← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
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- [00:02]
Al Murray
Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams, and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.
- [00:24]
James Holland
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Al Murray
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- [00:41]
Al Murray
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- [01:10]
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- [01:47]
James Holland
After Rosing, Heinrich Bleikrod took over command of the boat. By now it was September 1940, the invasion of France vos over and wewe now provided with submarine bases actually on the Atlantic coast. This was very useful since it spared us a long preliminary approach round the British Isles. Our operational area was directly in front of us. U48 was transferred to Brest with the first flotilla. Bleichrod was known natural submariner. He was one of the crew of 31 and had done training trips under another commandant. These trainee commandants were popularly known as confirmands. The long and the short of it was they were lacking experience. So it was with Bleichrod. There was no doubt he had his weak spots as well as moments. Then he was not in control of events, but that was to be expected. So that was oberleutnant Teddy Ziran, first watch officer on the U48 and welcome.
- [02:44]
Al Murray
To we have ways of making you talk with me. I'm Murray and James Holland. Our Atlantic war Series Episode 3 let's be honest now Jim, Teddy Searin is a young man. He's very confident of his abilities, right? Him saying someone else is a bit as his weak spots as well as moments when he's not in control of events. You know that was to be expected He's. Teddy Suran is of himself, very sure of his abilities and he's right to be, perhaps. But I think it's quite funny, him casting shade on his.
- [03:11]
James Holland
He's not lacking in self confidence, I think it's. It's fair to say, but. But I do think it's interesting because what you've got is, you've got these people coming through who are not Preens. They're not. They're not Kretschmers, they're not. They're not Fritz, Julius, Lemp and Schepka. You know, these are guys who are a bit wet around the ears when it comes to submarine warfare and they're starting to come to the fore, which means, yet again, there's greater emphasis on those aces. And I think that's the. That's the thing to kind of consider here, really. I. I mean, inevitably, when you've got such a small U boat arm in the first place, that's the problem you're confronting when you suddenly need to expand it a little bit, you know, so there's no other way of getting these guys to command boats. But there's a lack of experience there, which is starting to show.
- [03:48]
Al Murray
Yeah, but also, if your political culture and ideology is about triumph of the will and individuals and expert and all that, you're going to end up leaning into it as well, aren't you? That compounds the issue. And the propaganda system the Germans have got going is hungry for expert aces, individuals displaying these qualities to be idolised and stuck in magazines. Magazines back on the home front. So they're caught in their own trap here, aren't they? Somewhat, yeah.
- [04:13]
James Holland
What was actually clear there's is post Norway and post the battle of France, there's lots that's good for Donitz, the Atlantic coast and all the rest of it, but there's also plenty that's not so good. And I think that's quite interesting. And there's no question that in the spring of 1940, the spring of 1941 is the only time that the Kriegsmarine could have really gained any kind of a decisive strategic result in the Atlantic. And that, let's face it, is only a slim chance, but they're certainly not taking the best of advantage of that in the summer of 1940 and for a number of reasons, they've had a.
- [04:48]
Al Murray
Problem with their defective torpedoes and noise. We said, so what does he do? Does he send his U boats out with possibly dud torpedoes or wait for them to be sorted? He knows if he does that, that'll wreck his crew's morale. But. But if he waits, he lets Britain off the hook. So he decides on a maximum effort. But he bans the use of the magnetic pistols, which are. The pistols are the starters for the detonators for the torpedoes. And he switches to torpedoes only with contact. So the, there's, you know, a torpedo that goes off and it encounters a ship's magnetic field or one that detonates on contact. The British have a duplex pistol that can do both, interestingly. But he's right, Donitz gets that right, doesn't he? This is the happy time.
- [05:28]
James Holland
So the landscape and the seascape has totally changed since the fall of France. Yeah. You know, it's reckoned that French bases add around 11% to the effective strength of the U boats because there's obviously less time spent getting to and from patrol area.
- [05:43]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [05:43]
James Holland
You know, Laurent is open for business by the 5th of July. It's our old friend Fritz Julius Lemp in U130 is the first U boat to use the base there. And suddenly the whole of southern and eastern coast of Britain is facing German occupied coastline. And this takes a little while for Britain to adjust to. You know, we've talked, haven't we, a lot about the strategic earthqu of the fall of France, but it has huge ramifications for Britain's logistics, the shipping and supply chains and so on. And this is a massive headache which isn't kind of, I don't think, fully appreciated to start off with.
