← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
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- [00:02]
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 we haveways.
- [00:24]
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- [01:16]
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- [02:26]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
With binoculars firmly wedged on a steady bearing, I put Walker into a gently curving course, thereby putting every point of the compass under a penetrating probe. It worked.
- [02:35]
Murray
As her bows swung, a thin line.
- [02:37]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
Of white water came into the lens of my glasses. A thin line which could only be the wake of a ship. There were none of ours in that direction. It had to be a U boat.
- [02:45]
Murray
I shouted orders, increasing speed to 30.
- [02:48]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
Knots and altered course towards the target.
- [02:49]
Murray
Suddenly the U boat spotted us and in a cloud of spray he crash dived. A swirl of phosphorescent water still lingered.
- [02:55]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
As we passed over the spot and sent a pattern of 10 depth charges crashing down. We could hardly have missed. It had been so quick we must have dropped them smack on top of him.
- [03:04]
Murray
Then the depth charges exploded with great cracking explosions and giant waterspouts rose to masthead height astern of us. Two and a half minutes later another explosion followed and an orange flash spread momentarily across the surface. We had every reason to hope that.
- [03:17]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
This was our first kill. And that's Commander Donald McIntyre fighting the Atlantic War.
- [03:25]
Murray
Welcome to. We have ways of making you talk with me. I'm Murray and James Holland, Episode six of our Atlantic War saga. The first phase of the Atlantic War. Let's make that clear. And this episode is enticingly titled the Loss of the Three Aces. But before we get to that, who was it? I was ventriloquizing then, Just Jim. Commander Donald McIntyre. Who's that?
- [03:42]
Jim Holland
There's these terrific characters that emerge in any war, isn't there? And in any parts of the armed forces. We talked about Peter Gretton, I think people may have heard of Johnny Walker, whose statue is there on the quayside on the Mersey in Liverpool. These epic men of the atlantic war. And MacIntyre's one of those, you know, he's a commander of an escort group, He's a career naval officer type backbone of the wartime Navy 35 in March 1941. He's got a sort of roundish genial face. He's joined the Royal Navy in 1926 and interestingly, and you'll like him even more because of this, he's a former pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, tremendous chap, but had an accident in 1935 and that left him unable to fly, so he went back to surface vessels. He'd been commanding HMS Hesperus, which is an H class destroyer and one of the more modern destroyers since January 1940, been involved in the Norwegian campaign, one of the destroyers causing havoc against the Kriegsmarine at Narvik and you know, like those hardcore review Boat Aces, MacIntyre is one of those guys who's just got sea in his blood. But at the beginning of March 1941, he's given the command of the 5th Escort Group and this meet, giving up his sleek and modern destroyer HMS Hesperus for another destroyer, HMS Walker. And Walker's a sort of old tin can and rusting at the seams and, you know, very much One of those 1918 types, very happy with the promotion and the opportunity to lead, but not so chuffed with Walker. I mean, you know, it's going from a Porsche To, I don't know, something. Not so good.
- [05:07]
Murray
Swings and roundabouts though, isn't it? He gets the promotion that the ship isn't so good. But if he's commanding an escort group, that means he's the senior officer escort, an soe, not to be confused with the other soe, and not that anyone who is an SoE knows about SoE. So it's not confusing for Donald McIntyre, is it? As the Royal Navy expands, they're milking out their experience across, so it tends to be that these SOEs are regulars, they're long service naval people and their first lieutenants tend to be from the Royal Naval Reserve and the rest of the officers on the ship for the RNV are the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve because they've got different gradations of reservists within the Navy and different manpower pools. Basically you've got the rn, rnr, rnvr and the badges on your cuffs, you're immediately identifiable.
- [05:52]
Jim Holland
Yes. They're not on epaulettes. You don't have epaulettes in the Navy. You have on your jacket bands around your cuffs and they're very distinct.
- [05:58]
Murray
Yeah. And they tell you which branch you're from. They're straight lines if you're in the Royal Navy. They're woven lines for the Royal Navy Reserve and they're wavy. The Wavy Navy, the RNVR for the Volunteer Reserve. It's interesting because one of the things the Navy's doing is protecting its career officers with this. So there's a ceiling if you're at R and R and there's a ceiling if you're rnvr. They are taking care of people who've given their lives to the Navy in the long term. But you would give him this job. He's really, really experienced. And this kind of convoy is 40 to 80 merchant vessels. And every convoy route has a two or three code letters. So they have troop convoys to the Middle east, ws, Winston Specials, but most of them actually kind of tell you where the convoy's sailing. So HX is Halifax or HX F is Halifax fast. Sydney Cove, Nova Scotia gives you SC rather than slow convoy. And if you're going west, you're ONF and ons fast and slow. So the code letters kind of tell you what the convoys are. In the last episode we talked about how the training's been standardized, the methods have been shaken down so that everyone knows what's going on and everyone knows how you respond to different situations and what's expected of you, because they're all relying on each other to behave as expected, aren't they? Is the truth. So there's a convoy conference at the start of a convoy, all of the officers are in attendance, Commodore, and the masters of all the merchant vessels. That's a sort of three quarter of an hour convoy conference. That'll be followed by the convoy they're meeting, so they have to gather. There's a sort of muster point, isn't there? You know, Halifax or Sydney Cove or whatever.
