their gyro-deflection angle (“gyro angle”—the angle between the submarine’s longitudinal axis and the aim point) could be pre-set, within a 95-degree arc (later 135 degrees), in one-degree increments. In practice, this meant that on leaving the tube the torpedo could swing up to 90° to port or starboard—depending on the chosen preset—before settling on a straight course. However, in the very early days of the conflict, the first U-boat patrols were conducted with torpedoes whose course could not be altered at all: the torpedoes had the necessary gyroscopes, but the arsenals had forgotten to fit the movable rudders required for course changes. Only on the evening of 13 September 1939 was Dönitz informed of the mistake, and he immediately forbade commanders at sea from attempting “course-change” shots in order to avoid misses.

Technical Data | G7a Torpedo

Model: TI

Entered service: 1934

Type: Steam

Diameter: 53.3 cm

Length: 7.163 m

Weight: 1,538 kg

Maximum range: 12,000 m at 30 knots

Maximum speed: 44 knots

Explosive charge: 280 kg

Technical Data | G7e Torpedo

Model: TII (then TIII)

Entered service: 1936

Type: Electric

Diameter: 53.3 cm

Length: 7.163 m

Weight: 1,603 kg

Maximum range: 5,000 m at 30 knots

Maximum speed: 30 knots

Explosive charge: 280 kg

A G7a or G7e therefore ran in a straight line until it struck a target—or, once it exceeded its maximum range, until it sank. Detonation was handled by the “firing pistol” (Abfeuernpistole or Gefechtspistole) Pi1, developed in Germany shortly before the outbreak of hostilities. To the standard system of the era—i.e., contact detonation (Aufschlagzündung, AZ)—it added a magnetic influence mechanism (Magnetzündung, MZ). If the torpedo hit its target, a central striker in the nose electrically triggered the contact detonator. The Pi1 was fitted with four movable fins (or “whiskers”) projecting from the striker so that the electrical detonator would still activate even at an impact angle of up to 21°.

The magnetic firing system was broadly based on the first magnetic sea mine deployed by the British from August 1918—still in Royal Navy service in 1939, though long obsolete. The original purpose was to sink or severely damage ships protected by anti-torpedo bulges: empty metal protrusions fitted along the hull sides below the waterline, designed to absorb a torpedo blast without damage to the main hull. Experience had also shown that a torpedo detonating against a ship’s flank might open leaks, but a large share of the energy still dissipated at the surface in an impressive geyser of water and gas. By contrast, a magnetic torpedo could detonate not against the side but beneath the keel, bypassing bulges and directing almost all of its energy into a structural element essential to a ship’s integrity. An explosion there was highly likely to generate a massive gas bubble under the ship, potentially lifting it clear of the water and breaking the keel.

In broad terms, the MZ system was an electrical circuit closed by a switch—in this case, a needle that pivoted under the influence of an external magnetic field (for example, a metal hull), allowing current to reach the detonator. In theory, there was nothing very complicated about it; in practice, the magnetic firing system had to be calibrated precisely so the charge would detonate at a specific distance under the keel: too close, and the torpedo risked striking the bulge; too far, and the MZ system might fail to detect the ship’s metal mass. Because there is no percussion in magnetic mode, the electrical power needed to trigger the detonator came from a small five-bladed propeller mounted on a threaded shaft protruding from the Pi1 pistol head. Unscrewed in the safe position, the assembly began spinning on launch as water flowed over the propeller; once screwed in, the shaft enabled the movement of the Pi1 “whiskers” and activated magnetic detonation2. The pistol therefore had its own autonomous electrical supply, allowing it to be fitted—without modification—into the noses of both G7a and G7e torpedoes.

Each torpedo also had a depth-keeping system, adjusted before launch according to multiple parameters. If contact detonation (AZ) was selected, the torpedo had to be set shallow enough not to pass beneath the target’s keel—but not so shallow that it would broach the surface and reveal itself. As we have already seen, the same dilemma existed in magnetic mode (MZ). Early in the war, the depth-keeping mechanism was the Tiefenapparat 1 (TA1).

A final word on the explosive filling in the warhead cone at the front of the torpedo, whether ato or eto. This charge consisted of a solid mixture of several components, whose proportions varied slightly over time. Before the war and during the conflict’s first months, Kriegsmarine torpedoes carried an explosive known as Schießwolle 36 (“guncotton 36,” introduced in 1936), composed of 67% trinitrotoluene (TNT), 8% hexanitrodiphenylamine (HND), and 25% aluminium powder. It was a very stable explosive, particularly insensitive to shocks—and therefore to bullets—so that a torpedo would not detonate if hit by gunfire while running toward its target.

War, the Revealer of Design Flaws

The development and testing of U-boat torpedoes were primarily the responsibility of the Torpedoversuchsanstalt (TVA), the torpedo research institute at Eckernförde. This arm of the Torpedoinspektion (Torpedo Inspectorate) was headed from September 1935 to mid-November 1939 by Konteradmiral Oskar Wehr, a First World War veteran and torpedo specialist. It was under his leadership that, among other projects, the Pi1 and its magnetic mode were developed. Even before the war began, complaints appear to have been raised about the TVA’s rushed development work—something Dönitz would later underline on 21 January 1940 in the Kriegstagebuch (KTB) of the U-boat arm, the official daily war diary recording submarine operations: “In August 1939, before the U-boats left port (…), a conference was held at the TVA during which the doubts expressed by the BdU3 regarding the proper functioning of the pistol were dismissed as unfounded by Konteradmiral Wehr.”

In fact, one can go back to autumn 1936 and the Spanish Civil War—the clandestine baptism of fire of the U-boat arm—to find complaints about torpedoes that were “mechanically defective, unable to hold a straight course or the prescribed depth, and tending to sink at the end of their run.” In the months that followed, several test series indeed produced very poor results (a 74% failure rate in February 1938), yet part of the analysis was simply ignored by Oskar Wehr, who regarded it as criticism of his TVA by a rival body (see below).

A Turf War

Within the Kriegsmarine, the Torpedoinspektion (TI, Torpedo Inspectorate) was responsible for the technical development of torpedoes and their operational readiness. It supervised two departments: the Torpedoversuchsanstalt (TVA, torpedo research institute) and the Torpedoerprobungskommando (TEK, torpedo trials command). In existence since the 1920s, the TVA handled testing of torpedoes under development, their manufacture, and supply to operational units. It also bore the heavy responsibility of identifying technical faults and devising solutions. From 1937 onward, it was joined by the TEK: while the TVA now focused on testing torpedoes in service and handling problems reported from operational units, the TEK tested prototypes designed by the TVA and conducted any trials assigned by higher command—an arrangement the TVA experienced as an encroachment on its prerogatives.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, U-boat commanders on patrol very quickly began reporting numerous cases of torpedoes not behaving as expected. Some detonated prematurely; others failed to detonate at all. At first, it was difficult to distinguish between technical faults and human error, but the number of incidents soon became too great for Dönitz to accept that torpedo design was fundamentally sound. His KTB mentions the issue from October 1939, though it may have appeared as early as September:

4 October 1939: “U-35 reports that it has begun its return passage. The radio message also notes that (…) there have again been two premature detonations of G7a torpedoes.”

18 October: “Reports received show that five ships have been sunk with certainty (…). But once again, torpedo failures have been reported: two detonations at the end of the run, two torpedoes broaching the surface, and two detonations at the end of the safety distance. It is above all in attacks against heavily escorted convoys that these failures can have the most serious consequences for the U-boat, because they betray it—on top of a wasted approach which often cannot be repeated for hours.”

25 October: “U-48 has used all its torpedoes, but reports five failures, which cost it several ships that would otherwise almost certainly have been sunk. There is no need to revisit the causes and consequences of these failures. The Torpedo Inspectorate has been informed and the importance stressed: the BdU is in close contact with the Inspectorate.”

Likewise, in the log of his U-47, commander Günther Prien offered hypotheses after four failures in his ultimately successful attack on HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow on the night of 14 October: “I explain the torpedo failures either as a gyro or speed problem, or as a torpedo that ran too deep.” On 31 October, the BdU painted a grim picture: “The problem of torpedo malfunctions is unfortunately still far from resolved. U-25 reports four failures against a stopped ship, fired at short range. The instructions of the Torpedo Inspectorate were followed. There is therefore no longer any doubt that the Inspectorate itself does not understand the issue. At present, torpedoes cannot be fired with non-contact pistols, because this has led to premature detonations. Depth settings must be 2 m less than the target’s draught. Depth must not be less than 3 m, otherwise torpedoes may broach the surface, which can in particular damage the engines of the G7a. Precise instructions have been issued for the safety distance and are being followed. Nevertheless, at least 30% of torpedoes fail: either they do not detonate at all, or they detonate in the wrong place. Issuing further instructions to U-boats makes no sense, because it never produces the desired results. Commanders are losing confidence in their torpedoes. In the end, their fighting spirit will suffer. The torpedo failure problem is currently the most urgent of all problems in the U-boat war.”

The BdU quickly suspected that at least part of the trouble lay with the Pi1: the magnetic influence detonator was a fragile system requiring delicate adjustment. A ship’s magnetic field strength depends in part on its size, which is why settings were based on estimated ship dimensions. Yet field strength also varies with the Earth’s magnetic field, which differs by region. The Pi1 therefore had to be calibrated using a geographic zone table issued by the Kriegsmarine to all units, allowing crews to choose the magnetic sensitivity required to pivot the needle in the pistol’s electrical circuit. In general, the farther north a U-boat operated, the higher the settings. One must also remember that the magnetic North Pole is not the geographic North Pole (the Earth’s axis of rotation)4, but a wandering point that shifts by roughly 15 km each year. Thus, if a navigator misplotted his position by 30 nautical miles—a small error on an oceanic scale—the table might point him to the wrong zone entry.

