You don’t read much in the papers about the “carrier war” in the Atlantic. Yet it was in the Atlantic that, we believe, our carrier-based Squadron contributed its best effort to the final victory over Germany and Japan.
When our unit, Composite Squadron Forty-Two (abbreviated to VC-42), was decommissioned after 26 busy months, a Navy public relations officer nicknamed it “Two-Ocean Forty-Two,” because of its extensive sub-hunting in both oceans. But as we look back on the war, our thoughts turn more frequently to “One Ocean”—the Atlantic. This story will tell you why.
The answer could be given coldly in outline form, as follows:
It was in the Atlantic that VC-42:
- Pioneered night anti-submarine flying from carriers.
- Participated in the destruction of three U-boats.
- Won the highest award that any outfit can receive, the Presidential Unit Citation.
But we believe you will get a clearer, fuller picture of the Navy carriers that guarded the bridge of ships between General Marshall in Washington and General Eisenhower in France from the following narrative of one Atlantic cruise aboard the escort carrier Bogue.
When VC-42 sailed from Norfqlk aboard the Bogue, it already had two U-boats to its credit. But the Bogue had been one of the first of the sub-killing carriers, and had a record in two digits, and our pilots were eager to add to both scores. Also, this particular cruise was to be a demonstration cruise! We were to show two high-ranking passenger-observers from Washington (one from the Navy, and one from the Army) how carrier planes sink subs!
Well, how do carriers sink U-boats?
Our distinguished passengers knew, before we sailed, that the general method was to send out a task group consisting of a small carrier and embarked squadron, and several escorting vessels—in this case five destroyer escorts. The captain of the carrier was also the “big boss” of the entire task group.
However, to see it in action was the mission of the officer-passengers—to see the difficulties, obstacles, and trials, as well as the triumphs, of carrier war in the Atlantic.
The trials and difficulties began early. On the very second day out, one of our pilots came in a little too low for a landing, struck the tail hook of his plane on the carrier’s ramp, and rolled up the flight deck without a tail hook to stop him. Before coming to halt, the heavy Avenger torpedo bomber had:
- Sheared off half the folded wings of the plane which had just landed ahead of it;
- Pushed another Avenger into the water, including three men who had been standing on it;
- Knocked a third plane over onto the fo’c’sle;
- Nosed up, its wings torn and its prop twisted, at the very brink of the bow, where its pilot could look right down into the ocean below.
But, not a person was hurt! A few hundred yards astern of us the Destroyer Escort II aver field, on station for landings and takeoffs, fished out of the water the three men who had gone overboard, and returned them to us a few hours later by breeches buoy.
On the material side, however, we had a setback. In a few swift seconds, at the very start of our cruise, four of our precious bombers had been demolished. Two of these had been specially equipped with experimental devices for anti-submarine detection.
But the cruise went on. The wreckage was cleaned up. A radio dispatch was sent requesting four replacement planes be flown from the United States to a foreign port and be given to us there. Flight operations proceeded, including practice “attacks” on a friendly submarine, and a simulated “bombing” of a nearby Allied convoy.
Within six days we had obtained the replacement planes—which, however, were standard Avengers, without the special gear we had lost—and were off again on our first hunt, for a U-boat reported more than one thousand miles away. We were to relieve a similar task group, which had been long at sea.
En route, the urgency of the mission was intensified by receipt of word that the hunted U-boat had turned the tables by torpedoing and sinking a destroyer escort of the group we were to relieve. There had been American lives lost, and many injuries.
The stricken task group’s commander sent us an urgent plea in terse official language: “Please expedite arrival.”
On the fifth day, we reached the scene and relieved the damaged carrier group. From then on, the U-boat, which had already spilled American blood, was “our baby.”
With the two official observers watching our every move, we set out on a hunt for that sub that was to last sixteen days, and end— well, the point I want to raise here is: Why did it take sixteen days for a force of more than 2000 men to find and destroy a submarine manned by fewer than 100?
What kind of a hunt was it, and what were the difficulties which protracted it? (Please do not think this was unusually long. Actually, it was an unusually successful cruise. What I want to bring out are the inherent problems in all sub hunts.)