- [07:24]
Jim Holland
And this evolves as the war progresses because, you know, in a convoy that's coming from Halifax, for example, you know, say you've got 40 ships coming from, from Halifax. They don't all originate from Halifax. They might come from New York or the Caribbean or from South America, but for the purposes of getting across the Atlantic, they then all converge, form up out at sea in columns. Each column is approximately 600 yards, give or take apart, and each ship is kind of 400 yards behind the other. You need them to be close enough to have that sort of safety of being close, but far enough apart that you're not going to crash into one another when the weather closes in. So it's obviously a balance. And in charge would be the convoy commodore, tended to be a retired rn, Royal Navy type with the rank of Commodore, rnr, Royal Navy Reserve. And the ships obviously had lined up to sort of create a box and the commodore would be at the top of the center column. Typically, the convoy commodore is senior in rank to the senior officer escort, the soe, but the commodore of the convoy is to take charge of the convoy as a whole, subject to the orders of the senior officer of the escort. So in other words, the SOE trumps him effectively. Once they're out at sea.
- [08:32]
Murray
There's an interesting sort of dynamic, isn't it? The guy calling the shots is the guy with the weapons is what it comes down to in the end.
- [08:38]
Jim Holland
But everyone gets it, everyone understands it, it's standard. There's no complaints about this. You don't get any beef from the convoy commodore.
- [08:43]
Murray
He knows his role. And then they, they station out front and out to sides, 60 degrees and maybe two more off beam at the rear, kind of three to 4,000 yards away from the edge of the convoy. And the idea is when there's something spotted, they can steam quickly to the crisis point or steam off, return and have an eye on everybody as well. Although, as we heard in the last episode, keeping an eye on everybody is quite difficult if the weather's rotten. A slow convoy goes at 7.5, 8 knots. A fast convoy at 13 knots, well.
- [09:14]
Jim Holland
Up to 13 knots, it can be above 8 and no less than 13.
- [09:17]
Murray
Exactly. These are all figures that are aspirations rather than certainties, aren't they? And McIntyre's first convoy initially is going west. The convoy would steam in just two columns until they were clear of the Irish Sea. Then everyone tests their communications, so their lamps, radio comms, they test their guns. And the escorts, they're still essentially still running their systems, making sure everything works and training themselves as they sail out to embark on convoy.
- [09:42]
Jim Holland
But they are a bit like sheepdogs, aren't they? Sort of beetling around the edges, you know.
- [09:45]
Murray
Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. The fifth escort group is, consists of HMS Walker, two V class destroyers, the Vannak and the Volunteer. The S class desires Sardonyx and Scimitar. Going back, writing back to your mum and dad saying I'm on the Sardonyx.
- [10:00]
Jim Holland
Like what great name.
- [10:02]
Murray
The Flower class corvettes Bluebell and Hydrangea. So there's seven ships in this escort group in all.
- [10:09]
Jim Holland
I'd much rather be on Sardonyx than Hydrangea, I've got to say.
- [10:12]
Murray
Absolutely.
- [10:14]
Jim Holland
For so many different reason.
- [10:17]
Murray
Well and amongst, amongst the reasons, not just the names, is that these are things of different shapes and sizes. So a V class destroyer is the sort of the most serious of these vessels. Then you've got the short corvettes which are sort of 70, 80 yards long. Then the destroyers are, you know, half as big again, 120 yards long. Corvettes are more maneuverable, but they aren't as fast. Destroyers can turn out 30 to 40 knots, some of them the corvettes sort of 18 to 20. So it's quite a shuffled deck, isn't it, that an escort group consists of. And of course it's all difficult. And this is the thing, Jim, every single time we come to this, it's all really hard, isn't it? This is all really bloody difficult.
- [10:53]
Jim Holland
It's really hard. As we discussed in the last episode with Peter Gretton, you know, at night there's no radar for escort groups in the early stages. I mean there is actually by this point, but the very early ones aren't. It's only just coming in. So a lot of the navigation is by compass and by human eye, which has to be done with ship rolling about all over the place if it's winter. Control of the force is not easy at all. Escorts are still using high frequency radio, which is obviously long range, so that's quite easy to be picked up by U boats when you do use it. So you want to use your radio as little as possible. All radio signals, of course, have to be laboriously coded and decoded. Tactical signals, usually during daylight only using lamps and Morse. Communications at sea is clearly an area that needs urgent improvement and it's on its way. But this is the start of the revolution here at the beginning of March. So actually I think Vanok and Volantip do both have the type 286M onboard radar. Walker doesn't, but he delivers the first convoy safely to the 90 degrees west point, then rendezvous with the eastbound convoy on the 15th of March. And this convoy X112 and McIntyre and co are warned that the U boats are afoot. But we're going to park that for a minute because what's going on with the pocket battleships? Still don't know what they are. And cruisers?
- [12:06]
Murray
Well, we always go over to that pocket battleship podcast we dreamed possibly existed. That's on episode 400 of the Admiral Hippo. You know, this is the wonderful thing about podcasting is there will be someone doing that. What's interesting though, is though the Atlantic War is the thing that the British are focusing their war effort on because they can't do any of their other war effort without getting this right in the first place. It's the essential building block for any other form of success.
- [12:30]
Jim Holland
That is so true. That is such a good point.
- [12:33]
Murray
It's the foundation. If you don't get this right, all your fighter sweeps and your strategic bombing campaigns can all go whistle. You've got to get this right in the first place. And the Germans, obviously, as we've heard, failing to read the room in this regard, they don't get it. But they can still cause the British real problems. They can still affect and give them frights, I think is possibly the sanguine way of looking at it. And the Admiral Hipper, which is a pocket battleship, we're not going to get into what that might be, has slipped back out into the Atlantic with its pocket battleship capability, whatever that may be, and we're not going to get tangled up in that. It sinks a straggler from the slow convoy coming from West Africa, SLS 64, Sierra Leone, slow 64. It shoots up the convoy, sinks seven of the 19 ships. I mean, in a way, why doesn't it sink all 19 of them? What's wrong with this pocket battleship?