Until spring 1940, the Torpedo Inspectorate explained repeated failures primarily as human error during patrols: either the U-boat had misjudged the target’s size, or the navigator had miscalculated the boat’s position—or both. Thus, in mid-September 1939, when Dönitz complained that U-29 had suffered two premature torpedo explosions, the Inspectorate replied that the submarine must have made a position error of 30 to 60 nautical miles, and recommended setting the Pi1 “two zones lower” on the issued table to reduce magnetic sensitivity. That had a direct operational consequence: with such settings, torpedoes might no longer detonate when running beneath merchant ships under 3,000 GRT (gross register tons), because their magnetic field would be too weak to trigger the Pi1. As early as 14 September, the BdU therefore ordered commanders to use contact pistols only. This did not resolve the situation, and on 2 October the Pi1 was modified to allow only AZ mode—not the dual contact-magnetic MZ setting.

The risk of premature detonation was thus removed, but only as a temporary measure while the cause was identified. A few days later, the Torpedo Inspectorate believed it had found the explanation: faulty wiring was supposedly responsible for premature detonations of G7e torpedoes when set to pass beneath their targets’ keels. The G7a problems, however, remained unexplained. None of this convinced Dönitz: “I expressed doubts about these various explanations for premature detonations, but since the director of the Torpedo Inspectorate assured me that the G7e was now safe, I decided to try, and I authorised firing the G7e under [targets] with the MZ setting.”

The test was brief: on 18 October, U-46 reported a premature detonation during a convoy attack. In fact, the “zone setting” recommended by the Inspectorate did not solve everything. For the Pi1 to function correctly, the torpedo also had to run at the prescribed depth. If it passed too far beneath the target’s keel, the magnetic detonator would not sense a strong enough field to trigger. This was precisely what German engineers discovered: “On 20 October [1939], the director of the Torpedo Inspectorate informed me by telephone that he had discovered that day that the torpedo (G7a and G7e) was maintaining a depth 2 m below the indicated setting. Numerous U-boat reports stating that torpedoes had failed to detonate with impact settings despite good firing data also indicated that torpedoes were running deeper than intended and therefore passing under the target. I therefore ordered (…) that impact-pistol torpedoes be set to a maximum depth of 4 m. At the suggestion of the Torpedo Inspectorate, I also ordered that these torpedoes be set to 2 m or less than the target’s draught. But in order to avoid [broaching] (…), the minimum depth setting must be fixed at 3 m, and at 4 m in an Atlantic swell. This means that torpedoes cannot be fired at targets with a draught of less than 5 or 6 m. For example, destroyers cannot be attacked.”

To address the problem, the Inspectorate produced a new version of the firing pistol, the Pi A–B, available from 5 November. Its magnetic needle was stabilised to prevent premature detonations, and immersion depth was fixed at the target’s draught plus one metre. The BdU authorised firing in MZ mode again, but by 8 November U-boats were already reporting incidents. On the 19th, U-49 reported four consecutive failures: a premature detonation of a G7a, a G7e that failed to detonate, and the destruction of two other G7a torpedoes after 2,000 m of running. Dönitz once again forbade magnetic firing. The Germans seemed unable to solve the issue in any lasting way—made all the more baffling because the frequency of premature detonations appeared to diminish at certain times, only to rise again later. In desperation, the Inspectorate rushed through emergency modifications to components of the firing pistol (insulating the copper cap and smoothing a stop collar), without success. Tensions rose as Dönitz refused to accept the Inspectorate’s “human error” explanations, which increasingly looked like attempts at self-exculpation. Only after tests were conducted in a research centre did the Inspectorate finally admit that the firing pistol itself posed genuine problems in magnetic mode. This led to new instructions sent on 21 January 1940 to U-boat commanders: for merchantmen under 4,000 GRT, destroyers, and surfaced submarines, torpedo depth was henceforth to be set at 4 m; for all other targets, settings were to be the target’s draught plus one metre, even in bad weather. It was also specified that the Pi1 and A–B could not detect the magnetic field of targets under 1,000 GRT.

The Inspectorate seemed at last to be emerging from a long lethargy. After checks in the arsenals, it also realised that the torpedoes themselves could generate a problematic magnetic field if they had been stored with their batteries charged: the pistol would then be subject to a magnetic phenomenon of unpredictable strength, giving the needle either “hypersensitivity” (leading to premature detonation) or “insensitivity” (leading to failure to detonate). The Inspectorate therefore recommended demagnetising all torpedoes—but the cure quickly proved worse than the disease, with some U-boats reporting failure rates as high as 50% on demagnetised weapons. “At least 300,000 GRT that could have been sunk may be considered lost due to torpedo failures,” Dönitz lamented in January 1940 in the U-boat arm’s KTB.

The Weserübung Crisis

The Norwegian campaign began on 9 April and quickly became a bitter disappointment for Dönitz’s “grey wolves”: none of the units engaged achieved success, despite conditions that were sometimes extraordinarily favourable. On the first day, U-51 fired four torpedoes at a British formation in Narvik fjord, but two detonated prematurely. On the 11th, four of the six “eels” launched by U-48 in two attacks on heavy cruisers exploded before hitting anything. Stunned, commander Schultze surfaced to report the problem to the BdU—breaking radio silence in the process.

On 16 April, at the entrance to Narvik fjord, Prien’s U-47 sighted three enemy transports estimated at 30,000 GRT each—prime targets. Smaller vessels nearby were busy landing troops. Prien manoeuvred to 1,500 m and, at 22:42, at periscope depth, fired a spread of four torpedoes at the three stationary ships. For safety, he chose impact detonation—yet none exploded. Seeing that the enemy still seemed unaware of his presence, he ordered the torpedoes inspected and the tubes reloaded. At midnight, U-47 surfaced and attacked again. The firing parameters were calculated even more carefully than usual; a second spread of four weapons was launched. In vain: none hit, and one exploded at the end of its run against rocks, alerting the enemy and forcing Prien to withdraw.

On the 19th, the same submarine ran into HMS Warspite, a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship fresh from the successful Second Battle of Narvik (13 April). She was heavily escorted, yet Prien fired two torpedoes with magnetic pistols from 820 m. Once again, one missed and the other detonated prematurely, alerting the destroyers. U-47 endured a thorough depth-charge attack but escaped undamaged. The next day, Günther Prien’s confidence in his torpedoes was so shaken that when he crossed a convoy’s track he refused to attack; the danger of finding himself effectively disarmed in the face of escorts was now too great. Six days later, on his return to Kiel, he justified the decision to Dönitz in these terms: “I could hardly hope to fight with a popgun.”

Likewise in May, commander Schütze (U-25) preferred to return before the BdU even ordered it—such were the problems he had had with his torpedoes. These repeated failures during the invasion of Norway were the last straw: “Telephone conversations with the Torpedo Institute and Professor Cornelius bring me no support in this doubtful situation,” Dönitz would report. “He advises sticking to the methods employed, assuming that Norway’s [geographic] situation has an effect on the magnetic pistol.” On the 17th, Dönitz learned that a number of G7e pistols had been fitted with a new magnetic-arming propeller (four blades rather than five)—an element that had not been tested before entering service. The Inspectorate estimated, sheepishly, that in roughly 10% of cases this propeller might fail to supply adequate electrical power to the detonator. The same day, the BdU received additional information from the hydrography department seeking to explain the many failures during the Norway campaign: “Magnetic influences on the pistol must be expected in the fjords. But this influence is only to be feared near the coasts. It could be present on the high seas only where there are hitherto undiscovered ore layers beneath the seabed, and only down to a depth of 100 m.”

On the 19th, a test of a G7e set to run at 2 m showed that it actually dived and then maintained a depth of between 3.5 and 4.7 m below the surface—explaining some failures to detect a magnetic field. Finally, on 15 May, further tests proved that the switch enabling contact detonation (AZ) on the Pi1 caused a high percentage of premature detonations due to an overly sensitive striker and an unnecessarily complex design.

A Gradual Improvement

As one can see, the G7a and G7e suffered not from a single design flaw but from a whole series of issues whose simultaneous appearance in combat made them all the harder to correct—since one “fix” could trigger new problems in cascade. Improvement therefore did not come in great leaps, but gradually from summer 1940 onward. In August, the Inspectorate discovered that the depth-keeping system malfunctioned when subjected to excessive vibration (during torpedo transport or loading aboard U-boats, for example), leading to a new version entering service the following year.

In February 1941, several commanders still reported numerous failures (non-detonation) during attacks on convoys OB-288 and OB-289. Investigation showed that the torpedoes involved had almost all been stored in northern Germany during the winter—particularly severe that year—and that low temperatures were the culprit. In March, as warmer weather arrived, the “epidemic” disappeared by itself.

At the end of January 1942, as the submarine offensive was in full swing off the U.S. East Coast, an inspection of the torpedoes of the Type VIIC U-94 finally identified the origin of the depth-keeping problem: the high level of air pressure inside submerged U-boats could disturb the gyroscope controlling depth if its housing—designed to be airtight—was not perfectly sealed. This discovery brought a definitive end to the Torpedokrise that had cost the U-boat arm so dearly. True, in May 1942 Dönitz still felt compelled to forbid any use of the magnetic mode because its operational results were so poor—but this was largely due to the shallow depths off the North American coast, not yet another technical defect of the G7a and G7e. The main consequence of that ban was a very heavy “consumption” of torpedoes set for AZ contact detonation, since several were often required to sink a target where a single magnetic detonation might have achieved the same result.

In the end, the many faults discovered in German torpedoes all stemmed from sloppy design; the responsibility of the Torpedo Inspectorate and its TVA was undeniable—as Dönitz emphasised: “The facts are worse than one could have imagined. I learned that the proper functioning of the AZ was considered proven, in peacetime, after only two test shots, even though they were not perfect. Such a working method can only be regarded as criminal. (…) The torpedo technicians either denied the possibility of failure, or attributed it now to one cause, now to another. In every case, a fundamental defect was finally discovered.”

In November 1942, the G7e finally received a new firing pistol, the Pi2. It solved many of the Pi1’s problems by drawing the electricity required to trigger its magnetic influence detonator directly from the torpedo’s battery. The new pistol was tested in the Mediterranean before being widely issued from December onward. By February 1943, all electric torpedoes on U-boats sailing from Norway or Germany were also equipped with it5, and feedback was very positive. The G7a, for its part, received the Pi3, copied from the Italian S1C pistol. Developed in Italy in the first half of 1943, it entered service in August. Unlike the Pi2, it required no electrical supply, and its AZ and MZ detonators were now separate components, with the former located in the body of the torpedo. The collapse of Mussolini’s Italy and the transfer of Pi3 production to Germany, however, slowed its deployment. The Germans in any case regarded it as less successful than the Pi2, criticising in particular its marked tendency to detonate the torpedo at the end of its run.

