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The following story by Terence Robertson is out of copyright and appears courtesy of and with thanks to Mike Kemble, and Captain Frederic John Walker.

The following story by Terence Robertson is out of copyright and appears courtesy of and with thanks to Mike Kemble, and Captain Frederic John Walker.
Captain Walker took over a Flag Officer鈥檚 command on January 29th, 1944, when he led his Group from Liverpool to rendezvous off Northern Ireland with the aircraft-carriers, Nairana and Activity, for a hunting strike into mid-Atlantic. The Group was back to Fall strength, Starling, Wild Goose, Kite, Wren, Woodpecker and Magpie. After the appalling storms of December, fresh paintwork gleamed dully in a pale wintry sun. Leaks had been plugged, damage repaired, tailwags stopped, and there was every reason for this striking force to be fir, ready and eager to destroy the enemy if he could be found. The carriers鈥� aircraft would be their eyes. To his officers, Walker confessed his dislike of having to operate with carriers but found some consolation in the hope that they would act as irresistible bait for the U-boats. He grinned appreciatively on the first night out when a bleak half-obscured moon showed both 鈥渇iat tops鈥� clearly visible at five miles or more. He mentioned this on the bridge, but the carriers were left in ignorance of their nakedness, it being considered bad for their morale to tell them. On February 1st they were drawing near to the battleground, steaming in hunting formation, the sloops in line abreast, a mile apart, and the carriers zigzagging independently a mile behind them. Shortly after 10 am all seemed peaceful enough; it was a crisp, cold morning with a slight swell and calm sea. In Starling, Alan Burn had exercised his guns crews, Woodpecker had carried out depth charge drill, and in Wild Goose on the port extreme of the line, Commander Wemyss was discussing their 鈥渄ead reckoning鈥� position with his navigator in the chartroom. Suddenly a shout came down the bridge voice pipe. 鈥淐aptain, Sir, submarine echo to starboard.鈥� Wemyss rushed to the bridge, and a quick report from the asdic operator made it clear that it was a U-boat trying to penetrate the screen for a close shot at the bait. Wemyss turned to look back at the carriers and, to his horror, saw Nairana turn on a zig to port bringing her in the enemy鈥檚 direction. At any moment she would be sitting squarely in the U-boat鈥檚 sights. Wemyss rapped out orders. 鈥淗ard a鈥檚tarboard. . . . Full speed. . . . Hoist attacking flag. . . . Tell Leader on R/T I am attacking.鈥� The enemy had passed between Wild Goose and her neighbour, Magpie, by the time Wemyss had turned his ship and was slithering in for the first attack. Wemyss blinked a warning to .,Vairana to get out of the way and without waiting for a perfect run-in, dropped a ten-charge pattern more to scare the enemy than to sink him. .Nairana was still in danger. As soon as he received Wemyss鈥檚 report, Walker flashed a signal to Nairana ordering her to head out to starboard at full speed. He repeated the order to Activity and told off Kite, Wren and Woodpecker to screen them. Then he headed towards the battle while Wild Goose was drawing off and Magpie about to follow with another attack. This yielded no result and Magpie was sent off to assist in screening the carrier, leaving Wild Goose and Starling to continue the hunt. 鈥淯nquestionably, .Nairana was saved by Wild Goose鈥檚 exemplary speed and decision,鈥� Walker said later. 鈥淎nother minute or two and she would have been a sitter.