- [06:15]
Al Murray
Yeah. Because after all, the French navy has been a part of the British security picture. The idea that you can sail across the Bay of Biscay unmolested to get to the Mediterranean, to get to Gibraltar, that's all gone. So things that are completely taken for granted in the British naval picture have all evaporated. Operating out of France means that the German, the U boats are straight into the Atlantic where the battlefield is, rather than having to get there. If they've got to get there, you can canalize them, you can, you can mine where they're likely to, to sail from and all this sort of stuff. But as they're sailing out of the French Atlantic coast, that's all over. And your approaches to Gibraltar are more dangerous. So it's, you know, the effect of the French Atlantic coast falling into Germans is as big a deal as any aspect of France falling into German's hands, isn't it? You know, with immediate strategic effect. It's the thing straight away, as you.
- [07:00]
James Holland
Pointed out, but it's still, well Short of the half a million tons that he's. He's plucked from nowhere. But, you know, as you say, yeah, the crews are absolutely having the time of their life. And, you know, you have to. One has to stress that, you know, you're talking about such a small number. I mean, I think. I think the most U boats are ever operating at one time in the entire Atlantic is 13. And usually it's a lot less than that. Usually it's somewhere between 6 and 8. So it's not a lot, you know, so that's sort of, you know, two wolf packs at a time. You know, if you've got a wolf pack of, say, five, something like that, it's not a lot. But one of those U boats that's cashing in is, is U48. You remember our friend Teddy Surin? So after Narvik Kapityn, Leutnant Schulze is taken ill. So he's replaced by Capitan Lieutenant Hans Rudolf Roessing. He's 35 years old, got a long naval career behind him. So he's one of these experienced guys. Teddy Surin rates him really, really highly. Sren himself is still too young to have his own boat. You've got to be 25, and he's not 25 till April 1941. But on Rosling's first patrol, U48 sinks eight merchant vessels. You know, and with all that, the experience of the crew is growing. You know, they're generally attacking at night and when they can sort of cooperate with one another on the surface. And These are Mark 7 BU boats operated at, you know, generally at 17 knots on the surface, which is faster than any convoy. So slow convoy is operating about. Well, we'll get onto this in another episode. But, but, you know, between sort of 7 to 8 knots and a fast one is between kind of 9 to 13 knots, something like that. So a U boat at surface is comfortably faster, but when submerged, the best speed they can do is 7 to 8 knots. And if you're doing 7 to 8 knots submerged, you're burning through your batteries super quick, so you want to be operating much less than that. So they are very much submersibles rather than, you know, bonafide as submarines, because they're operating for the most part on the surface when they're going out on patrol, you know, they might be going, you know, under the surface to kind of avoid detection and the, you know, from the blockade or something. But basically they're going to their station on the surface the whole way. Yeah. And spending most of their time and they're attacking, attacking from the surface as well. But the key point is, you know, the convoys have barely got any escorts. The merchant vessels themselves are virtually unarmed. They've got a few, maybe a one gun on the foredeck or something like that, but almost nothing. You know, they're not completely unescorted. They might have one or two escorts with them, but you know, that's not enough on a, on a 35 ship convoy. And also the smaller the convoy, the easier it is for the U boats to get in amongst them. So they're just having their time of Reilly, frankly, you know, it's a bit like the mighty 8th Air Force heading into, you know, to Schweinfurt and Regensburg, where they're beyond the fighter cover and they're getting absolutely decimated. This is the same sort of situation really. Any underwater attack is entirely conducted by the captain, as we discussed in the last episode. But surface attacks are more in the hands of the first watch officer. And that of course, on U48 is Teddy Surin. So at 5.30pm on 25 June, Suren is on the bridge on the surface. He spots a large tanker in the distance, traveling at speed. There's absolutely no chance of catching it, but Zurin reckons it's worth a wild card shot. So he works out the speeds, distance, etc. Combines these with their own position, then calls out eels at the ready. And of course eels are the torpedoes. Rohing, however, is skeptical and Soren says, don't let's waste time talking about it. If we don't get the torpedo off soon, the opportunity will slip through our fingers. And reluctantly, Rohing agrees. So Sren takes the shot. But the tanker is 5,000 yards away. I mean, this is Wanklin scales of distance, you know, it's almost three miles, isn't it? And he makes a last 0.6 degree adjustment, then fires the torpedoes. And the minutes pass three minutes, then four minutes and rohing is shrugged and turning away. And then just at five minutes, they spot a huge fireball in the distance, follows moments later by, of course, the sound of the explosion. And Rosing looks at Seorin quizzically, shakes his head and then leaves the bridge silently. But Suren noted but the commandant never queried my judgment again. And they'd sunk a Dutch tanker called the Moor Drecht, which is one of the many merchant vessels now sailing for the Allies. Of course, you know, it's no longer a neutral and it'd been carrying 10,000 tons of fuel and of the 29 strong crew, only four survive and they are picked up five days later.
