CHAPTER 6 – WINSTON’S SPECIAL À LA KRETSCHMER
09:28 (Halifax Time)
Wednesday, November 5, 1941
Control room, U-800
Ninety kilometers southeast of Halifax
‘’They are definitely warships, Herr Kapitän, about ten of them, including three big ones of at least cruiser size. They seem to be patrolling at slow speed off the Halifax Harbor entrance channel. One of them is actively pinging its ASDIC in a search pattern. From the frequency of the pinging, I would say that it is not a British set.’’
‘’Hum, probably Americans then, since the Canadians use British ASDIC equipment.’’ Said softly Otto Kretschmer, standing over his hydrophone array operator in the sonar section. He then turned his head towards the adjacent electronic warfare section. ‘’Do you have anything on your detectors, Hoth?’’
‘’I have one metric band search radar sweeping from that group of warships, Herr Kapitän, and it is an American set, judging from the frequency of the pulses. I have as well a couple of British ship radars to the northeast, but quite distant.’’
Otto mentally analyzed for a moment that information, then looked at Leutnant Streib, who was manning the watch periscope. They had travelled back from the Azores mostly on schnorchel, with their watch periscope and EW mast above the surface in order to detect any approaching possible threat.
‘’Leutnant Streib, what do you see around us?’’
‘’Nothing but fog thick enough to slice with a knife, Herr Kapitän.’’
‘’Very well! Helm, continue on present heading but reduce speed to ten knots. We will further reduce speed when close to those American warships.’’
‘’Reducing speed to ten knots, aye Herr Kapitän!’’
‘’What would such a group of American warships do here, off Halifax, Kapitän?’’ Asked Franz Streib, curious.
‘’There are a couple of possibilities, including that those warships may have escorted some high value ship or ships to Halifax. They also could be on their way to Iceland as escorts for a convoy. Thus, they could be departing in the following days while screening an important convoy to England. If that’s the case, only a troop convoy would merit such a strong escort in my opinion.’’
‘’And would we have the right to attack them, according to international law, Herr Kapitän?’’
Otto’s expression hardened somewhat, as the question touched something he felt quite strongly about.
‘’Yes, we would! The Americans may still be officially neutral in this war, but they are inside the territorial waters of a declared combatant state and, if they really are going to escort British or Canadian soldiers, will be perfectly legitimate targets for us. The same applies if they attack us in Canadian waters, as we would have the right of self-defense. Those Americans have been playing quite an hypocritical game up to now, providing war supplies and equipment to the British and even escorting British convoys at sea while claiming to be neutral, but I will not hesitate to remind them of the realities of war if they give me an excuse to attack them. Too many German lives have been lost due to the war assistance they are giving to the British.’’
Many heads nodded at those words around the control room. In truth, many in Germany believed that Great Britain would have been defeated by now and the war put to an end, if not for the huge logistical and financial support given to the British by the Americans.
While keeping a vigilant acoustic, radar and radio listening watch, the U-800 silently made its way towards Halifax at ten knots until down to forty kilometers from the American flotilla, which appeared to be slowly going along a long oval circuit. With the American radar signal now becoming dangerously strong, Otto decided that it was time to become really discreet.
‘’Machines, stop the diesels! Switch to batteries! Retract the schnorchel and our masts! Helm, slow down to five knots! Make your depth twenty meters as soon as the schnorchel is secured! Rig for silent running!’’
The few German sailors who had not yet put on their special felt slippers over their boots did so then, in order to cut as much the noise they made. Soon, the U-800 turned into a silent ghost slipping through the dark blue waters. Otto then chose to climb up to the forward underwater watch dome, to watch visually for the sight of any ship coming close to his submarine. With the sunlight diluted by the surface fog still enough to light the ocean to some degree, the bottom of the hull of any ships approaching the U-800 would be visible from below, something that Otto fully counted on. As his hydrophone operators warned him that the bearing of the American ships was now changing at a growing rate, a sure sign that they were getting quite close, Otto raised his binoculars to his eyes and started scanning the surface of the ocean from below. It took him less than a minute to spot a number of gray shapes on the surface, shapes that were further highlighted by the white wakes made by the ships as they cut through the waves.
