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This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Mike Kemble

The battle that developed around the convoy HG76 from Gibraltar to the UK in the middle of December 1941 has been overshadowed in most histories of WW2 by the momentous events taking place in the Pacific and Asia. For that reason, although the lessons were understood in Britain and Germany at that time, it has often been overlooked more recently. HG76 can be clearly seen as marking the beginning of tactics and measures that would lead to the decisive convoy battles of early 1943 and the ultimate defeat of the U Boats. HG-76 sailed from Gibraltar expecting three factors to make its passage particularly difficult. One was that German agents in Spain could see the assembly of convoys and report when they had left. The second was the Fw200 aircraft and others, operating from France, that could be expected to seek it out and report its presence. The third was the inevitable concentration of a U Boat wolf pack against it once the convoy was located at sea. Things had not been going well at sea for the British and the loss of many warships of all categories was pushing the Royal Navy beyond tolerance. Merchant ship sinkings were also reaching alarming proportions. There seemed as yet to be no counter to the U-boat pack tactics employed by the Germans except lots more escorts and although the ability to produce these was looking better now the USA had entered the war, their availability would be still some time off. Convoys between Gibraltar and England were being particularly savaged by the Germans due to the proximity of air bases from which the Luftwaffe could locate them and the French Atlantic ports from which the U Boats could sortie. German surface attackers could also not be discounted. HG-76 had two things in its favor. First was the presence of the little Escort Carrier HMS AUDACITY (Commander D.W. McKENDRICK) This ship had been the German prize HANNOVER and commissioned as the EMPIRE AUDACITY after a very basic conversion to an Escort Carrier. The first such ship to join the fight. Few aircraft were available to operate from such a small flight deck and she went to sea with three two plane sections of Martlet 1’s, designated Red, Yellow & Black flights respectively. On passage to Gibraltar the new carrier had proved successful against the Fw200 Condors but suffered some losses herself. Her own AA armament was quite meagre and more along the lines of a merchant ship.
For the return voyage with HG-76 she had only four Martlet aircraft available. It was decided some Swordfish of 812 Squadron that were ashore at Gibraltar due to the loss of the fleet carrier HMS ARK ROYAL should be transferred to her . In the event this proved impossible, as she did not have the facility to operate them. Some of the survivors of ARK ROYAL were aboard the AUDACITY when she sailed. The Swordfish aircraft did fly in support of the convoy while it was in range of their Gibraltar base, leading to some German sources mistakenly stating they were aboard. In addition the ship had now been renamed HMS AUDACITY. The second thing in favor of HG76 was the presence of the 36th Escort Group under the command of the then Commander F.J. WALKER (RN). This officer had been an ASW expert between the wars, when this was an unfashionable branch of the service. Having been passed over for higher promotion he had spent the early part of the war watching the growing "Battle of the Atlantic", with great frustration. This was the very type of thing he had trained for, prepared others for and held strong tactical ideas about. It was March of 1941 before he could persuade Senior Officers to plead his case to be sent to sea and September before he was appointed to HMS STORK. This also made him the senior officer of the 36th Escort Group which, in addition to his own ship, comprised one pre war sloop HMS DEPTHFORD and seven flower class corvettes. They saw no action during the passage to Gibraltar in severe weather conditions, so when detailed to escort HG76 the keen Walker relished the chance to use tactics he had been theorizing about for years.
At a rendezvous outside Gibraltar, the 36th EG formed up with HG76, and were additionally reinforced by the AUDACITY and the destroyers STANLEY, BLANKNEY and EXMOOR. Walker’s ships comprised the sloops STORK,& DEPTFORD, with Corvettes RHODODENDRON, MARIGOLD, CONVOLVULUS, PENTSTEMON, GARDENIA, SAMPHIRE and VETCH. The Catapult Ship SS. DARWIN was also with the convoy. The STANLEY was the ex USS McCALLA, one of the 50 flush deck destroyers transferred from the US Navy, and had poor AA capacity but the BLANKNEY and EXMOOR were units of the HUNT II type escort destroyers with an excellent Heavy AA armament with which it was hoped to keep the Focke Wulfs at bay . STORK, although designed with low angle 4.7" guns in 1936 had been re armed with a very similar AA armament to that of the Hunt Class vessels. The rest of the escorts were poor in AA defense although well armed for ASW work. The convoy sailed on December 14th and consisted of 32 ships arranged in five columns. Following the ideas he had been recommending to the Admiralty, Walker arranged his escorts in two screens, one close to the convoy and one further out. For the first time the U Boats would encounter a double layer of escorts through which they would have to penetrate. This was not without some risk to the convoy as both screens were consequently quite thin.
Ahead of them Force H, formed a ‘Hunter Group’ comprised of the British destroyers CROOME, GURKHA, FOXHOUND and the Australian Destroyer NESTOR, sweeping the area outside Gibraltar. This paid off when the NESTOR sank U127 (Hansmann) with all hands, 35 miles off Cape St.Vincent on December 15th . This group could not assist any further than assisting the convoy to clear the immediate area of departure after which they turned back to rejoin Force H. Warned of the departure by agents in Spain, Doenitz ordered the U-boat pack SEERAUBER (Pirate) to attack. HG76 remained unsighted until U131 (Korvettenkapitan Arend Baumann) fell in with it during the late afternoon of the 16th. He reported, then dived to let the convoy pass over him, intending to follow along behind and make reports. Due to hydrophone equipment failure he accidentally came to periscope depth in the middle of the convoy but after initially attempting an attack was forced to dive deep to avoid being rammed. He was apparently not spotted. U67 and U108 also attempted to approach the convoy but were forced to dive by aircraft and could not locate it.
Two Fw200 of 1 KG-40 from Bordeaux, had also sighted the convoy in the failing light of the 16th and made a report. Although spotted in the distance by STANLEY the other escorts did not see them and the AUDACITY doubted the report and did not send fighters to investigate. At this time U574 (Oberleutnant zur see Gegnalbach) and U434 (Kapitanleutnant Wolfgang Heyda) were off Spain, both on their first war cruise and headed to join U131. Once astern U131 surfaced in darkness and made another sighting report. He continued to make hourly reports to Lorient where Doenitz directed four other U-boats to head to the area. Walker was however well aware he had been spotted due to Admiralty warnings based on their radio intercepts. He request the AUDACITY provide dawn and dusk sweeps with her aircraft at a distance of about 20 miles around the convoy. It was the practice of U-boats to maintain contact at maximum visibility while calling others in. Although the seas were very choppy and there was quite a bit of cloud cover overhead, the visibility was quite good at sea level. The weather would remain much the same for most of the voyage.