- [11:27]
Al Murray
That in itself doesn't bear thinking about, does it? That experience. God. But this means that the U boat crews think they're winning, don't they? Their confidence is up, their losses are low and there's tons and tons and tons, Tens of thousands of tons of Allied shipping going to the bottom. Hundreds of ships. But as you say, this is only 13U boats. Imagine if they'd applied them at most. Yeah, at most. Imagine if they'd applied themselves to this strategy wholeheartedly. It's extraordinary.
- [11:54]
James Holland
In the mid-1930s and had a hundred, had 300U boats ready. Yeah, they would have been perfectly capable.
- [11:59]
Al Murray
Of building that and the British would have known. And Britain's calculation about how feasible a war against Germany would, would be completely different. Right. And so you end up with a completely different war. It may even, may even not have happened that it's such a deterrent for the Germans to do what they like in the continent of Europe that the British go, the balance of power has changed. We won't bother. Or the British would take a different course of action to avo avoid a situation in which the Germans, you know, they intervene in the Rhineland if they know that that's the actual thing that's at stake. You pull one counterfactual lever, the whole lot move with it.
- [12:32]
James Holland
And you know, again, there is this sense, despite the happy time, that an opportunity is passing because, you know, shipyards are going in America, are going full steam as they are in Britain. And in 1940, British shipyards complete one battleship, two aircraft carriers, seven cruisers, 27 destroyers, 15 subs, 50 corvettes, 110 merchant vessels and almost 2,000 vessels are converted to war service. And in that time, same time, The Kriegsmarine adds 22U boats. But you know what? Not very many U boats being produced is good news for Britain. There is also absolute mayhem in Britain's ports. Of course, you know, that's the thing, the strategic earthquake that we touched on earlier on in this episode, you know, is really coming home to roost on a, on a logistical, operational point of view.
- [13:22]
Al Murray
Obviously, London is a, is a global port. So what else are the Germans going to attack? If it's about damaging, and we talked about this in the Blitz episodes, if it's about damaging British prestige, the great global trading nation, you attack its port. So it's not until the 7th of September, Black Saturday, that it's decided to abandon the port of London. And you know, London's docks lose 21,000 gross tons of shipping, 48,000 tons damaged in the two nights of bombing that come after Black Saturday. They give up on the port of London. All merchant vessels moved out of London. You've had the Canal Kampf as well, the disruption to British shipping as well. And with this there's mining of British waters, there's the S bouter zipping across and attacking shipping. And it's basically that the east and south eastern coast of Britain is an extremely dangerous place for British shipping.
- [14:10]
James Holland
But just think, suddenly you're denied the Port of London, which is the busiest port in the world. That's out of the picture. So that capacity has to be factored in somewhere else. It's not something that you can just do with the click of your fingers, is it? I mean it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's amazing. So on the 10th of September 1940, so three days after black Saturday, the start of the Blitz, it's agreed that only ships of six and a half thousand gross tons and under are safe to enter the Humber and ports north of it. And no ship larger than a coaster or a military vessel, obviously a naval vessel should enter the port south of the Humber. So this is a massive change with.
- [14:47]
Al Murray
Huge numbers of problems, vast knock on effects for all the rest of the operating ports in the uk, you know, as we'll see and because convoys are less efficient in themselves, put greater strain on ports. Anyway, it's a compounding of the problem. And most steel has come from Europe, so there's a sudden shortage of steel. And if there's one moment where you need steel, it's right now when you've left kit in northwest Europe.
- [15:14]
James Holland
Exactly.
- [15:15]
Al Murray
Steel now has to come from the us. You've also got to measure that with the other things or add factor in the other things you're importing from the us. Extra strain on shipping there. And American steel, sheet steel from the US comes in lengths that don't fit onto British railway wagons. Railway loading gauges of the Britain affecting the war effort. Discuss. Here it is again.
- [15:37]
James Holland
Yeah. So you can get them to the port, you just can't get them from the port.
