CAPTAIN SAM The Texas Convoy

By Captain Eugene Ray Martin

Captain Sam is an experienced convoy commander and captain of a Mahan-class destroyer. He is responsible for thousands of men in warships and the merchant ships of this convoy that must get to England for that country to survive. The Germans had proved the master of the Atlantic in this war, this battle of the Atlantic. German submarines had sunk thousands of ships. Those ships carried desperately needed things for England, everything from food, medicines, and clothing. And naturally, things to make war—things needed to invade France and end the terror the Germans created all over Europe. This was the time of the war when the Allies finally had enough ships and aircraft to counter the Germans in the Atlantic. The Germans were still very formidable. The Germans were desperate to stop supplies from reaching England; otherwise, they knew it will get much worse for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640274389

Book preview

Preface

There is an old story about a naval officer.

This naval officer served in the US Navy for forty years. The last twenty years, he captained important navy combat vessels. For ten years as an admiral, he commanded important battle fleets. Over the last two decades of his distinguished career, he was looked after by a Philippine steward. So close did they become that whenever this naval officer changed duties, he requested his steward to accompany him to his new duty station. When the admiral decided to retire after forty years in the navy, his steward decided to retire at the same time.

As they packed their bags on their last day, the steward asked his admiral, Sir, I must know what is on that piece of paper you looked at every morning over the last twenty years? I assumed it contained something secret. Can you please tell me what is on the paper?

The admiral answered by handing the steward the worn piece of paper.

It read the following:

Port is left. Starboard is right.

Bow, forward, and ahead is the end of the dog that bites.

Stern, astern, and aback is the end of the dog with the tail.

A quarter divides things into one-forth.

Port quarter is over my left shoulder and starboard quarter is over my right shoulder.

Port bow is toward the front and off to the left side and starboard bow is toward the front and off to the right side.

His career now ended the admiral gave the piece of paper to the steward to keep.

This story is plausible. Even old time sailors while they mix their civilian life with navy life might confuse the unique languages and customs of the sea.

It is easy to convert to normal time from navy time: If the time is less than 1200 hours, the time is a.m. The first two digits indicate hours, and the last two digits indicate minutes. If the time is more than 1200 hours, the time is calculated by simply subtracting 1200 hours from the time and the time is p.m. The first digits indicate hours, and the last two indicate minutes.

I remember a conversation with an Australian naval officer in Hong Kong. During our repartee, he asked me, How do you write in your logs midnight, 0000 hours and 2400 hours are both correct for midnight?

I knew the answer, so I told him, It depends on the date of your log. For example, if your log is for Friday, 10 June, then 0000 hours is for midnight between Thursday, 9 June, and Friday, 10 June, and 2400 hours is for midnight between Friday, 10 June, and Saturday, 11 June.

I remember left has fewer letters than right and port has fewer letters than starboard. Therefore, port is left and starboard is right.

A speed of ten nautical miles per hour or ten knots is when the ship travels ten nautical miles in one hour. Ten knots are a little faster than ten miles per hour. Never mind an attempt to convert knots into miles per hour, because they are close. One nautical mile is very close to two thousand yards.

A speed of eight knots or even thirty knots may seem slow for those who never rode in a fast ship. A destroyer that travels in a moderate sea at thirty knots is a sight to behold. Fifteen hundred tons of ship crashing through waves with spray that rolls over her top is awesome to behold.

Remember, a convoy travels at their designated speed twenty-four hours per day, so a convoy that moves at eight knots will travel one-hundred ninety-two nautical miles per day.

See the back of the book for a naval lexicon.

Chapter One

Day One

Captain Sam ate an early breakfast alone in the officer’s wardroom. For this special getting-underway breakfast, the officers had steak and eggs. He carried his third cup of coffee to the bridge in time for reveille.

Sam normally woke early. He often, when time and weather permitted, enjoyed watching the sunrise from the signal bridge while he drank his last morning cup of coffee. This was Sam’s second time to escort a convoy across the Atlantic controlled by German submarines after World War II began.