At 0900 on the 17th aircraft from AUDACITY reported the shadower was 22 miles off to the port of the convoy. Because of an entirely machinegun armament, the fighter was unable to do more than scare U131 into a crash dive. The Martlet then climbed high enough for a radar fix to be made on it. This was the chance Walker had been waiting for to test his theory of "offensive" escort. Calling for EXMOOR, BLANKNEY, STANLEY and PENTSTEMON to join him, he raced toward the contact in STORK. The good wishes of the Convoy commodore went with him in the form of the signal ‘GOOD HUNTING’ which formed the idea for the ‘A HUNTING WE SHALL GO’ theme song adopted by Walker’s later 2nd Support Group. Actually U108 and U107 are also now in contact but unsighted.
Meanwhile U131 had attempted to avoid further detection by aircraft, in moving closer to the convoy but the faulty hydrophones failed to warn of the approach of PENTSTEMON and STANLEY which heavily damaged the boat with depth charges. U131 went down to 600 feet and moved away at five knots in the hope of getting as much distance away from the attackers as possible because Chlorine Gas was leaking into the boat and they would eventually have to surface. Following his ideas for hunting U Boats Walker put his escorts out into a search line and commenced the search. When U131 did pop up two hours later, it was immediately sighted by STANLEY and Walker order his units to close and fire as soon as they were in range. In the meantime a Martlet (Sub Lt.Fletcher) of Black Flight dived on the submarine to strafe it but was shot down and killed. The Escorts commenced fire at 14,000 yards and after twenty minutes of shelling at closing ranges, the crew of U131 could be seen going over the side. After picking up the survivors STORK led the escorts back to the convoy, which they rejoined at 1730. Walker had made his first kill off Cape St.Vincent, using the new tactics of going out to meet the U-boats instead of waiting for them to attack. Even though AUDACITY was down to three Martlets, high hopes were held for future co-operation. Despite the lack of further information, U434 sighted the convoy just after midnight and immediately made a contact report, then took over as shadower due to the ominous silence from U131. U434 was ten miles from the convoy, running on the surface at dawn of the 18th when it fell foul of the unexpected outer escort screen in the form of STANLEY. The destroyer turned to attack immediately, despite her ASDIC giving trouble and warned Walker. DEPTFORD with EXMOOR and BLANKNEY were ordered to race to her aid.
Accurate depth charge patterns from STANLEY and BLANKNEY had dealt the U434 her death blows before the other escorts could even arrive and she bobbed to the surface, with her crew tumbling out of the conning tower and into the water just in time. Within minutes the U-boat had rolled over and slipped beneath the waves. U434 crew joined the prisoner of war bag along with the men of U131. Walker was delighted to be able to signal the Admiralty that they had so far sunk two U-boats without loss to the convoy. The same morning two Fw200 Condor aircraft attempted to close the convoy at 1130 but were spotted when still low on the horizon and were chased off by the fighters of Black Flight. The guns of both jammed, allowing the Germans a lucky escape. During the afternoon however, EXMOOR and BLANKNEY, reaching the end of their fuel endurance, were forced to turn back to Gibraltar. BLANKNEY took 45 prisoners with her as the fighters again carried out a sweep. Not long after, in the gathering dusk, PENTSTEMON sighted a U-boat on the surface ten miles off the port side of the convoy. This was U107 (Gelhaus) who sent off a contact report at 1819. Walker ordered CONVOLVULUS to join her sister ship in the hunt, but as it was getting very dark, he decided to keep STORK close to the convoy with the rest of the escorts. U-67 (Mueller-Stockheim) was closing the convoy at the same time and attempted to torpedo CONVOLVULUS as she moved to obey her orders. The corvette was near missed but immediately counter attacked and drove U-67 off. U107 was able to avoid detection. Since making contact late on the 16th U574 had waited for a pack to assemble, but after witnessing the destruction of U131, dropped well astern. After dark on the 18th the boat closed to an attack position. At 0400 on the 19th U574 was closing the rear of the convoy when it sighted STANLEY, which had also seen the U-boat and was turning to attack. Torpedoes were fired and shortly after STANLEY blew up in a sheet of flame. Although shocked by the loss, Walker, not knowing where the U-boat was, ordered the escorts to perform "Buttercup". This was an idea of his own and which he had trained his group in. As a team they turned outward from the convoy firing starshell and snowflake on every bearing the U-boat might use as an escape route. This forced U574 down and shortly after STORK picked up a positive submarine echo and carried out an attack with a ten charge pattern. Walker was still turning to attack again when U574 surfaced, badly damaged, but attempting to escape on the surface. After sweeping the decks of the unfortunate U-boat with gunfire, the STORK turned in and rammed her just forward of the conning tower.

Continued.....
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