Dönitz, U-boats, Convoys

The British Version of His Memoirs from the Admiralty's Secret Anti-Submarine Reports

Jak P. Mallmann Showell

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781473829701
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

This unique WWII history combines the memoirs of a Nazi Admiral with secret British naval reports for a comprehensive view of the U-Boat war.

The memoirs of Admiral Karl Dönitz, Ten Years and Twenty Days, are a fascinating first-hand account of the Battle of the Atlantic as seen from the headquarters of the U-boat fleet. Now, noted naval historian Jak P. Mallmann Showell has combined Dönitz's memoirs in a parallel text with the British Admiralty's secret Monthly Anti-Submarine Reports to produce a unique view of the U-boat war as it was perceived at the time by both sides. The British Monthly Anti-Submarine Reports were classified documents issued only to senior officers hunting U-boats. They were supposed to have been returned to the Admiralty and destroyed at the end of the War, but by chance a set survived in the archives of the Royal Navy's Submarine Museum in Gosport. They offer significant and hitherto unavailable insight into the British view of the Battle of the Atlantic as it was being fought. With expert analysis of these firsthand sources from opposing sides of the conflict, Jak P. Mallmann Showell presents what may be the most complete contemporary account of the desperate struggle in the North Atlantic during the Second World War.

Chapter 1

The Start of the War – September 1939 to June 1940

:: Dönitz ::

The signal ‘Start hostilities against England immediately’ arrived at the U-boat Command in Wilhelmshaven at 13.30 hours on 3 September 1939; a short time after Britain had declared war on Germany. This was followed by a meeting at Neuende Radio Station between Dönitz, Admiral Alfred Saalwächter (Commander of Group Command – West) and Admiral Hermann Boehm (Fleet Commander). Dönitz mentions the seriousness of the situation of having to face a powerful opponent with almost unlimited resources and then he describes the first air attack during the following day; saying a number of aircraft sacrificed themselves without any great gain but the pilots flew low, displaying considerable tenacity and guts.

:: The British Side ::

This first air attack is described exceedingly well by Constance Babington Smith, saying it came about as a result of some fairly good reconnaissance photographs taken by Sidney Cotton a few days before the outbreak of hostilities. Her account about the beginnings of the Royal Air Force’s Photo Reconnaissance Unit is interesting and valuable and she wrote that the raid provided dreadful evidence that the British Blenheim aircraft were not capable of bombing in daylight against serious opposition. The Bomber Command War Diaries state that a minimum of three bombs hit Admiral Scheer but failed to explode. This pocket battleship was lying in the harbour approaches with much of her machinery dismantled, awaiting a major refit. It would appear that most of the damage was caused by one of the five aircraft to be shot down crashing into the bows of the light cruiser Emden and causing the first German casualties of the war. This attack, made by flying over the North Sea because belligerent military aircraft were not allowed to cross the neutral territory of Holland and Belgium, illustrated another incredible weakness in RAF preparation. The attack came in two waves, with the other group dropping bombs on Brunsbüttel at the southern end of the Kiel Canal, but instead of hitting this target some of planes bombed Esbjerg in Denmark, 110 miles to the north, suggesting their navigation was way off beam.

Chapter 2

The First Ten Months

:: JS ::

Dönitz describes the goings-on after the outbreak of the war when U-boats made a considerable effort to obey the Prize Regulations. While writing this, he used the British official history (The War at Sea by Stephen Roskill) for reference. This work has the advantage over books published during the war years inasmuch that the author deals with basic facts rather than filling his pages with propaganda.

:: The British Side ::

The U-boat Off ensive – November 1939

The degree of intensity of the U-boat campaign at the beginning of October appears to have been dependent on the political situation. As long as the Germans felt there was even a remote chance of their peace proposals being accepted, they avoided hardening British opinion against them by prosecuting the campaign against Allied trade. Consequently, though submarines were still despatched to the Western Approaches, they seem to have been ordered not to attack merchant shipping until they received the signal to do so. In the first eleven days of the month only two British ships, one of them a destroyer, were attacked. On the 12th of October, however, the U-boat campaign flared up again – in the next forty-eight hours six Allied ships were sunk. Thereafter the sinkings settled down to a fairly steady rate.

[JS – It is interesting that ‘peace proposals’ are mentions because this suggests the general public in Britain was aware of the fact that several peace proposals were under discussion but all these efforts seem to have been lost in time and are now almost totally forgotten. Also note that these reports provide a different view to the one presented by some post-war authors, who mention that the sinking of the first ship of the war, the liner Athenia by U30 under Fritz-Julius Lemp, provided Britain with the indication that Germany had started ‘unrestricted submarine warfare’ right from the beginning.]