During his first convoy, a British captain/advisor rode in his ship and helped him make decisions about what route to follow and how to react to German submarine attacks. During that convoy, they only lost one freighter mainly because the Germans had fewer submarines available and maybe they were less prepared to attack a well-organized convoy. Most of the time previously, the Americans sent ships solo across the Atlantic with disastrous results. During Sam’s last convoy, the British supplied two destroyer escorts to help Sam’s two destroyers and his two frigates protect the merchant ships.

Naturally Sam was anxious about his ability to protect his flock of ships and the thousands of men in them. They will steam to England in the middle of North Atlantic’s winter. He was a seasoned skipper with experience during World War I. Nevertheless, the Germans over the last few years had proved a formidable adversary.

This trip, he will have no expert advisor. Naturally he can consult his executive officer (XO), his second in command, his first officer, or other officers. His ship, the USS Austin, you might call it a new ship, although Austin had many miles under her keel. At least Austin had most of the kinks of a new ship worked out. Most of his crew had served on Austin from the time she was commissioned, except for twenty new recruits directly from boot camp.

Sam always wished his crew were mature men. As in most ships in the US Navy, Austin’s crew consisted of young men. Most of them were between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five. Except for the senior officers and chief petty officers, they looked young. Nevertheless, the navy knew how to make sailors out of these young men. With few exceptions, he had confidence in his men.

While the rest of the crew woke, ate breakfast, and prepared the ship to get under way, he studied charts of the North Atlantic, his sailing orders, and the list of ships under his command. He also reviewed reports from previous convoys’ experiences with German submarines. Fear began to swell up between his shoulder blades. Sipping his coffee, he considered the mission ahead. He was responsible for about four thousand American sailors and marines in his ships.

The North Atlantic this cold January in 1943 was thick with German U-boats. All of them were anxious to encounter forty-three slow-moving ships that carried crucial supplies from America to Liverpool, England.

To protect those vessels, Sam had under his command two Tacoma-class frigates, or PFs, the USS Long and the USS Wallace. Both frigates had good crews and they had experience working together. He also had two PC-461 class patrol crafts, the USS Davis and the USS James. His main submarine attack vessels were two Mahan-class destroyers, USS Austin and USS Kelly. He was captain of Austin.

The most important vessel in Sam’s convoy was the USS Texas. This New York class battleship was commissioned in March of 1914. This five-hundred-seventy-foot-long ship weighed thirty-two thousand tons as measured by the US Coast Guard’s displacement formulas. The top speed of the Texas was about twenty knots after her pre–World-War-II modifications. The main purpose of the Texas was to fight off any German-armed merchants or any German battleship or heavy cruiser that might attack Sam’s convoy. In addition, if one those heavy German ships attacked another nearby Allied convoy in the North Atlantic, the Texas must rush to help.

The twenty-knot speed of the Texas was enough to keep up with all but the destroyers that can move at thirty knots or a little more under ideal conditions. It was unlikely that any of those ships can approach their top speed, except the big Texas, in the expected choppy, cold waters of the North Atlantic.

Sam also had at his disposal a brand-new seagoing tug, the Mohawk. This ATF had sonar to detect submarines. The tug carried eighteen depth charges that might destroy submarines. The tug answered to the call sign Tango.

Finally, Sam had a small US Navy oiler, or AO, that carried desperately needed aviation fuel bound for the airfields in England. The small AO also carried some diesel and bunker fuel for the ships in the convoy.

The merchant ships included a gasoline tanker, the SS Antwerp one of the slowest vessels. Still this little merchant ship might prove valuable. This tanker mounted two twin-barreled, three-inch-by-fifty-caliber guns. It also had four twin-barreled, forty-millimeter rapid-fire cannons. This merchant answered to the call sigh of Antilles. This vessel, in fact, carried more guns than any individual PFs or PCs.

Sam intently studied the navigation chart for the North Atlantic. This large-scale British chart covered the part of the Atlantic from New York to the West Coast of England. His first class quartermaster Joseph, his petty officer navigator, had penciled in the planned convoy’s track across the Atlantic.

It will follow the most northerly route, skirting the edge of expected icebergs. This northern route approximately followed the shortest path across the Atlantic Ocean, the great circle route, between New York and North of Ireland. However, because his convoy must zigzag to frustrate German submarine attacks, the distance they must sail will increase a minimum of 20 percent over a direct transatlantic crossing. His first class quartermaster, as he was instructed by the ship’s executive officer (XO) only penciled in the base route. The convoy will zigzag around this base route.