When Magpie had left to join the remainder of our force, Wild Goose handed me asdic contact with the Boche on a plate. I could ask nothing better than to take the field again partnered by this doughty, well-trained warrior. Conditions were good, though the wind was rising and stirring up the sea a bit.鈥� Walker followed quietly behind the U-boat for a while, calculating that she was steaming at about four knots very deep. He decided to carry out a two-ship 鈥淥peration Plaster鈥�. Line abreast and close, Starling and Wild Goose went in to the attack at five knots dropping in all some sixty-odd depth charges set to explode between 500 feet and 700 feet at five second intervals. In their wake the depth charges detonated in a continuous crackling roar like an express train tearing through a tunnel. The sea split and heaved under the explosions and even the experienced sailors, accustomed as they were to the weight and ferocity of Walker鈥檚 methods, were stunned by the non-stop crashing and cracking from below the surface. Walker was in effect using his depth charges as main armament and firing them in salvoes as though from guns. Starling鈥檚 crew were startled when, while all were gazing astern at the exploding sea, a bang shook them from ahead and a gush of water appeared over the bows. This could hardly be a depth charge. After a few minutes Walker ordered 鈥淐ease Fire鈥� and both ships stood by to wait for tangible evidence of a sinking. It was not long in coming. Oil, clothing, planks of wood, pulped lifejackets, books and the mangled remains of bodies provided all the evidence needed of death and destruction far below them. Using the loudhailer, Walker shouted to Wemyss to follow him and, as the two ships rejoined the carriers, Starling flew from her yardarm the eagerly expected signal: 鈥淪plice the mainbrace.鈥� In this way, the 740-ton underwater raider U-502 was destroyed. Five uneventful days later, the sloops refuelled from Activity and received orders to support the west-bound convoy SL 147 which was believed to be heading for trouble. Quick calculations in Starling showed to everyone鈥檚 joy that a large 鈥減ack鈥� was gathering and the Group could arrive in time for the impending battle. The striking force made contact with SL 147 on February 7 and Walker took overall command of the escort. Leaving the close escort group in their stations, he placed his sloops round the convoy as an outer screen six miles out. Nairana and Activity were ordered to operate their aircraft in the deepfield by day and to enter into the middle of the convoy at night. During the 7th, Admiralty reports of U-boats heard chattering by wireless in the convoy鈥檚 vicinity indicated a 鈥減ack鈥� of about ten. Next day, the pack increased until it became likely that at least fifteen U-boats were converging for the fatal pounce. Tension grew as warning signals poured in during the afternoon. After an exchange with the Commodore, Walker sent a general message ordering all ships to action stations at nightfall. He stayed happily on his bridge all that day, well wrapped up in his fading old grey pullover and stained leather waistcoat. With one U-boat already destroyed on this voyage, the 1944 season had opened well for his Group. He would have been just as cheerful had he known that no fewer than twenty-six U-boats were in contact and waiting for the cover of darkness to spring upon their prey, a convoy of eighty-one ships with two aircraft carriers looming high in the centre. As dusk faded into darkness, the night became eerie; a heavy damp mist settled over the scene covering ships and men in a white frost-like dew; sea and sky merged in a haze of deep midnight blue gradually blotting out the horizon until the ships seemed to be flying through thin, wispy, low-lying cloud.
A hush settled over both sea and ships and the darkness closed in, muffling all sounds other than the swish of bows cutting into green, unfriendly water. To Walker and the thirteen other warship commanders it was a game of patience, waiting to see from which quarter the enemy would make his first lunge. To the eighty-one Merchant Navy captains it was more like roulette. Whose number would come up first? Which of them would be the first to explode in flames? Wild Goose was six miles ahead of the convoy on the port quarter and it fell to her port bridge look-out, Able Seaman J G Wall, a young reservist sailor, to sound the alarm which rang through the silence to be repeated in dozens of ships spread across miles of the Atlantic. Raking his sector with binoculars on this deathly black night, he beat the radar by sighting a U-boat trimmed down on the surface with only her conning tower showing at a range of nearly a mile and a half. His report, shouted excitedly to a tense group of officers on the bridge, sparked off the warning and, as the close escort hugged their charges protectively, Walker ordered the convoy to make a drastic alteration of course. The enemy had launched their attack; now his sloops could get down to the earnest business of killing. Wild Goose turned towards the U-boat, increased to full speed and prepared to ram. The enemy, realising he had been sighted, crash-dived. When the sloop arrived only a swirl of water marked the spot. But the enemy captain was curious and, instead of diving deep and taking avoiding action, he stayed at periscope depth to keep track of Wild Goose鈥檚 movements in the hope of slipping past her and continuing his swoop on the convoy. Again it was Able Seaman Wall who succeeded where instruments failed. A shout brought Commander Wemyss to the side of his bridge to gape in astonishment, while Wall pointed to a periscope poking out of the water approximately twenty yards away. Wemyss fumed; he was searching the area with his asdic and going too slow to punish the enemy鈥檚 impertinence with a shallow-set pattern of depth charges. His machine gunners had just enough time to pepper the two or three feet of periscope with fire, scoring several hits, before the U-boat commander, anticipating the awful retribution which might follow his impudence, downed periscope and dived away. Wild Goose obtained asdic contact in time to direct the newly arrived Woodpecker into a creeping attack. When the last depth charge had exploded, Walker raced up, took one look at the surging water and signalled Woodpecker: 鈥淟ook what a mess you have made.鈥� After some crackling cross-chat, the three sloops regained contact with the enemy and settled down to the attack formula, convoy, aircraft-carriers, close escort and the rest of the Group steaming rapidly out of danger.