Parallel to this campaign at sea another developed on paper, the German Government seeking to justify an intensification of the U-boat campaign. On the 6th October, a German broadcast stated that the British Admiralty had ordered cargo steamers to ram German submarines on sight. This was followed a few days later by the argument that while it was legal to arm merchant ships, should the merchant ships use their guns, they rendered themselves liable to treatment as warships. The German attitude in these respects was not consistent from day to day, but there seems to have been a motive to it, every article in the newspapers being designed as propaganda for unrestricted submarine warfare.

On the 30th October an important article appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter, the official organ of the National Socialist Party. It stated:

A neutral observer reports that the crews of British passenger steamers are trained to fight submarines by gunfire and aggressive manoeuvres. This procedure constitutes a grave risk to the lives of passengers. German submarines have sunk several British warships camouflaged as merchant ships. The statement of Mr. Churchill, that Britain was not using so-called ‘Q ships’ is, thus, untrue. Maritime warfare is, therefore, being waged on a reciprocal basis. If Great Britain scraps all rules of international warfare the responsibility for an intensification of commercial warfare at sea must be attributed to Britain.

Whilst the attitude of the German press is not as yet entirely reflected in the behaviour of individual U-boat Captains, there have been indications that the earlier acts of courtesy have become more rare. There has also been less regard for the safety of crews of ships sunk.

U-boat activities took place in four areas:

(1) Off the east coast of England, largely in the Humber district, where it appears likely that the casualties were mainly due to mines. Most of the victims in this area were neutrals and no ships in convoy were either sunk or damaged. Attempts have been made to clear these mines, but so far without success. It is suspected that they are magnetic.

(2) In the Western Approaches; U-boats worked farther out than they did in September, i.e., beyond the points of dispersal of convoys for Africa and America, 200 miles WSW of the Fastnet. The activity in this area was confined to four days in the middle of the month during which four British and three French ships were sunk.

(3) At least two submarines were operating about 150 miles NW of Cape Finisterre, and on the 17th October three ships of an unescorted convoy were sunk and several others were attacked.

(4) In the Approaches to the Straits of Gibraltar, one U-boat claimed three victims on the 24th October. All the ships were British.

In addition to these known operations rumours persisted throughout the month that submarines were working in the Atlantic in the neighbourhood of the Azores and also of the North and South American coast, but no ships were attacked and it seems probable that the reports were groundless.

The majority of U-boats seem to have proceeded to their operational areas round the north of Scotland. The outward-bound submarines appeared to be passing through the Fair Island Channel, and the homeward-bound ones round Muckle Flugga, often a long way out. [Muckle Flugga is the northern tip of the Shetland Islands.]

Some U-boats, however, certainly tried to pass through the Dover Barrage and at least three were mined in the attempt. If the Dover Barrage continues to be so effective, it means that the small ‘Nordsee Enten’ [‘North Sea Ducks’, 250/300-ton boats] can only operate in the North Sea and not in the Channel, because their endurance is believed to be too small for them to be able to proceed North about.

The whole statement must be accepted with reserve, as little reliable information is available.

Throughout the month of November the main effort of the German High Command seems to have been centred upon a mine-laying campaign on the East coast, particularly in the Thames estuary. It is impossible, however, to be certain that ships reported as having been mined were, in fact, not sunk by torpedoes, or to establish whether the mines themselves were laid by aircraft, surface ships or submarines, but there are indications that U-boats laid lines of mines across the fairways off the East Coast. [Both U-boats and small surface vessels undertook mining operations close to British harbours during the first winter of the war.]

In the Western Approaches it appears that an average of only two or three U-boats were operating during the month. This small number may have been due to a temporary shortage having been produced by the destruction of a considerable proportion of the German ocean-going U-boats.

[U-boats lost so far were:

U39 IXA	(Kptlt. Gerhard Glattes)
U27 VIIA	(Kptlt. Johannes Franz)
U40 IXA	(Kptlt. Wolfgang Barten)
U42 IXA	(Kptlt. Rolf Dau)
U45 VIIB	(Kptlt. Alexander Gelhaar)
U16 IIB	(Kptlt. Horst Wellner)
U35 VIIA	(Kptlt. Werner Lott)
U36 VIIA	(Kptlt. Wilhelm Fröhlich)

IXAs were large, ocean-going types, VIIAs medium sea-going types and IIBs small coastal boats.]

On our western and southern coasts there was some activity off the entrances to harbours. It seems possible that here also the enemy were laying mines or trying to emulate what Kapitänleutnant Prien did at Scapa Flow, for on one occasion our motor anti-submarine boats attacked two contacts in the Firth of Clyde and another U-boat was detected attempting to penetrate deep into the Bristol Channel. [There were numerous mining operations by U-boats and small surface craft such as destroyers throughout the dark winter nights.]