Sam looked at the chart even closer. He wanted to confirm Joseph – also penciled in the location of reported icebergs. Yes, he saw in darker penciled notes that indicated where other ships saw icebergs in the last two weeks.

Sam made a mental note, I must advance quartermaster Joseph to a chief petty officer or maybe to an officer. He has certainly proved a competent navigator and sailor.

The German submarines in the Atlantic were only part of the convoy’s dangerous journey. The weather perhaps was the most formable foe., Severe weather in the past has sunk ships although all the sailors in his convoy knew it will prove a great struggle to survive the cold temperatures and strong winds that create large waves. Ice and snow will make his men suffer even more. Captain Sam felt like his job consisted of shepherding a group of schoolchildren across a New York City street before they entered a nearby forest, the cold Atlantic, where in all probability beasts will kill some of his children.

In Mid-Atlantic, the U-boats tended to concentrate because allied aircraft had insufficient fuel to patrol this area and because the vast distance in this Northern Middle Atlantic made it nearly impossible to find any individual German submarine.

As his ships approached the European coast, he expected visits by German four-engine Condor bombers. The BdU, or German U-boat Command, used those bombers primarily to report the positions of Allied convoys although they might carry bombs to attack the convoys. The ones that held bombs carried less fuel. They flew out of occupied France. The Condors might receive a warm welcome from USS Texas’s antiaircraft guns along with the antiaircraft guns of Sam’s escorts the moment they came in range.

Sam visualized his last trip where once they passed the North of Ireland and turned down the Irish Sea toward Liverpool. More formable German twin-engine bombers attacked them in the Irish Sea. Hopefully, the convoy might avoid most of the German airplanes until they approach Ireland. North of Ireland, they will become marginally safer further out of reach of German airplanes, especially compared to the alternate route to Liverpool through the English Channel, around Southern Ireland. The British air force around Ireland may provide fighter cover. In addition, as they approached Ireland, the presence of British ships and airplanes might keep submarines below the waves in the daytime.

Lieutenant Commander Smith, the ship’s executive officer (XO) brought to the bridge, where Sam studied the chart on the chart table, the latest weather report. That report promised freezing temperatures, high winds, and limited visibility. Another beautiful winter in the North Atlantic? High waves created by higher winds, and low visibility might hinder operations of German U-boats.

Sam’s navy ships sailed out of Newport in time to meet a scattered group of merchants that sailed up from the south. A larger group of merchants got under way from New York to meet his convoy. Each ship’s captain received briefs prior to their departure. Those briefs discussed their meeting locations, meeting times, and their positions in the convoy.

The escort BB, DDs, PFs, and PCs talked with the merchants and one another with high-frequency radios they called Talk Between Ships (TBS), signal lights, signal flags, and megaphones.

At night, the signalmen used infrared signal lights. This required increased diligence on the part of the signalmen who received the infrared signals. Special goggles were available that enhanced the infrared lights.

Sam, with his binoculars, watched the ships gather. Two merchants nearly collided. Both ships blew their whistles, as if blowing their whistles might help. They both placed their engines in full reverse. The foaming water behind their rudders told Sam they backed as hard as they can.

Communications were not always civil or technical. In one instance already, a PF crewmember with a megaphone threatened to torpedo a merchant tanker over a megaphone to encourage him to get in line behind the ship ahead.

The ultra-high-frequency radio waves of the TBS radios, hopefully because of their high frequencies, will fail to bend over the horizon and alert the enemy. Anyway, the TBS radios can only talk reliably with other ships less than forty miles; hopefully, the Germans cannot intercept the TBS radio signals further away.

On the bridge, Sam walked between the radar screen and the bridge wings. With his binoculars and with his prescription glasses, he observed the ships’ attempt to form an organized block of ships. His escorts had done this previously. Nevertheless, Sam frequently talked on the TBS to direct his escorts to move a ship one way or another.