Walker directed Woodpecker into the first attack while Wild Goose prepared to follow. Firing her charges, Woodpecker slowly moved over the U-boat dropping twenty-six set to explode at maximum depth. A few moments of expectant silence fell after the last charge had detonated; then a tremendous explosion came from the depths below and for a fraction of a second the sea was petrified into immobility, before boiling in angry confusion. Another of Doenitz鈥檚 prized fleet, U-762, was destroyed, blown apart by the depth charging and finally disintegrating under the impact of an internal explosion. The three sloops fired snowflake rockets to illuminate the scene and, in their bleak flare, pieces of wreckage could be seen floating forlornly on waves blackened and quietened by the weight and flow of the U-boat鈥檚 oil. Starling lowered a boat, and collected a German coat and other evidence of destruction before Walker led the three triumphant ships back to the convoy. It was shortly after midnight and the score was one up and more to come. Kapitanleutnant Hartwig Looks, a U-boat officer since 1936 and now captain of U-264 with 14,000 tons of Allied shipping to his credit, had lost the convoy. He had been in contact since the previous morning, knew there were probably twenty of his brother U-boats in the vicinity with more arriving at regular intervals and decided to launch his attack on SL 147 at midnight on the night 8/9 February. It was a large convoy and he had hopes of more than usual success. His ship was the first in the U-boat Arm to be fitted with that ingenious extensible Diesel air intake and exhaust device which allowed U-boats to 鈥渂reathe鈥�. Instead of having to surface to charge its batteries, U-26 could stay submerged at periscope depth with the 鈥淪chnorkel鈥� poking up like a periscope. This meant he could submit to a prolonged destroyer hunt without having to surface. Shortly before midnight, an escort force had come chasing towards him and he had dived thinking they were about to attack. The exploding depth charges had fallen quite near, but far enough away for Looks to be tolerably certain someone else and not U-26 was under attack. Looks took his boat deep and continued on the same course as the convoy had been steering all day. At a crucial moment his hydrophones broke down and he could no longer hear the convoy鈥檚 propellers. Taking a gamble, he stayed on course and came up to periscope depth to check his position in relation to the convoy. His quarry had altered course and Looks saw nothing but darkness as he turned the periscope in a complete circle. Inwardly furious, he brought U-26 to the surface and headed northwards in the hope of finding other prey. Soon after Starling, Wild Goose and Woodpecker had resumed their stations, the close escorts to port of the convoy beat back a skirmish with two U-boats creeping in on the surface. The action was too far away and over too quickly for Walker to play any part in the proceedings. The night was enlivened further by the sudden roar of aircraft engines followed by the brilliant glare of flares dropped over the convoy in an attempt to provide the U-boats with silhouetted targets. It seemed, however, that the 鈥減ack鈥� were not to be tempted even by their flying brethren. No attack followed and, somewhat mystified, Walker had to wait until just before 6 am when all ships of the Group and the close escort intercepted by HF/DF a U-boat signalling by wireless on the surface.

Continued.....
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