‘’Helm, reduce speed further to two knots! Turn starboard to heading 340 and go to depth of thirty meters.’’
‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän!’’
With his submarine now on a reverse parallel course to the path of the American flotilla, Otto was soon able to detail from less than eighty meters the underside of the American ships as they passed by him at a speed of twelve knots, their own screws and machinery noise drowning the little noise made by the submarine and making it nearly impossible to detect him, short of direct active sonar pinging. Armed with a ship visual recognition book, Otto was able to classify with fair accuracy the type and size of the warships parading above him. What he saw made him frown.
‘’A fleet light carrier, two heavy cruisers and seven destroyers? A simple supply convoy certainly wouldn’t rate such a strong escort, especially for the carrier.’’
That made him think furiously about the significance of the presence of such a powerful group of American warships here, just off Halifax. He knew well that American ships already routinely escorted British supply convoys between Newfoundland and Iceland, but these escort forces consisted only of destroyers up to now. If those American warships were really here to escort a British convoy towards England, then that convoy had to be exceptionally important, which meant that he, Otto Kretschmer, wanted badly to hit it. With this in mind, he thought about the best location for his submarine to be when that British convoy would come out. That, however, was a difficult decision to make, as both close and remote locations from the harbor had advantages and disadvantages. There was also the problem that he didn’t know when that convoy would come out of Halifax. However, those American warships wouldn’t keep circling around off Halifax, burning a lot of fuel, if that convoy was not due to come out soon. Finally taking a decision, Otto made his helmsman turn directly towards the entrance channel of Halifax Harbor, about sixteen kilometers away by now, while increasing speed to six knots.
The U-800 was only a few kilometers from the entrance channel when Otto got a warning by intercom from his hydrophone operators.
‘’Herr Kapitän, we are just now picking noises of anchors being pulled up and engines starting straight ahead. From the noise, I would say that we have at least three or four very big ships ahead, pretty close to us. They must have been at anchor outside the harbor.’’
‘’At anchor outside the harbor?’’ Said Otto, puzzled. If those ships were due to go to England under escort, then weighing anchor outside a port didn’t make any sense, even if you took account of the thick fog. One would simply wait inside the harbor for the fog to dissipate, then would come out. However, ‘very big ships’ could only mean ‘troopships’ to Otto, if they were not warships. If those big ships turned out to be warships, meaning possibly battleships, then Otto wanted to know it quickly, in order to be able to decide what to do about them. Either way, his original plan to lay on the bottom near the entrance channel, so that he could quietly slip under an outgoing convoy and thus lose himself among the loud noise generated by the ships, still sounded good to him. Now concentrating his attention ahead and above, Otto soon started seeing the propellers and hull bottom of a large ship. Giving a series of orders by intercom to his helmsman, he made his submarine veer to starboard, then to port, so that he could be a few hundred meters off the side of that ship. To his astonishment, he soon found out that the said ship was enormous, over 200 meter-long, and was no warship. It had to be a passenger liner, probably converted to transport troops by the thousands. Furthermore, five other large ships, two of them as big or bigger than the first one, were also pulling up anchor and starting their engines nearby. Otto’s heart jumped in his chest when he understood that he was looking at a troop convoy with a capacity to carry a whole army division. Unable to resist the temptation and wanting badly to confirm his suspicions, he gave a series of quick orders from his position in the underwater observation dome.
‘’Herr Streib, have all our tubes ready to fire on short notice and stand by at the fire control computer. Have us come slowly to periscope depth: if this is what I think, we may have to shoot torpedoes from close range at multiple troopships.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’ Replied the Third Watch Officer, excitement detectable in his voice.
As his crew got ready for combat and as his submarine slowly rose to periscope depth, Otto suddenly realized that something was wrong: the big troopships were now entering the harbor entrance channel, not leaving Halifax! Completely confused by that, he nonetheless waited for his submarine to be just under the surface, then slid down the ladder to the control room to go take position at the attack periscope, raising its optical head just above water with the flip of a switch. The ship that he saw less than 400 meters was easy enough to recognize for a naval officer like him.
‘’Mein Gott! We have the passenger liner SS Washington, painted in gray war livery, just in front of us. I can also see the SS Manhattan and the SS America, all painted in gray, plus three smaller liners. They are now making their way into Halifax Harbor.’’