Sam noticed daylight inside the bridge dimmed at twilight. He walked over and turned on the red light over the chart table. Near the chart table, the desk reserved for the ship’s log, the yeoman turned on both of his red lights. This small ship’s log table was reserved for Austin’s log. The quartermaster, or especially on Austin, a yeoman, recorded in the ship’s log every order given by the officer of the deck (OOD) or the captain. Changes in direction, speed changes, or rudder position were recorded. This was a legal document that might be used in case of a nautical disaster Austin might become involved in. If time permitted, other information was recorded, such as Bravo reported a contact or Austin’s sonar or radar reported a contact.

Between the chart table and the ship’s log table the surface radar repeater occupied a space in front of the bridge, sometimes called the pilothouse.

In the center of the bridge was the steering wheel. The helmsman or quartermaster steered the ship from there.

Within reach of the helmsman on the right side was the engine order telegraph. The telegraph was double-sided. On the right side was the starboard engine order telegraph. On the left side was the port engine order telegraph.

In the engine room, at the throttle station, the throttleman at the starboard steam turbine had a similar telegraph. That throttleman can acknowledge the bridge’s order with similar movement to ahead standard, slow ahead, etc. That throttleman controlled the starboard steam turbine that drove the starboard propeller. The port throttleman had a similar arrangement at the port steam turbine.

One or two telephone talkers also worked on the bridge. Normally the bridge messenger, when not busy, helped the yeoman make entries in the ship’s log.

At general quarters, normally a fire control technician was in the bridge to communicate with the depth charge crew or the ship’s guns.

Directly below the bridge, the information center was located. The five-foot-square-by-four-and-a-half-foot-high hydraulic analog computer occupied the center of the information center. This computer with information from wind direction indicators along with pitch and roll information controlled the aiming of Austin’s main guns. A clear plastic plotting board was located on top of the computer. There was a space under the plastic plotting board for a nautical chart. Whenever Austin was involved in chasing submarines or other adventures, the plotters might plot the relative positions of Austin and where they think the submarine might be.

On the port side of the information center, two primary radar cathode ray tubes were situated. One CRT was for the sky search radar. The other one was the primary surface search radar. The port side of this room was dimly lit so the men can observe the CRTs better. On the starboard side of this room was the radio room. A wall separated the radio room from the rest of the information center so the radio operators will have some noise security from the information center. However, there was a frame for a door, although the frame had no door. In front of the room near the computer was the ASDIC sonar control console.

ASDIC was an acronym from the end of World War I. Because of the need to keep secret the British’s research on a system to detect submarines underwater, they came up with that acronym from an assumed organization called the Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee. Soon the Americans began to call that system sonar from Sound Navigation and Ranging.

Underway radarmen, sonarmen, fire control men, and radiomen operated the equipment. During general quarters, the ship’s first officer (third in command behind the captain and XO) was in charge of the information center. In that room, one or two telephone talkers were always on duty. The telephone talkers usually responded on the party line, the sound-powered telephone circuit, as radar or sonar, so everyone on the ship usually referred to this room as radar or sonar.

Captain Sam again looked into the bridge’s radar screen. He began to breathe in a more relaxed mode. He felt more comfortable because finally he felt the convoy was in correct order.

Momentarily he became aware of the sound of the sonar. Whenever Austin was under way, and sometimes in port, when they tested the sonar, Austin’s sonar system sent pinging sounds into the water. The sonarmen waited to hear a returned echo. Inside a dome in front of the ship, a sound generator sent those powerful pings. Throughout the front of the ship inside and out, the men heard the constant ping ping ping that sounded every four seconds or so. Sam and most of the men tuned out the constant sonar pings. Naturally whenever they thought about the pings, they became conscious of them. Actually when the pings stopped was when the men took notice.

It took the convoy’s escorts until darkness overwhelmed them before most of the ships took their positions in this slow convoy to Liverpool. The speed of the convoy depended on the slowest ship in the convoy, a small freighter at eight knots. This first day, the convoy’s trace across the navigation charts indicated only trivial progress.

Captain Samuel Adam Mortmain, Sam, was born in 1889. He grew up in a family of fishermen. His grandfather, over eighty years old, still fished in the Gulf of Mexico with a large sailing fishing boat. At an early age, Sam worked hard on the decks of his father’s motor fishing boat. His extended family made a good living. His uncles and cousins supported one another. If some member of his family got into trouble financially or otherwise, all family members supported them.