Briefly, the method of carrier search was this: At dawn, both fighter and torpedo planes were launched to search 360° around the task group. After sunset, only torpedo planes conducted the night searches. Complete coverage of the waters within range of the carrier thus was effected 24 hours a day, round-the-clock, weather permitting.
If one plane obtained a “contact” (an indication of the presence of a submarine), the other planes in the air at the time were “vectored” to the scene by the carrier’s Combat Information Center (C.I.C.). An additional “killer group” (always ready on the carrier) was launched and directed to the action area. Thus a heavy concentration of aerial power could be brought to bear swiftly at any spot near the carrier.
Before you can cook your “rabbit,” however, you first have to catch him! And doing this was the most tedious, elaborate, and expensive game of “hide and seek” that the armed forces of desperate nations ever played against each other!
Before the war, in the pages of a magazine I had once ventured the opinion that the U- boat had been rendered ineffectual by recent inventions. Allow me now to revoke that view, most positively! Throughout the war, the German submarine was one of the most effective, elusive, and exasperating of naval weapons.
It is one thing for a pilot to fly out to a known objective and make a bombing attack at a predetermined time. It is quite another to fly hour after hour over empty ocean, finding nothing, doing nothing, except fighting drowsiness and dodging storms, returning at last to the carrier with seemingly nothing accomplished. The monotony of these long, anti-submarine patrols is understood only by those who have flown them.
Pilots say that one of the most difficult kinds of flying is landing and taking off from the tiny deck of a carrier. And the type carrier used in anti-sub work is the “baby flattop,” with the tiniest flight deck of all. The strain of daytime operations from these ships is great. But just imagine yourself coming in for a landing on a dark night. There are no searchlights or floodlights to mark the way. Only a dark and heaving deck somewhere below you, under one of those small, red truck lights. Coming up the “groove,” you look for the landing signal officer, who, you know, is at the ramp illuminated in ultraviolet light. Just ahead of you and a little below, there is a glow of soft light, then a swift movement in the light. That must be the “cut”! You close your throttle, and bring her down. Wooden decking appears beneath you. You feel the tail hook catch, and you are pulled to a stop. You are down!
That is how it should be. But more than once, on a dark night, “C.I.C.” found a plane preparing to land on a destroyer escort instead of the carrier!
From the day we started the sixteen-day hunt, we had a succession of tantalizing “contacts,” but none which we rated higher than “doubtful” until the thirteenth day of search. Those first thirteen days consisted of hunting (and probably of being hunted), of looking, listening, tracking, analyzing, and guessing, in a wearisome succession of both shipboard and aerial operations, both day and night, beset by obstacles both tragic and comic.
During five of those thirteen days, our planes were grounded completely by bad weather. So many promising “contacts” turned out, on investigation, to be friendly land-based planes, or harmless merchant vessels, or even schools of fish!
One day, one of our Avenger pilots, Alex, was sure he had found the U-boat at last. Putting his plane into a speedy glide, alerting his radioman and gunner, and arming his bombs, he sped eagerly toward the target. One hundred fifty feet above the long, dark object, surrounded by foaming water, he dropped his bombs. Too late he recognized the object as not a submarine but an innocent, spouting whale! When Alex returned to the carrier, his fellow-pilots had the ready room plastered with “tributes” to his achievement. One of the citations on the blackboard read: “Alex the Whale-Killer! Daring! Dauntless! Unafraid! Freed the World from the Whale-Menace!”
But tragedy also struck at our operations. The saddest incident of the cruise came on the tenth day of intensive hunting. Another of our pilots took off in his Avenger plane about midnight on a routine night search. At approximately 0300, he reported a “contact,” which he said he would investigate. No further word ever was received from him. Repeatedly, the carrier called him. Silence was the only answer. Other planes searched diligently for him and his two crewmen for days without success. It is remotely possible that his “contact” was a U-boat which shot them down. What actually happened to that stout crew we will never know. But we missed them keenly!
It was fortunate that the tempo of the search soon increased. On the second day afterward, “contacts” were hot enough for one of the destroyer escorts to attack with depth charges. Although results were negative, we expected more action momentarily —and the next day we got it!