- [13:20]
Jim Holland
In the narrative of this, everyone's terribly impressed by Admiral Hipper because it gets through the blockade, gets out into the Atlantic, sinks these seven ships. But I kind of think it's only seven. I mean, each one's a tragedy for the crew involved. I get all that, but it's not that impressive.
- [13:33]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
No.
- [13:33]
Murray
What is it about the other 12 ships that's unsinkable?
- [13:36]
Jim Holland
Also, it's not like Force K sinking everything, is it? In November 1941 out in the Mediterranean sinks a lot. That's impressive.
- [13:42]
Murray
But this is what happens when you have a pocket battleship, Jim. If it was a battleship, maybe we'd be telling a different story.
- [13:47]
Jim Holland
Anyway, what is a pocket battleship?
- [13:49]
Murray
We're not getting into that. Go find the podcast. In January 1941. They're doing quite well with surface vessels. 64 merchant vessels go to the bottom. February, another 100, 139 in March. They're chipping away at the shipping effort. And RAF Bomber Command are also trying to hit the U boat pens that are being built in Brest, aren't they? And they're not really having a good go of it. It's not going well that.
- [14:10]
Jim Holland
No. But as Jane Galliford Lowes has pointed out, they're doing a better job of mining it.
- [14:13]
Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. When you watch that animated map of all the bombing in the Second World War, one of the things that's really striking much stuff there is on the U boat bases, it's just constant. Right from the minute the Germans set up there, there's constant air attack on it. So they're threatening it. They're making it more difficult. They're making it harder for the Germans to operate out of there, even if they're not completely delivering a knockout blow.
- [14:35]
Jim Holland
And they're mining it, as Jayne pointed out.
- [14:36]
Murray
Yeah, but we also have. Let's put a pocket battleship to one side, Jim, and treat ourselves to a couple of actual battleships.
- [14:42]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
These.
- [14:42]
Jim Holland
Aren't they heavy cruisers? Oh, what are they heavy cruisers or are they battle cruisers?
- [14:47]
Murray
I don't know.
- [14:48]
Jim Holland
I don't know. I think they're battle cruisers, aren't they? I don't know.
- [14:51]
Murray
I think they're battle cruisers. They're battle cruisers. I think they are.
- [14:53]
Jim Holland
Or are they heavy cruisers?
- [14:54]
Murray
Maybe they're heavy battle cruisers. Maybe they're battle heavy cruisers. Maybe they're battle cruisers. Brackets. Heavy. I don't know.
- [15:00]
Jim Holland
Pocket.
- [15:03]
Murray
They get out into the Atlantic and they get stuck in. They're harrying stragglers. They're disrupting convoy routes. They're playing cat and mouse with the home fleet and getting away by whisker all the time. They have a good run of luck, don't they?
- [15:16]
Jim Holland
Yeah, they don't achieve a huge amount.
- [15:17]
Murray
Yeah, but they don't get sunk, is the thing.
- [15:20]
Jim Holland
They don't get sunk. Well done. I mean, why do you want a sort of, you know, medal or a chalky biscuit? I mean, I don't think that's that impressive.
- [15:28]
Murray
Well, what I'm trying to do.
- [15:29]
Jim Holland
Right, trying to be even handed here.
- [15:31]
Murray
No, no, no. If you're the Royal Navy, your great worry is that the Germans finally get their act together with these capital ships and attack a convoy meaningfully. Right, or attack convoys meaningfully.
- [15:40]
Jim Holland
Yes, exactly that.
- [15:41]
Murray
So all this activity has got people biting their fingernails.
- [15:45]
Jim Holland
Can I just say what it, what it says on that? Of all wisdom, Wikipedia says the Scharnhorst was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship or a battlecruiser. Even Wikipedia doesn't know.
- [15:56]
Murray
If Wikipedia doesn't know, we'll never know. Go in and edit it and change it to pocket battleship, cruiser, heavy pocket. But the point is, if you're the Royal Navy, this is your nightmare scenario, isn't it? Is these ships getting loose and there's a lot of fingernail biting about it. Admiral Hipper gets back to the Baltic, Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, go back to Brest and these operations. The Royal Navy's having its nose snubbed because after all, capital ships are the thing that there was an arms race about before the First World War, that they've been the massive focus of politics and diplomacy in the interwar years. They would capture people's imagination. I think it has to be borne in mind this is why Churchill's got his attention, doesn't it? The continued threat, as we saw in March of 1941, everyone's getting their act together. Derby House is running properly. So at the beginning of March, Churchill forms the Battle of Atlantic Committee, actually calling it that, with himself as chairman, yet another committee that he's chairing, and they meet once a week to kick around how they can improve things. And on the 6th of March, here it comes, a memorandum from Winston CHURCHILL Distributing wisdom. 13 crucial steps that need to be taken. And what this leads to is closer cooperation with a 15 group Coastal Command with Western approaches. Interestingly, merchant vessels to be given anti aircraft guns and all Western seaports priority for anti aircraft defence and the 2.6 million tons of merchant shipping that's sitting idle in British ports. You what, There's a war on, right?
- [17:20]
State Farm Advertiser
But.
