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.

At 4 p.m. the rescue ship, Copeland鈥�, intercepted on HF/DF鈥� (An instrument for intercepting U.boat wireless signals) a U-boat signalling its first sighting report of the convoy from somewhere in the outfield on the port quarter of the convoy. Walker had to choose, to keep his slender screen intact round the convoy, or to dart out to attack the chattering U-boat. Most captains at that time would have taken the safer, and in many ways the sounder, course of staying with the convoy in the hope of beating off the 鈥減ack鈥�, but Walker, restless and impatient to destroy the enemy before he could attack the convoy, signalled Gardenia to join Stork, and raced away to hunt down the homing U-boat. By taking this decision he virtually threw away the rule book and staked his career on the success of the offensive lunge and his belief that the convoy would be quite safe in the hands of Convolvulus and Marigold during his absence. The two ships steamed for nearly fifty minutes at 15 knots, Gardenia鈥檚 maximum speed, before a look-out in Stork鈥檚 crow鈥檚 nest shouted excitedly down the voice pipe to the bridge: 鈥淪ubmarine on the surface dead ahead, Sir.鈥� They had been lucky to sight the target so quickly. While this information was being flashed to Gardenia, Walker ordered full speed and sent for his engineer officer. Only a brief glance at the conning tower dimly visible in the haze ten miles away was needed for him to rush back to the engine-room to begin coaxing the last revolution possible from the straining, willing engines. Almost at once they were sighted by the enemy who turned rapidly and began running away on the surface, evidently hoping she could out-distance her hunters. In fact, she was a knot or two slower than Stork whose crew, closed up at action stations, were already training their guns on the target. But they were still out of range. At seven miles they could hope to reach him; at six and a half they could probably score hits. Two hours later, Gardenia was dropping further and further astern and, in Stork, the range-finder crew were calling out the ranges as the gap narrowed with painful slowness. 鈥淔ourteen thousand five hundred, Sir.鈥� (One nautical mile is equivalent to 2,000 yards) They were overhauling steadily. 鈥淔ourteen thousand, Sir.鈥� A minute had passed, seeming like an hour. 鈥淭hirteen thousand six hundred, Sir.鈥� The guns crews tensed for the order to open fire when suddenly the U-boat decided he could not outstrip the sloop and crash-dived. As it vanished in a faintly discernible swirl of bubbling water, Walker was presented with a nasty theoretical problem. It would take Stork nearly twenty minutes to reach the diving point and, in that time, the quarry could steam for about two miles at least in any direction. In seconds, Walker had to decide the direction he must steer to intercept and pick her up on the asdic. The U-boat had dived on a northwesterly course. Logically, she might be expected to continue on that course to keep pace with the convoy and resume her shadowing should her attackers give up the chase. After signalling Gardenia to follow suit, Walker altered course slightly to the south, decreased speed and ordered his asdic team to commence their sweep. He had gambled on the enemy doing exactly the opposite to what might be expected. If the gamble failed and the U-boat slipped past them, the convoy would be at his mercy, virtually un protected. There was another move. The U-boat Commander could torpedo his tormentor and rid himself of the fastest and most effective escort in the screen. In the minutes that followed, the tension throughout Stork increased visibly as guns crews, cheated of a target, moved to their platform rails with eyes searching for a periscope. On the bridge, Walker sat hunched in a wooden seat specially built for him behind the gyro compass. With a slight smile he murmured orders to the helmsman and kept one ear on reports from the asdic team. Suddenly, the hoped-for report rang out. 鈥淓cho bearing 340 degrees, Sir.鈥�

The gamble had come off. He had intercepted the U-boat, thirty minutes after its dive. It was slightly on his starboard bow. The smile became a grin as he gave the order: 鈥淕oing in to attack.鈥� Stork shuddered under light helm and increased speed. The asdic operator shouted out the decreasing ranges as they ran towards the echo. The U-boat passed beneath. 鈥淔ire. . . The asdic officer pressed the bell to the depth-charge crews in the stern, and ten charges of high explosive were shot into the air and tumbled from racks into the water. For nearly a minute the crew of Stork waited silently as she slowed down and turned. Then the ear-splitting cracks of detonating depth charges roared in their ears and the boiling surging water was flung skywards. Stork altered course and the men leaned over at their action stations for signs of destruction. Not a pint of oil marked the position of the recent explosions. Their first attack had failed. It took four more attacks to convince Walker that he had met a cunning opponent, not to be easily panicked into some desperate man that would give him away. It seemed that he was varying his depth after every attack and probably circling at the same time inside Stork鈥檚 own turning circle. By this time, Gardenia had arrived, and Walker, his own supply of depth charges reduced to