Flying on a night search, a Bogue pilot came at last upon a fully surfaced submarine proceeding westward toward the American coast. Attacking at 75 feet altitude, he released his bombs and pulled out, apparently taking the U-boat completely by surprise. As he turned back to the spot, the sub was no longer to be seen.
We had long discussions as to the degree of success of this attack. There was also debate as to whether this was the particular sub we were after, or another. Factors in the discussion were: (1) In the absence of photographs, it was impossible to tell whether the bombs had straddled the sub, or fallen short; (2) Since no debris had been found on the water afterwards, there was no positive proof of damage. While the task group commander evaluated the attack as having “probably sunk” the sub, the conservative assessment committee in Washington, long afterward, gave a verdict of “no damage” to the U-boat.
There was no question, however, of the excellent achievement of another Avenger crew in locating the sub at night, nor of the bravery and skill of their attack; and they were subsequently honored for pioneering night anti-submarine warfare from carrier-based aircraft.
In the absence of conclusive proof that we had our sub, the search went on, more hopefully and intensively than before. Additional planes scoured the area of this last attack, in the belief that if the sub had not been sunk it would soon have to come to the surface.
At this crucial moment, bad weather again developed, forcing the cancellation of all hops and the retirement of the entire task group to the southwest. This, we thought, would ruin everything! Actually, however, the enforced “gambit” gave us the long- sought opportunity. After retiring all night before the frontal storm, the ship’s aerologist in the morning predicted an opening in the weather to the north. An Avenger was sent to the spot—and there was another sub!
By coincidence, the plane which made this important sighting was that of the Squadron’s efficient “whale killer,” Alex!
He had been flying just under a solid cover of strato-cumulus clouds; and the sub evidently had interpreted the bad weather of the night before as making it safe to surface. Then, at 1230, Alex and his crew sighted the U-boat cruising at about 10 knots on a northerly heading. The sub must likewise have spotted them, for, instead of submerging, the sub commander elected to shoot it out with the single bomber. When the plane was still three miles away, the sub opened up with automatic weapons.
In return, Alex threw everything he had at the sub. Gliding down at terrific speed, he countered the AA fire with rocket salvoes at regular intervals.
Have you ever been on the receiving end of a rocket salvo? I have stood behind a barricade a few feet from a practice target, and watched these huge fire-driven chunks of metal hurtle down at me from diving planes. I’m mighty glad I wasn’t on the conning tower or the AA bandstands of that sub as Alex roared down at it.
Tracer shells were passing his wing tips as Alex went in. In face of the withering rocket fire, the U-boat turned, presenting its stern directly to the onrushing plane. Right up the deck of the U-boat Alex flew, at 100 feet, releasing two depth bombs beside the U-boat’s deck. As he pulled out of the glide, his turret gunner sent a burst of .50 caliber slugs into the conning tower as a parting gesture.
It was the two bombs, however, that did the trick, though we didn’t know this for sure until weeks later. Both landed to port and enveloped the U-boat in their terrific blasts, as Alex’s automatic camera recorded the scene. The turret gunner reported he could see debris flying off the tower—debris which, we learned later, included one of the U-boat’s three AA guns and five of the gunners!
At this moment, the sub commander changed his mind about fighting it out with the three men in the American torpedo bomber. He submerged. Below the surface, the Germans sought desperately to get their boat in operation, but their batteries had been ruined by the depth bombs, their motors rendered useless. An attempt to operate on diesels by raising the newfangled German Schnorkel, or air-intake and diesel-exhaust pipe, also failed. Fearing that their batteries would blow up any moment, the Nazis “blew tanks” and headed for the surface.
Meanwhile, all we knew on the carrier was that a sub had been located and attacked, and had submerged. With Alex staying at the scene to mark the spot, “C.I.C.” vectored three other Avengers to the scene as reinforcements, and the Air Officer launched two additional bombers and two fighters from the deck. All flew to Alex’s support.
In “C.I.C.,” the Bogue's captain was at the microphone, personally directing operations. In the ready room, the Squadron Commander and other pilots were listening to the radio with understandable excitement.