The “torpedo crisis” shook the U-boat arm so deeply that Kriegsmarine authorities quickly sought those responsible for such a chain of negligence. In April 1940, after a three-month inquiry, Rear Admiral Wehr dodged the first blow. But the TVA’s responsibility appeared increasingly clear, and Großadmiral Raeder—then Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine—sent him before a court-martial. In October 1941, Oskar Wehr and two of his deputies were sentenced to prison terms for negligence. Wehr was released after six months and made available to the Luftwaffe as an expert on torpedo problems—a result that says a lot about the notoriously bad relations that existed between the German Navy and the Air Force at the time.

Readers passionate about the subject will find David Habersham Wright’s thesis “Wolves Without Teeth: The German Torpedo Crisis in World War Two” (Georgia Southern University, 2010) of interest, available for free here.

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In the aftermath of the Second World War, Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet orbit and became one of the states guarding the “Iron Curtain.” Yet its air force was a hollow shell, equipped with obsolete aircraft. The country therefore embarked on an ambitious defense policy which—backed by Moscow—would yield its first tangible result on 10 March 1953, above the border with the Federal Republic of Germany.

In December 1943, as it became increasingly clear that Germany could no longer win the war, two Czechoslovak politicians met in Moscow to prepare their country’s future. On one side was Klement Gottwald, leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), in exile in the USSR since November 1938 after his organization was banned. On the other was the democrat Edvard Beneš, former president of the republic, exiled in London where he headed a provisional Czechoslovak government. During these Moscow meetings, Gottwald and Beneš began negotiations, with Beneš hoping to dissuade the Soviets from seizing power after the war.

This led, in April 1945, to the creation of a National Front and a provisional government installed in the Slovak city of Košice, newly liberated by Soviet forces. Though chaired by Beneš, this coalition was swiftly locked down by the KSČ, which controlled key ministries. On 5 April 1945, the “Košice Government Program” was formally approved—though it had in fact been signed on 29 March in Moscow. Drafted by the communists, it established a regime of limited democracy, legalized the nationalization of a large share of industry, and sanctioned the denaturalization of the German and Hungarian minorities. It also reorganized the Czechoslovak armed forces on the model of the Red Army. At the time, Czechoslovakia’s ground and air forces were indeed an incoherent patchwork of units and equipment. Some men had fought alongside the Western Allies—in Poland, France, and then Great Britain, Palestine, and North Africa. Others came from formations equipped and trained by the Soviets to fight on the Eastern Front.

The Rebirth: 1945–1948

The new Československé letectvo (Czechoslovak Air Force) had to integrate:

• veterans of four fighter or bomber squadrons incorporated into the RAF during the war, who returned home in the summer of 1945 with, among other aircraft, Spitfires and Mosquitos;

• veterans of the 1st Czechoslovak Mixed Air Division formed by the Soviets and equipped with Lavochkin La-5 and La-7 fighters, Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik ground-attack aircraft, Petlyakov Pe-2s, and more.

In purely material terms, these few dozen aircraft were not enough to reconstitute a true air arm, so the Czechoslovaks also recovered intact German aircraft found on their territory. Moreover, during the war the country’s aviation plants (Letov, Zlín, Avia and Aero) had built several aircraft types for the Luftwaffe—and were ordered to continue producing them. Freshly nationalized, Avia restarted production of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters fitted with Heinkel He 111 engines, under the designation S-199. Aero, which had primarily produced Siebel Si 204 light twin-engine transports during the war, resumed building them for pilot training as the C-3. Zlín restarted production of the Bücker Bü 181 trainer aircraft. As a result, the Czechoslovak Air Force had to manage a fleet composed of multiple British, German, and Soviet models—hardly ideal for maintenance or crew training. This was seen, however, as a necessary transitional phase before receiving standardized equipment of exclusively Soviet origin.

Gradually, the Československé letectvo created eight air divisions and improved its armament. On 27 August 1946, it flew its first jet aircraft: a Messerschmitt Me 262 rebuilt by Avia from recovered spare parts. On 10 December, a second Me 262 took to the air, along with a two-seat training variant. In June 1947, these aircraft were renamed S-92 Turbina and CS-92 respectively. Because domestic industry lacked the infrastructure for mass production, only twelve were delivered—slowly—to the 5th (fighter) Air Regiment between 1946 and 1949: nine S-92s and three CS-92s. Even so, the Turbina allowed a first generation of jet pilots to be trained and gave the industry valuable experience before the last aircraft were withdrawn after May 1951.

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1948–1952

In February 1948, the Prague coup brought Klement Gottwald to power and established an authoritarian Czechoslovak Socialist Republic directly aligned with the USSR. Within the Československé letectvo, it triggered a political purge: former members of the Czech RAF squadrons were dismissed, while their founder—former Air Marshal Karel Janoušek—was accused of desertion, imprisoned, and stripped of rank. Likewise, the former pilot Josef Bryks (shot down in June 1941, three times escaped from a Stalag, later deported and tortured), by then a staff officer, was sentenced to ten years in prison after a show trial.

The communist takeover had heavy consequences for the Czechoslovak Air Force, which was barred from importing plans, engines, and aircraft from Western powers. Up to February 1948, the USSR had largely refused to provide modern equipment. Once Czechoslovakia was fully integrated into the Soviet sphere, the situation changed. In April 1949, a Československé letectvo delegation in Moscow obtained manufacturing licenses for the Yakovlev Yak-15 fighter jet and the Ilyushin Il-10 ground-attack aircraft (piston engine). In January 1950, the USSR delivered not Yak-15s but a single, more modern Yak-17. It was tested but judged technically obsolete, and Czechoslovakia never produced a local version. Meanwhile, in November 1949, East–West relations had deteriorated so sharply that Stalin demanded the armed forces of the Soviet bloc prepare for a major conflict by the end of 1952. Because it concentrated major aviation and automotive plants, Czechoslovakia became a key armory for “brother countries” lacking comparable industry. The USSR therefore granted Prague a license for the Yak-23, a light, very maneuverable straight-wing jet fighter.

On 25 June 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War shocked the USSR, which now feared the conflict could expand into Europe. Czechoslovakia expected that, until Soviet troops arrived, it might have to face alone a large, heavily armed enemy massed on its western border. Under-equipped, the Československé letectvo would be the first to suffer from attacks by modern American jets based in West Germany1, as well as those of their British and French allies. To remedy this, in April 1951 Moscow granted Prague the license for the MiG-15—leading to the cancellation of Yak-23 production plans, since the latter was considered far less capable. At the same time, in February 1951, a training center was created at Mladá air base to train a new generation of jet pilots—and mechanics as well. The first four MiG-15s arrived in spring, and flights began at the end of May on the MiG-15UTI, the two-seat trainer version. The instructors were Soviet, and each class of about twenty students logged between 22 and 25 flight hours over eight weeks.

Between June and July, the USSR delivered around sixty MiG-15s—insufficient to equip the 1st, 5th, and 8th regiments of the 3rd Air Division, especially since a new regiment (the 11th) was created in early October. By late September 1951, the center had trained four pilot classes; four more sessions would be organized through 1952 to train the men of the 3rd, 4th, and 18th fighter regiments of the 22nd Air Division, who had previously flown the S-199. But logistics lagged behind. In early 1952, the Československé letectvo had only 67 MiG-15s (S-102 in local designation) and four MiG-15UTIs (CS-102) for 97 trained pilots. The 11th Regiment, for example, had only five MiG-15s (but eleven Yak-23s delivered by the USSR) for 19 pilots.

Under Moscow’s Watchful Eye

The first Soviet advisers arrived in May 1950 and, from 1951, occupied senior posts at Československé letectvo headquarters and within each air division and school (officer training, mechanics, etc.). From 1952 their numbers increased: they were now present at regimental level and at the jet pilot training center. In 1954, more than 264 Soviet advisers were counted within the decision-making apparatus of the Czechoslovak air force. Once the force had been fully reorganized on the Soviet model, their numbers declined: only 38 remained by May 1955, often limited to resolving highly specific technical problems.

On 19 March 1952, during an air-combat exercise, MiG-15 S-102 No. 0710 of the 1st Fighter Regiment crashed near Lysá nad Labem, killing its pilot, Captain Jan Červený, who likely lost consciousness after accidental cockpit decompression. For the Československé letectvo, this was the first fatal jet accident. That year, Czechoslovakia produced 47 S-102s, allowing several regiments to be equipped—at least in part. Aircraft were assembled by Letov (renamed Rudý Letov in the early 1950s) at its Letňany plant in Prague. Letov built the forward fuselage under license, while the wings and rear fuselage came from Aero’s Vysočany plant in a neighboring district. That same year, Aero began building a new factory at Vodochody, and assembly of the Czechoslovak MiG-15 was quickly transferred there; Rudý Letov took over production of fuselages and wings. The first jet to leave Vodochody made its test flight on 28 April 1953.

The S-102 relied on a network of 90 local subcontractors who—especially at the beginning—faced serious supply problems (labor shortages, duralumin scarcity, etc.), causing delays in essential components (engines, brakes, ejection seats, canopies). By the end of September 1953, the program was only 68% complete. The solution, for Czech industry, was near self-sufficiency: they reduced imports as much as possible and produced more components domestically. In the long run, the bet paid off, giving the Czech aviation industry greater experience and independence.

The MiG-15

In its original form, the MiG-15 (NATO reporting name “Fagot”) was an all-metal, single-seat, single-engine jet. It was powered by the RD-45F turbojet—essentially a copy of the Rolls-Royce Nene II, legally purchased by the USSR in 1947. The aircraft was characterized by clean lines, 35° swept wings, and ventral airbrakes. It offered excellent performance but proved difficult for inexperienced pilots, with a tendency to pitch up at very high speed. Simpler to manufacture than its rival, the Lavochkin La-15 (which was better in several respects), the MiG-15 was built in more than 17,000 units, including over 4,000 under license in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and China.

