War Beneath the Sea - Submarine conflict during World War II

425 Pages·9.984 MB·English

by  Peter Padfield

WAR BENEATH THE SEA
Submarine Conflict 1939–1945
Peter Padfield
Copyright © Peter Padfield 2013
Peter Padfield has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved.
First published in 1995 by John Murray Ltd
This edition published in 2020 by Lume Books.
TO JOHN L. STEVENS
one-time submariner, RNR
Altor, Upstart, Otway, Unbending,
doctor: Mayflower II,
who failed to return from his last voyage in Slyboots
Table of Contents
PREFACE
ABBREVIATIONS
MAPS
PRELUDE
1. SUBMARINES AND SUBMARINERS
2. TOWARDS THE SECOND WORLD WAR
3. WAR
4. WOLFPACKS
5. MEDITERRANEAN CENTRE
6. AMERICA AT WAR
7. THE TURN OF FORTUNE
8. CRISIS FOR THE U-BOATS
9. VICTORY IN THE PACIFIC
10. THE END
CHRONOLOGY
APPENDICES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
First I should like to thank David Roberts, whose original idea this book was, and Grant
McIntyre for much support while I was working on it.
The demands of narrative and readability, not to say time and translation, have forced me to
limit the scope of the book to the major campaigns of the major submarine services, German,
American, British and Japanese, giving indications only of the parts played by the Italian,
French, Russian, Dutch, Greek, Polish and Norwegian services. Thus the book is by no means
encyclopaedic. I have attempted rather to illumine the decisive and the typical as well as the
heroic, to catch mood and feeling as well as follow the strategic, tactical and technological
developments.
To an extent the availability of archive material has played a part in shaping the book: the
German archives are readily accessible, the Japanese have been largely destroyed. For Japanese
operations I have relied greatly on the findings of the US Naval Technical Missions to Japan
after the war and the works of W.J. Holmes, an intelligence officer at Pearl Harbor throughout
the war, subsequently historian of the underwater campaigns in the Pacific. For all that, the
German U-boat campaign was the most potentially decisive aspect of submarine operations in
the Second World War, and I make no apology for the space devoted to it. The US submarine
campaign had equal potential, but in the event the service was only one of three unstoppable US
naval arms. For US submarine operations I owe a debt to W.J. Holmes for his Undersea Victory
and Double-edged Secrets and to Clay Blair Jnr. for his detailed history, Silent Victory.
I am deeply in debt to Peter Hansen, a wartime U-boat officer of enquiring mind and wide
horizons, who has gone to great trouble explaining both material and psychological factors in U-
boat service under Dönitz, and submarine matters in general, and has allowed me to quote
passages from his letters to me. Similarly I should like to thank two distinguished wartime
submariners, Vice-Admiral Sir Ian McGeoch for his detailed answers to my queries and for
allowing me to quote from them and from other papers and letters and his recent memoir, An
Affair of Chances, published by the Imperial War Museum; and Captain Edward L. Beach, USN,
for his great help and enthusiasm and for permission to quote from his epic Submarine!,
published by Henry Holt, and his article entitled ‘Radar and Submarines in World War II’
published in Defense Electronics.
I had many conversations about the higher direction of the war with the late, greatly missed
Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Jacob, military secretary to Churchill’s War Cabinet, and will ever be
grateful for his encouragement, help and wisdom. The opinions expressed in this book are mine,
however, not necessarily his.
I should like to thank Gus Britton of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport, for his
help, generously given, and for permission to quote from a letter he wrote home from the Uproar
in the Mediterranean, previously quoted in Richard Compton-Hall’s The Underwater War 1939–
1945, published by Blandford Press. And I am extremely grateful to Commander William King,
RN, for permission to quote extracts from his classic individual account of his own submarine
war, The Stick and the Stars, published by Hutchinson in 1958.
Fred Lake and Bridget Spiers of the naval section of the Ministry of Defence Library were
most helpful in pointing me to material, and Alan Francis and Robert Coppock of the Naval
Historical Branch were, as ever, immensely knowledgeable and ready with help and advice. Paul
