On 3 September 1939, when Britain declared war on Germany, her vital sea lanes were already compromised. Two weeks earlier, eighteen of Admiral Dönitz’s U-boats, the paint barely dry on their hulls, had slipped out of Wilhelmshaven under the cover of darkness to take up strategic positions in British waters. The English Channel being heavily patrolled by ships of the Royal Navy, they had been forced to take the longer route to the Atlantic, via the north of Scotland, running submerged during the day and on the surface at night. Maintaining strict radio silence at all times, they had avoided detection. Detailed off to guard the South-Western Approaches to the Channel were two Type VII boats, U-29 and U-53, commanded respectively by Otto Schuhart and Ernst-Günter Heinicke, both experienced Kriegsmarine officers.
Schuhart and Heinicke reached their designated patrol area some 350 miles to the west of Land’s End on 28 August, and from then on had been keeping a discreet watch on passing shipping. Patrolling at periscope depth by day and submerged at night, it was frustrating work for the young men who manned these boats. They had come with their blood up, prepared for war, yet they were forbidden to do more than enter details in the log of each ship seen, of which there was a steady stream, inward and outward. This unnatural situation prevailed until midday Berlin time on Sunday, 3 September, when the dogs of war were unleashed. Then, suddenly, there was nothing. The horizon was empty, except for the occasional British destroyer trailing her smoke across the as yet untroubled waters. Frustration turned to dismay.
For the next five days the two U-boats each played their own separate game of hide-and-seek with the Royal Navy. Then the disappointments of the past weeks were swept away by a surge of adrenaline, and for U-29 at least, the war finally opened. On the afternoon of 8 September she sighted the British motor tanker Regent Tiger, inbound with 10,600 tons of petroleum and 3,400 tons of diesel oil. Unarmed and unescorted, the tanker was easy meat, being stopped with a warning shot across her bows, after which ship and cargo were sent to the bottom by a single torpedo.
It was all so easily done, and for Otto Schuhart and his men the long wait must have seemed worthwhile. However, the Regent Tiger proved to be a false dawn, and another five days passed before the next opportunity presented itself. This turned out to be the British ocean-going salvage tug Neptunia of just 789 tons gross. She was on her way out from Falmouth to assist a British destroyer damaged in a collision off the south coast of Ireland while escorting the small westbound convoy OB 3. The destroyers HMS Vansittart and HMS Walker had collided, Walker being seriously damaged and unable to proceed under her own steam.
Contrary to Schuhart’s expectations, the tug was to prove no docile conquest. When he put a warning shot across her bows, instead of heaving to as expected, Neptunia presented her stern to the U-boat and steamed away at full speed, her radio setting the ether alight with frantic distress calls. Schuhart gave chase, but it was not until the tug was hit by several shells that she was stopped and abandoned by her crew.
Fearful that the Neptunia’s calls for help might bring down the wrath of the Royal Navy on U-29, Schuhart tried to finish off the tug quickly with a torpedo, but this exploded prematurely, as did a second. What should have been a relatively swift and easy operation was now turning into a time-consuming and expensive farce.
Schuhart resorted to his deck gun again, but the stubborn little ship was still reluctant to go down. After the expenditure of several more shells, the Neptunia at last gave up the ghost, catching fire and sinking. U-29 then made off before retribution appeared on the scene.
Next day, U-29 was idling on the surface 180 miles south-west of the Fastnet Rock, when her luck at last took a turn for the better. Over the horizon came the 3,481-ton tanker British Influence, nearing the end of a 6,500-mile passage from the Persian Gulf with 12,000 tons of diesel and fuel oil. Having been almost a month at sea, with very little contact with the outside world, the crew of the British Influence were totally unprepared for the reality of war when U-29’s shells began to fall around them. Ordered by Schuhart to take to the boats, they complied, then watched bewildered as their ship was finished off with a torpedo.
It may have been the sight of the British seamen huddled in their lifeboats that reminded Otto Schuhart of his duty under the Treaty of London, which was to deliver the crew of his victim to a place of safety, and he now went to ridiculous lengths to comply. First firing distress rockets, he then stood by the tanker’s lifeboats for the next five hours waiting for a suitable rescue ship to come, even though he was aware that the British Influence had broadcast an SOS and that the rescue ship might well be a British destroyer.
