Battle Over the Atlantic by John Quaife

Author:John Quaife
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Big Sky Publishing
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Flight Lieutenant Dudley Marrows DSO, DFC. (Australian War Memorial)

Leaving Cape Finisterre, Peter Jensen at the wireless operator station picked up a broadcast report of a U-boat sighting and, after a bit of searching, they eventually came across a Consolidated B-24 Liberator attacking a U-boat on the surface. The first thing they spotted was the strong barrage of fire and, as they got closer, quickly realised there were three U-boats! Two of the boats were large ‘Milchkuh’ (often partially anglicised to ‘milch cow’ meaning milk cow) resupply submarines and the third was a regular attack boat. They had been surprised on the surface by the Liberator from No 53 Squadron and were intent on fighting it out with their four-barrel 20 mm anti-aircraft cannons. When the Sunderland arrived, the first Liberator had already left the area. The fight had attracted a second Liberator from the USAAF 479th Anti-Submarine Group based at RAF Station St Eval in Cornwall, and two Halifax aircraft from No 502 Squadron.

The Halifax aircraft were at 2000-3000 feet aiming to attack with 600 lb bombs, while the Liberator was down at low altitude attempting to lay depth charges onto the U-boats. Given their lack of ballistic precision there was only one attack profile for depth charges. Sunderland aircraft had no bomb-sight and realistically no bomb-sight was required. The simple attack solution was to fly over the target at low altitude and when it was about right, the pilot would press a release button on his control yolk releasing a pre-set number of depth charges that would fall at set intervals. The lower the aircraft, the more accurate the release and, by programming the weapons to fall at intervals in a stick, there was a very good chance that one or more would arrive close to the target. Ideally the U-boat would be straddled amidships with more than one depth charge landing within lethal range. Aside from returning fire with their anti-aircraft weapons, U-boats would typically manoeuvre head on to any threat in order to present as low a profile as possible. As depth charges were dropped, the U-boat skipper would turn hard away from the falling ordnance.

On his first attempt, Dudley Marrows dropped his aircraft to low level, aggressively weaving left and right. As he approached the U-boats he was met by a wall of well-directed defensive fire. The Sunderland was peppered with shrapnel. Marrows broke away from the attack and saw that the Liberator had commenced a run at the boats while his Sunderland had been drawing the U-boat’s fire. Reversing roles, Marrows sequenced himself behind the American aircraft for his second attempt. Meanwhile one of the Halifax aircraft had successfully damaged one of the supply U-boats57 which appeared to lose power. The damaged boat began to circle slowly as its crew abandoned ship. Although the Liberator was drawing all of the fire from the U-boats the American pilot managed to get his depth charges away. Unfortunately, they all fell short.

Approaching the U-boats from behind the Liberator, the Sunderland was able to close to within a kilometre before drawing any fire.

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