The MiG-15 carried one 37 mm Nudelman N-37 cannon with 40 rounds and two 23 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23KM cannons; two bomb racks could be fitted under the wings. The most-produced variant was the MiG-15bis, with more than 8,000 built from June 1950. It featured a more powerful engine, faster-firing armament, an improved gunsight, rearranged and pressurized fuel tanks, and multiple aerodynamic refinements to wings, ailerons, and elevators.

The MiG-15UTI was a two-seat training and instruction variant, recognizable by its lengthened canopy and enlarged cockpit. Yuri Gagarin would die in one of these aircraft on 27 March 1968 near Moscow during a training flight.

Specifications of the MiG-15 “Fagot”

• Wingspan: 10.08 m

• Length: 10.038 m

• Height: 3.7 m

• Wing area: 20.60 m²

• Weight (empty / max): 3,382 / 5,274 kg

• Cruise speed: 850 km/h at 5,000 m altitude

• Max speed: 973 km/h at 10,670 m altitude

• Service ceiling: 15,200 m

• Range: 1,420 km (2h45)

  

The 15th Air Corps (15. leteckého sboru)

From February 1948 onward, the regime paid close attention to renewing the Československé letectvo’s manpower, selecting not only aircrews but also ground personnel—preferably from the working class, which was then largely supportive. MiG-15 S-102 pilots were fully loyal to the party (KSČ) and were expected to be members, especially if they sought command posts.

Western airspace violations along Czechoslovakia’s western border were the reason these jet units existed—and the violations were numerous. Forty were recorded in January 1951 alone, before the S-102 entered service. On 7 February 1951, several American aircraft flew over western Bohemia as far as the Prague area. In March, four F-80 Shooting Stars were spotted over Kašperské Hory in the Plzeň region. In June, two American aircraft even landed on a field near Prague, citing a technical problem quickly “resolved”!

Preventing these intrusions became an obsession. At that time, however, the S-199—technically obsolete—was incapable of intercepting Lockheed F-80 Shooting Stars or F-84 Thunderjets, which were far superior. Moreover, the country had no integrated air-defense system capable of detecting intruders, tracking them, and engaging them. Things began to change in early 1952, when the Československé letectvo thoroughly reorganized its 15th Air Corps, tasked solely with defending the country’s western borders. On 15 February, the Mladá training center was transferred to Moravia, at Přerov. On 1 April, headquarters of the 5th Fighter Division moved to Žatec, with the 11th and 15th regiments. On 23 April, the 1st Air Regiment took up quarters at Planá, on a new air base with a concrete runway. On 3 May, a central Air Defense and Air Force Command Post was established in Prague. In summer, the 8th Regiment arrived at Dobřany (today Líně).

A glance at a map shows how fighter divisions were positioned to cover the entire national territory:

• the 3rd Division2 (two major bases) faced Bavaria and northern Austria;

• the 5th Division (three major bases) covered Prague and northern Bohemia facing Saxony;

• the 22nd Division, with four widely spaced bases, formed a second echelon deeper inside the country and also covered Slovakia.

During the year, the 1st Air Division was formally formed (1st, 9th, and 19th regiments) at České Budějovice, strengthening the southwest flank; the 3rd Division was reinforced with the 16th Regiment, and the 5th Division with the 17th.

By the end of 1952, the S-102 and its two-seat CS-102 equipped nine fighter regiments across three divisions, all subordinated to the 15th Air Corps. On 1 January 1953, one hundred S-102s were officially operational, along with thirteen CS-102s. In 1953, jet units expanded rapidly as more S-102s became available. There were now enough aircraft to form the 166th Jet Division at Mladá (51st, 2nd, and 21st regiments), and to establish the 7th Training Regiment, responsible for converting new pilots to the S-102 after flight school (where they had learned basics on the S-199). That year, the Československé letectvo received 225 locally produced aircraft under license, as well as 25 MiG-15bis (S-103 in Czechoslovak designation) delivered from the USSR. By March 1954, it would possess 315 MiG-15s in three versions: 263 S-102s, 28 S-103s, and 24 CS-102s.

National Air Defense

At the time MiG-15s entered service in Czechoslovakia, Western border violations remained high: fifteen incidents in May 1952, sixteen in June, and nine in July, for example. Six incidents were recorded in the last two weeks of February 1953; another seventeen in the first two weeks of March. Most American aircraft came from Bavaria and overflew the sector assigned to the 3rd Air Division based at Dobřany.

Interception was all the more difficult because there was still no combined air-warning system integrating intelligence from the various services. The ground observation service was subordinate to the State Air Defense headquarters, while until 1952 the radar surveillance network belonged to the air force. Fighter aviation, for its part, was under the operational control of the Ministry of National Defense. Finally, the Ministry of National Security maintained its own local border surveillance units. This fragmentation hampered inter-service communication. In 1952, Czechoslovak fighters achieved no successful interceptions, inevitably affecting pilot morale. But as pilots gained experience, it became only a matter of time before luck turned. In early March 1953, the commander of the 5th Air Regiment swore, before his entire division, that his unit would be the first to shoot down an intruder.

In each fighter regiment, air-defense alert duty was assigned to the most seasoned pilots, generally those of the first squadron. Every day, four of these pilots were on call from sunrise to sunset, forming two pairs:

• Alert Level 1: pilots in cockpits, radios on, ready to take off immediately;

• Alert Level 2: pilots on base, to move to Level 1 if the first pair launched.

These two pairs alternated every two hours. After nightfall, readiness shifted from four aircraft to two because in darkness—if scrambled—jets operated individually rather than in pairs. Later, when it entered service, an additional S-103 (MiG-15bis) would reinforce the daytime pair, and two S-103s would join the single S-102 at night.

The Air Battle over Merklín

On 10 March 1953, a Czechoslovak MiG-15 shot down an American aircraft during a very brief encounter over the border zone that had been violated so often. The material and human consequences were limited—one F-84E Thunderjet destroyed and one pilot slightly injured—but the diplomatic repercussions were significant. Naturally, Americans and Czechoslovaks produced sharply different versions of the incident, each seeking to prove the other side was at fault. More than 70 years later, the Czechoslovak version appears far more credible than the American thesis and is broadly accepted by historians—especially since we possess a relatively precise and credible account from the Czechoslovak pilot, but nothing comparable from his opponent.

Tuesday, 10 March 1953, 10:45: lieutenant Jaroslav Šrámek, pilot in the 2nd Squadron of the 5th Air Regiment, took off from Dobřany in his S-102, serial NO-37, as the leader of a pair with Lieutenant Milan Forst. They were not scrambled on alert but launched for a training flight (two-aircraft air combat) over the Plzeň-South area at 3,500–4,000 m altitude. Šrámek had flown the MiG-15 since January 1952; before that, between 1948 and 1951, he attended the junior officers’ school at Liberec and the Aviation Military Academy at Hradec Králové. In his memoirs he wrote: “After taking off at 10:45 and positioning ourselves in the prescribed airspace [for the exercise], Lieutenant Forst carried out training attacks on my aircraft. We flew the designated route twice. On the third run, at 10:59, I saw two aircraft in the Merklín region.”

10:59: as they flew from Přeštice toward Holýšov via Merklín, Šrámek spotted two aircraft 5,000 m to his left at an approximate altitude of 1,000 m. “Our courses crossed. After closing to within less than a kilometer […], I identified two F-84s with U.S. markings. The aircraft were painted with brown and silver stripes; the tip tanks were red. I turned in behind the intruders and reported [to base] that there were intruders in the area. I also contacted my wingman at the same time,” to shift into a combat formation.

The intruders were indeed F-84E Thunderjets. The leader was 1st Lieutenant Warren G. A. Brown; his wingman was 1st Lieutenant Donald C. Smith. Both were Korean War veterans (Brown had flown 100 missions), though neither was an ace3, and they were now assigned to the 53rd Fighter-Bomber Squadron of the 36th Fighter-Bomber Wing4, based since July 1952 at the German air base of Bitburg, north of Trier near Luxembourg. However, it appears that on 10 March 1953, for reasons unknown, the two F-84Es took off from their former field at Fürstenfeldbruck, much farther southeast near Munich. The Czechoslovak pilots moved into position behind the American aircraft, but the Americans eventually spotted them and—despite being poorly positioned at low altitude—began defensive maneuvers: the leader broke hard left while his wingman turned right. Covered by Forst, Šrámek followed the leader and, during the first turn, received an order to attack and fire warning shots to compel the Thunderjet to follow him and land at Dobřany. Procedure called for signaling this intention first with flares, but once the intruders began combat maneuvers, flares were no longer recommended: using them would have required overtaking the F-84s, risking exposure to fire. Šrámek continued: “Using my aircraft’s superior flight characteristics, I took position to attack the leader. Ground control ordered an attack. […] I managed to close to firing range and, after aiming, pressed the NS-23 cannon firing button. But the burst did not fire. For safety, the guns had been set during the exercise so that one had to press the button twice in succession to fire. I corrected the mistake, repositioned to the appropriate distance, and fired a first short burst from the NS-23 cannons.” The 23 mm rounds struck the Thunderjet’s right-wing fuel tank. A white plume—sign of a fuel leak—appeared at once.

11:02: the F-84 attempted to recross the border as quickly as possible, heading south to escape. It made a second turn of more than 90° and fled at around 800 km/h on a heading of 180°, in a shallow descent to gain speed.

11:04: much faster, Šrámek’s S-102 pursued. Flying at 950 km/h at 2,000 m altitude, he caught the Thunderjet over Chodská Lhota and fired another burst from 200–300 m, hitting the right side of the fuselage. Black smoke and flames appeared behind the cockpit as the American fighter continued descending toward the now-near border. Over Chudenín, Šrámek held his fire and made his radio report. The pair of S-102s broke off the attack. They executed a hard left turn as the second American aircraft passed over Forst’s jet by about one hundred meters. Forst immediately pursued but quickly lost the target in cloud.

11:06: Forst regained position behind his leader at 550 km/h, but minutes later Šrámek called ground control to ask where his wingman was—he could not see him. The two S-102s quickly reformed their combat pair and turned onto heading 320 to return to base.

11:11–11:14: disoriented by the fight, the two pilots had to verify their position three times before turning onto heading 062.