By the time the sub surfaced at 1430, an armada of planes from VC-42 was overhead, ready and waiting for the final kill. As the black periscopes and conning tower appeared through a mass of bubbling water, with the upraised Schnorkel now conspicuous above all else, there was only a moment’s hesitation in the sky above.
“Request permission to strafe,” called a fighter pilot with unnecessary caution.
Over the air came the Captain’s amazed voice: “Permission granted—give ’em hell!”
From then on, the planes were strafing in such quick succession as almost to get in each other’s way. The U-boat Captain and crew came tumbling out of the conning tower, dragging rubber life rafts which they inflated on deck. But the strafing went on in hopes of preventing them from abandoning and scuttling of the ship. There was no mercy asked for, and none given. It is known that the U-boat Captain and at least five other Nazis were killed.
It became a whimsical tradition in the Squadron, later, that the pilots, after their first hesitation, had “strafed by file numbers,” that is, in the order of seniority. It would have been well if some such system had been used, for there was more evidence of youthful eagerness than of mature coordination in the timing of the attacks. For example, two torpedo planes went in simultaneously from opposite sides of the sub, each intending to finish off the Nazi ship with bombs; but when they saw they were headed for a mid-air collision, they had to pull out and drop their bombs short of the target.
However, it is unquestionable that this gang of daredevil pilots played havoc with the U-boat in its last moments; and when they ran completely out of ammunition, they “shot” the sub with their cameras and obtained excellent closeups of the Schnorkel which were of great value to Naval Intelligence. All told, they made the abandonment of the sub a nightmare for the Germans.
Back on the carrier, at 1440, the robust voice of one of the Avenger pilots at the scene could be heard:
“She’s starting to sink! She’s going down by the bow! . . . Half submerged! ... Now only the conning tower is left!”
It was like a radio announcer’s play-by-play description of a football classic, or a World Series game, except that this was not a game.
“Oh, boy! There she goes!” came the exultant voice of another. “She’s sunk! The stern came up, she nosed over, and slid down. Golly!”
In “C.I.C.” and the ready room, we were cheering, shaking hands, and congratulating each other, when the first pilot’s voice broke in upon us once more, this time shriller than before.
“Look at that!” he yelled. “The whole thing’s blown up higher than hell! Debris and water a hundred feet in the air! Did you see that, fellows?”
Indeed, they all saw it, and were equally thrilled. One alert crewman even took a photo of that last, mighty, underwater explosion, the climax of the drama.
But VC-42 didn’t need the photos to prove that it had sunk its third U-boat. In the oil-covered, debris-strewn water were 42 survivors of the German crew. They were the evidence that the mission had been successful. While the circling planes were dropping smoke lights to mark the prisoners-to-be, the whole task group was steaming at flank speed for the scene of the battle. By 1600, the U.S.S. Janssen, Haverfield, Wilhoite, Willis, and Swenning, were at the scene, and the Janssen soon had the Nazis aboard. Next day, the prisoners (except one who died during the night) were transferred to the carrier.
This obviously gave our distinguished passengers what they had come to see. Our pilots had located two subs, and sunk one. (Although the night attack was later assessed as unsuccessful, it was rated definitely a second submarine.) And the task group commander was anxious to give the pilots and aircrews recognition for their achievement as soon as possible. Little did he, or any one, know how quickly it would come.
A few hours after tying up in a foreign port, four days later, who should be piped aboard but the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, who happened to be in that port on a visit of inspection. Hastily drawn up on the hangar deck, at attention, was the ship’s company, and the personnel of VC-42. In the hold were our 41 prisoners of war— the surviving crew members of the U-1229. One of the prisoners was a German civilian who used excellent English, carried hundreds of American dollars, and apparently was to have been landed on the American coast.
The Admiral spoke earnestly. “It is not often,” he said, “that I have the great pleasure of being able to view so promptly the courage and efficiency of units of my fleet. I want you to know that it is a great pleasure to come aboard your ship, while the evidence of your achievement is still aboard.”
After graduation from Haverford College, Lieutenant Commander Blackman was City Hall reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and later became Assistant City Editor of the Christian Science Monitor. During the war he served with the Navy in both the Atlantic and Pacific as an Air Combat Intelligence Officer. He is now obtaining his Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard University and teaching part-time at Simmons College.