eighteen, sent her in for a sixth attack. One of Gardenia鈥檚 first ten depth charges exploded prematurely and spectacularly, blowing her ensign into tatters and seriously damaging her stern and engine-room. She might still attack but would be ruled out as an efficient escort in future operations with the convoy. The two ships kept up the hunt until 10 p.m. with Stork directing Gardenia鈥檚 attacks. As nightfall was approaching and the convoy drawing further away, Walker decided to return before the 鈥減ack鈥� could launch its attack. He ordered Gardenia to continue with the hunt for as long as she was able, or until the U-boat had been destroyed, and himself set course to catch up the convoy at full speed. On the other side of the convoy, Marigold was also hurrying to reach the convoy before dark. As Walker gained asdic contact with his U-boat, Marigold had left the convoy at high speed to hunt another reported fifteen miles away on the starboard bow. Her commanding officer had anticipated that this was what Walker would have wanted him to do and judged that, as the U-boats were not likely to attack until dark, Convolvulus could remain in sole possession of the field immediately round the convoy. Convolvulus did not protest, and an hour later Marigold sighted her quarry about to dive twelve miles away. She attacked a 鈥渃ertain sub echo鈥� three times before breaking off to the action to resume her position on the screen. She expected to rejoin at about 1 a.m.
Walker arrived at the convoy at midnight and confidently took up his station astern. A quick analysis of the situation showed that the prospects for the night could have been worse; one U-boat was being kept down forty-five miles away on the port quarter by Gardenia; another, now thirty miles away, had been severely shaken by Marigold; Convolvulus had sneaked in a quick lunge during Marigold鈥檚 absence and chased a U-boat out of sight on the starboard bow; and if Marigold could resume her station by i a.m. only Gardenia would be missing from the screen. Marigold was fifteen minutes late rejoining, and in that vital time gap an undetected 鈥減ack鈥� pounced. The Commodore鈥檚 ship, Felavo, was the first to go up. She vanished in a cloud of smoke, flame and spray, the blast of the exploding torpedo blowing Commodore Hudson through the canvas awnings over his bridge into the night. He was never seen again. Well astern of the convoy, the flash and roar of the torpedo striking home had just been reported in Stork and alarm bells were ringing when another ship, the SS. Strib, was silhouetted starkly for a fraction of a second as two torpedoes struck her amidships. A third ship burst into flame on the other side of the convoy, the SS Slendal. All three sank in a few minutes. Walker ordered his illuminant operation, 鈥淏uttercup鈥�, to be put into effect astern of the convoy, unhappily aware that only his ship and Marigold, now coming up from astern, could hope to carry it out. It was a fruitless search. In fact, the attacking U-boats had come in on the bows and were retreating on the surface ahead of the convoy, successfully dodging the twisting and turning Convolvulus. Walker ordered Marigold to stay astern and assist Copeland to search for and rescue survivors. This was an unfortunate move. The U-boats had not yet finished with convoy HG 84 for the night and were forming up for the second attack off the starboard beam, where Marigold would have been had she resumed her station. There was a preliminary skirmish at 4 a.m. when one of Stork鈥檚 look-outs sighted the wake of a U-boat just diving. Walker altered course towards it, increased to full speed and attacked with a pattern of ten charges. They exploded so accurately that he turned to his First Lieutenant on the bridge and announced with a triumphant grin: 鈥淚 shall be exceedingly surprised if history does not show that chap to have been well and truly sunk.鈥� He was right but, suppressing a strong desire to linger and collect evidence, raced back to catch up with the stern of the convoy and resume his position. At 4.30 a.m. the U-boats struck back. The SS Thurso, in the middle of the convoy, literally exploded into fragments and for a moment seemed to disintegrate into a white, blazing ball of fire. Darkness had time to close in tightly again before the SS City of Oxford shuddered to a standstill under the impact of an internal explosion caused when the torpedo pierced her hull and detonated inside a cargo hold. She sank while the ships following her were altering course round her heavily listing hulk. The chaos became complete when every ship in the convoy began firing snowflake illuminant rockets wildly and indiscriminately, lighting up every column until it became possible for an attacker to take his time about selecting a target. Walker was raging inwardly, and he almost danced in consternation when one of the ships astern opened fire with her machine-guns sending streams of tracers in a wide arc behind her, nearly hitting Stork鈥檚 bridge and moving round to spray the decks of her neighbouring ship in the next column. The latter, thinking he was under attack from the air, fired off everything he had at the nearest star. It was all a bit too much for the escort and, under Walker鈥檚 orders, they steamed at full speed round the convoy just outside the glare of the snowflakes in the hope of catching a U-boat stalking them on the surface.