First lowering the head of his attack periscope before someone aboard the big liners saw it, he then looked at his watch officer.
‘’Change of plan: we are not attacking at this time, as those ships are going in Halifax, probably to go load up with British or Canadian troops. We will instead quietly take some distance, so that we could take a safe watch position far enough to be able to use our schnorchel and thus conserve battery power for a future attack. Dive to a depth of 25 meters and take Heading 085, speed of five knots.’’
‘’Depth of 25 meters, Heading 085 at five knots, aye, Herr Kapitän!’’
With many crewmembers probably wondering by now what was going on, the U-800 quietly slipped away from Halifax, leaving the American warships flotilla to its starboard side. Those American warships however broke off their waiting circuit and then also entered Halifax harbor behind the troopships, confirming to Otto that they were here to escort the converted liners.
Once he was in what he considered a safe but good watch position, Otto made his submarine stop and assembled his officers in the officers’ mess for an impromptu command meeting. After telling his officers what he had seen of both the American escort force and the six converted liner ships, he looked around the table of the mess at his officers.
‘’We now have what seems to be a group of American liners converted into troopships and escorted by a very strong American escort flotilla that includes an aircraft carrier, with the liners probably going to load up with British or Canadian troops in Halifax. Just the strength of the escort flotilla is enough to convince me that this American convoy is of great importance to the British. If it would be a purely American convoy, with American troops onboard, then it would be unlikely to stop like this in Halifax, as all the ships I saw have more than enough range to make it to England or the Mediterranean from American Atlantic Coast ports without the need to refuel in Halifax. What do you think, my friends?’’
‘’I agree with you, Herr Kapitän.’’ Said Ulrich Von Wittgenstein. ‘’This must be an American convoy about to load up with Canadian troops heading for England. It would thus be our duty to do everything possible to stop such a convoy from getting to England.’’
‘’Could these American liners be going to deliver troops to Iceland instead?’’ Asked Herman Spielberger, the second watch officer. Otto shook his head at that.
‘’Who would waste a whole army division just to defend Iceland? That would be stupid.’’
‘’What if those troops to be loaded in Halifax were headed to somewhere else than England?’’ Cut in Werner Jentz, the chief engineer. ‘’The British Empire is vast and it has plenty of potential trouble spots around the Middle East, India and Asia.’’
‘’Hum, that is actually a very good point, Werner.’’ Said Otto, thoughtful.
‘’Shouldn’t we alert our command headquarters in France about this convoy, Herr Kapitän?’’ Asked Gustav Munchausen, the assistant engineer officer, attracting a dubious look from Otto.
‘’Do you know how many radio direction finding stations there could be in and around Halifax, not counting those American warships offshore? If we radioed a message now, we might as well pop up a flare to signal our position away.’’
‘’Didn’t you know why our captain is nicknamed ‘Silent Otto’, Gustav?’’ Joked Ulrich Von Wittgenstein while elbowing Munchausen. ‘’He likes to be invisible…to everybody.’’
‘’Well, with this said,’’ cut in Otto, ‘’I’ve made my mind to wait here at schnorchel depth until those big troopships come out of Halifax. Then we will attack them, ideally before their escort ships can form around them, and while they are still in Canadian waters.’’
‘’What if those American warships attack us then or afterwards?’’ Asked Werner Jentz. Otto answered at once, his expression firm.
‘’Then we will exercise our right of self-defense. Those American liners will be transporting enemy soldiers to an enemy land, which makes them legitimate targets of war, irrespective of any hypocritical protests President Roosevelt could make afterwards.’’