- [15:40]
Al Murray
Yeah, exactly, yeah. At the same time there's a huge effort by the Ministry of Supply in New York who have to have teams of agents in New York who are now trying to arrange transportation of weapons. There's half a million rifles to come, there's 22,000 machine guns, 55,000 atomic guns, 89575 millimeter cannon essentially, and ammunition and sheet steel and existing commercial cargoes. And London shut.
- [16:06]
James Holland
And also the team there is just not big enough to suddenly cope with this huge extra demand. So, Jesus, you know, it's huge problems, you know, ships arriving with no paperwork and that, you know, it's arrived in the dock and people going, what you got on here? Having a clue, don't know. Okay, well should we unload it then? So they unload it onto the quayside. Well, now what do we do with it? Well, I don't know. It won't fit on that wagon, so it just stays there. I mean, you can imagine, can't.
- [16:28]
Al Murray
It's absolute total carnage. And because the east coast has been shut, coal, which is, and this is the thing, most of the British sort of co, or a large chunk of the British coastal merchant trade is coal delivery to all the ports in Britain. Dropping off coal because coal is the primary fuel in the British Isles and this means it has to travel because the east coast is now closed. It's got to go all the way around the country and increasingly by rail, which is putting pressure on the railway network which is being attacked anyway and is again, there's the question of prioritising what travels by train. Is your journey necessary on the railways after all? That's because the railways need to be clear for this ongoing knock on effect.
- [17:03]
James Holland
And there's military traffic as well, with.
- [17:05]
Al Murray
An invasion scare going on, an army trying to organize itself for fear of invasion. And there's this, the official histories in there, merchant shipping and the demands of.
- [17:13]
James Holland
War, which says in the Ministry of Transport, the word later used to describe the troubles that now beset these ports was confusion. But the people on the spot would have used a harsher word for everything went wrong at once in every direction and in so bewildering a fashion that it was impossible to see which of the alarming symptoms was cause and which effect or to decide which were the best remedies to apply. I mean, isn't that brilliant? Oh, she's got a lovely term, Bella.
- [17:39]
Al Murray
She's in the stoic club, I think. So this means, you know, it's chaos at the ports. Getting stuff off ships is chaotic and difficult. It's delay, it's confusion, it's chaos. Something like, you know, it all has a massive impact on imports which are down by two and a half, three million tons. And Britain, after all, is an import export. But at this stage, an import nation, that's how it's built its empire. That's why it has a maritime empire. That's where great source of its strength comes from. But if you disrupt that element, you disrupt its strength, which so it's a fantastic opportunity for the Germans to exploit sea and in the western coastal ports. And Britain needs more shipping despite the influx of international merchant vessels that have come after the fall of France. Right. So with this influx of international merchant vessels, if we need to talk about the question of merchant shipping, where this new source of merchant shipping is going to come from, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with the beginning of possibly one of the most extraordinary stories from this phase of the war in the Atlantic. Although there is no shortage of basically film scripts waiting to be written, it's purely, purely, purely. It's not finished. We'll see after the break.
- [18:52]
James Holland
So good, so good, so good.
- [18:55]
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- [19:05]
Al Murray
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- [19:06]
James Holland
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Al Murray
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- [19:12]
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- [20:20]
Al Murray
Welcome back to we have Ways to make youe Talk with Me, Al Murray and James Holland. We are. Well, we're halfway through part three of our Atlantic War series.
- [20:28]
James Holland
One of the things that's so important, we've said it a number of times, is this figure of 500,000 tons a month, which Donitz reckons needs to be sunk in which he's plucked from nowhere. But you know Be that as it may, that's the target for the U boats. They're not getting anywhere near that even. I mean, they are getting near to it in the happy time that we talked about, but they're not going past it at this point. And it's also sort of slightly assuming that merchant shipping will stand still. And of course it's not. I mean, we talked to the last time about the vast numbers of boats that were coming into ships that were being built in shipyards around Britain. But there is an acknowledgement fairly early on in the story by the British government, by the Admiralty, that they need even more. They need, well, more, and that the place to get that is the United States. So on Monday 2nd September, 1940, at the very height of course, of the Battle of Britain, Cyril Thompson, who is a young ship designer from Sunderland, is asked to come to London for a meeting at the Admiralty to discuss an important mission to the United States. They tell him that they want him to go there and persuade the Americans to build merchant vessels for them. And this, they tell him, is of absolutely vital importance. You know, this is a mission that has to be successful. You know, failure is not to be contemplated. And they point out that, you know, at this point, U boats are currently sinking 350,000 tons plus a month. And, you know, Britain, they tell him, can cope for the moment, but it needed to be ready for the increased scale of the Atlantic war, which they know is coming. You know, they're assuming, and rightly, that the Germans will be building more U boats, that the, the effort to sink merchant shipping will be increased. And of course, Britain's entire war effort, and indeed Britain's future, and one could argue at this stage of the war, the entire future of the free world rests on getting that shipping through the Atlantic. And it's not just coming from North America, you know, this is coming from Australia, from India, from, from the Cape. It's all going around into the Atlantic before it reaches Britain. Yeah, Britain's shipyards are doing really well, but they're not building enough. So they say to him, are you up for it? And of course, Thompson, being an upstanding British citizen and patriotic and all the rest of it goes, yep, count me in.
