The Allied Air Campaign Against Hitler's U-Boats: Victory in the Battle of the Atlantic by Timothy S Good

Author:Timothy S Good [Good, Timothy S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Wars & Conflicts, World War II, General, Military, Aviation & Space, Modern, 20th Century, Transportation, Ships & Shipbuilding, Submarines
ISBN: 9781399096522
Google: jsSAEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0B98QSMVL
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2022-09-14T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 13

November–December 1943

During the last two months of 1943 the Allied air campaign continued to succeed, with the Liberators taking the leading role. The B-24s attacked six of the twelve U-boats destroyed by aircraft during this time. Allied forces totalled twenty U-boats destroyed at sea, resulting in aircraft contributing 60 per cent of the total, and Liberators’ successes accounting for 30 per cent, nearly one-in-three of all Allied U-boat victories. However, the greatest insight regarding anti-submarine efforts during these months occurred not at sea, but on shore, with the Allied conferences that differed sharply from that in Casablanca in 1942. The Allies’ altered attitude towards Dönitz’s U-boats, as witnessed at the Sextant and the Eureka conferences, stemmed from the successful U-boat assaults, especially by Allied aircraft. The conferences well demonstrated that 1943 marked the turning point in the U-boat war. The hope with which Dönitz had greeted the new year with his new position and vastly increased influence had been dissipated by Allied aircraft during the long months that followed his promotion.

British Liberators successfully attacked two Nazi Type VIIC U-boats during this time. On 16 November, 86 Squadron Liberator Mk. III ‘M’ rendezvoused with its assigned convoy in the mid-North Atlantic at 0906 hours, and at 1025 hours the crew spotted U-280 west of Ireland. The pilot, Flight Officer J.H. Bookless, initiated an ‘immediate attack’. On approach, the nose gunner opened fire and scored hits on the conning tower as the U-boat remained on the surface and instituted ‘tight turns to port’. German gun fire disabled the outer port engine and the depth charges ‘overshot, so the aircraft prepared for a second attack’. Bookless swung the Liberator around and ‘three minutes later’ the nose gunner struck the conning tower multiple times while ‘knocking out the forward gunner’. Yet, the depth charges overshot, with the ‘nearest exploding 30ft from the hull’. Bookless remained in the area and ‘a few minutes later the U-boat slowly submerged without any forward movement’. The aircraft loitered for over an hour and while the crew witnessed ‘no evidence of damage’, the attacks did sink U-280. The forty-nine crew members went down with the boat, which was on its first patrol having not engaged any Allied vessels.¹

The following month, on the 13th, in the Bay of Biscay, 53 Squadron Liberator Mk. V ‘B’ began a ‘Square search’ hunt in the darkness at 0413 hours after the Allies suspected that a U-boat was operating in the area. The RAF had equipped Mk. V B-24s with radar, but this morning, the aircraft suffered both radar and intercom issues, resulting in only momentary contacts. This irregularity required the crew to use the Leigh Light for verification, an action that immediately brought the aircraft to the attention of U-391’s crew and they responded with machine gun fire. The crew ‘switched off’ the light and the pilot, Squadron Leader G. Crawford, ‘manoeuvred to attack up moon’. The U-boat fire ceased, leading the crew to assume that the Germans had ‘lost sight of the aircraft’.

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