Kemp and Ian Carter guided me through the vast photographic archive at the Imperial War
Museum, and I should like to record my debt to their help and expert knowledge. I am
particularly excited by the astonishing, hitherto unknown pictures of the capture of U110 which
Paul Kemp was able to provide. My editor, Gail Pirkis, has been an indefatigable support, for
whose care with the text I am most grateful. I should also like to acknowledge my debt to the
excellent Suffolk County Library interlending service.
Finally I would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce quotations: Lothar-
Günther Buchheim, The Boat and U-Boat War, HarperCollins; Herbert A. Werner, Iron Coffins,
Arthur Barker; Nicholas Monsarrat, Three Corvettes, Cassell; W.J. Holmes, Undersea Victory,
Doubleday; Edward Young, One of Our Submarines, Hart-Davis; Peter Cremer, U-Boat
Commander, Bodley Head; I.J. Galantin, Take Her Deep, Unwin Hyman; and Heinz Schaeffer,
U-Boat 977, William Kimber. And I should like to thank Rear-Admiral J.R. Hill, editor of The
Naval Review, for permission to quote from the late Patrick Beesley’s article, ‘The Operational
Intelligence Centre N.I.D 1939–1945’.
I apologize if by oversight I have omitted anyone.
ABBREVIATIONS
asdic Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee
ASV British aircraft radar; ASVII metric wavelength; ASVIII centimetric
wavelength
ASW anti-submarine warfare
B-Dienst Funkbeobachtungsdienst, German radio monitoring and decrypting
service
BdU Befehlshaber der U-boote; chief of the U-boat arm
Bletchley Bletchley Park, British radio decryption station
Cast US Navy Code and Signals Section, Corregidor
Cdr. Commander
Cinclant Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet
CO Commanding officer, or captain of a submarine
Cominch Commander-in-Chief US Fleet
Comsubaf Commander Submarines Asiatic Fleet
Comsubpac Commander Submarines Pacific Fleet
DA director angle; the aim-off required to hit a moving target
DF radio direction-finder; apparatus to find the bearing of a transmitting
radio
DSEA Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus
D. T. Gerät early camouflage name for German asdic
Enigma cipher machine used by German armed services, ‘M’ for the
Kriegsmarine
ERA engine room artificer; in RN submarines the chief engineer
exec. executive officer, US Navy, the senior officer below the CO; equivalent
to RN first lieutenant
FAT Fläschenabsuch (or Federapparat) Torpedo; an anti-convoy torpedo
that travelled a set course for a set distance, then turned and steered
back
FdU Führer der U-boote; up to 1939 chief of the U-boat arm; subsequently
theatre U-boat chief
FK Fregattenkapitän
FLAK Fliegerabwehrkanone, anti-aircraft gun
Frupac Fleet Radio Unit Pacific
Fu MB Funkmessbeobachtung; radar detector
GC & CS Government Code and Cipher School, Bletchley Park
HF/DF or Huff high-frequency direction-finder
Duff
Hypo US Navy Code and Signals Section, Pearl Harbor
Kapitän Kapitän zur See
KK Korvettenkapitän
KLt. Kapitänleutnant
LI Leitender Ingenieur, chief engineer of a U-boat
Lt. Lieutenant
Lt. Leutnant zur See
Lt.-Cdr. Lieutenant-Commander
LUT Lagenunabhängiger Torpedo; an improved FAT anti-convoy torpedo
MAD Magnetic Airborne Detector
MOMP mid-ocean meeting point
Negat US Navy Code and Signals Section, Washington
ObdM Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine; supreme commander, German
Navy
OIC Operational Intelligence Centre, British Admiralty
OLt. Oberleutnant zur See
PPI plan position indicator
Sonar US and now universal term for asdic
SST sub-sonic transmission; signalling through water by means of
asdic/sonar
TBS talk between ships radio telephone
TBT torpedo-bearing transmitter; US submarine night-sight apparatus for
surface attack
TDC torpedo data computer; electro-mechanical torpedo fire-control
computer in US fleet submarines
U-boat anglicization of U-boot, short for Unterseeboot; submarine
Ultra Allied signals intelligence from decrypts of top-level Axis ciphers
UZO Überwasserzieloptik; U-boat’s night-sight apparatus for surface attack
Wabo Wasserbomb; depth charge
1st Lt. 1st Lieutenant, RN (second in command of submarine)
1WO 1st watch officer, U-boat (second in command of submarine);
equivalent to RN first lieutenant and USN executive officer
2WO 2nd watch officer, U-boat
Ranks
RN, USN, IJN Kriegsmarine
Midshipman/Ensign Lt. Fähnrich zur See
Lieutenant Leutnant zur See Lt.
Oberleutnant zur OLt.
See
Lieutenant Commander Lt.-Cdr. Kapitänleutnant KLt.
Commander Cdr. Korvettenkapitän KK.
Fregattenkapitän FK.
Captain Captain Kapitän zur See Kap.z.S