- [17:20]
Jim Holland
But you know, it hasn't got an anchor fixed or it's got some lights out on the main bridge or just Got put into a dock and it hasn't quite got out again. Or it's one of those ships from a neutral country that hasn't quite sort of got itself together, doesn't quite know what it's doing. But it's a lot, isn't it? Five and a bit months worth from Donitz's plan.
- [17:38]
Murray
It's exactly what I was going to say. Took the words right out of my mouth. One of the interesting things is Churchill says if it's a fast merchant ve it can sail independently. Doesn't have to come in the convoy. The Admiralty don't like this, but Churchill just thinks in terms of this will speed up turnaround times, it'll save time.
- [17:52]
Jim Holland
Because that's the problem with the ports.
- [17:54]
Murray
Yeah, exactly. It'll break some of the sort of log jam at the ports. It's risky, though, because a U boat could do 17 knots. So you're talking about something that can do 25 knots, aren't you? That will sail well clear of a U boat and leave it behind.
- [18:05]
Jim Holland
Yes, but you've got people like Wynne down in Lenin's tomb, you know, the oic, the Operations Intelligence Center. You've got people like him who are seeing the patterns of how U boats are operating. And what they're saying is, with these fast independents, you go on a route that's not used by the convoys. You're unlikely to fall in in a strike of U boats.
- [18:22]
Murray
Attract attention to yourself.
- [18:23]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
Yeah.
- [18:24]
Jim Holland
This underlines the point that we were making throughout this series about the whole problem of the ports and the chaos of the ports. Convoys are inherently inefficient because of the sudden burst of activity and the sudden kind of lack of activity. And getting this material to where it needs to be once it's reached port is as important as getting it to the port in the first place. So that's what he's trying to sort out. Because they've got to rearm, they've got to build more tanks, they've got to get tanks to where they want them and all the rest of it.
- [18:47]
Murray
And Churchill wants U boats offed. He wants more dead U boats, doesn't he? Because only six have been destroyed since the start of September, none since December. And we know that there are a few out there anyway.
- [18:58]
Jim Holland
Yeah. Which is one of the reasons, to be fair.
- [18:59]
Murray
Exactly. It's one of the reasons you aren't seeking a lot of them, because there aren't very many.
- [19:02]
Jim Holland
I mean, if you've only got eight out at sea, it's quite easy to miss them.
- [19:06]
Murray
Yeah, exactly. So he wants improvements to escort training, but that's already happening. But he wants better weapons, better detection, better weaponry. And really, this has to be the priority for R and D. Attention needs to be turned onto this.
- [19:19]
Jim Holland
And it is, it is, absolutely is the priority.
- [19:22]
Murray
He says the U boat at sea must be hunted. The U boat in the building, yard or dock must be bombed. The Fokker Wulf must be attacked in the air and in their nests.
- [19:31]
Jim Holland
It's so Churchillian is to call it, call it nests, isn't it? Refer to the fertility of shipping.
- [19:36]
Murray
But there's a breakthrough, another breakthrough around the corner. And we don't really ever talk about Bletchley park much, and sometimes we kind of poo poo it. But suddenly we have good news from Bletchley.
- [19:46]
Jim Holland
Enigma materials have been taken from a German trawler, the Krebs, in January 1941. And then the hand cipher VAFT is broken. And this means that by March 1941, Bletchley is able to teletype the first 10 decrypted naval enigma messages to Win at the U boat tracking room at the OIC. And the next day they send 34 and many more over the ensuing days, and soon it's a kind of virtual flood. Now, the point is, a lot of this traffic is, is already out of date. That's not the point. So it's not an immediate help, but what it does do is help Win get his picture about the bdo, how they're operating and all the rest of it, and gives them a much greater understanding of the strategy, tactics, modus operandi and stuff. So again, it's not just diverting convoys from U boats, which is the traditional Robert Harris kind of imitation game view of Bletchley traffic that's going to save the entire universe. It is more that this decoding is adding to the intelligence picture. And anything that adds to the intelligence picture, in whatever manner, is incredibly helpful. And it's a big help. And the bottom line is it's just around the corner. In March 1941. Even better news is coming and we're.
- [20:55]
Murray
Going to take a quick break and return with this twist in the tail. See, in a moment.
- [21:02]
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- [22:32]
Murray
Welcome back to we have ways of making you talk now, Jim. The stage is set for. Well, well, things beginning to go wrong for the U boat arm because actually up to this point we said in the last part, the British aren't sinking any U boats. They aren't managing to do that. And admittedly there aren't very many, which obviously makes that more difficult. There are fewer needles in the haystack than maybe people think. But the simple truth is, because there are so few needles in the haystack once they start getting sunk, an arm that's relying on ex Spartan, essentially on elite crews, elite commanders, is really, really vulnerable. Vulnerable to not just losing those people, what losing those people entails, which means your experience base is simply being ripped out from under it. And this is the story of this phase of the battle at the Antic, isn't it?