- [22:43]
Al Murray
Well, and he's a shipping genius, isn't he?
- [22:45]
James Holland
Is the.
- [22:46]
Al Murray
Is the truth.
- [22:46]
James Holland
Yeah, absolutely.
- [22:47]
Al Murray
They've picked the right guy. He works for Joseph L. Thompson, a shipping family firm in Sunderland, who before the war, have been struggling like lots of. Of shipbuilders. Actually, the years before the war, some pretty lean pickings. He's 33, but he's won a gold medal for the. From the Northeast Coast Institute of Engineers and shipbuilders in 1935, producing a paper that explains how to increase service speed of merchant vessels without increasing power. So. Which is exactly the sort of thing you know, that you want, you know. He's a large man, isn't he? Six foot three and doesn't particularly look the genius type, but he is, well, like. Like absolutely every decent chap at this phase of British history. Jim looks like a great big rugby player. Bloody good firm handshake, looks you in the eye and so on. But it's interesting though because this is very much. This is what the British are doing this phase of the war. We're going to spend money, we're going to go to America and we're going to spend money to buy our way out of this problem. And yes, we can cope with the current losses but we don't want to have to. Why should we put ourselves through that? We're going to spend our way out of this situation. He thinks that the. And he's already figured out he's got designs that have been tested that the. The National Physics Lab test tanks in Teddington which I believe end up as Teddington TV studios after the war where we filmed the Harry Hill TV show in the late 90s and early 2000s.
- [24:05]
James Holland
Very good. Well there you are.
- [24:06]
Al Murray
Yeah, with all the, with all the blue plaques up for Benny Hill and Tommy Cooper and all those people on the walls.
- [24:11]
James Holland
But not Barnes Wallace who.
- [24:15]
Al Murray
Exactly. And they've since been knocked down and are flats. But there we are. But he came up with a new hull design with, with less drag on it and a more efficient engine and all this sort of stuff. The job, isn't he.
- [24:27]
James Holland
They've picked exactly at the cutting edge of merchant vessel ship design in the world. Not, not just in, in, in England, in the world. You know, this is a guy who's, who as you say is, is, is touched by genius. And you know, he's, he's, he's big but he's, but he's got a lovely kind of sort of fresh face. He looks young. I think it's very much to the credit of the Admiralty that they pick him out because you could see them quite easily going for a 50 year old or 60 year old or whatever, you know, someone who's been in the game a long time but they recognize that here is someone who's, who's got a kind of affability that Will work, play well with the Americans, but also really knows what he's talking about despite his bite his young years. So he sets off on 21st September, set sail with Harry Hunter of the north east of Marine Engineering which is a firm that builds engines for the Thompson ships. He's also armed with blueprints for his new ship design and which is currently being the first one of which is being constructed at a shipyard on the northeast of England. It is stressed to him very, very firmly that he has to bring home a. You know, much is resting on his young, young shoulders. But of course, you know, getting across the Atlantic isn't straightforward in this happy time for the U boats. So first of all he's get to get across safely but the happy time is continuing and this is good news for, for U48 for example, who we've come across quite a few times. And so they're charging away sinking things left, right and center as to are other U boats in the seventh Snorting Bulls flotilla based at Lorient now of course in the Brittany coast, which is obviously a big time saver for them.
- [26:04]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [26:04]
James Holland
Anyway, 10 days into the first patrol with Blightcrod, U48 has sunk another four ships including the liner the City of Benares, which is one of the most notorious sinkings of the war and certainly the most notorious since the sinking of the Athena on 3rd September 1939 because it contained a large number of children being evacuated to, to Canada. And that frankly was the end of that, you know, because loads of them were killed. I remember talking to interviewing a survivor of that. It was in a lifeboat for I think about a week before they were picked up. Absolutely horrendous. British parents stopped sending their kids to Canada after that, as you can imagine.