Fortunately for U-29, the Royal Navy must have been busy elsewhere, and the only ship that came to investigate the British tanker’s predicament was the 5,444-ton Norwegian motor vessel Ida Bakke. The neutral-flag cargo ship, commanded by Captain Anton Zakariassen, had been passing on her way to the US via Panama when she saw U-29’s rockets go soaring into the sky. However, as soon as he became aware of the U-boat on the surface near the lifeboats, Zakariassen turned tail and ran. Schuhart gave chase, not to sink the Norwegian but to bring her back to take on board the survivors. Captain Zakariassen was of course not aware of Schuhart’s intentions, and as the Ida Bakke was a 16-knot ship, the chase was prolonged.
When the Ida Bakke was finally caught and stopped, Schuhart managed to persuade Zakariassen that it was his duty to take the British Influence’s survivors to a place of safety, and this the Norwegian did, landing them at Baltimore on the south coast of Ireland on the 15th. The Ida Bakke then continued her voyage to Panama, but a few hours after leaving Baltimore, her wireless operator picked up a distress message from the British tanker Cheyenne, then sinking 150 miles west-south-west of the Fastnet. Her untimely demise was U-53’s opening contribution to Germany’s war on British shipping.
The Anglo-American Oil Company’s 8,825-ton motor tanker Cheyenne, British flagged, British manned and commanded by Captain Hugh Kerr, was bound from Aruba to Swansea with 12,600 tons of benzine. She was only thirty-six hours from the Bristol Channel when U-53 surfaced and challenged her. Instinctively, Captain Kerr called for maximum revolutions and turned stern-on to the U-boat. Although at best the Cheyenne could only manage 12 knots, nearly an hour went by before U-53 caught up with her. Captain Kerr described the chase:
When the submarine realized what we were doing he fired one shot, which fell short. We ordered all men under cover and still carried on, keeping him astern, and he immediately opened fire, keeping up repeated fire straddling the ship. This went on for fifty minutes. They fired in all about 20–25 rounds. I carefully watched the speed of the submarine, hoping that we might outdistance her, as by this time we were doing 12 knots, but in the course of half an hour I realized that the submarine was gaining at the rate of about 4 miles an hour, estimating his speed at anything between 15 and 17 knots. He ceased firing for about ten minutes and then fired a volley of about five rounds, one at each beam and the last three dropping about 100 yards ahead. We realized then he had our length and as we were loaded with benzine, and not wishing to sacrifice life, and as nothing was appearing in sight which would account for assistance, we stopped the engines. This was about an hour after the submarine fired the first shot. The first shot was intentionally wide.
What followed should have been an example of how, in an ideal world, the war at sea would be fought. Having taken the way off his ship, Captain Kerr sent his men to their boat stations, and when they were assembled, wearing life jackets as in any routine boat drill, the Cheyenne’s lifeboats were swung out ready for lowering.
Meanwhile, U-53 had closed to within a mile of the tanker and was also hove to. She then waited patiently while the Cheyenne’s crew lowered their boats to the water and abandoned ship in good order. Unfortunately, although the weather was fair at the time, during the operation one of the lifeboats capsized and six men were drowned.
When the remaining boats had rowed clear, Heinicke moved in closer and taking careful aim, put a torpedo into the Cheyenne’s No. 4 cargo tank, just forward of the bridge. Captain Kerr, observing the destruction of his command from the stern of his lifeboat, later wrote:
There was very little explosion, though a large column of water and benzine went up and when this subsided we could see the port side of the vessel blown right out with ragged plates. He waited about ten minutes, and as the ship didn’t show any signs of sinking, he fired a second torpedo which struck more or less in the same position. There was a small explosion and a column of water and the ship appeared to have broken her back. The bow and stern both came out of the water, the bow appearing to fall over towards the stern, and the bow finally broke away and both parts continued to float. The submarine watched developments for about 15 minutes or so, and then came over to the boats, and enquired if everyone was all right or anyone hurt, or if anyone required anything, and having assured him that everything was all right, he asked for the Master and for my papers, but I assured him that I hadn’t any. He asked me why. I said I had no time to get any papers; although I had them in my bag. And then he asked me, ‘Why did you try to escape?’ I said, ‘Selfpreservation’, or something of that kind. He then said, ‘You made me lose 25 rounds of ammunition.’