When the convoy, now without a commodore until the vice-commodore could assume control, had decided to stop firing snowflakes, Walker ordered Convolvulus back to her station ahead and told off Marigold to continue assisting Cope/and in her search for fresh survivors. What was left of the night passed quietly. Walker felt deeply that he might have prevented the second attack if he had left Marigold to take up her normal position in the screen. 鈥淚 know that rescue work was the proper duty for Copeland,鈥� he wrote later, 鈥渂ut I am still uncertain if I was right or wrong in telling Marigold to help her. For because of this, Marigold was not in her position on the screen at 4.30 a.m. when the second attack came from the starboard beam where she would have been. She would almost certainly have picked up the attackers on her radar. On the other hand Cope would take a long time to pick up the survivors herself and would have fallen so far astern of the convoy that it is likely she would have been sunk.鈥� Crouched in his seat on the bridge, muffled in scarves and sweaters, he sat silent while the Officer of the Watch handled the ship. Daylight came and it was 8 a.m. before he sat up, mumbled a few orders and went below to bathe, shave and eat a frugal breakfast. He re-appeared on the bridge, refreshed. Marigold was crammed with survivors and. if she were to become a fighting unit again, they would have to be transferred to Copeland and his own ship. He sent the necessary signals and the three ships dropped astern of the convoy while the tiny corvette transferred 172 survivors. Walker grinned as he called over the loudhailer asking Marigold how she had stayed afloat. He was told: 鈥淚t would hardly appear seemly before our Merchant Navy friends for the rescue ship to be inhospitable, so we prayed.鈥� Stork had taken aboard her share, and more were in the process of boarding Copeland, when Marigold sighted a conning tower six miles from her and ten miles from the convoy. Despite the indignant protests of the few survivors still waiting to be transferred, the corvette jumped through the water in pursuit of the enemy. The U-boat, sighting the corvette leaping over the choppy seas towards her, turned and ran off showing Marigold a fast-vanishing stern. The corvette about-turned, rejoined Copeland and sent across her last survivors. In the evening, Gardenia appeared on the horizon and her signal lamp blinked a cautious claim: 鈥淐onsider I finished him off.鈥� At dawn, Walker sent a signal to the Commander-in-Chief; Western Approaches informing him of the night鈥檚 sinkings and asking for air support from the 15th onwards. A Liberator appeared over the convoy in the late evening and, shortly afterwards, Stork, then ahead of the convoy, sighted a conning tower ten miles on the convoy鈥檚 starboard bow. The Liberator was sent off to attack and a few minutes later reported: 鈥淗ave attacked U-boat and scored seventeen hits. Enemy has either sunk or submerged.鈥� Walker assumed the aircraft must have scored 鈥渟eventeen hits鈥� with machine gun fire. He could not imagine a U-boat diving if it had been hit that many times by anything larger. He tried to signal the aircraft for further information, but the Liberator had turned away and was heading out of sight. There was every evidence that the 鈥減ack鈥� was still with them when darkness fell. At midnight, a look-out in Stork sighted a U-boat probing the defences astern. This was in Stork鈥檚 territory, so Walker proceeded to 鈥渟marten him up nicely with my eight remaining depth charges鈥�. The attack was abortive and the sloop resumed her station. About the same time, Gardenia with her stern damaged and her speed reduced to a maximum of ten knots joined the screen. The situation was not promising for the night. The escort was at its full strength of four ships but Gardenia was damaged; she had no depth charges; her asdic was useless and she had no speed to chase or attack; Stork had run out of depth charges; Marigold would expend all her charges in the next attack; only Convolvulus, the patient shepherd during the absence of the others, was in a position to fight off enemy probes. Against this, the enemy could see four escorts and would not know their state of unreadiness. Luckily, the next attack came from the starboard bow while Convolvulus was in a position ahead of the starboard column ship. She saw the U-boat racing in, trimmed down on the surface, and altered course at full speed to intercept. The startled U-boat about-turned promptly and with his superior speed was able to lose himself in the night.

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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