Otto and his crew then settled in for a possibly long wait, the EW mast and watch periscope of the U-800 popping out at intervals and with its schnorchel mast raised during nighttime in order to replenish the batteries. The next day, on November sixth, they heard and saw a big, strongly escorted British convoy pass by, coming from the East, and then enter Halifax Harbor. The British transport ships were actually escorted by a very powerful American escort fleet consisting of one battleship, one fleet carrier, two light cruisers and a full destroyer squadron. That American escort force left as soon as it reached Halifax, handing over convoy protection duty to the task group led by the carrier USS RANGER Such an escort arrangement, with the United States supposedly being still a neutral state in this war, was both completely out of the ordinary and highly irregular according to the international laws of war. That would normally have pushed most submarine commanders to immediately fire up a radio report back to France, to alert Admiral Dönitz about this. However, Otto Kretschmer suspected that doing such a thing would probably signal him to the enemy and attract a whole fleet on top of him. The British transport ships left Halifax three days later with a much smaller escort than the one that had accompanied them from England,. Otto was tempted for a moment to attack those British ships but refrained from doing so, now certain that a big prize was going to eventually come out of Halifax in the next few days. He now knew that those British troops would not be sailing on the American troopships to go to England, since they had just come from there. Werner Jentz’s suggestion that they would be heading towards some distant part of the British Empire sounded more and more like the correct guess.
07:32 (Halifax Time)
Monday, November 10, 1941
U-800 control room, waiting position off Halifax
‘’Kapitän! We have multiple ships noise coming from the mouth of Halifax’ entrance channel: ships are coming out.’’
‘’What do we have on radar and radio listening?’’ Asked at once Otto while approaching the sonar section. The operators in the next compartment shouted their answer.
‘’Nothing yet on radio, Herr Kapitän, but that American surveillance radar from the carrier USS RANGER can be heard weakly now.’’
‘’Very well, this is the moment that we had been waiting for. Leutnant Spielberger, call the crew to battle stations! Machines: cut the diesels, go to battery and retract the schnorchel. Helm, take Heading 304, speed: ten knots at depth of twenty meters. We are going to take our preselected ambush position. Hydrophones, are the American destroyers pinging their ASDIC sets on active?’’
‘’Affirmative, Herr Kapitän! However, the way they are accelerating now to clear the entrance channel, they won’t be able to hear much on passive mode, while their pinging will be quite ineffective.’’
‘’I won’t complain about that. Leutnant Spielberger, make sure that both our forward and aft underwater watch domes are manned and vigilant.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’
With its own radiating noise much less than that of conventional U-bootes, thanks to the ducted propeller, noise insulation and raft-mounted engines of its design, the U-800 glided nearly silently to its chosen ambush position a few hundred meters southeast of Rockhead Shoal, outside of Halifax’ entrance channel, where the bottom lay at a depth averaging 35 meters. The American warships passed by the U-800, unaware of the submarine, while speeding towards what looked like an assembly point about twelve kilometers south of the port. The acoustic signature of the U-800 was anyway soon drowned out completely by the noise from the powerful machinery of the carrier USS RANGER and of the heavy cruisers USS QUINCY and USS VINCENNES, coming out single file behind the destroyers. Otto was thus able to get to his selected ambush point undetected and wait there at periscope depth, but with the top of its periscopes left just under the waves. The first of the big converted American liners started coming out of the entrance channel maybe fifteen minutes later, a Canadian destroyer in the lead. However, that destroyer, unlike the American ones, was not pinging his ASDIC set on active mode and did not detect the U-800. Otto shook his head at that: while the British Navy had been fairly quick in learning its lessons from the blows given by German submarines, the Royal Canadian Navy was still quite amateurish, hampered by inexperienced crews, insufficient training and inadequate equipment. In contrast, Otto had been at the command of submarines for more than two years now and had conducted twelve war patrols, notwithstanding the present one. His crewmen were all veterans with at least two war patrols under their belts, while he had personally selected the officers of the U-800, training them and the crew for months as a whole. Otto also had a good four days to think about his attack plan, while he had quite a good knowledge of the ships that were to become his targets.
One of the watchmen in the forward underwater observation dome was the first to call a warning by intercom to Otto, who was standing by at the attack periscope.
‘’Herr Kapitän, we have the SS WASHINGTON coming out of the entrance channel, followed about 600 meters behind by another liner. They are going at about eight knots at this time and should pass approximately 600 to 700 meters from our bow.’’
‘’Understood! Attention, all hands! We will execute the attack plan we rehearsed as discussed. We will fire our bow tubes first, using G7e torpedoes. Fire control solution team: stand by for my inputs and commands! Trim and ballasts control, be ready to compensate for rapid torpedo fire.’’
