大象传媒

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.

During Starling鈥檚 working-up trials, Walker had devised a depth-charge barrage attack for use against U-boats believed to be hugging extreme depths for safety. The plan, known as 鈥淥peration Plaster鈥�, called for three ships in close line abreast to drop depth charges set to 550 feet at five-second intervals. Now he signalled Wild Goose and Kite to close in on either side of Starling and the three ships steamed forwards over the 鈥減inged鈥� position of the U-boat dropping a continuous stream of depth charges. It was the naval equivalent of the artillery barrage that precedes an infantry attack. The sea heaved and boiled under the non-stop impact of the explosions. Twisting and turning and always leaving a trail of charges, the ships 鈥減lastered鈥� the area of U-2o2. In three minutes a total of seventy-six depth charges had rocked and shaken the attacking ships almost as much as it had the U-boat. Poser, hearing the first of the barrage explode beneath him, at first thought his hunters outwitted. After minutes of continuous shuddering blasts threatening to blow out every rivet, he decided to dive as deep as U-202 could go. He gave his orders calmly, while the sweat streamed down his face. 鈥淪low ahead both engines" 鈥淒iving" 鈥淭ake her down slowly . . Tautly the control room crew watched the depth gauge. How far down would she go; and could they get below the rolling roar of depth charges? The engineer officer called out the reading: 鈥淔ive hundred . . 550 . . . 600 . . . 650 . . . 700.鈥� That was the limit she had taken on exercises. Much more, and she would crack under the tremendous pressure. 鈥淪even hundred and fifty feet . . The first lieutenant muttered hoarsely into the silence. 鈥淔or heaven鈥檚 sake, Sir, she won鈥檛 take any more. Let鈥檚 stay here or surface and fight it out. She鈥檒l break up at any moment if we go further.鈥� Poser ignored the plea and went on staring rigidly at the controls, his mind concentrating on the creaks and groans reverberating through the boat from the straining hull. 鈥淪even hundred and eighty . . . 800 . . . Now it was the engineer鈥檚 turn to plead with his captain. 鈥淲ith the weight of water on top now, Sir, she probably won鈥檛 go up. For the love of God, no further.鈥� Still there was silence from Poser. Above they could hear the dull explosions of the depth charges cushioned by a gap of 300 feet of ocean. It was not the depth charges that would worry them now: only that the U-boat would hold together. 鈥淓ight hundred and twenty feet, Sir.鈥� Poser snapped out a command. 鈥淟evel off and keep her trimmed at 820. Steer due north with revolutions for three knots.鈥� He left the control room abruptly and the amazed crew saw him take off his jacket, collapse on his bunk and begin reading. He called out to the first lieutenant. 鈥淲arn the crew to use as little energy as possible and to talk only when necessary. The more we conserve our air the longer we can stay down. The enemy might leave us alone or lose us in a few hours.鈥� There was little hope of that. Above, Walker took Starling in for a second attack with charges set at 300 feet. When this had little effect, he called in Wild Goose and Kite again and the three ships set off on a second barrage attack. The only damage inflicted was to blow Kite鈥檚 gyro compass out of action, and Walker sent her into the outfield, bringing in Woodpecker to take her place. Woodpecker carried out a single attack also without result and Walker turned to the officers on Starling鈥檚 bridge. 鈥淣ow we have established that he isn鈥檛 too shallow, we can only assume he must be deeper than we thought.鈥� He made several test runs on asdic bearing and found he was losing the echo each time at a range of seven hundred yards. This meant the U-boat was deeper than 500 feet. 鈥淲hat I wouldn鈥檛 give,鈥� he exclaimed to all and sundry, 鈥渇or a good and large charge capable of being set to 700 feet.鈥� He had no idea at that time, neither had the Admiralty, that U-boats could withstand the pressure of water at more than 800 feet. As the day wore on, Walker maintained asdic contact in Starling and, using the loudhailer, directed his Group into a series of attacks at speeds of little more than five knots. Between attacks he did everything possible to 鈥渞attle the U-boat into using up his batteries鈥�. He carried out dummy attacks at speed hoping the enemy would hear his fast revving propellers and use up valuable battery power in taking avoiding action. Then he ordered Kite to drop charges in the outfield to give the impression the Group was drawing away on a false scent. Kapitanleutnant Poser was also using every trick he knew. U-boats had been equipped with a device that could be fired from torpedo tubes which caused a minor upheaval in the water and sent huge bubbles upwards and gave off the same echo on an asdic set as the U-boat itself. In this way it was hoped that the asdic 鈥減ing鈥� would receive an echo back from the device, which would be attacked and the ships further led astray by the appearance of bubbles. They were known as Submarine Bubble Targets, SBTs. Poser ordered them to be released every few minutes throughout the day to hide his alterations of course. Walker had a knack of knowing when his asdic operators were 鈥減inging鈥� off a U-boat or an SBT Between 1030 am and 7 pm U-202 released seventy-six SBTs but Starling and the Group were still in contact. 鈥淭he U-boat,鈥� Walker wrote later, 鈥渨as sitting pretty well out of reach and all our antics only made him discharge the wretched SBTs. It was all most maddening, but the laugh was very much on our side because not only were asdic conditions perfect and the enemy could easily be held up to a mile, but I could afford to wait for two days while Fritz obviously could not. In any event, it was merely childish of him to try and palm off SBTs on my asdic team and myself I decided that as he was obviously staying out of reach I would wait until he had either exhausted his patience, his batteries or his high pressure air.鈥� By 8 pm Poser had taken several evasive turns quite fruitlessly and attempted to distract his tormentors with more SBTs But Walker was still in contact, with the remainder of the Group patrolling round two miles away, ready to take over contact should Starling lose it. He told Impey and Burn: 鈥淲e will sit it out. I estimate this chap will surface about midnight. Either his air or his batteries will run out by then.鈥� At two minutes past midnight on June 2nd, the air gave out in U-202 and Poser ordered: 鈥淭ake her to the surface.鈥�
Above, only the faint swish of water round the sloops disturbed the penetrating silence as they waited. Without any audible warning, the U-boat rose fast through the water and surfaced with her bows high in the air where they hung momentarily before falling back into the water. The crew leapt through the conning tower hatch to man the guns, and Poser shouted for full speed in the hope of outrunning the hunters. On Starling鈥檚 bridge, the tiny silver conning tower and the wash of water was just visible in the moonlight as the U-boat broke surface. 鈥淪tarshell . . . commence.鈥� One turret spread the heavens with light, then came the crash and flash of the Group鈥檚 first broadside laying a barrage of shells round the small target. Through his binoculars, Burn could see a dull red glow leap from behind the conning tower. The night became alive with flames and tracer bullets streaming towards the stricken U-boat as it twisted violently in the agony of death. A signal lamp blinked from Starling and the barrage ceased while Walker increased speed to ram. The ship trembled under increased power, heeled over and rushed towards the riddled enemy now lying stopped and enveloped in coarse red smoke. The range closed and they could see the jagged stump of the conning tower. Evidently the U-boat was too crippled to escape, so Walker altered course slightly and ran alongside, raking her decks with machine gun fire and firing a shallow pattern of depth charges which straddled the submarine and covered her in a cloud of smoke and spray as they rumbled and cracked around her. When the heaving seas had subsided, she could be seen settling slowly down with waves pouring over her conning tower and her crew running frantically along the decks, their shouts and screams mingling with the cheers of Starling鈥檚 own feverishly excited company. Three high explosive shells had torn great holes in U-202鈥檚 foredeck, more hits had sliced jaggedly through her conning tower and fifteen of her crew lay dead or dying at their action stations. Poser clutched the periscope column, pulled a revolver from his pocket and gave his last order. 鈥淎bandon ship . . . abandon ship.鈥� The cry was taken up and passed through the U-boat. Poser turned to say good-bye to his officers. Rather than be captured he was prepared to take his own life. But two of his officers had panicked under the hail of shellfire and, anticipating his order, were already swimming fast from the danger area with a group of sailors who were all crying out for help furiously, Poser threw away his revolver and cursing under his breath decided to be taken prisoner so that one day, when Germany had won the war, he could have the satisfaction of seeing his two defecting officers court-martialled.
By 12.30 am the battle was over and the survivors picked up, two officers and sixteen men in Starling, two officers and ten men in Wild Goose. The first three to scramble up the nets dangling over Starling鈥檚 side were stopped when they reached the guard rail and asked the name of their captain and the number of the U-boat. They refused to answer. When this was reported to Walker, he said: 鈥淒on鈥檛 let them come aboard, Number One. And tell them they cannot be picked up until they have given the information we want.鈥� The three survivors were ordered back into the water where they shouted and screamed for mercy while Filleul, who was in charge of rescue operations, shrugged and repeated the questions. Starling was moving slowly away until one lost his nerve and cried out: 鈥淜apitan Poser, U-boat 202.鈥� He was still sobbing out the reply when they were picked up again, blue with cold. Fifteen minutes later, the scuttling charges in U-202 exploded and, rolling from side to side, the boat which had escaped destruction within yards of the United States coastline, went to her grave in the middle of the Atlantic. She would break up long before reaching the bottom five miles below. Later that morning one of Surgeon-Lieutenant Fraser鈥檚 patients died and Walker ordered a burial at sea with full honours. In his view, he could take any measures he wished to destroy the enemy in as effective manner as possible and, if Germans lost their lives unnecessarily, they became victims of their own 鈥渢otal鈥� war. But once the battle was over, he treated prisoners correctly. And a dead German, being also a good one, was entitled to be buried with the ceremony his gallantry deserved. After the funeral service, Starling hoisted the time-honoured signal for a naval victory at sea. 鈥淪econd Support Group splice the mainbrace.鈥�
They began moving eastwards on June 5 and finally reached Liverpool four days later. Walker was particularly pleased. His Group was the first to return to harbour with a 鈥渒ill鈥�. He had been able to indoctrinate his ships with the team spirit he believed in so passionately and in his own ships he had seen the various fighting departments operate cohesively and efficiently. The guns crews were especially delighted because both Walker and the First Lieutenant seemed to place more value on the asdic and depth charges than the guns, which they thought to be noisy gadgets. In fact, both made it only too clear that as anti-submarine experts they considered that depth charges were the main armament of the ship rather than guns. This had proved dispiriting to the gunnery team, consisting of the largest number of men in the ship, but the sinking of U-202 had shown that the skill of the asdic operators in holding the target for nearly fifteen hours and the combined depth-charge attacks of the whole Group had not been enough to cripple the enemy. For that, they had been forced to call upon the guns to provide the broadsides. Eilleen had been told of Johnnie鈥檚 successes by Captain (D), Liverpool, and wanted to join in the celebrations when the sloops returned to harbour, but three days before their return she was taken to a nursing home for an emergency operation. Within an hour of docking, Johnnie came to her bedside with flowers and a bottle of champagne. Other patients joined them in a toast and the bedside celebration lost nothing of its gaiety. Meanwhile, Timmy had sailed from Liverpool to join the submarine Parthian, then operating in the Mediterranean, fate ironically decreeing that father and son should serve together, one with the hunters and the other with the hunted.

Continued.....
'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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