- [26:37]
Al Murray
Yeah, well. And then on the 20th of September, U48 is off the west coast of Ireland and receives a coding message from. From U47 from Prien. Yes, it's the team up everyone's been waiting for. Prien has spotted a large eastbound convoy. U48 has got the latest radio equipment. So Prien asks Bleichhaud to relay the news to Donitz at Lorient. And the order comes straight back. Proceed to beacon. And this meant that Donitz is going to get a go at mass now, isn't he? So U48 is going to join U47 and two other U boats to operate together Susaman, an actual functioning wolf pack working together. And then at 5:15pm they receive a second signal directing four more U boats towards U 47. So it's U 48, U 65, 43, 99 and 100 are all to assume attack and attack formation. And these are, as you've said before, Jim, these are experienced people. They're the cream. Otto Kretschmer in U99, Joachim Schepka in U100.
- [27:37]
James Holland
So Preen, Kretschmer and Schepka, they're the daddies, okay? These are the greatest of the greatest. They are, they are the absolute numero aces. They're the three favorites of Donitz. They're the top scoring aces. U47, U99, U100. They are flattering the U boat arms sinking figures by a huge margin because they're so good at it. And that's because their crews are already experienced and they have the best captains. You know, Kretschma, Shipka, Preen. They're the trio to be all trios.
- [28:10]
Al Murray
Yeah. So Donitz orders them into, into a wolf pack.
- [28:13]
James Holland
He's.
- [28:14]
Al Murray
Oh God, he must have been so pleased to make that order. And Wulfpakbe fail. And they're five miles apart is the idea in a sort of stripe, in a line across the surface. So the convoy is going to go past them basically. That's the idea. And they all keep a sharp lookout and whoever, whoever spots the convoy first, they then vector on, on that U boat and attack accordingly.
- [28:35]
James Holland
And then the others sort of fall in around them.
- [28:37]
Al Murray
Yeah, exactly. So at 3am on 21st September, U48 spots Convoy HX72, which is 42 ships sailing from Halifax, hence HX to Liverpool. Two hours later picks up an SOS from a ship called the Elm Bank. And that's Kretschmer in U99 has hit her amidships and she goes down in 40 seconds. And she's carrying timber and sheet metal. So all hell breaks loose at this point, doesn't it Jim?
- [29:04]
James Holland
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really, really kicking off, isn't it? And 30 minutes later, U48 is also in position to fire. Surin misses with the first orbit because they're on the surface. And when it's on the surface he's in control of firing. But 20 minutes later fires again and hits the target. And he's hit the Blair. Angus fires break out and the cargo begins to explode. And Surin watches through his binoculars. He watches lifeboats being lowered, but it's squally. And after a while he loses sight of the stricken ship. And U48 now turns its attention on a tanker but again the torpedo misses and he couldn't send an immediate further torpedo because one of the fins was dented. So they turn around and take over from, from, from U47 as the Convoy Shadow. All day, U48 keeps up with the convoy, waiting for darkness. Then at 11.40pm, Surin has another chance and this time he hits the Broom park, which immediately begins to list and. And that night it's just carnage. You know, this is the 21st, 22nd of September.
- [30:02]
Al Murray
Yeah. And you've U99 sinks two more, including a 9200 times tanker U47 their services. And with U99 uses a deck gun to finish off Elm Bank. Isn't that interesting? That's not the image of the U boat war of how it's fought, is it? That they're basically shelling Elm bank from. From their deck. Schepk and U100 now does a manoeuvre which shows how. How good he is at this. He sails into the heart of the convoy and sinks three more ships.
- [30:30]
James Holland
And you may remember that that is exactly how Wanklin did it when he got the Conti Rossa in May 1941. You know, it was by getting in within the circle of the escorts. So the next day, 22nd of September, the wolf pack keeps pace with the convoy on the surface, way out to the side. And of course it can do so because there's no escorts worth talking about. There's only a couple. HX72 is unescorted entirely on the 21st of May when it's first intercepted by the Wolfpack, as the escorts coming from Halifax have already broken back to escort another convoy the other way. And then from 22nd of September, two destroyers join HMS Scimitar and skate. But it's kind of nothing like enough for convoys of this size, you know, 41 vessels or whatever it was. And that day, Shepka in U100 picks off another four merchant vessels. And by the time that the Wolfpacks run out of torpedoes and are heading home, HX72 has lost 11 ships. Kretschmer's getting two, Blightcrot two, Shepka seven. It's a total of 72,727 tons, plus a further three merchant vessels damaged.