He missed some school days. His father had the attitude that education was less important than hard work and learning seamanship to become a good fisherman. Samuel Adam Mortmain conspired with his mother to send Sam to a military school in San Marcos, Texas. They certainly had the money for the school. He attended that military school from sixth grade until he graduated from high school. His favorite activities were reading and playing chess, even though in that school he participated in all the school’s team sports.

Mainly because of the influence of that military school, he wanted to make the military a career. Because of his family’s fishing influence, he wanted to join the navy. He really wanted to first go to college. However, because of his father’s domination, he was discouraged from college. No one in his family had ever gone to college.

He joined the navy in 1907 when he was eighteen years old. Sam missed the Spanish-American War. He was a quartermaster petty officer for four years on two different ships. He was a quartermaster-helmsman on one of the battleships that toured the world with the sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet from December 1907 until February 1909.

When he returned to America, he discovered he nearly became a participant in the early start of World War I, or at least the start of war with Japan. That might have proved a futile war because of the vast distances across the Pacific Ocean and America’s lack of an effective military at that time. It was in all the newspapers:

Teddy Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet around the world in 1907 to influence the Japanese. The President hoped this show of force might reduce Japanese interest in the newly acquired Philippines. The Japanese two years earlier beat the Russian Navy Fleet in several naval battles, so the Japanese possessed a dangerous naval force. Japanese admirals in 1908 exhibited some of the independence they displayed throughout the second war, and they itched to have another naval victory.

Perhaps the Japanese government foisted the planned attack on the Great White Fleet however; the Japanese Government later announced they had no prior knowledge.

Nevertheless, Japanese Admirals in October 1908 sent eighteen battleships after the Great White Fleet. They intended to ambush them. Their plan was to approach the Fleet with a sign of peace, and when in favorable positions they will commence firing on the, hopefully, unprepared sixteen battleships of the American Great White Fleet.

Nature intervened. A typhoon roared across the Pacific and the Japanese failed to find the Great White Fleet. They lost face. They abandon their chase. A few smaller Japanese ships escorted the American ships into Yokohama Harbor.

After his enlistment ended in 1911, Sam remained in the naval reserves. Sam attended college for four years, and he received an engineering degree.

In January 1915, he realized how much he missed the navy. He still wanted a military career. In his dreams, now that he had a college degree, he wanted to command a great navy ship.

He rejoined the active navy and became a junior-grade lieutenant. Someone who served as an enlisted man and advanced to an officer earned the acronym of Mustang.

The US Navy in the peace before World War I offered few opportunities for advancement for naval personnel. Nevertheless, by the time World War I began, Sam, already a full lieutenant, became the executive officer, second in command, of a destroyer escort. One year later, because the navy desperately needed officers to command the large number of ships built for World War I, Sam advanced to lieutenant commander, and he transferred to a larger destroyer, DD, as executive officer. Six months later, he became captain of that destroyer. In part because of the initials of his name, Samuel Adam Mortmain encouraged his crew to call him Captain Sam.

Samuel and his destroyer performed brilliantly against German submarines all over the Atlantic Ocean during World War I. One time in the South Atlantic, he and two fellow destroyers attacked a German commerce raider, a German merchant ship with numerous hidden guns. Those German ships frequently and stealthily approached Allied merchant ships and sank or captured them.

This German raider actually had heavier guns than his destroyers. It had more guns than two of Sam’s destroyers. However, the raider’s guns were aimed by individual gunners, whereas Sam’s destroyers had central fire control systems that proved much more accurate, especially at long range. During the battle, Sam tried to keep his destroyer at extremely long range to neutralize the enemy’s guns. Sam finally rushed in and put a torpedo into the raider. That put an end to the long battle where all the ships received damage with men killed.

During World War I, Sam advanced to acting captain. After the war ended, he assumed his permanent rank of commander. In 1939, Samuel became a full captain in charge of a squadron of destroyers. Actually because of the lack of US Navy escorts, his squadron consisted of two frigates and two destroyers. He was captain of one of those DDs.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US Navy’s chief of staff on the JCS in Washington, DC, asked Sam to advance to an admiral. At this time, most naval officers who failed to attend the Naval Academy, especially those who were Mustangs, had almost no chance to reach the position of admiral.