11:20: the S-102s landed safely at Dobřany. 1st Lieutenant Warren G. A. Brown managed to eject from his burning aircraft before it crashed in Bavaria, about 36 km from the border, not far from Falkenstein near Regensburg. He was recovered with superficial injuries.

The Republic F-84 Thunderjet

Originally designed to replace the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber, the F-84 made its first flight in February 1946. It featured a nose intake and straight wings. Engine reliability problems and structural fragility led to numerous improvements across successive variants. In May 1949, the F-84E received a more powerful engine, a strengthened structure, a slightly redesigned fuselage, larger fuel tanks, and a fire-control radar. It was armed with six 12.7 mm machine guns (300 rounds each) and could carry 900 kg of bombs.

More than 7,200 Thunderjets were built in total, including 843 F-84Es. The most modern versions were the later F-84F and G, with swept wings, a more powerful turbojet, and greater bomb/rocket loads (1,814 kg).

Specifications of the F-84E Thunderjet

• Wingspan: 11.09 m

• Length: 11.60 m

• Height: 3.83 m

• Wing area: 24.25 m²

• Weight (empty / max): 4,629 / 10,189 kg

• Cruise speed: 705 km/h

• Max speed: 900 km/h

• Service ceiling: 13,173 m

• Range: 2,389 km

Aftermath

Immediately after the Merklín air battle, diplomacy took over from the air forces. The next day, as the affair made Western headlines, the American ambassador in Prague delivered official protests to the Czechoslovak foreign minister—who rejected them the same day and issued counter-protests. On the 13th, the Americans renewed their démarches in a statement seeking to prove their F-84s had been attacked in West German airspace. They said they relied on intercepts from a U.S. radar station and demanded more than $270,000 in damages. A complaint was soon lodged at the International Court of Justice, though this was probably a public-relations move: the United States surely knew proceedings would take years—and indeed they never resulted in a judgment—but it was a forceful media gesture for domestic opinion.

In a detailed note sent to the Czechoslovak government on 18 August 1954, the U.S. State Department presented its version of events. It claimed that on 10 March 1953, at 09:38 GMT, in view of repeated unauthorized overflights of the U.S.-occupied zone of Germany by Czechoslovak military aircraft, U.S. authorities dispatched two F-84s to fly toward the Czechoslovak border—at all times following ground controllers’ orders—to intercept and identify the aircraft involved and report on them. It further stated that the two aircraft flew in a “loose patrol,” that the leader was Captain Donald C. Smith and the wing aircraft 1st Lieutenant Warren G. Brown, that armorers had rendered both aircraft’s armament inoperable before flight, and that at no time did the two aircraft cross into Czechoslovak airspace. This American document describes an alleged battle between two unarmed F-84s and several Czechoslovak jets that supposedly penetrated deep into Germany, offering extensive detail on locations, movements, altitudes, and speeds. In reality, there are so many details that the report reads less than candid—especially since, according to Czech historian Miroslav Irra (a leading specialist who met Šrámek before his death in 2015), it does not align with the MiG-15’s actual performance.

In the radar-intercept scenario described by the U.S. Air Force, the S-102s supposedly flew below 340 km/h before interception (already improbable), while the F-84 allegedly reached 1,155 km/h during its escape, when it cannot exceed about 960 km/h. Moreover, the American version is inconsistent on several points: why did the F-84s flee if their mission was to prevent border violations? Why were they unarmed for such a mission? Why did the second pilot not fire on Forst when he had the opportunity after his leader was hit? This is not to suggest that only American fighters had the bad habit of violating neighboring airspace. Czechoslovak violations also occurred. For example, on 20 August 1953 at 13:59, two jets crossed into Bavaria near České Žleby, penetrated 17 km into Germany as far as Freyung, then turned back. The cause later cited was disorientation, and the incident prompted official apologies to U.S. authorities. To prevent future problems of this kind, the Československé letectvo imposed a 10 km-wide no-fly strip along the border for military flights.

Given the short distances and high speeds involved in the 10 March 1953 incident, it is entirely possible that the S-102s crossed the border during interception maneuvers—but not before, and certainly not knowingly. It is also true that during the Korean War, many American pilots had a tendency to cross the Chinese border outside any legal framework, with indulgence—and sometimes at the initiative—of their chain of command. Following the transfer of Korean War veterans, did this habit of disregarding flight plans and orders spread to units based in Europe at a time when radar coverage was still rudimentary? That is one possible explanation (though unproven) for the F-84s’ presence in Czechoslovak airspace. The other, most likely explanation is simple navigational error.

Crossing the Border: an American Trend

In Korea, some F-86 pilots of the 51st Wing did not hesitate to illegally cross the Yalu River to attack MiG-15s in China and thus inflate their “score” by engaging enemy fighters who believed they were safe over neutral territory. Under cover of accidental border crossings in the heat of battle (the “hot pursuit” excuse), these sorties—nicknamed “Mapple Special”—were in fact planned well in advance, with volunteer pilots who sometimes falsified their reports after returning from mission (for more details, see Lt. Colonel Joseph R. Clark’s book, F-86E Sabre vs. Russian MiG-15: Some Korean Air-to-Air War Tales Revisited, RoseDog Books, 2020).

In Czechoslovakia, the Merklín air battle came at an opportune moment, demonstrating to the world the rising capability of the Československé letectvo: once visual contact was established, S-102 pilots could now effectively challenge American jets. But it also exposed shortcomings: intercepting the two F-84s was largely a matter of chance—an unexpected encounter—rather than the coordinated action of an advanced warning system the country did not yet possess. Czechoslovak reactions also reflected the extreme tension within the military and political apparatus. Despite their success, the pilots received more than praise: Forst was criticized for mistakes in his maneuver, while Šrámek was congratulated but not rewarded, even though he became—and remains to this day—the only Czechoslovak Air Force pilot to have shot down a jet fighter in combat. He was promoted later that year, but only by seniority (two years of service in June). He later flew the MiG-23 and the Aero L-29 and retired in 1989.

His victory was not publicized in Czechoslovakia. It came at a moment of extreme uncertainty for the regime: the incident occurred during Stalin’s funeral (he died on 6 March) and just before the death of President Klement Gottwald (14 March), two shocks that plunged the country into the unknown. In addition, on 12 March, a British Lincoln bomber was shot down in East Germany by a Soviet MiG-15, killing all seven crew members. It is possible that the Československé letectvo and the regime did not wish to worsen an already highly tense international situation.

At the very least, the March 10 incident sharply reduced the number of American jet intrusions into Czechoslovak airspace, and no other encounter of this kind occurred. It is also said that in 1989, as a gesture of détente, the Americans declassified documents proving their fault in the air battle over Merklín.

If there is one factor sailors must always take into account before putting to sea, it is the weather. In wartime, forecasting becomes essential: routing for task forces, the effectiveness of escorts and patrol aircraft, the chances of intercepting an enemy unit—much of it hinges on the sky and the sea. That is why, throughout the conflict, the Kriegsmarine made sustained efforts to obtain the meteorological data its naval operations required.

During the Battle of the Atlantic, reliable forecasts were indispensable for the U-bootwaffe. They helped estimate where Anglo-American convoys would be and how long submarines already at sea would need to catch them. Heavy seas inevitably slowed transit, but bad weather could also be a blessing—allowing major surface units to slip out of their bases unnoticed. Thus it was in dreadful conditions that the Bismarck attempted to pass through the Denmark Strait on 23 May 1941: wind Beaufort force 2–3, thick fog, biting cold, and freezing rain, effectively limiting visibility that day to no more than 3 nautical miles (about 3.5 mi) in a passage 50 nautical miles (57.5 mi) wide between Iceland and the Greenland pack ice.

A fair-weather friend

To forecast marine weather in the Atlantic, the North Sea, or the Baltic, there was only one solution: constantly monitor atmospheric developments in the Arctic—a region notoriously difficult to access, and the object of a genuine “competition” between the belligerents. In practical terms, there were three ways to gather weather data: by aircraft, by ship, or via land stations.

On this particular playing field, the Allies entered the war with a clear advantage: they controlled all the continental landmasses (Labrador and Greenland) and islands (Iceland, the Faroes, etc.) of the North Atlantic. Another trump card was geography. These territories were scattered both east and west of the ocean, allowing the continuous tracking of a low-pressure system moving across the Atlantic (generally west to east) through a chain of well-equipped, interconnected stations. Since the First World War, these stations had been funded collectively by various countries, which received their readings several times a day.

Germany had no such luxury. To obtain data beyond western Europe, the Kriegsmarine’s specialist service—the Marine-Wettertrupp—had to rely on vessels cruising continuously in the North Atlantic. The information collected was encrypted using a dedicated Enigma weather code and transmitted by radio to occupied Europe. But this solution was far too conspicuous to remain viable. The British soon learned of these converted trawlers and hunted them down relentlessly. The Germans replaced losses as they occurred, but with increasing difficulty. As a result, the U-bootwaffe was forced to divert at least one operational submarine from the front at all times to collect the necessary weather data as far north-west as possible.

In parallel, the Germans also used long-range aircraft—Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors, Heinkel He 111s, and Junkers Ju 88s—organised into Norway-based flights. Stationed at Stavanger, Trondheim, and Banak, Wettererkundungsstaffeln (or Wekusta) 1, 3, 5 and 6 flew observation missions, generally twice a day (weather permitting), in four directions—only the first lying within the Arctic Circle:

– over the Norwegian Sea, between Trondheim and southern Iceland;

– farther north, between the Norwegian coast and Jan Mayen;

– as far as the Greenland Sea, between Banak and the Svalbard archipelago;

– and finally to the north-east, between Banak and Novaya Zemlya.

A weather mission typically began with a low-altitude run to collect surface data: sea state, wind strength, cloud cover, atmospheric pressure, and so on. The aircraft then climbed in stages to record further parameters (especially barometric pressure) at different altitudes, before descending again on the way home to confirm or refine the initial readings. By definition, such observations were not continuous—a major drawback when the goal was to study the evolution of a weather front before it reached the European mainland. These aircraft were not hunted like weather ships, but they still lacked the key advantage of land stations. That is why, despite a clear deficit in 1939, the Germans built a network of such stations during the war, in two forms: automated stations and manned stations.