In a footnote to his report to the Admiralty, Captain Kerr stated that while he and his crew were abandoning ship under the guns of the enemy submarine they saw what appeared to be a British sloop or patrol boat approaching from the east. He described her as being ‘painted grey with a very short and very thick funnel and a well sloped bow, stern well sloped away with cruiser stern. She had two short masts and, beam on, her bridge was higher than the funnel and appeared very narrow.’
As the unidentified vessel approached at speed, Kerr assumed that the Royal Navy was coming to his rescue, but then watched open-mouthed as she steamed past, completely ignoring their obvious plight. He then recollected that for three nights past his wireless operator had heard short plain language transmissions in Spanish on an unusual wavelength, and as Spain was neutral, he assumed the stranger must be a Spanish patrol boat.
It seems most likely that the ship seen by Kerr was either a Spanish Navy sloop – the description fits – or an Irish fishery protection vessel. Given that she had surprised a German U-boat in the act of sinking a British ship, it may well be that the neutral vessel did not want to get involved and had consequently made herself scarce.
The patrol boat was barely out of sight, when a would-be rescue ship arrived on the scene. She was the 7,016-ton Union Castle cargo liner Rothesay Castle, commanded by Captain Ernest Furlong and inbound to Glasgow from the USA. She had received the Cheyenne’s distress calls and was hurrying to help, but sighting the U-boat on the surface, Captain Furlong, having come this far without molestation, had second thoughts and steamed away at full speed. Heinicke, desperate to get the survivors off his hands, gave chase. The Rothesay Castle, however, had a service speed of 16 knots, and with a little encouragement from the bridge her engineers produced an extra knot. Realizing he had little hope of overhauling the British ship, Heinicke returned to the Cheyenne’s lifeboats. He informed Captain Kerr that he had been in contact with the eastbound German passenger liner Köln and that she would pick them up. He set course to the west and told the boats to follow him. With visions of a German prisoner of war camp looming, Kerr was reluctant to agree, but he had no other option.
Both lifeboats were under oars and sail, but the wind was fitful and light, and the U-boat was soon out of sight. Kerr followed in her wake for about four hours, at which point smoke on the horizon indicated that U-53 was returning. Heinicke informed Kerr that the Köln had refused to pick up survivors and was continuing on her voyage, but that he would tow the Cheyenne’s boats to within sight of the Irish coast to ensure their rescue. While the tow was being discussed, the Campbell-class destroyer HMS Mackay came over the horizon and opened fire on the stationary U-53 with her 4.7s.
HMS Mackay had been with the westbound convoy OB 3 when two other destroyers, Vansittart and Walker, were in collision. Walker was so badly damaged that she was unable to proceed under her own steam and had radioed for help. This was the call the salvage tug Neptunia had been answering when she met her end at the hands of Otto Schuhart’s U-29.
U-53 was so engrossed in trying to sink the wreck of the Cheyenne that she failed to see the approach of HMS Mackay. She had only just succeeded in setting the forward section of the wreck on fire when she found herself on the receiving end of the destroyer’s guns, whose first shells fell within 100yds of the submarine. More shells followed, and Heinicke was forced to crash-dive. Mackay followed up with a few depth charges, but U-53 escaped without damage.
Having landed the crew of the British Influence at Baltimore, Co. Cork, the Norwegian motor vessel Ida Bakke had resumed her passage to Panama, but she had been only a few hours at sea when she was once again called upon to play the Good Samaritan. On the afternoon of the 15th she picked up distress calls from the Cheyenne, then being fired on by U-53. Captain Zakariassen immediately increased speed and headed for the position given.
By this time, with HMS Mackay out of sight in pursuit of U-53 and with darkness closing in, Captain Kerr and his men faced the prospect of a long and uncomfortable night in their open boats. They were more than delighted when the Ida Bakke appeared. Twenty-four hours later, they too had been landed at Baltimore, where they joined the crew of the British Influence to await transport to the UK. In the meantime, HMS Mackay had completed what Ernst-Günter Heinicke had begun, using her guns to send to the two broken halves of the Cheyenne to the bottom, along with what remained of her cargo of benzine. In the opening days of the war, U-29 and U-53 had thus already denied their enemy 24,000 tons of precious fuel. The first round had gone to the U-boats.