A special car picked up Sam at his destroyer and took him to the Pentagon. With some apprehension, he entered the well-protected building. Machine gun nests were set up outside the building.

He felt with some fear the senior admiral might force a desk job on him. Something like demoted upward to an admiral to get him out of the way of some new younger officers.

After only a short wait, he learned it was nothing like that. He met with the senior admiral and some of his captain aids. They praised him on his performance. This was a sincere offer to advance to a command admiral, meaning he will continue to command ships and not steer a desk.

Therefore, this was a special offer. After several days of thought, Sam refused the one-star admiral’s position.

Sam explained, The navy desperately needs experienced destroyer captains to command convoys crossing the Atlantic. Sam paused and added, When we build enough destroyers to form hunter-killer groups of destroyers, I will accept your offer so I can command a group of destroyers that searches for German submarines.

Perhaps the real reason, he enjoyed his duty as captain of a modern destroyer. If he was an admiral, he might spend more time behind a desk either on a ship or ashore; he cannot serve as captain of a ship.

Before Sam departed on this trip, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) navy admiral called Sam back to Washington, DC, to discuss Sam’s idea of hunter-killer groups of destroyers to roam Mid-Atlantic without the hindrance of escorting a convoy.

He met with the same group of senior officers. They were sincerely interested in his proposal for hunter-killer groups of destroyers.

Now back on the frozen North Atlantic. After the blanket of night fell over Sam’s convoy, the PCs and PFs moved among the ships in the convoy to get them to close on the ship ahead and form a proper box. Sam feared some ships might lose sight of the ship ahead in the coming darkness. Then Sam will have great difficulty to get the ships back in order. Ideally, each ship will follow the ship ahead between one and two hundred yards depending on how well they can see one another. Each column of ships will try to keep a separation between five and eight hundred yards; again, that depended on visibility.

There were two important reasons to balance the space between

ships.

Firstly, if the ships were too close together, a submarine might fire its torpedoes from long range and most likely hit a ship.

Secondly, if the ships were too far apart, it increased the size of the convoy and the area Sam’s escorts must defend. Nevertheless, the merchants must maintain visual contact, so in low visibility, the ships must get closer.

The USS Texas occupied the place of honor as the lead ship in the second column. The Texas was captained by the renowned Captain William Eugene Richards.

Previously, during Sam’s last meeting with the JCS, the naval chief of staff personally gave Sam a handwritten message that explained the need to have the Texas in Sam’s convoy. Sam opened this letter after his ships got underway.

The cover of the letter announced For Captain Mortmain’s eyes only.

The letter said the following:

There is a possibility that German surface ships might escape from France into the Atlantic. Several French spies in France informed the British Admiralty of this possibility. Therefore, the Texas is needed to accompany your convoy in the eventuality that the Tirpitz or other heavy German ship attacks your convoy.

If German Capital ships attacked another North Atlantic convoy, Sam with his destroyers must escort Texas to attack those Germans, if that convoy was located where they can reach them in time.

Meanwhile, the seagoing tug Mohawk settled in two thousand yards, one mile, behind the convoy. Its radar will help her keep in contact with the convoy. The ATF will take any damaged vessel undertow or perform lifeguard duty should any crew be forced to abandon a sinking ship. Its primary purpose was to use its sonar and radar to detect submarines attempt to attack from the rear.

In her location behind the convoy, the tug might become a prime target, though her sonar might detect any torpedoes launched toward her, and her maneuverability might allow her to evade the torpedoes. If the ATF’s radar did detect any nearby submarine on the surface, she can call for help from other escorts, especially the nearby frigates, although she had teeth to protect herself. She can drop depth charges on a submarine, and her one three-inch-by-fifty-caliber gun and two forty-millimeter automatic cannons can fire on a surfaced submarine.

Captain Hickman, the tug’s captain, knew that two thousand yards behind the convoy, he will serve as bait for any subs that might approach from the rear.

While the PCs and PFs herded the ships in the convoy, Sam’s destroyer patrolled in front of and to the left side of the convoy. Sam’s other DD patrolled off to the right side and behind the convoy.