The Wetterfunkgeräte

The concept of the automated station was developed by the Finnish meteorologist Vilho Väisälä in 1932: a simple module capable of recording and transmitting several types of data (pressure, temperature, humidity, wind strength) over long periods. Given its limitations at the time, the Marine-Wettertrupp was keenly interested. At the request of Admiral Dr Fritz Conrad, the Greifswald maritime observatory developed two types of equipment in the early years of the war:

• Wetterfunkgerät-See (WFS)

The WFS was a weather buoy introduced from 1942. Its components (radio transmitter, sensors, clock, and batteries) were housed inside a watertight cylindrical float roughly the size of a torpedo, allowing it to be carried aboard U-boats. Once released, its mooring line paid out automatically to anchor it in 100 to 300 m (about 330 to 980 ft) of water. It then transmitted air pressure and temperature in Morse code four to five times per day for eight to ten days, using an aneroid barometer and a bimetal thermometer (both purely mechanical). The last WFS was deployed in November 1944 in the Gulf of Bothnia (Baltic Sea). In total, the Kriegsmarine used around thirty, mostly in the North Atlantic and the Western Approaches, but also three in the Arctic and an unknown number in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Some buoys were designed for depths of 2,000 m (6,500 ft), but appear to have been deployed with limited success.

• Wetterfunkgerät-Land (WFL)

The WFL was a small automated land station. Its 35 components were built and assembled by Siemens-Schuckert. Ten cylindrical containers—1 m (3.3 ft) high, 1.5 m (5 ft) in circumference, and weighing 100 kg (220 lb)—held various meteorological instruments, a 150-W short-wave radio transmitter, a battery pack (cadmium cells), and a 10 m (33 ft) metal antenna. More comprehensive than the WFS, the WFL included a thermometer and barometer, as well as a hygrometer and anemometer. Once assembled ashore, it could transmit a coded weather bulletin in Morse every three hours for six months (depending on the number of batteries connected). Each transmission lasted only two minutes, and the data (temperature, humidity, pressure, wind direction and speed) could be picked up by a chain of stations in northern Europe. The Kriegsmarine built 21 WFL sets, 13 of which were clandestinely installed in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions—north of Norway and in Canada.

By then, the Marine-Wettertrupp had developed a tightly organised system. In the North Atlantic, weather buoys were laid out, broadly speaking, along two lines—almost like two meridians—one south of Greenland, the other farther east, south of Iceland: in other words, one on either side of the ocean, ideally allowing a west-to-east depression to be tracked. Other WFS buoys were deployed mainly between islands where automated stations had been installed (Jan Mayen, Bear Island, Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemlya) to “fill in” gaps temporarily and refine observations—or perhaps to maintain continuous coverage at strategically useful points.

In practice, WFL autonomy lasted only a few months at best, so frequent replacements were necessary, especially on Bear Island. One automated-station episode is worth recounting. On 22 October 1943, after a voyage of more than a month, the U-Boat Type IXC/40 U-537 reached the Labrador coast carrying WFL 26 Kurt, along with a meteorologist and his assistant tasked with assembling and activating it. This was the first such station installed on the North American mainland. To reduce the risk of discovery, the U-boat’s commander chose an isolated site near Cape Chidley, at the far northern tip of Labrador. The Germans even left empty packets of American cigarettes on purpose and marked the equipment as property of an imaginary Canadian Meteo Service to deflect suspicion if found. The precaution proved unnecessary: it was not until 1977 that a geomorphology researcher stumbled upon the station—and initially assumed it was Canadian. By cross-referencing sources, a German historian working on Siemens realised that WFL 26 Kurt had been rediscovered: the only German “base” ever established in North America ! In September 1944, the Kriegsmarine attempted to repeat the mission, but the U-867—carrying WFL 30 Herbert—was sunk by a Liberator only days after sailing.

The Jan Mayen Stake

In the aftermath of Germany’s invasion of Norway in April 1940, King Haakon VII organised resistance from London, gathering under his authority the few Norwegian territories that remained free. Jan Mayen was one of them. The four meteorologists stationed at Eldstemetten continued transmitting their readings to the British, who decided to send reinforcements lest the Kriegsmarine seize the island. The operation went badly: the ship carrying the reinforcement grounded, and the British officer in charge chose to abort the mission and evacuate—after first destroying the station.

On 16 November 1940, the Germans did indeed attempt to land a weather team on Jan Mayen, but their trawler in turn ran aground on reefs while trying to evade a Royal Navy destroyer. To secure the island, the British mounted a new expedition in March 1941, this time establishing a permanent presence: a new station (12 men) and a small garrison with anti-aircraft guns at the foot of Beerenberg, the island’s volcano and high point (2,277 m; about 7,470 ft). The Luftwaffe attempted to bomb the base, without success—losing two four-engine aircraft in the process. In 1943, an American contingent landed in turn. One of its missions was to use radio navigation to locate German weather stations in Greenland. Ironically, neither Norwegians, Britons, nor Americans realised that in autumn 1944 the U-992 assembled automated station WFL 31 Walter right under their noses. Its radio transmissions were not detected because of the blind spot created by the island’s volcanic mass.

A Winter amid the Ice

Automated equipment was no panacea. With limited endurance, it still required substantial resources to deploy. That helps explain why the Germans increasingly favoured establishing manned, permanent stations—better supplied with instruments and capable of operating for many months, even years, without resupply or crew rotation. This mirrored Allied practice: the Allies already maintained numerous bases of this kind in polar and sub-polar regions, in Canada, Greenland, and the USSR. Between 1941 and 1945, all Kriegsmarine stations were established as close to the North Pole as possible, clustered in three geographic groupings: three on the coast of East Greenland, seven on the islands of Svalbard, and one in the Franz Josef Land archipelago.

German experience in polar research stretched back to 1912–13, when the Ebeltofthafen geophysical observatory was built on the Albert I Land peninsula of Spitsbergen. Evacuated shortly before the Great War, the small building was later destroyed, but several “national” polar expeditions were organised in the 1920s and 1930s, mainly in Greenland, by prominent scientists such as Alfred Wegener (the theorist of continental drift). In 1938, the ornithologist and seasoned explorer Hans-Robert Knoespel founded the high-mountain research station “Goldhöhe” in the Giant Mountains (the Sudetes), at an altitude of around 1,400 m (4,600 ft), on the site of a former Czechoslovak fortified post. When the Second World War began, the site came under military control and, from 1942, became a training centre for Marine-Wettertrupp personnel.

It was apparently there that Knoespel designed and tested prefabricated kit shelters for polar regions: 3×3×2.20 m (10×10×7 ft) cabins—nicknamed Knoespel-Würfel (“Knoespel cubes”)—which could be assembled together so that a small team could live (perhaps “winter” would be the better word) and work in complete self-sufficiency for months despite the extreme climate. Training covered meteorological observation, astronomy, celestial navigation, firearms, mountain combat, hunting, igloo construction, mountaineering, dog-sled handling, cooking, and advanced camping and bivouac skills, along with a two-week medical course (dental care and first aid) and the use of explosives.

Why Spitsbergen Mattered

In the long struggle for accurate forecasting, Svalbard played a strategic role that is often overlooked. This mountainous archipelago of some thirty islands (only two inhabited: Spitsbergen and Bear Island), largely covered by glaciers, has been Norwegian territory since 1920 while permitting foreign settlements. Its subsoil is rich in coal—hence the presence of hundreds of Soviet miners even in 1941.

Svalbard sits in an ideal position in the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Franz Josef Land—an importance that only increased after Germany invaded the USSR, since it lay astride the route of the Murmansk convoys. In short, whoever controlled the archipelago’s principal islands (Spitsbergen, Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya, and Bear Island) held a powerful lever either to interdict or to secure traffic in the Barents Sea. For the Germans, another incentive was obvious: a weather station there would reduce dependence on weather-reconnaissance flights from Banak and provide more regular, complete observations.

As with Jan Mayen, Germany’s occupation of Norway in April 1940 did not immediately disrupt daily life for miners, fishermen, and Norwegian meteorologists on Svalbard: no German soldiers arrived. But in summer 1941 Operation“Barbarossa” changed everything. The Royal Navy feared a German seizure of the archipelago’s coal, and—together with Moscow and the Norwegian government in exile—organised an evacuation: Operation “Gauntlet”. From 24 August to 1 September 1941, the liner Empress of Canada, escorted by two cruisers and three destroyers, embarked the entire population—3,200 people—after demolishing the weather station and access to the mines, and burning 450,000 t (about 443,000 long tons / 496,000 short tons) of coal along with various stocks of fuel, oils, and lubricants. The force also departed with several vessels, including three colliers loaded to the gunwales with coal.

Meanwhile, the Kriegsmarine made no attempt to prevent these destructions—largely because British forces on Spitsbergen had transmitted fake weather bulletins describing atrocious conditions, discouraging German reconnaissance flights. Only around 5 September did the Germans realise they had been fooled. At the same time, their weather-ship fleet had been decimated, leaving a severe shortage of reliable data. Hence the decision to send a specialist team to Spitsbergen to build and operate the station “Knospe” (literally “bud,” but also a pun on the operation’s leader, Hans-Robert Knoespel). On 26 September, two ships sailed from Kiel and, after calling at Tromsø, landed men and equipment in a fjord in northern Spitsbergen near the ruins of the old 1912 Ebeltofthafen observatory. By late October, the station (a hangar and two wooden cabins) was operational, and the ships left the archipelago before the ice closed in. The small team worked without being discovered until its supplies ran out, then was evacuated as planned on 23 August 1942—just before the onset of the worst season.

This first experience was a success, and the Marine-Wettertrupp decided to repeat it—both on Svalbard and in Greenland. Between 1942 and 1945, the german navy established ten manned stations of 6 to 20 men. The Luftwaffe mounted three similar expeditions, while the Abwehr (German intelligence) ran two smaller operations late in the war.

“Bansö,” the First German Station on Spitsbergen

The Luftwaffe was the first to learn of the Allied evacuation of Svalbard in early September 1941, thanks to reconnaissance flights by Luftflotte 5 based in Norway. It immediately grasped that a narrow window existed before winter to establish a base on the archipelago. A landing site was found near Longyearbyen, and a rough airstrip was laid out from 25 September 1941.

