Bloodstained Sea: The U.S.Coast Guard in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1941-1944 by Michael G. Walling

Author:Michael G. Walling [Walling, Michael G.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Cutter Publishing
Published: 2009-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

AT 4:10 AM ON FEBRUARY 7, facing the increasing onslaught, Commander Proudfoot ordered all escorts not in contact with the convoy to return immediately and take up their respective stations. Only Lobelia had been given permission to stay behind and rescue survivors from torpedoed ships, but she didn’t know about the Mallory.

Schenck had also had an active night. At 1:10 AM she had been ordered to “sweep out” along the convoy’s port quarter. As she was heading back fifty minutes later, her lookouts saw white flares, indicating a ship that had been torpedoed, and observed several steady lights appearing to come from a ship on the other side of the convoy. At 2:10 AM, orders came to “Go and assist Campanula.”

As Schenck steamed across the stern of the convoy at twenty knots, the crew felt an explosion followed by a blast of flame. Schenck soon was among life rafts and began her primary job of hunting for U-boats in the area. Star shells from Schenck lit up a suspicious black shape. Closing at top speed, the destroyer had to reverse her engines suddenly to avoid colliding with the British escort Campanula. As Schenck continued to search, her lookouts saw signal lights blinking. The ship passed through an oil slick, spotted Bibb, then investigated machine gun fire before rejoining the convoy at 5:31 AM. Schenck’s commanding officer, W. S. Estabrook, Jr., noted in his report: “Searching was made difficult by the unusual darkness of the night.” He makes no mention of seeing any survivors in his search.

Shortly thereafter, Estabrook received an order from the escort commander to proceed to the vicinity of Toward. Schenck was to arrive on scene at dawn, search for survivors for one hour, then rejoin the convoy. The starting point for Schenck’s search was roughly twenty-two miles astern.

Proudfoot canceled these orders five minutes later, but at 5:55 AM, Schenck saw several lights bobbing in the water; the destroyer’s crew believed that they belonged to the survivors on life rafts. Estabrook asked permission to remain in the vicinity until daylight to pick up survivors. Proudfoot replied that Lobelia would rescue survivors and Schenck should return to the convoy. Following this last order, Schenck returned to her station.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.