- [23:15]
Jim Holland
And it's an absolutely critical, crucial part of the entire story. So on the 1st of March 1941, there are still only 8U boats operating in the North Atlantic, including a new type which is a Mark 2D Duck, the U147. So five U boats are patrolling between Iceland and Scotland. Two others are patrolling the Rockall bank, which is U47, and our old friend U99, which is Otto Kretschmer. So Gunther Preen in 47, Kretschmer in U99, and the eighth U boat, the U97, is by this point out of torpedoes. So hanging around loitering for weather reporting only there's absolutely no help that day from the Condors. But after dark, Eric Topp, now in U552, runs into the inbound Convoy HX109. So we last mentioned Eric Topp, I think in the second episode when we were looking at Norway and Narvik and so on. He's now 25 years old, so he's got his own boat. So he's no longer in U46, which if you remember, was not a very lucky U boat, lucky in so much that it survived and unlucky in terms of hits. And now he's commanding the new Mark vii C, the U552. And U552 has headed out on its first patrol in mid February 1941. And this is a remarkable incident because this is his first time commanding a combat patrol, though he knows the crew and they've been working up, obviously and doing some trials and training and all the rest of it. So he knows them all by this point. But he's worried because as he heads out into the Baltic, his navigator seems very downcast. So Top asks him what the matter? And eventually the navigator admits that he's left something behind, a keepsake from his wife from their wedding day, which had been his good luck charm. And Top notes in his incredible sort of diary cum journal, I sense that along with this talisman, his confidence in a happy, successful patrol had been left behind. So I gave the order to return to base. We picked up the talisman and for the rest of the mission the navigator remained cheerful and wholly reliable. This much I had learned from experience. The personal feelings of my men, faith, superstition, play a vital role in exercising command successfully. I mean, is that just astonishing that you would do that?
- [25:19]
Murray
It really is. I hope they refueled when they came back. You know what I mean? They're prioritizing operational effectiveness as well.
- [25:24]
Jim Holland
Yes, it turns out it works out very well for him.
- [25:26]
Murray
Yes, it does. Yes. Not only did they find HX109, but they also also sink Cadillac, a British tanker which has 17,000 tons of fuel on board. They strike with two torpedoes, tank of vibrates, starts listening and then explodes and starts sinking. First lifeboat is swamped as it's let down too fast. 26 survivors of the second lifeboat. But the water is on fire. A number struggle to breathe, panic, jump overboard and drown. Only five crew survive and later picked up. So, I mean, your odds, your odds aren't great on a tanker, are they? If it goes up, you're in for a bad one.
- [25:57]
Jim Holland
Top is A new commander. But of the seven armed U boats in the Atlantic at the start of March, two of the U boats are commanded by major aces. These are your Messis and your Ronaldo's of the U boat arm. This is Preen and Kretschmer. And the trouble is the aces are starting to give a massively disproportionate sense of the strength of the bdu, the U boat arm. And I think this is the fatal flaw. You know, the happy time has given them a false sense of success. And they haven't bothered to ask themselves why the convoys are unescorted or whether the British might change their tactics on this in the future. And they're also just putting too much on these very, very few aces, a bit like the experten in the Luftwaffe. These handful, Fritz, Julius, Lemp, Kretschmer, Schepke, Prien, these four particularly, they're sinking vast amounts and way more than anybody else. So they're giving this disproportionate kind of sense of how successful they're all being. Anyway, on 2 March, two condors staging from Norway spot an outbound convoy convoy. So Donitz directs six of the seven U boats to form a north south patrol line west of the Rockall Bank. So they're moving into position on the 3rd of March when they're consumed by a dense fog and at any rate they never find the convoy. And Donitz then makes an extraordinary decision. He concludes that the appearance of the condors has encouraged the convoy to change course dramatically. And so after this, Donitz bans the condors from attacking convoys and insists that they spot and report only.
- [27:25]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
Only.
- [27:25]
Jim Holland
And now, from now on, make every effort to remain undetected.
- [27:29]
Murray
Oh dear God.
- [27:30]
Jim Holland
What? Why would you do that?
- [27:32]
Murray
What an idiot.
- [27:33]
Jim Holland
But another outbiome convoy is reported by a Condor on the 4th of March. But again it gets away. The convoy does. Not least because Capitaine Lightnin, Gert Schreiber in U95 breaks radio silence. Sort of underlines the difference between the best and the not so good. And so Dernis is furious, calling this an extremely clumsy mistake. You know, that's putting it mildly. So then donitz redeploys. Now five new boats. Only five left. In this group, there's no longer eight, there's five. On the 6th of March, on the Rockall bank, Preen then spots the convoy OB293, escorted by only two destroyers, the Wolverine and the Veritien. You may remember that Wolverine was the one that took Bill Tennant to Dunkirk.
- [28:14]
Murray
Yes, yes.
- [28:15]
Jim Holland
So amazingly, at 6pm on the 6th of March, Preen and Kretchma meet in moderate misty sea. They pull up alongside each other, yell at each other from the bridge of the conning tower through megaphones. Can you imagine the drama of that? But again, the fact that they're communicating to each other again is putting them on a higher plane, isn't it? He's not communicating with Gerd Schreiber. These two, they're the daddies. They'll have a chat, but no one else will. Is there a sense of slight hubris? I don't know. Because just a moment later they're nearly rammed.
- [28:49]
Murray
Absolutely, Because Wolverine and Verity have both got the type 286M radar. They can spot U boats on the surface and they crash dive and escape. Then they're located again with the Aztec and they're depth charged repeatedly. Kretchpur goes deep and slips away. I mean, the thing is, Jim, really, if you're Donitz, what you should be doing with these captains is getting them off U boats and into training people, spreading this expertise, using it, not putting it at risk.
- [29:14]
Jim Holland
But he can't, he can't afford to. This is his moment because no one's listened to him when he said he wants more U boats.
- [29:19]
Murray
And he's painted himself into a corner because even though no one's listened to him, he's still been saying, yes, yes, I can do that. Of course we can pull that off because that's what you have to say to Hitler.
