USCGC SPENCER vs. U-175

Ocean Escort Unit A-3, a multi-national collection of the US Coast Guard cutters SPENCER (WPG-36) and DUANE (WPG-33) along with the British corvette HMS DIANTHUS, the Canadian corvettes CHILLIWACK, ROSTHERN, TRILLIUM and DAUPHIN, and the Polish destroyer BURZA, was underway this day escorting Convoy HX-233 from Nova Scotia to England.  The two 327-foot, 2200-ton “Treasury”-class cutters of A-3 were some of the Guard’s newest and had been pressed into escort service since the opening of the war.  Having left St. Johns April 12^th, for five days the 57 merchantmen of Convoy HX-233 pitched through the rough North Atlantic to the longitude of Reykjavik.  The stormy Winter of 1942-43 had been a successful one for Hitler’s U-boats and SPENCER’s men had vowed not to shave until they had bagged “a hearse.”  By now CDR Harold Berdine, USCG, and his crew were looking pretty scruffy.  Then at noon on this day SPENCER recorded a contact inside the escort screen.

SPENCER charged this unseen contact, cris-crossing the spot with two trains of depth charges.  She then threaded her way between the columns of the convoy, maintaining contact and vectoring DUANE to the spot.  Meanwhile 38 fathoms below, the crew of U-175 had their hands full.  The depth charges had burst light bulbs, battered men and equipment, and ruptured pipes throughout the boat.  The crew worked feverishly to stem the flooding as the skipper maneuvered to escape his pursuers.  The continuing “pings” of the cutters reminded them of the immediacy of further attack.  And failing to stem the flooding after 48 minutes, U-175 had no choice but to surface.

The sub broached about a mile from SPENCER and was immediately spotted.  SPENCER, DUANE, and the Naval Armed Guard of nearby freighters fired every gun they had!  Germans who braved the deck to return a few shells were cut down in minutes.  The U-boat’s conning tower was mauled by 5-inch shells, and her hull was enveloped with splashes.  One return shell did hit SPENCER, fatally wounding USCG Radioman Julius Petrella, but rudder damage condemned the stricken sub to impotent circles.  SPENCER bore in to ram but turned away when the enemy was seen scrambling for their life rafts.

SPENCER had drilled for just such an occasion–a boarding party was immediately launched!  As the cutters picked up 41 enemy sailors, Berdine’s men entered the sub.  But they could not stop the flooding.  One giant wave washed completely over her, her stern rose, and it became obvious she was doomed.  The Allies would have to wait another 14 months for the successful capture of a U-boat, when the USS GUADALCANAL (CVE-60) escort group captured U-505 and the codebooks and ciphers she held.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  23 APR 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 1 The Battle of the Atlantic.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1947, pp. 344-45.

Noble, Dennis L. and Truman R. Strobridge.  “Spencer vs. the Nazis.”  Sea Classics, Vol 48 (10), October 2015, pp. 10-21.

Scheina, Robert L.  U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft 1946-1990.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1990, p. 28.

Walton, William.  “Scratch One Hearse!:  Spencer vs. U-175.”  Sea Classics, Vol 35 (3), March 2002, pp. 50-56.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  During WWII the US Coast Guard was a branch of the Treasury Department, having been created originally to stem smuggling.  The “Treasury”-class cutters were named for former Secretaries of the Treasury.  SPENCER was named for John C. Spencer who served President John Tyler between 1843-44.  DUANE was named for the Honorable William J. Duane, one of several Treasury Secretaries in the Andrew Jackson administration.  On 1 April 1967 the Coast Guard was transferred to the newly created Department of Transportation.  Then, after 9/11, the Coast Guard became part of the Department of Homeland Security.

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                                          OPERATION “CAESAR”

On 5 December 1944 the Type IX long-range U-boat U-864 departed Kiel, northern Germany, for Penang, Indochina (modern Malaysia).  The Japanese coveted German jet aircraft technology and U-864’s mission was to transport Messerschmitt “Swallow” jet engine parts and two aeronautical engineers, Rolf von Chlingenspreg and Riclef Schmerus, to the Emperor.  This mission, Operation “Caesar,” was one of several U-boat shipments in the final months of WWII.  Two Japanese nautical engineers, Tadao Yamoto and Toshio Nakai, were on board hitching a ride home.  As well, 1857 flasks (65 tons) of the strategic metal mercury, used for explosive primers, were packed as ballast along the keel.