During the night that followed, the two U-boats in question received orders to search for Convoy OB 3, whose escort force had been seriously depleted, firstly by the disabling of HMS Walker and then by the diversion of HMS Mackay to the aid of the Cheyenne. On the afternoon of the 17th, while carrying out a sweep for OB 3 some 350 miles west of Cape Clear, U-53 sighted an unescorted merchant ship on an easterly course. She was the 5,193-ton Newcastle-registered Kafiristan, homeward bound from Cuba with 8,870 tons of sugar. Heinicke stopped her and then sank her with a torpedo and gunfire. Six of the British ship’s crew died in the attack.
It had been another easy victory for Ernst-Günter Heinicke, but he was still trying to fight the war by the book, and under the Prize Rules he was now responsible for the safety of twenty-nine survivors in two lifeboats. His dilemma was solved by the appearance of the US-flag American Farmer, which came in sight en route to New York with passengers and cargo. Heinicke stopped her and ordered her to take the Kafiristan’s survivors on board. Under the threat of U-53’s guns, the neutral American complied. This humanitarian gesture almost cost Heinicke dear. While the survivors were boarding the American Farmer, a flight of three British Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers swooped out of the clouds and attacked the surfaced U-boat with bombs and machine-gun fire.
Fortunately for Heinicke, his lookouts were fully alert, and he was able to crash-dive before the attacking Swordfish did any real damage. However, in the rush to submerge, some of U-53’s gunners were left on the casings and they drowned as the U-boat went down. The British planes were from the 25,000-ton aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, which was on anti-submarine patrol nearby, and they had been flown off in answer to the Kafiristan’s urgent radio calls for help. Due to his insistence on adhering to the Prize Rules, Heinicke had taken a risk too far, and U-53 was lucky to have survived the surprise attack.
Two of Courageous’ four-destroyer screen had also been sent to the defence of the Kafiristan, leaving the carrier dangerously exposed, a situation of which Otto Schuhart in U29 was quick to take advantage, although the meeting of the two enemies was purely by chance. U-29, still casting around for Convoy OB 3, was running at periscope depth when an aircraft was sighted circling low down. The biplane was identified as a Fairey Swordfish, which had a short range; and as the nearest British airfield was over 500 miles away, Schuhart correctly assumed that a British aircraft carrier must be somewhere close by. Remaining at periscope depth, he continued searching, and at 1800 smoke was sighted on the horizon. Within the hour, Schuhart had Courageous in his sights.
It so happened that as U-29 approached within torpedo distance of the carrier she had turned into the wind to land the Swordfish returning from their mission to protect the Kafiristan. The huge 786ft-long carrier, standing high out of the water and virtually hove to, was a target not to be missed, and when Schuhart fired a spread of three torpedoes, two of them went home in her engine room. She capsized and sank in fifteen minutes, taking with her 518 of her crew of 1,520.
Ernst-Günter Heinicke commanded U-53 for only two patrols, in which he sank only two ships, the tanker Cheyenne and the Kafiristan. In each case he made every effort to abide by the Prize Rules, particularly in the treatment of survivors. For his diligence he was relieved of his command in December 1939 and sent to serve under Korvettenkapitän Helmuth von Ruckteschell in the commerce raider Widder. The move proved to be a culture shock for Heinicke, since Von Ruckteschell was notorious for not taking prisoners. U-53, then under the command of Korvettenkapitän Harald Grosse, was sunk off the Shetland Islands on 24 February l940 by the destroyer HMS Gurkha. U-29 had a more successful career, sinking another nine Allied ships before being taken out of active service early in 1941. She spent the rest of the war in the Baltic as a training boat.
By the time the first month of the war came to an end, British shipping had received a severe mauling at the hands of Dönitz’s U-boats. Thirty-three British merchantmen had fallen to their torpedoes, a total of 153,000 tons gross. And it would get worse, much worse.