- [29:26]
Jim Holland
Can I just point out that these guys have been on active service since the start of the war. It was October 1939, the 14th of October 1939, that Gunther Preen sneaked into Scapa Flow and sank the Royal Oak. And here he is in the same u boat on 7th March 1941. He hasn't had a break. I mean, of course he's had a break. They have shore leave and all the rest of it. But there's a relentless pattern. There's not a six month tour or anything like that. They're still at it and so is Kretschmer.
- [29:52]
Murray
Nor are they spreading their experience. They're hogging it to themselves as well. You know, as you say, they're hanging out together, these guys, rather than spreading the expertise and instincts. So on the early hours of the 7th of March, Preen and U47, as well as the new crew in U70 attack the convoy. U70 hits one, damages a second. Prien hits the Norwegian merchant vessel, the Terjeviken although she's empty and doesn't sink.
- [30:14]
Jim Holland
To, so struggles on.
- [30:15]
Murray
Yeah, Joachim Mats in U70 hits another vessel, the Dutch tanker Meidrecht, but only damages it and was so close that the Meitrecht skipper is able to ram U70 and smash the conning tower. She gets away, but not for long because Camellia the destroyer's seen her and she's repeatedly death charged. So in all, U70 is struck by 54 or attacked with 54 death charges. She's flooding and starts sinking. So Matt blows the ballast tank surfaces and he opens a conning tower because although the conning tower has been smashed up, the hatch still works and the release of the pressure blows him and four others up and into the air and into the water. And then U70 sinks with Artemis fishing out mats and 24 others from the water. That is absolutely incredible.
- [30:59]
Jim Holland
Isn't that amazing? It's absolutely amazing. But again, Mats is a new boy. Okay, so this is his first combat patrol and he's come a cropper. And this is because he's not experienced. So he fires too close to my drag. It's like schoolboy error. Effectively doesn't know what he's doing, Surfaces too quickly. It's just hopeless. Anyway, so that's the end of U70 and what happens to U47, new 99 that day is not 100% certain. Kretschman definitely gets away, but Preen doesn't. So both of them are repeatedly picked up by the combination of the radar and the Asdic on Wolverine and Verity. And Wolverine and Verity pick them up and they just repeatedly depth charge both U99 and U47 and they're just completely done over. Kretschmer later reports that he's held down under the water for about nine hours. Just can't escape. Because the other point is, is when you're under the surface, you can only move really, really slowly. And that's for two reasons. A, you don't appear on the Asdic if you're moving, and secondly, because you don't know how long you're going to be under. And the longer you're under, the more you're using your batteries. So the faster you go, the more you use your battery. So you don't want to move very quickly. As a U boat commander under attack, you've got a lot of decisions to make and you're second guessing your enemy, of course, all the time. But anyway, U47 gets hit at some point on that day. Officially it's claimed by HMS Wolverine, but this is still debated, but it doesn't really matter. The point is, is that Preen's last signal was on the morning of the 7th of March. And after that nothing was ever heard from him or his crew ever again.
- [32:25]
Murray
Well, so he's at the bottom somewhere.
- [32:28]
Jim Holland
Yep. But a week later it's Convoy HX112, which we tantalizingly left you on when we first introduced Donald McIntyre. And you know, you remember they had escorted that convoy out and they were picking up HX112 on the way back and they successfully rendezvoused with the convoy and here they are, they're approaching Scotland and this convoy is now protected by McIntyre Escort Group Number 5. And just before midnight on the 15th of March 1941, McIntyre is on the bridge of HMS Walker when the night is ripped apart by a blinding flash of flame. And then a second explosion. And this is the 10,000 ton tanker a Donor being hit. And it's the first time McIntyre and his crew have ever seen such an explosion at sea. And they assume no one could have survived. They hear the alarm bells clanging, action stations. And in the glare of the Burning Ship, McIntyre peers through his binos for any signs of a U boat. And the only instrument to help him was his asdic. But the problem of course is with the 120 series of ASDIC. It's only got a range of two and a half thousand yards in perfect conditions. And of course conditions are rarely perfect and not in the Atlantic at night in March. So also the asdic cone only effective to about 16 degrees below the level of the surface, so no great depth. So you can drop your depth charges, but they're generally dropped much more on hunch rather than any kind of, of precise pinpointing. And also depth charges don't go for more than about 120 meters, so u boats, you know, if they're quick enough, can dive lower than that. And again, you remember that story of Teddy Surin and U48 on the surface off Bristol. The Bristol channel was 135 meters, wasn't he? So he was all right. But the bottom line is it's kind of sort of needle and haystack stuff.
- [34:09]
Murray
Really, and they can't find him. But Scimitar however, has spotted the U boat, which is U110, which is a new, super new Type 9B commanded by Fritz Julius Lemp, who we met earlier in the story. Scimitar tries to ram it. I mean the eagerness of these destroyers and corvettes and escort vessels to ram U Boats, they just love the ramming.
- [34:29]
Jim Holland
Ram the bastard.
- [34:30]
Murray
I suppose, you know it's going to work, right? It's a fruitless search. But U boats have been deterred that night. There's no further attack because after all, stopping them attacking is as effective as sinking them in the immediate right, isn't it? There's a respite at dawn, but McIntyre is worried about what's to come. The convoy has obviously been rumbled. They know by now that U boats are operating in packs. They know them operating mainly at night. So daylight is one thing. It's preparing for dusk and nearing dusk. Scimitar. And Scimitar's really on it on this convoy. Reports with its lamp, with a lamp that a U boat's been spotted six miles ahead. It's not Lemp, it's Joachim Shepka in U100.
- [35:05]
Jim Holland
This is one of the super races.