That last command, which would sound superfluous to the uninitiated, was actually very important. With torpedoes each weighing over a ton and a half and with submarines’ trim balance and depth keeping being very sensitive to any change of mass, each torpedo firing had to be compensated for by admitting an equivalent mass of water in properly located trim tanks. With rapid ripple fire, trimming was even more critical, to avoid the submarine breaking accidentally the surface of the ocean at the time of maximum danger. Thankfully, Otto’s men were old hands at that game and were fully ready. As the watchmen in the forward dome signaled the coming out of the third liner, Otto raised the top of his periscope out of the water for a few seconds, just long enough to register and announce out loud the bearings of the three big liners about to pass in front of him in single file. Lowering his periscope head while his fire control solution team entered that data in their electro-mechanical calculator, Otto waited another twenty seconds, then raised again his periscope head and registered the new bearings for his three first targets, lowering again his periscope head after that. Ulrich Von Wittgenstein spoke up less than fifteen seconds later.
‘’Fire solutions ready!’’
Raising his periscope head for the third time, Otto pointed it at the port side of the SS MANHATTAN, which was third in line and furthest from his submarine.
‘’First target, bearing 043 relative, fire Tubes One and Two!’’
The submarine shuddered slightly twice as the two G7e electrically-propelled torpedoes were ejected in quick succession from their launch tubes in the bow. With one crewman clocking their running time, Otto pointed his attack periscope at the second farthest liner, the SS AMERICA.
‘’Second target, bearing 021 relative, fire Tubes Three, Four and Five!’’
The U-800 shuddered again, three times, and Otto pointed at his nearest target, the SS WASHINGTON. From the mere distance of 700 meters, he was able to see that it had been renamed the ‘MOUNT VERNON’.
‘’Third target, bearing 005 relative, fire Tubes Six, Seven and Eight!’’
As soon as his three last bow tubes had fired, Otto lowered his periscope head and shouted commands.
‘’HELM, STEER PORT TO HEADING 240, SPEED TWENTY KNOTS AND DEPTH OF FIFTEEN METERS! HERR VON WITTGENSTEIN, START CLOCKING THIS RUN AND WARN ME AFTER FOUR MINUTES! MINES LAUNCH TUBES CONTROL, BE READY TO EJECT TWELVE MINES IN RAPID SEQUENCE ON MY COMMAND! SET THEM ON BOTH MAGNETIC AND ACOUSTIC TRIGGERS! FORWARD TORPEDO ROOM, RELOAD OUR BOW TUBES AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN!’’
As the U-800 sped through the water, its crew tense and ready to react to anything, the men in the forward torpedo room started reloading the eight bow torpedo tubes, working the controls of their two huge chain-driven torpedo carrousels, each containing twenty torpedoes. The elevating loading trays of each vertical pair of tubes came up to pick up fresh torpedoes from the bottom feeding openings of the carrousels, with a torpedo dropping a couple of centimeters on each tray before the latter lowered to line up with an opened torpedo tube. Hydraulic rammers then pushed the fresh torpedoes in their assigned tubes. The whole procedure took less than eight minutes but was barely starting when the distant, muffled noise of underwater detonations started to be heard in quick succession, making the German submariners briefly shout in triumph. Otto Kretschmer had just used a tactic an artillery officer would call a ‘time-on-target fire mission’. Firing in succession his torpedoes at his targets in order of diminishing distance from his submarine, he had thus ensured that his torpedoes would all hit and explode at around the same time, not giving a chance to the enemy to react to the first explosions and also giving the impression that many submarines were attacking the convoy at once. Otto himself briefly shouted with joy as all of his eight torpedoes ran true and hit their respective targets, exploding on impact. Briefly raising his periscope head out of the water, he gave a quick look at his three victims: all three liners were now distinctly slowing down quickly and were even starting already to develop a list to port. He saw as well the three other liners of the convoy, aft of the stricken liners and coming out of harbor in single file. He was going to be able to take care of them soon enough. First, however, he had to secure his back against the American and Canadian escort ships. Turning his periscope around, he was able to quickly acquire visually the old Canadian destroyer that had been leading the liners, which was now performing a hard turn to port maybe two kilometers ahead. As for the American destroyers, four of them were also turning towards the harbor entrance but they were a good five kilometers away and would take some time to arrive on the scene.