Named “Bansö” (a contraction of “Banak” and the Norwegian Spitzberg Öya), the weather station became operational from 9 November, and its four meteorologists lived there until May 1942, when an automated station was delivered. The operation required multiple flights, while the British repeatedly sent Catalina flying boats to reconnoitre and harass the camp. Only in July were the men of “Bansö” finally evacuated.

What a Manned Station Recorded?

Taking “Haudegen” as an example, meteorologists conducted three types of activity. First came ground observation and measurement of conditions every three hours—eight times per day: atmospheric pressure, temperatures (minima, maxima, etc.), humidity, cloud cover, wind direction and speed, precipitation, evaporation, and so on. Next came radiosondes (140 in one year) to measure air pressure and temperature in the upper layers. Finally, pilot balloons (number and frequency unknown) were released to record temperature, humidity, and wind speed and force at higher altitudes.

In Greenland

The individual stories of these stations read like a cross between The Tartar Steppe and the best Jack London adventure tales: solitude and survival, boredom and violence, military routine and nature’s cruelty. Operation “Holzauge” installed the first manned station in Greenland on 22 August 1942. Men and equipment were delivered to Sabine Island by trawler. The station transmitted observations until it was discovered on 13 May 1943 by the North-East Greenland Sledge Patrol, a Danish long-range dog-sled unit trained to monitor the Greenland coast and detect enemy incursions. The Danes attacked, but the firefight went badly for them: the Germans killed one patrolman and captured two. The remainder then retreated 600 km (about 370 mi) to report the situation. On 25 May, four American bombers based in Iceland destroyed the station. The meteorologists nevertheless managed to return to Germany: a Dornier Do 26 flying boat evacuated them in June—except for their leader, who had been captured shortly beforehand.

The “Bassgeiger” station was founded in October 1943 on Shannon Island, 80 km (50 mi) farther north. Men and equipment were carried by the former trawler WBS 2 Coburg, which became irretrievably trapped in ice during the approach and had to be abandoned. This did not prevent the weather team from working uninterrupted until 22 April 1944, when the base was attacked by a Danish sled patrol. Despite losing their leader, killed in the fighting, the Germans again repelled the assault. They continued their observations for another six weeks before being evacuated by seaplane on 3 June 1944.

The next three Greenland operations were far less convincing. In late August 1944, Operation “Edelweiß” ended abruptly when the former trawler Kehdingen had to be scuttled off Store Koldewey Island, where it was supposed to establish a manned station. “Edelweiß II,” landed on Lille Koldewey in October, suffered the same fate the following month when 200 US Coast Guard soldiers landed on the small island after an Air Force sighting. As for “Zugvogel,” it disappeared with the ship transporting it in December 1944—probably as a result of engine trouble in a storm.

Operation “Zitronella”

Back on Spitsbergen, events accelerated. On 30 April 1942, the British launched Operation “Fritham” to reassert control of the archipelago, belatedly concluding that a total evacuation had been a mistake. For largely political reasons, they sent a commando of 82 Free Norwegian troops (with three British liaison officers), intended to secure the island discreetly. German reconnaissance made that impossible. One aircraft spotted the two ships approaching on the morning of 14 May, and at 20:30 the same day four Condors attacked the force as it was landing. The ships were destroyed and 13 men were killed, including the commando leader. The survivors were now completely isolated: they knew a German camp existed nearby (the Luftwaffe station), but they had no weapons, supplies, or radio. They survived for weeks by hiding in the ruins of mining facilities demolished during Operation “Gauntlet,” until the Royal Navy—having had no news since 14 May—located them thanks to a report sent from “Bansö” (encrypted in Enigma but decrypted by Bletchley Park specialists). London then sent supplies and reinforcements through a series of “Gearbox” operations spread from July 1942 to June 1943.

The “Gearbox” Operations on Spitsbergen

• 2 July 1942: Operation “Gearbox.” Reinforcements and supplies landed by the Royal Navy.

• 8 September 1942: Resupply by the HMS Jamaica, Keppel, Bramham, Mackay and Montrose.

• 17–18 September 1942: Operation “Gearbox II” (part of Operation “EV”—escort of convoy PQ-18). Resupply by the HMS Cumberland, Sheffield and Eclipse.

• 19 October 1942: Operation “EZ.” Resupply by the HMS Argonaut, Inglefield and Obdurate.

• 25 November 1942: Resupply by the HMS London, Suffolk, Obedient, Obdurate and Orwell.

• 10 June 1943: Operation “Gearbox III” (part of Operation “FH”). Resupply by the HMS Cumberland, Bermuda, Eclipse and HMCS Athabaskan (Force R).

The Anglo-Norwegian return to Spitsbergen initially had no impact on the Marine-Wettertrupp programme. After “Knospe,” the Germans re-established a manned station at the same site, this time called “Nußbaum.” Arriving in October 1942 by submarine (U-377), its six men departed sometime in 1943 without being detected: the island is vast, and reconnaissance—on foot or by sled—is difficult in such rugged terrain.

During the summer of 1943, however, the Germans decided on a large-scale operation to eliminate the growing threat posed by Free Norwegian forces, now better established on the island. The concern was long-term: Allied bases might eventually attack the stations, or serve as resupply points for escorts protecting the Murmansk convoys. In short, control of Svalbard was at stake.

By early 1943, the Kriegsmarine itself had changed hands. Hitler blamed Admiral Raeder for what he considered a lack of aggressiveness by surface forces in the Arctic. Admiral Dönitz—until then head of the U-boat arm—took over the Navy with a daunting mission: to persuade the Führer not to disarm the major battleships Hitler wanted scrapped. For that, Dönitz needed a “full-scale” example demonstrating that the surface fleet could still strike offensively—something it had, truthfully, rarely done.

Spitsbergen came at exactly the right moment, providing a convenient pretext—especially since Allied convoys had temporarily ceased in the Arctic, and the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, already in Norway, had no prey to hunt. Hitler approved, and Operation “Zitronella” (also sometimes called “Sizilien”) was assembled in a matter of weeks. Under Admiral Kummetz, the two capital ships, escorted by nine Zerstörer carrying more than 600 grenadiers, sailed from Altafjord (near the North Cape) on the evening of 6 September. Their objective was to destroy a weather station, a power plant, and radio and port facilities that the Allies appeared to be using again.

8 September, 03:30: The German squadron split in two. The plan called for the Scharnhorst and the 5. and 6. Zerstörer-Flottillen to land troops at Longyearbyen, while the Tirpitz and the remaining escorts struck Barentsburg.

07:00: To approach as closely as possible without arousing suspicion, the Tirpitz hoisted the Royal Navy’s White Ensign at her masthead—a ruse of war that worked perfectly. Once in range, the Zerstörer landed the grenadiers: 190 at Barentsburg, 258 at Longyearbyen, 84 at Cape Linné (the southern entrance to Isfjord), and another 84 at Finneset (south of Barentsburg). Allied installations were inspected and destroyed, and 74 enemy soldiers were captured, including the commander of the small Norwegian garrison and his confidential documents.

11:00: For reasons that remain unclear today (probably propaganda), the Tirpitz opened fire on Barentsburg, even coming close to hitting German units. She fired 52 38 cm (15-inch) shells and 82 15 cm (5.9-inch) shells, destroying several wooden buildings and setting a coal mine ablaze. It was the only time in her career that her main guns thundered in an operational mission. The Norwegian troops had fled inland, and the squadron had no reason to linger far from its base. It returned the next day. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe used the raid as cover to install a weather station on the small island of Hopen, south of the archipelago.

From a media perspective, “Zitronella” was a success. Strategically, it produced no real advantage: the Kriegsmarine controlled Spitsbergen no better than before, while the Allies—who suffered only limited losses—were now on alert in the region. Allied resupply operations to Svalbard resumed in October and continued in 1944. For the US Navy’s official historian Samuel Eliot Morison, the resources committed to “Zitronella” far exceeded the results, showing that the operation was largely political: a way to save the German battleships from the disarmament Hitler desired.

This pointless “sweep” did not prevent the Marine-Wettertrupp from continuing its programme of manned stations on Svalbard. In November 1943, 12 men took part in Operation “Kreuzritter.” Hans-Robert Knoespel returned to service as expedition leader, establishing a new base farther north than previous ones. It operated from November 1943 to June 1944. But as the men were boarding a submarine sent to retrieve them, Knoespel was killed by the premature detonation of the station’s self-destruct charges.

From September 1944, the station “Haudegen” (11 men) took over on another island in the archipelago, Nordaustlandet. The mission ran smoothly until radio contact with the Kriegsmarine was lost in May 1945. And for good reason: in the chaos of defeat, nobody in Germany had the means—or the attention—to worry about a handful of men stranded on the edge of the polar world. Only on 4 September 1945 did a Norwegian fishing vessel arrive to evacuate the small team, which entered history as the last Wehrmacht unit to surrender to the Allies.

80 t of Equipment for the Station “Haudegen”

• 1 prefabricated weather station (several “Knoespel cubes” of 3×3×2.20 m)

• 7 t of coal (cooking and heating)

• 5.6 t of food and alcohol: around 4,000 rations of 6,000 kcal/day

• Tools, chemicals, and warm clothing

Weapons

• 4 MP40 submachine guns

• 2 MG42 machine guns

• 12 Mauser 98K and G43 rifles

• 21 handguns (various models, including 2 signal pistols)

• 4 hunting rifles (various models)

Ammunition

• 19,500 rounds of 7.92 mm ammunition (machine guns and rifles)

• 12,480 rounds of 9 mm ammunition (submachine guns and handguns)

• 300 hand grenades

• 258 rifle grenades

• 90 anti-tank rifle grenades

• 45 smoke grenades

• 48 smoke potsPrisoners of the Pole

The station “Schatzgräber” (“treasure hunters”) was established in September 1943 on Alexandra Land in the Franz Josef Land archipelago, an uninhabited Soviet possession. Its ten men were delivered with all necessary equipment by the Kehdingen, escorted by the U-387. The station operated until July 1944, resupplied either by submarine or by parachute drops from Condor aircraft. The plan had been for it to run longer, but on 30 May 1944 two men killed a polar bear whose meat—minced and eaten raw—was consumed. The team fell ill rapidly, except for the doctor, a vegetarian who had not joined the meal. He diagnosed trichinosis and, after several days, requested evacuation. A four-engine aircraft from KG 40 came to pick them up (landing on a very rough strip that caused problems for the undercarriage), and the men were eventually hospitalised in Trondheim.