- [35:07]
Murray
Yeah. And so here we go again. A super ace is now at risk. And if you've only got eight subs and two of your aces go, that's a quarter of your expertise at the bottom of the ocean. That's what we're looking at here. So McIntyre orders. Full of speed ahead for Walker, joined by Vanek Scimitar. As they get close, U100 does the sensible thing and dives. But they sweep the area meticulously, thinking they're going to find it. But they don't find it, although they hopefully they think that they've scared again. They've scared the Uber off. She won't be able to catch up with the convoy, but here comes the rest of the wolf pack. U99, U37. Kretschmer in U99 begins the attack that night. He sails right into the middle of his convoy, which is his style, and fires torpedoes from eight tubes. One miss, but seven hit six merchant vessels. The first, just after Walker had rejoined the convoy. MacIntyre says, I was near to spare and rack my brains to find some way to stop the holocaust. I mean, how do you like this drama, everybody? It is amazing. They spot the white telltale wake of a U boat give chase. Relying on the asdic, hoping the asdic will catch something. They go up to 30 knots, chase down towards the sighting again. The U boat crash dives, but almost too late because Walker's right over it, sees the phosphorescence and this is the account we started the episode with. He drops a pattern of 10 depth charges. The charges go. They hear another explosion. Explosion. The orange flash that was in his description. And is this their first U boat kill? Well, no, because it's U37, which is really badly damaged but is able to slip away, obviously gives up, thinks, well, sort this, I will go home. And then in the meanwhile, U110 and a fifth U boat. In a way, here's the flaw in Donitz's wolf pack strategy. They're all operating together. It's easy to find more U boats, isn't it, if they're operating six. That's the rub of it all. And if your blokes are so precious, you're really exposing all your assets in what you. It's literally put all his eggs in one basket.
- [36:54]
Jim Holland
But it's fine, isn't it? If your convoys aren't escorted or escorted by kind of one corvette and one aging destroyer, then it's not so much of a problem. But when you've got a fairly keen team, a proper escort group with radar, with more sophisticated kit, you're suddenly in a whole load of trouble, aren't you?
- [37:10]
Murray
Exactly. So U110 and U74, they see this initial explosion and they turn back. They go towards the sound of car the guns. And what the escorts are doing is they're weaving around and firing star shells to illuminate the battle space because. Because it's all about getting eyes on. Forty minutes after the attack on U37, Walker picks up at yet another asdic contact. And this is Schepka in U100 and he's trying to pick his moment. He hasn't fired yet. Walker calls to Vanock for help. They make repeated sweeps. More depth charge salvos. One of the issues with the depth charges, they do disrupt asdic, so you can't over do it. They call off the attack and they go back to pick up survivors from the SS JB White. But U100 is in trouble. The depth charges have caused flooding. They have smashed the instruments. And at 3am Schepke has no choice but to surface.
- [37:56]
Jim Holland
I mean, this is amazing. So he's picked up almost immediately by Vanock Vanik using his type 286M radar. There it is again. You know, just a bit of kit makes all the difference. It's the first confirmed radar contact contact with a U boat of the entire war. And Walker is also speeding towards the U100. So seeing this, Schepka orders his boat into a firing position. But engines wouldn't start. By the time they do, it's too late because Vannak is a rammer. And believing Vannak would miss, Schepka's up on the bridge. But it's a bad miscalculation because Vannak heads straight towards them. Abandon ship. Schepka yells. But a moment later he's crushed to death as Vannak's bow smashes straight into the conning tower and U100 sinks. A few moments later have rammed and sunk U boat signals Vannak and scooped up just six survivors.
- [38:51]
Murray
Like that with the lamp.
- [38:52]
Jim Holland
Yep, yep, yep.
- [38:54]
Murray
What a blissful moment that was the successful culmination of a long and arduous fight.
- [38:59]
Jim Holland
But Al, it's not over. This long night is not over because at 3:30am, Walker picks up another Asdic. Contact, contact. Contact. Calls OUT Backhouse, who's the Aztec operator, and McIntyre can't believe it. He said, you sure? And Backhouse is absolute insistent. He goes, yup, this is definitely, definitely one. And it is. And this is U99 and this is Otto Kretschmer. It surfaces and finds itself within yards of Walker. They'd actually not been spotted. As it happens, you know, it's dark, it's night and all the rest of it, they're full of the excitement of the loss of U100. But Crretchford's not going to risk it, so he crash dives. And in the crash dive, of course it leaves this white wake and the phosphorescence on the water. So they see it and immediately this is what's picked up by Asdic. And the chances are that had he held his nerve, he might well have got away. But anyway, you can't blame him for that. So Walker sweeps over the U99, drops a salvo of depth charges which smashes U99's air, fuel and ballast tanks because it hasn't got low enough. And the problem with the depth charges that the British have is they don't go very low, so you need to dive super, super quickly. And it's just caught as it's still going down is the truth of it. So water starts pouring in and they realize they've got absolutely no chance of survival whatsoever under the water. So Kretschmer orders them to surface, hoping they might still escape. But it's not to be. They're picked up by Vannack again, which signals to Walker and McIntyre, then hits the U99 with both Searchlight and its 4 inch guns. You know, the firing is a bit wild, but U99 soon signal signals. We are sunking in Morse. I think it's absolutely brilliant.
- [40:36]
Murray
I love it.
- [40:37]
Jim Holland
So Kretchmer has ordered abandoned ship and for the U boat to be scuttled, you know. So Walker pulls alongside, lures and nets, helps the crew aboard.
- [40:45]
Murray
Macatala says some of them were in the last stages of exhaustion for the.
