HMS DEVONSHIRE vs. ATLANTIS
22 NOVEMBER 1941
HMS DEVONSHIRE vs. ATLANTIS
One of the Royal Navy’s early successes in WWII was the effort against German surface raiders. Indeed, KMS ATLANTIS had accumulated some impressive statistics by November 1941. Converted from the freighter SS Goldenfels, she had escaped the British blockade in March of 1940 to become the first of several dozen auxiliary cruisers to raid Allied merchant shipping. She had sunk or captured 22 freighters totaling 144,387 tons. In doing so, she remained at sea longer than any German surface ship, her 622 consecutive days of cruising eclipsing the previous 445-day record of the WWI raider WOLF. She had circumnavigated the globe eastwardly, and after rounding Cape Horn again this month toward Germany, her crew was anticipating Christmas with their families. But on her way north, ATLANTIS was called upon to resupply several U-boats. This morning, ATLANTIS met U-126 350 miles northwest of Ascension Island. A fuel hose was passed to the sub and small boats began ferrying food and supplies. While the U-boat skipper, Kapitänleutnant Ernst Bauer, called on CAPT Bernhard Rogge of ATLANTIS, the raider shut down her port engine for repairs. All seemed to be going well for the moment.
By 1941, the Royal Navy had redoubled anti-submarine efforts. U-boats replenishing from tenders on the open sea were particularly vulnerable if they could be located. This morning, ATLANTIS’ deck watch spotted the three-funneled silhouette of a British cruiser. U-126 capped her fuel port and crash dove, stranding her skipper on ATLANTIS. The raider jettisoned the fuel hose, leaving a tell-tale oil slick and threw her starboard engine to full power. But her limping ten-knot speed was no match for the cruiser’s. DEVONSHIRE opened from ten miles, straddling ATLANTIS, then hitting her amidships. At that great range ATLANTIS’ smaller guns were useless; the raider could only hope to draw the cruiser across the path of the lurking U-boat. But the panicked submarine had dived deeply and was not positioned to assist. Rogge laid a smoke screen which provided momentary cover, but DEVONSHIRE continued to bombard from beyond ATLANTIS’ range. After a 90-minute running battle ATLANTIS was left crippled and burning.
The raider hove to and set scuttling charges. Pummeled further by the cruiser, she sank by the stern, leaving 305 men drifting in open boats. DEVONSHIRE disappeared over the horizon. U-126 resurfaced later in the afternoon and took the lifeboats under tow. For nearly two days ATLANTIS’ crewmen endured daytime heat and nighttime chill in crowded open boats that constantly shipped water as they were dragged behind the sub. It took nearly two days to reach the nearby supply ship PYTHON.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 28 NOV 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Frank, Wolfgang and Bernhard Rogge. The German Raider Atlantis. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1956, pp. 136-45, 151-54.
Hoyt, Edwin P. Raider 16. New York, NY: World Publishing, 1970, pp. 208-28.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: After spending two days splashing behind the sub in open boats, the crew of ATLANTIS was still not out of danger. PYTHON fell under the attack of HMS DORSETSHIRE while refueling U-68 seven days later. Her fate was the same as ATLANTIS’, leaving 414 sailors re-stranded in her open lifeboats. Again, the shipwrecked crews endured insuperable conditions as their open boats were towed behind two submarines. After several more days of this treatment the party was met by additional U-boats that ferried the shipwrecked sailors to occupied France.
One American was party to this adventure. Frank Vicovari, a civilian who had been a passenger aboard the Egyptian freighter Zam Zam, and who was wounded when ATLANTIS sank that freighter on 17 April 1941. He had been held aboard ATLANTIS for medical treatment. He survived the two subsequent sinkings above to return to America.
Ernst Bauer survived this encounter and returned to command U-126 on three more successful cruises. He is regarded as one of Germany’s U-boat “aces” and is a recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, Germany’s highest military award of WWII. He left U-126 before her 6th cruise, a cruise upon which the U-boat was lost with all hands in an attack by British aircraft. Bauer died in March of 1988 at his home in Germany. He was 74.