But U-864 had problems.  Avoiding the many British patrols of the North Sea required cruising submerged, running her diesel engines via a schnorkel breathing device.  Korvettenkapitän Ralf-Reimar Wolfram hugged the Norway coast, at least until he ran aground and had to put in at Bergen, Norway, for repairs.  While there, on 12 January, the Bergen submarine base was bombed by the British, damaging U-864 further.  Wolfram could not get underway again until 30 January, trying to make a 10 February rendezvous with an escort off the Hellisoy Light on Fedje Island, Norway.  But on this day the U-boat’s starboard engine began missing, a noisy problem that demanded a return to Bergen.

Little did Wolfram know that the British were aware of his movements.  Code breakers at Bletchly Park had deciphered the German “Enigma” encoder and were reading the message traffic to U-864.  The submarine HMS VENTURER had been dispatched to the Hellisoy Light where LT James S. Launders, RN, lay in wait, submerged.  His passive sonar now picked up a strange motor noise.  Turning his periscope in the direction of the noise he spotted the feather wake of a schnorkel.  For two hours he remained submerged, tracking the contact with passive sonar and plotting her movements.  Launders then took up a position along her expected path and at the calculated moment fired a spread of four torpedoes.

Wolfram knew his noisy engine would give away his position and was zig-zagging underwater back to Bergen.  For several hours he coursed invisibly–he thought.  But out of nowhere the sonarmen suddenly heard high-speed propeller noises.  The first, second, and third torpedoes passed into the distance, but the fourth struck U-864 amidships.  She broke in two and sank, taking all hands, in this first recorded duel between two submerged submarines.

The wreck of U-864 was located in 2003.  Though she is a war grave, the mercury aboard represents a serious environmental hazard, and clean-up efforts by the Norwegian government are ongoing.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History’  13 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Brasse, Marc, Christopher Rowley and Karl Vandenhole, Directors.  “U-864: Hitler’s Last Deadly Secret.”  Military Channel documentary (November 2012), Discovery Communications, 2007.

Tarrant, V.E.  The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 137.

Wynn, Kenneth.  U-Boat Operations of the Second World War  Vol 2: Career Histories, U511-UIT25.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 177-78.

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                                           THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

World War I had been tearing Europe apart since the summer of 1914.  Here, we struggled to stay neutral, despite the sinkings of American merchant ships carrying cargoes to the Allies.  To most Americans, WWI was 5000 miles away, too distant to raise concern, especially with the vast Atlantic Ocean insulating us.  That is, until events brought the war nearer in early 1917…

The German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann, recognizing that the Central Powers needed help to win the war, sent a telegram to the German ambassador to the United States, Johann von Bernsdorff, instructing him to pass it to the German ambassador to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt.  The message promised the return to Mexico of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (lost in the 1840s war with the US) if Mexico entered the war for the Central Powers.  The Western Union telegram was intercepted by British intelligence and passed to American authorities.  Our public was outraged.  Despite our neutrality, the war was moving closer to our shores!

To complicate matters, Japan was rumored to be building a naval base on Cedros Island, off Mexican Baja California.  Though Japan was aligned with the Allies, the plan smacked of the further dragging of our Western Hemisphere into the war.  These rumors turned out to be just that, but a more serious concern over Denmark simultaneously gripped President Woodrow Wilson.

The small, neutral nation of Denmark lay immediately north of Germany, within easy reach of Kaiser Willhelm II.  Germany might easily overrun Denmark, allowing her overseas possessions of Greenland, Iceland, and the Danish Virgin Islands to come under the control of the Central Powers.  Then, Germany announced on 31 January, the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.  Would the Danish Virgin Islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. Johns become a Caribbean U-boat base?  Such would threaten our Panama Canal, opened in August 1914, and our operations in two major oceans.  A German presence in the Caribbean had to be prevented.

The Wilson administration approached the Danish government with an offer to purchase the Danish Virgin Islands.  The offer was accepted, on 17 January 1917, the Danish Virgin Islands were transferred to the United States for $25 million in gold.  Administration of the islands was assigned to the Navy Department, and on 29 March two companies of US Marines landed on St. Thomas to establish a garrison and begin construction of shore batteries and harbor defenses.  Then on this day RADM James H. Oliver formally took possession, becoming the islands’ first governor.  The timing was fortuitous, for in less than a week, on 6 April 1917, the US declared war on the Central Powers.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  4 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, pp. 223, 224.