As dawn approached, the PCs and PFs assumed their normal stations. Each patrol craft motored approximately one thousand yards, one-half mile, from the front two corners of the convoy. The frigates took similar stations near the back two corners of the convoy. One hour before dawn, the convoy zigzagged to the left twenty degrees.

Out in the foreboding Northwestern Atlantic waters, three German submarines lurked.

Chapter Two

Captain Gerloff gave the order for U-163, his big long-range submarine, to surface.

Captain Gerloff ignored Grand Admiral Karl Donitz’s order to send position reports when possible. When he returned to Brest, France, he will tell the German Admiralty his medium-frequency radio transmitter had failed to work. To help with the ruse, he had his radioman prepare broken capacitors and vacuum tubes to install in the transmitter prior to his return to France.

Donitz and his technology radio advisors told all the U-boat captains the Americans cannot get a radio direction to German submarines if you kept the messages short.

However, Gerloff had grown suspicious when he read several reports from U-boat captains that American destroyers or airplanes attacked hours after a message was sent.

Gerloff sat at the officer’s dining table. It only sat four men. The chief engineer stood in the doorway. The second lieutenant sat across the table. Without comment, the lieutenant reached over and grabbed the coffee pot and poured his captain a cup of coffee, and then he filled his own cup.

While the chief and the lieutenant talked, Gerloff covered his face with his hands. Gerloff over the last few days felt like he was catching a cold. His sinuses hurt. His head hurt. He stayed in is bunk all that morning. However, he had no symptom of a cold except for the pain. He remembered the cold rough trip across the Atlantic. Even in mid-Atlantic it was cold. Perhaps that was when his immune system was weakened and he caught his infection.

He remembered five days previously.

For two days, except for six hours at night, Gerloff remained hidden below the waves off the Carolinas’ Coast. He used little battery power while he waited for his next victim. He crept along in waters less than three hundred feet deep at minimum speed. When he heard the sound of nearby propellers, he came to periscope depth to investigate.

The first time he saw several destroyer escorts rush along the coast, he quickly withdrew his periscope and tried to remain silent. The second time, one hour after sunset, he determined that two big destroyers escorted two large juicy oilers. He immediately fed information into his torpedo computer. He soon learned from his torpedo computer and by observations that the tankers and destroyers moved at eighteen knots. He had no chance to make an underwater attack. He had the ability to move more than twelve knots underwater. However, at that speed, his batteries will soon become depleted. If he surfaced, certainly the destroyers’ radar would detect him, and if he tried to motor at sixteen knots on the surface, he will create a visible wake the American lookouts can certainly see.

In this larger submarine, the crewmen existed in cramped spaces. It was even more cramped in the smaller submarines. Gerloff allowed his men to dress as they wanted. They dressed according to temperatures in the boat. Almost none of them shaved. Captain Gerloff shaved every few days to give an image of authority. Some of them managed to take a cold saltwater shower every two weeks or so. In the unheated sub, when in the cold North Atlantic, it proved agonizing to take a cold shower. If they washed their clothes, they washed them when they showered.

All except the senior officers and some senior petty officers shared their bunks. When one man got out of bed, another man lay down in the same bunk. They had good food, as good as canned, pickled, and dried food can provide. They started their journey with some fresh food that was soon consumed or spoiled. At least they had sufficient food.

At night, Gerloff surfaced to charge his batteries with his big diesel engines. The night air off the Carolinas’ Coast was around fifty degrees Fahrenheit. It felt fine compared to the freezing North Atlantic. He transited the North Atlantic to get to this American Coast. Off the Carolinas at night, he allowed his crewmen on deck to smoke and watch the lights of America’s Coastal Cities.

Early on the third day, he heard slow propellers. He came to periscope depth. When waves occasionally uncovered his periscope, he saw four freighters with no escorts. His torpedo computer soon calculated from information sent from his periscope that the merchants’ speed was less than ten knots.

He surfaced. Lights from a US coastal city backlit the ships and made them easy to see. He sped up to nine knots and reached a position where his torpedo computer said he had good chance to hit three ships.

Gerloff sent six torpedoes toward the three unescorted merchant vessels. He submerged and motored at a speed of six knots for a short time one hundred fifty feet below the surface toward the north. His sonarman heard three of their torpedoes explode followed by crunching sounds of two freighters before they hit the bottom only two hundred feet