- [31:35]
Al Murray
This is it. They keep going until they run out of torpedoes. It's that. It's that kind of opportunity for them. The only thing that's stopping them is they've run out of ammunition and they sink a quarter of this convoy, in effect. And it's extraordinary, isn't it? It's succeeding because they're skilled captains and they're working well together as a wolf pack. And, you know, and it's the experience of these really, really, really skilled captains who are in their top draw. They're all in their 30s, but really it's the lack of escort, isn't it? You know, you can be as good a U boat captain as you like, but what they've got here is free rein because there are no escorts, there's no answer coming from the convoy.
- [32:13]
James Holland
It's like the mighty 8th Air Force going to Schweinfurt every day.
- [32:16]
Al Murray
Yeah, exactly. And this is because the Home Fleet has been kept on invasion watch in the Channel, which is a political decision really, as much as anything else.
- [32:25]
James Holland
Yeah. And Admiral Forbes is furious about this.
- [32:26]
Al Murray
As he should be.
- [32:27]
James Holland
You know, he's sort of saying this is a waste of a precious resource. You know, there's minesweepers as Harry Tate's Navy, you know, which is the Royal Navy patrol service. You know, these are these fishing boats that have been given cannons and stuff and put into active service. And torpedo boats with Angus Coastal Command, of course, they can do the invasion watch. You know, you don't need the Home Fleet in the southeast of England. You know, destroyers are designed to destroy U boats. That was the whole concept behind them when they were invented in the First World War, you know, so it's best not to use them at this really, really critical time. You know, the bottom line is the Royal Navy's got 700 plus minesweeping vessels operating in the Channel at this time. You know, they just don't need these destroyers there.
- [33:04]
Al Murray
It's crazy, it's peculiar, but this is the situation that, you know, the U boat menace. This is how the U boat war is cast, isn't it? As this sort of free reign of the U boats running amok among convoys. But it's not for very long that this, this happens. But it's how the Atlantic War is painted, isn't it? And this disaster of this, of this period also is the thing that makes the British think, hang on a minute, we've got this wrong, we need, we need to sort this out. Because you only need a handful. I mean, that's a handful of U boats that's just dismembering convoys, but it's.
- [33:36]
James Holland
A handful of very, very good U boats. And this is a problem is that there's three convoys in September and October. There's HX72, SC7 and HX79. Total loss is 43 vessels, you know, escorts in any number might have been enough to save them. But it is really, really important to put this in perspective because the focus inevitably is on the convoys that are here. But plenty weren't at all. You know, with only 12 or so u boats operating at any one time, it's inevitable that loads and loads of convoys avoid them. You know, the Atlantic's a big old place. And actually the statistics by the end of 1940 I think are quite, quite revealing because the number of convoys sailed in The Atlantic is 692. The number of ships sailed 17,882. The number of ships sunk in convoy, 127. The percentage of ships sunk in convoy, 0.7%. Percentage of ships getting through in convoy 99.3%.
- [34:33]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [34:34]
James Holland
Most of the ships that are sunk are independence. There's 865 getting on for four times the amount of those in sunk in convoy.
- [34:41]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [34:41]
James Holland
And you know, there are reasons why you wouldn't sail in convoy because independents were often neutral and chose not to. Some were too slow or too fast for the convoy. A number get hit and wounded and become stragglers and so they're rich pickings. And convoys are not escorted the entire route, you know, because often escorts don't have the fuel to go the whole way. But again, I really want to stress that Donitz is over the moon about all this, but it's a false picture in many ways because the convoys aren't really being escorted and because he's over dependent on these hardcore of three to half a dozen really, really super, super duper, top rank, top draw U boat crews and commanders. It's giving a misleading impression about how effective they are because if anything should happen to those aces, then it's a completely different situation because suddenly he's then dependent on inexperienced crews. And that's a different kettle official.
- [35:37]
Al Murray
But isn't it interesting though that this is a thing we often talk about on the podcast, that the impression of the Atlantic war and the U boat war is of, you know, U boats running rampant of them, them always having it their way and all this, this sort of thing, you know, and Churchill's partly responsible for this saying the only thing I was really worried about was the battle of the Atlantic, the war in the Atlantic. If you present the numbers the way you just did there, 99.3% of ships getting through in convoy, what's the fuss?
