BUCKLEY vs. U-66 (cont.)
6 MAY 1944
BUCKLEY vs. U-66 (cont.)
Every available sailor manned BUCKLEY’s (DE-51) rail with a tommy gun, rifle, or any manner of weapon the arms lockers could yield. Depth charges, set to explode at the surface, arched from the destroyer escort’s K-guns. LCDR Brent M. Abel raced alongside the U-boat for several minutes, then in a flash threw his helm hard over. Collision alarms blared as the escort’s bow struck and rode up across the foredeck of the U-boat. At nearly the same moment Oberleütnent zur See Gerhard Seehausen ordered “Abandon Ship!” In the darkness, smoke, and confusion, German submariners poured out of the hatches. They were met with a hail of bullets, shell casings, tools, coffee mugs, shoe-shine kits, potatoes–anything the American sailors could grab. Several scrambled aboard the fo’castle of the destroyer escort prompting an order not heard in the US Navy since the age of sail, “Stand-by to repel boarders!”
Abel now ordered “All Aback” to clear the U-boat, leaving five enemy sailors still crouched behind the anchor windlass on BUCKLEY’s foredeck. One German even made it below decks but was arrested by a steward’s mate who defended his wardroom post with a hot coffee pot. On deck the remaining Germans pleaded for quarter against a torrent of small arms fire. They were corralled and taken below by a gunner’s mate brandishing a hammer.
Meanwhile, with his engines still intact and enough crew left aboard, Seehausen seized this opportunity to speed ahead of the surface ship. Abel quickly pulled abreast once again; more fire was exchanged. But by now the U-boat was steering erratically, veering suddenly toward BUCKLEY, striking a glancing blow at the destroyer’s after quarter. At precisely this moment, a deft American sailor lobbed a hand grenade down the sub’s main hatch. Its detonation wrecked the control room and started an inferno. Now completely out of control and shipping water, the U-boat zig-zagged away. A few short minutes later her death plunge was heralded by turbulent waters and the sound of hissing steam.
The entire action took only 16 minutes, but in that time Abel’s destroyer expended over a hundred rounds from her 3″-50s, 3000 machine gun, and 360 pistol rounds. Only one BUCKLEY sailor was injured, a deck hand who sustained a bruised fist in hand-to-hand fighting on the fo’castle.
Thirty-six German crewmen were rescued from the cold Atlantic waters, though captain Seehausen was not among them. BUCKLEY suffered a flooded after engine room and a sheared starboard propeller. A plow-shaped dent in her port bow made her prankish in answering the helm, but she remained seaworthy and ultimately made Boston under her own power.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 14 MAY 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 10 The Atlantic Battle Won. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1956, pp. 284-88.
Roscoe, Theodore. United States Destroyer Operations in World War II. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 306-07.
Smith, Stan. “Buckley’s Bare-Knuckles Bout with U-66.” Sea Classics, Vol 38 (3), March 2005, pp. 30-33.
Wynn, Kenneth. U-Boat Operations of the Second World War Vol 1: Career Histories, U1-U510. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1997, pp. 46-48.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: By this time in the war, German U-boats were being aggressively prosecuted by the Allies. Most were only able to surface at night, and then only for short time periods. When BUCKLEY picked up these 36 prisoners, they all appeared pale and gaunt, and all showed signs of vitamin deficiency.
This incident harkens to the 1779 victory of BONHOMME RICHARD over HMS SERAPIS in which a savvy Able Seaman in the American rigging noticed the British hatch to be open and lobbed a grenade therein. It landed on stacked canister ammunition which exploded, clearing the British gun deck.
German sailors in this event have been characterized in some accounts as aggressively attempting to board and commandeer the American warship, and in truth some might have been. But the majority were probably following orders to abandon ship and were simply trying to save themselves.
BUCKLEY received a unit commendation for her actions this day.