There were also apparently two U-boats on patrol between the Bay of Biscay and the Straits of Gibraltar at the beginning of the month. Four neutral ships were stopped and their papers were examined. One of the U-boats responsible was described as displaying the skull-and-crossbones on its conning tower. It is possible that the French destroyer Siroco accounted for both these boats. [They were not sunk.]

At the end of the month, when the German High Command realised that the presence of pocket battleship Deutschland would probably bring our heavy ships into the Northern Approaches, a patrol line of U-boats seems to have been placed between the Shetlands and the Norwegian coast. It was one of these U-boats [U47 under Kptlt. Günther Prien], which unsuccessfully attacked HMS Norfolk on the 28th November, and another [U35, Kptlt. Werner Lott] was destroyed by the Kingston and Kashmir on the following day.

Further reports of U-boat activities much farther afield, in the Canaries and in the West Indies, are being continually received. Since no attacks have taken place south of the Straits of Gibraltar, these reports are in all probability false.

There is evidence that the Germans use the Fair Island Channel when outward bound; the interrogation of survivors of U35 tends to confirm this.

It is very difficult to make any estimate of the total number of U-boats sunk, but it is noteworthy that two of the survivors of U35 stated that, in their opinion, the U-boats could not be considered as a decisive weapon.

German U-boats are no longer divided into flotillas, but grouped as the strategical situation demands. [U-boat flotillas became administrative units, responsible for looking after men in port and equipping boats for their next operational voyage. The flotilla commanders’ operational control was limited to their immediate coastal waters and U-boats at sea were controlled by radio from the U-boat Command, headed by Dönitz.]

U-boat Tactics: Information from Survivors of U35

[U35 under Kapitänleutnant Werner Lott was sunk on 29 November 1939. The previous seven sinkings had yielded no more than about three survivors, while the entire crew of U35 was saved. Lott became one of the few Germans to have been imprisoned in the Tower of London for some time.]

The officers of U35 all said that it was found necessary to dive continually in order to avoid being sighted and reported by aircraft. They also said that aircraft made it impossible to send a prize crew on board a neutral vessel and to obtain fresh provisions, unless they went alongside the ship or compelled the crew to bring supplies in their own boat. They added that they did not fear bombing from aircraft very much, as it was usually possible to dive to a safe depth before the aeroplanes could attack. They thought there is always a danger, however, in low visibility, and more especially when the sky is half covered with clouds, as it is then that aeroplanes may surprise them.

U-boats have standing instructions to dive o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Introduction
• Sources for this Book
• Chapter 1: The Start of the War – September 1939 to June 1940
• Chapter 2: The First Ten Months
• Chapter 3: The Battle in the Atlantic Phase 1: July – October 1940
• Chapter 4: The Major Turning-Point of the U-boat War – March 1941
• Chapter 5: Special Intelligence Enters the War – May 1941
• Chapter 6: Fragmentation of Strength – Summer 1941
• Chapter 7: New Weapons for Hunting Old U-boats – Summer 1941
• Chapter 8: Fast-Moving Patrol Lines – September to December 1941
• Chapter 9: Audacity – Auxiliary Aircraft Carriers Step In – Christmas 1941
• Chapter 10: America Joins the War: Operation ‘Paukenschlag’ (The First Thrust) – January 1942
• Chapter 11: The U-boat Command’s Biggest Blunder?
• Chapter 12: War in American Waters. The Second and Later Thrusts – February 1942
• Chapter 13: Back to Freetown (Africa) – March 1942
• Chapter 14: After the American Excursion – after May 1942
• Chapter 15: The Mid-Atlantic Shock – July 1942
• Chapter 16: Postscript to the Summer’s Battles – September 1942
• Chapter 17: New Weapons for Outdated Boats
• Chapter 18: Action in the Mid-Atlantic Air Gap – October 1942
• Chapter 19: Hedgehog, Mousetrap and Depth Charge Attacks – July/September 1942 with Additions from Autumn 1941 Reports
• Chapter 20: Luck as Vital Ingredient – October to November 1942
• Chapter 21: Another Bout of Luck? The Tanker Convoy TM1 – January 1943
• Chapter 22: New Developments – End of 1942
• Chapter 23: The Hardest Convoy Battle: The Build-up to the Climax – January and February 1942
• Chapter 24: The Largest Convoy Battle of All Time – March 1943
• Chapter 25: Crisis Convoy – April and May 1943
• Chapter 26: The Summer of 1943
• Chapter 27: News from the Monthly Anti-Submarine Reports
• Chapter 28: The Autumn of the U-boats – September 1943
• Chapter 29: After the Crash of September 1943
• Chapter 30: Weapons Used against U-boats
• Chapter 31: The Radio War
• Glossary
• Further Reading