- [40:48]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
Cold of those northern waters by the time we got them aboard.
- [40:51]
Murray
And the last man aboard is Kretschmer.
- [40:53]
Jim Holland
Where's the movie? Where's the movie, Al?
- [40:55]
Murray
How many times are we going to be saying this, Jim? Where's the movie? Cyril Thompson, for heaven's sake. He's still wearing his prized Zeiss Bunn, one of only a few sets made on Donitz's orders for one of his great aces. Kretschmer tries to throw them in the sea at the last moment. He's not quick enough, and McIntyre claims them as his as a proper booty of war. I've got a lot of time for that. Kretschma notices there's a horseshoe emblem on Walker and he speaks in perfect English. He says, that is a strange coincidence. My ship also sailed under the sign of the horseshoe, but pointing down, not up.
- [41:27]
Commander Donald McIntyre (Narrator)
And McIntyre says, well, Captain, in our belief, a horseshoe that way up allows the luck to raise run out.
- [41:32]
Jim Holland
Oh, God, come on. And Kretschmer gives him a wry smile, walks on past him into captivity.
- [41:39]
Murray
What's quite interesting, though is what follows is because destroyers aren't very big, there's an issue. They've got survivors from the SSJB White and U99 on the ship together, and it's impossible to stop the two crews fighting. And also, Bridge 4 is formed later on and organized by two of the JB White's officers. With them sat around the table playing cards with Kretschmer. And Kretschmer is great at cards as well, and also says that he studied at Exeter University before the war and gives the impression of being largely apolitical and is resentful that the war has ever broken out.
- [42:12]
Jim Holland
Anyway, they reach Liverpool a few days later where they're met by Admiral Noble and Western Approaches staff. You know, it's just so exciting because don't forget, there hasn't been a U boat sinking since December or something. It's a long time and suddenly there's been several. So they're all there lining up to kind of cheer in the Walker and the Vanner and so on, and to see Kretschmer, you know, this is the thing they're all really keen to see. So the silence as Kretschmer steps ashore and he pauses, looks at McIntyre and the group of officers gives a slight nod. And then is ushered away into a car by waiting guards. But you know, in just a few days three of the key aces have all gone, you know, and pre in U47 it's worth just spelling out what they've scored. 31 ships, 191,919 tons. Just a reminder that Wanklin and Uphold is 128,000, the most successful single allied submarine of the entire war in terms of tons of carnage. Sunk Kretschmer and U99, 39 ships, 246,794 tons. And Schepka and the U, 126 ships, 137,819 tons. I mean that is a lot. And these are the three of the greatest U aces of all time and they've all gone. It is an absolutely crippling blow to the bdu, the U boat arm, because they are literally irreplaceable. This is the truth is that the old pre war experienced men, they're going just like by 1944 the ex spurten in the Luftwaffe are going as well. And this is the problem with having only 3,000 men in the U boat arm in 1939. It's not big enough to expand or not big enough quickly. They haven't taken advantage of the moment where Britain is at its weakest, which is in 1940.
- [43:51]
Murray
And you'd think these guys are such precious assets, their expertise needs to be passed on to the next generation. But there they are doing whatever they like, tooling around in the ocean and unaware that as you've said, the British aren't going to stand still. And there seems to be this impression on the German side that they will and of course they're not going to. Why on earth would they?
- [44:10]
Jim Holland
I've got one little anecdote for you to end on which is about Kretschmer. So Kretchmer joins the post war navy Sean of swastikas and all the rest of it and he does pretty well. He ends up being an admiral and in 1955 he's reunited with Donald McIntyre and you know what Donald McIntyre does? Gives him back his binoculars. No, he does, they meet and he says I took these off you, you can have them back. Goodness me, how amazing is that?
- [44:31]
Murray
That is amazing. I mean the other thing that's amazing is that the Germans, how do they think these U boats are being discovered if they don't think there's radar?
- [44:38]
Jim Holland
It's. They don't think there's radar. They don't know about the cavity magnetron as an invention, as a concept.
- [44:42]
Murray
Yeah, but you know what I mean, they know they're clever and coming up with technical solutions to things. Surely they assume the enemy is doing the same. It's this very odd thinking that they have where they can't see beyond the end of their nose, really. It's very, very odd. I imagine Kretschmer ends up in Latimer House or somewhere, doesn't he? Being listened to and having his brains picked.
- [44:59]
Jim Holland
Yeah, no, he sets out the rest of the war as a prisoner released in 1947. He was by all accounts apolitical and as far as it went, a pretty, pretty good egg. But I mean, it's an amazing sequence, isn't it? To lose those three in such a short period of time. I mean, but there's another crippling blow waiting around the corner, isn't it? And we're going to be picking that up in a series that is coming very soon. Of course. This is the Hood and the Bismarck, that epic surface battle that takes place in the Atlantic in May 1941. So that's to come, people. But gosh, this has been good fun, hasn't it?
- [45:29]
Murray
Yes, absolutely brilliant. Jim, thanks for taking us through all this. Absolutely extraordinary.
- [45:33]
Jim Holland
It's been really good fun, just an amazing episode. And again, it's making me rethink about you, how you consider those early stages of the war all over again.
- [45:40]
Murray
Well, thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you've enjoyed this series. I hope that in the process, many of you have subscribed to our Officer Class channel on Apple podcasts. Or even better, you've become independent company members at the Patreon and possibly even wondering which weekend the next Second World War festival we have ways festival will fall upon that'll be revealed at some point. Thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks, Jim. Cheerio, everybody.
- [46:01]
Jim Holland
Cheerio.