Neiberg, Michael S.  The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America.  New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2016, pp. 92-93.

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                                                         U-604

By November 1941, Britain was hanging tenuously, her economy smothering at the hands of German U-boats.  And on the 16^th of that month, Germany’s position got incrementally better with the launch of yet another U-boat, U-604, in Hamburg.  Kapitänleutnant Horst Höltring assumed command, completed shakedowns, and deployed with the 9^th Unterseebootsflottille on 1 August 1942.

U-604 joined three successive wolfpacks between August and December 1942, quickly noting successes.  She sank a Dutch, three British, and the American SS Coamo between 25 August and 9 December.  On 21 February 1943 the US Coast Guard cutter JOHN C. SPENCER (WPG-36) crossed her path in the North Atlantic.  A depth charge attack convinced Guardsmen they had sunk U-225.  In fact, Höltring had slipped away undamaged.  By the summer of 1943, U-604 was intercepting southern Atlantic shipping to and from Great Britain’s colony in South Africa.  And it was here, on 30 July 1943, that PV-1 “Ventura” from US Navy squadron VB-129 spotted U-604 100 miles off Brazil.  LCDR Thomas D. Davies dove with guns blazing.  Höltring turned abeam of the attack, and Davies’ four Mark 47 bombs straddled the sub.  The U-boat was seen to slip beneath the waves, then her stern rose ominously.  Thinking he had scored a victory, Davies flew off.  Indeed, U-604 was severely damaged; weapons officer Oberleutnant zur See Frank Aschmann and coxswain Oberbootsmaat Herbert Lutz were dead.  But Höltring managed to limp away and radio for help.

U-185 arrived to lend assistance, and the pair was attacked four days later by a four-engine PB4Y bomber from VB-107.  The bomber vectored USS MOFFETT (DD-362), and a running engagement ensued in which the submerged U-604 barely escaped!  MOFFETT re-acquired her target on the 6^th and more depth charges racked the hobbled U-boat.

By this date, U-604’s “nine lives” were spent.  Fourteen of her crew had given their lives, and her accumulated damage proved more than could be repaired.  With U-185 and U-172 standing by, U-604 was prepared for scuttling.  But again a PB4Y appeared out of NAF Natal, Brazil!  The keen marksmanship of U-185’s gunners sent this bomber spinning in flames into the drink, claiming pilot LCDR Bertham J. Preuher and the 9-man US Navy crew.  The two remaining U-boats turned for home, crowded with 31 of U-604’s crew. 

On 24 August U-185 was herself attacked.  A wounded Höltring went forward in the rapidly flooding boat to help two trapped and badly injured shipmates.  But with their escape shortly impossible, the pair begged their skipper to be mercifully shot.  Höltring then turned the pistol on himself.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  18 AUG 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cressman, Robert J.  The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2007, pp. 173, 175.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969p. 406.

Helgason, Guömundar, “Ships Hit by U-604.”  U-boat.net website.  AT: http://www.uboat.net/boats/successes/u604.html, retrieved 17 June 2017.

“List of all U-boats.”  U-boat.net website.  AT: http://www.uboat.net/boats/u604.htm, retrieved 17 June 2017.

Moore, Arthur R.  A Careless Word, A Needless Sinking: A History of the Tremendous Losses in Ships and Men Suffered by the U.S. Merchant Marine During World War II 1941-1945.  Kings Point, NY: American Merchant Marine Museum, 1984, p. 59.

Wynn, Kenneth.  U-Boat Operations of the Second World War  Vol 1: Career Histories, U1-U510.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1997, pp. 138-39.

Wynn, Kenneth.  U-Boat Operations of the Second World War  Vol 2: Career Histories, U511-UIT25.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 73-74.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  SS Coamo was an American Agwilines passenger ship crossing with Convoy MFK-3 from Gibraltar to New York when she was attacked by U-604 on 9 December 1942 off Bermuda.  She was damaged and detached from the convoy to make port on her own.  She was never seen again.  All 133 souls aboard were lost, the largest single loss of American merchant mariners in WWII.

Horst Holtring

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