Abandoned for decades, the site was “rediscovered” relatively recently by a widely publicised Russian expedition. Most striking today are perhaps the defensive measures put in place at the time, still partially visible: controlled minefields, machine-gun nests, pre-prepared firing positions, and so on. Such precautions seem to have been standard for each operation—perhaps helping explain why Danish sled patrols fared poorly when they attacked the German stations in Greenland.

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At the time, it caused a scandal: how could the flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron have gone down with all hands without enemy action or any internal accident? The answer was brutally simple. On a fine summer’s day, in calm seas, she was rammed by a ship from her own fleet—because of a misjudged distance. Worse still, almost everyone on the bridges involved could see what was coming.

In 1893, the Mediterranean Fleet was the Royal Navy’s most powerful formation—a measure of the importance Victorian Britain attached to this enclosed sea, the link between the empire’s scattered possessions. Strategically vital both militarily and economically, the Mediterranean was a top priority. The Royal Navy modernised its ports and dockyards in the region and deployed some of its best ships—and some of its best officers.

Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon was one of them. Appointed in September 1891 as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, he was among the most distinguished naval officers of his generation. Over a long and varied career he had commanded several fleets, run large-scale exercises, and tackled a wide range of problems. Above all, he had studied tactics and fleet movements, earning a reputation—hardened by experience—for audacity.

Those qualities, however, came with equally formidable flaws. Shaped by the Navy’s severe discipline, Tryon could be cuttingly rigid; he accepted neither comment nor challenge to his orders. Meticulous to the point of obsession, he also sought to control everything. In one of his early directives, did he not require his captains to report all information relating to the fleet’s interests—even items they would not normally think worth passing up the chain?

That despotic temperament sat uneasily with the command style he chose. Lamenting what he saw as his subordinates’ lack of initiative, Tryon demanded autonomy in action once orders had been issued—meaning captains were to be ready for every contingency. His great model, of course, was Lord Horatio Nelson. Tryon revived Nelson’s concept of brief, simple signals at sea, relying on his captains to interpret the intent and decide how best to apply it… but, in every case, to execute it to the letter.

Since Nelson, flag signalling had changed little. Tryon studied the problem and devised his own simplified, faster combat signal book, known as “TA”. But such a system required enterprising captains and well-trained crews—qualities that were in short supply in the Mediterranean Fleet: the first, stifled by Tryon’s own authoritarianism; the second, eroded by decades of peace at sea. It was this lack of hard-won seamanship that had led the HMS Victoria to run violently onto reefs off the Greek coast in January 1892, buckling her hull over more than 20 m (about 66 ft) of its length.

By 1893 the Mediterranean Fleet comprised eleven major ships organised into two divisions. The first contained six units directly commanded by Tryon (HMS Victoria, Nile, Dreadnought, Inflexible, Collingwood and Phaeton). The second (HMS Camperdown, Edinburgh, Sans Pareil, Edgar and Amphion) was under Rear-Admiral Sir Hastings Albert Markham, in post for a year.

Most of these ships were relatively modern. The Victoria and Sans Pareil—sister ships—along with the Nile, ranked among the Royal Navy’s most up-to-date battleships. The division split was not merely administrative: for most of the year the two groups operated separately, Tryon patrolling the eastern Mediterranean while Markham worked west of Malta. In practice, the fleet only assembled in full during the summer for its annual cruise—its sole opportunity for large-scale collective training.

“Leave it at six cables!”

In June 1893, Tryon put his fleet through a series of intricate manoeuvres—his speciality—interspersed with diplomatic calls and port visits. On 22 June at around 10:00, the fleet weighed anchor from Beirut, a key hub of European trade with the Sublime Porte, and headed north along the coast.

12:45 — Tryon informed his subordinates that he intended to anchor by day’s end at Tripoli (northern Lebanon), after a fleet-evolution exercise. The ships would follow the HMS Victoria in single column. On the signal, the fleet would split by division into two separate columns, then steam on parallel courses at 8 knots. The two columns would be separated by 1,110 m (about 1,200 yd)—six cables—passing Tripoli, then on the starboard hand, before turning back simultaneously. To do so, on the signal both columns would turn towards each other, each in the wake of its guide, and settle on an interval of two cables—370 m (about 400 yd). They would then proceed straight for a few nautical miles, slow, turn 90° to port, and stop together once they reached the planned anchorage for the night.

The exercise was neither especially complex nor particularly novel, but it demanded every captain’s attention and close coordination—exactly what Tryon wanted. The ships had differing performance characteristics, above all in manoeuvrability and turning circle. It may also have been intended to impress local authorities and spectators ashore with the apparent clockwork precision of a modern fleet entering harbour. There was, however, a problem: everything depended on the initial separation—and it was far too short. When Tryon explained the plan early in the afternoon to Staff Commander Thomas Hawkins-Smith (his assistant in charge of the 1st Division) and to Captain Maurice Bourke of the Victoria, both men suggested changes. The turning circles of the Victoria and Camperdown were at least 650 m (about 710 yd). If the starting interval between the columns—1,110 m (1,200 yd)—were maintained, the two ships would collide before completing their half-turn.

The manoeuvre would be perfectly feasible with an interval of ten cables—1,850 m (2,000 yd)—and perhaps just possible at eight cables—1,480 m (1,600 yd)—but only just. Tryon finally accepted his officers’ judgement and agreed that eight cables would be preferable. Alas, a little later, when his Flag Lieutenant, Lord Guilford, came to take orders for the signal to the fleet, Tryon reversed himself and insisted on six cables. Bourke, alerted and assuming a mistake, reminded him that the agreed interval was eight cables—but the admiral would not budge. “Leave it at six cables,” he replied, imperturbable.

14:20 — Signal flags broke at the halyards. As if by one will, the fleet divided: the five ships of the 2nd Division altered course to port to form a new column with the Camperdown leading, now six cables from the 1st Division. On the bridges of every battleship and cruiser, the same scene played out. Captains obeyed the orders—but they had also grasped the danger. Their position was painfully ambiguous. Tryon’s doctrine theoretically allowed a captain to disregard an order he deemed impracticable. But everyone also knew that outright disobedience would be punished severely by an authoritarian commander.

15:24 — Because the “TA” system had no pre-set code for the manoeuvre he wanted, Tryon sent specific orders: “Second column: alter course in succession 16 points to starboard, maintaining the order of the fleet”1 and “First column: alter course in succession 16 points to port, maintaining the order of the fleet.” (Sixteen points: in other words, a 180° turn.) On board HMS Camperdown, Markham and her captain, Johnstone, hesitated, thinking they must have misunderstood. They were preparing to request clarification by semaphore when an acidic message came back by the same means: “What are you waiting for?” To make the rebuke unmistakable, Tryon hoisted a set of signal flags publicly reprimanding the Camperdown in full view of the fleet. It was too much. Markham, sick at heart, finally obeyed. The reprimand was enough to convince the other wavering captains to follow orders to the letter.

15:28 — Johnstone put the Camperdown’s helm over to starboard. Six cables away, on the Victoria, Tryon ordered the same manoeuvre to port. The two ships closed rapidly; tension rose another notch. Summoning his courage, Bourke addressed Tryon: “We had better do something; we’re getting too close to the ship.” The admiral did not answer. Bourke then asked the officer of the watch to measure the range by sextant. The reply came quickly: just over three cables. Alarmed, Bourke requested permission to order full astern on the port engine to reduce the turning arc as much as possible. He had to ask three times before Tryon emerged from his silence and authorised the manoeuvre. It was too late. By then, the two battleships had closed to the point where collision was inevitable. Bourke had time only to order, “Full astern!” and “Close all watertight doors!” His objective was no longer to avert disaster, but to soften it—killing the Victoria’s headway and reducing the angle of impact. On the Camperdown, Markham did the same as the ships closed to less than 400 m (about 450 yd).

“It’s all my fault”

15:30 — With a dreadful crash, the Camperdown’s ram struck the Victoria on the starboard bow. It drove in deeply—about 3 m (about 10 ft)—at 4 m (about 13 ft) below the surface. The shock stopped both ships, their engines now reversed; then the Camperdown backed away. Her ram tore free, leaving a hole of 9 m² (100 sq ft) through which seawater poured at roughly 3,000 t per minute ( about 3,300 short tons per minute). On the bridge, no one grasped that the ship was already dying. The machinery spaces had not been hit, and Tryon believed he still had time to beach the battleship on the nearby coast. He even refused assistance from other ships and ordered the boats they had already lowered to be hauled back aboard. In reality, the Victoria was in her final minutes. Multiple forward compartments were flooding; some watertight doors had not been shut in time; and water soon began entering through hatches left open to ventilate the ship’s interior.

15:35 — A tarpaulin was quickly hauled over the breach to slow the inrush, but five minutes after the collision the sea was already washing the deck up to turret level.

15:38 — the HMS Victoria took a heavy list forward to starboard. The main deck was now at the waterline, and the inclination was so severe that the propellers were partly visible. The engines were still turning, but the helm no longer answered. It was impossible to launch all boats. The crew showed no sign of panic despite the gravity of the situation. On the bridge, Tryon was crushed by guilt. “It’s all my fault,” he kept repeating to his subordinates as evacuation began. Everyone now knew time was running out. A young commander—who only minutes earlier had been lying in his cabin with a high fever—threw himself over the side in his pyjamas. His name? John Jellicoe—future Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy.

15:43 — Barely thirteen minutes after the collision, the Victoria capsized. Water surged down the funnels and flooded the boilers, triggering several explosions.

The sea swallowed the battleship as she plunged bow-first, dragging 358 officers and men down with her. Among the dead was only one senior officer: Vice-Admiral Tryon himself—who paid with his life for a miscalculation of two cables.

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