- [36:04]
James Holland
Because those ships are doing multiple sailings. I know, it's a bit like a bomber crew. A bomber Crew's doing, you know, it's got, you know, a B17 has got to do its 25 missions or whatever it is. Yeah, you know, so. So it's the same thing. You're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And every time you go back and forth, that percentage chance of getting through unscathed, it reduces again. Yeah, you're playing Russian roulette, but you.
- [36:24]
Al Murray
Know what I mean? Because, because again, this is a, this. Is this a lingering, effective Nazi sort of blitzkrieg propaganda that sort of holds the imagination or is it the horror of dying at sea and the business of a boat going down, a ship going down and do you know what I mean? That there's something, there's something about this kind of warfare that, that holds the imagination and means that in lots of ways popular conception of what the war is like in the Atlantic is quite wrong and needs trimming. You know what I mean?
- [36:53]
James Holland
I do know exactly what you mean. But it's also in the same way that, you know, everyone assumes that in the Second World War armies are all infantry and tanks, you know, when they're not. Because we focus on the people dumping out of the landing craft on Omaha beach or going down that hedgerow in Normandy, we don't focus on the people, you know, the nearly 50% of the army that's driving trucks, not really quite so much in the firing line. And it's the same with. If, you know, when you're telling the story of the Battle of the Atlantic, you're not going to tell the story of the convoy where nothing happened. Although actually I am going to do that in my Atlantic. I'm going to have one convoy where nothing happens. But I'm going to test my writing skills by ratcheting up the tension the whole way through. So you're expecting it to, and then it doesn't, you know, so it gives a warp sense of reality. Because we're suckers for human drama, aren't we? And we're sucker for action and drama and, you know, attacks in the middle of the night and Elm bank going up and, you know, crew jumping out into the, into the sea with the oil burning on the surface and blah, blah, blah. I mean, that's what you, you know, and sleek U boats coming up onto the surface to view the kill with their Zeiss binoculars, blah, blah, blah and all that.
- [38:03]
Al Murray
It's fascinating, but it's something the British. You got to take this seriously, though. You absolutely have to, don't you? This is kind of a form of attrition.
- [38:10]
James Holland
Don't be complacent about this on this. The future of the whar of, you know, depends. So of course you're going to take it seriously.
- [38:16]
Al Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's about aces, though, isn't it? It's the fact these U boat aces are doing really, really fantastically well. Donitz thinks he's winning the war because of these. This hardcore. And all you've got to do is change the odds. If you're the Allies, all you've got to do is change the odds and start killing these aces. And things will change really quite quickly for the. For Donitz, won't they?
- [38:38]
James Holland
Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting looking at the shipping losses in tons of. In September, October, November 1940. So in September, 447,259 tons lost that month, of which nearly 300,000 are lost to U boats. So three fifths lost to U boats, isn't it? Something like that, yeah. In October, it's 422,599 tons, of which 352,407 tonnes are to U boats. So most of those losses are to u boats. In November 1940, it's 300. It's slightly down again, 357,723. Only 146,613 tons to u boats. So, you know, in September and October, they're getting close to that magic 500,000 bar, but they still haven't. They still haven't crossed it. And, you know, clearly a rethink is needed, you know, as were, you know, they need to think about tactics, they need to think about, you know, from an Allied point of view. You clearly need better. More escorts, you need better detection kit, you need better armament and you also fundamentally need more ships.
- [39:41]
Al Murray
And the question of merchant vessels, where is Britain going to get the tonnage from? Comes up with this extraordinary story of Cyril Thompson.
- [39:50]
James Holland
Yep. So we'll be looking at that in our next and fourth episode in our Atlantic War series.
- [39:55]
Al Murray
Yes. So each and every one of you, grab yourself your sou', wester, get your sextant out and other nautical equipment.
- [40:02]
James Holland
Start looking at the stars.
- [40:03]
Al Murray
Exactly. We're new. We're new in the navy world here. We're doing our best. Splice the main brace around, turn and two half hitches on that, please, on that cleat. Get the sail in.
- [40:14]
James Holland
Try not to get too soaked.
- [40:15]
Al Murray
Exactly. Anyway, we'll see you for the next episode. And of course, do subscribe to our Apple Channel, become a patron and join in with the afflicted. Fun. We'll see you soon. Cheerio.
- [40:23]
James Holland
Cheerio.
- [40:29]
Al Murray
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- [40:50]
James Holland
Cut the camera.
- [40:50]
Al Murray
They see us.
- [40:51]
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Al Murray
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