‘’Fire control team, possible next target, bearing 010 relative. Sonar, give me one active ping to get the distance for that next target!’’
Less than four seconds later, the U-800 used its advanced low frequency active bow sonar for the first time in combat.
BONG
The low frequency sound pulse, much more powerful than the ones from the standard British and American high-frequency sonar sets of the time, started sending back echoes within seconds as it painted in succession the American and Canadian ships around the U-800, giving a complete and accurate tactical picture to Ulrich Von Wittgenstein, who hurried to record and plot it on his tactical plot table. At the same time, the sonar operator shouted his information towards Otto.
‘’RANGE TO TARGET AT BEARING 010 RELATIVE: 1,700 METERS!’’
‘’THANK YOU, SONAR! HELM, BE READY TO TURN NINETY DEGREES TO STARBOARD AT MY COMMAND! MINES FIRE CONTROL, YOU WILL START SOWING TWELVE MINES AT ONE HUNDRED METER INTERVALS AS SOON AS WE TURN TO STARBOARD.’’
‘’AYE, HERR KAPITÄN!’’
Maybe a minute later, with the Canadian destroyer rushing in at high speed, Von Wittgenstein spoke up.
‘’Four minutes on the clock for our run, Herr Kapitän!’’
‘’Thank you! HELM, TURN NINETY DEGREES TO STARBOARD NOW! REDUCE SPEED TO FIVE KNOTS! MINES CONTROL, START EJECTING YOUR MINES IN FIVE SECONDS!’’
As the U-800 started turning hard to starboard, rolling in its turn like an aircraft and forcing its crewmembers to grab solidly something fixed to the deck, the operator at the control panel of the 44 sea mines launch tubes, whose outer doors on the flanks of the submarine were already opened, started ejecting his two-ton sea mines at intervals of 45 seconds. While the U-800 was spewing its deadly eggs, Otto pointed his attack periscope at the incoming Canadian destroyer, which was apparently rushing in blind and was going to pass to the starboard side of his stern.
‘’Target, bearing 206 relative, mark!’’
‘’Bearing entered!’’
Otto waited a few seconds, during which he kept his periscope head under the surface, then popped his periscope up again.
‘’Target, second bearing 198 relative, mark!’’
‘’Bearing entered… Fire solution in!’’
‘’Match bearings and fire Tubes Nine and Ten!’’
Otto gave another order just after the two torpedoes had left their stern tubes.
‘’Stern torpedo room, reload immediately Tubes Nine and Ten with two G7a high speed torpedoes!’’
He then waited nervously for the results of his two last torpedoes. To his chagrin, only one hit the Canadian destroyer, but a quick look with his periscope up showed him that this particular opponent had been severely hit at the level of his engine room and was slowing down. There were however four American destroyers bearing down towards him at 35 knots. ‘Good! They won’t hear a thing on their sonar at that speed and will probably grenade blindly around.’ Thought Otto, who concentrated his attention next on the liners of the convoy. The three biggest ones, which he had hit on his first salvo, were definitely in trouble, with developing lists to port and speed down to only a few knots. The three other liners of the convoy were however accelerating and passing to starboard of the stricken liners, squeezing past them in the relatively narrow navigation channel and obviously trying to get out of the constricting waters of the harbor approaches and nearer to their waiting American escort ships. Otto sighted his periscope at the liner trying to push ahead and was able to read its name, painted on the bow.
‘’In a hurry to slip away, LEONARD WOOD? Not so fast!’’
Otto waited a couple of minutes more, time to complete the sowing of his twelve first sea mines, then had his helmsman turn to starboard again to go down the approach to the entrance channel of Halifax Harbor. With the big, 21,900-ton LEONARD WOOD coming nearly straight at him, Otto had an easy job of firing two torpedoes down the throat of the liner. Hitting the forward section of the hull just aft of the bow and on the starboard side, the explosion of the two torpedoes created huge holes in the bow section, with the forward speed of fourteen knots of the ship making even more furious the rushing in of water. The unfortunate ex-SS WESTERN WORLD literally dug down under the waves, its watertight doors giving up in quick succession under the water pressure. The more than 1,800 British soldiers of the 18