To Die Gallantly by Timothy J Runyan Jan M Copes

Author:Timothy J Runyan, Jan M Copes [Timothy J Runyan, Jan M Copes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781000612264
Google: dsuqDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-08-22T01:37:21+00:00

The Bedforeshire Incident11

Alarmed by the large number of ships sunk off the eastern coast of the United States, in February 1942, the British government agreed to loan the U.S. Navy twenty-four antisubmarine corvettes. These ships were about one half the size of a World War IT-type destroyer, at 170 feet long, with a crew of four officers and thirty-three enlisted men. Their armament consisted of a four-inch quick-fire deck gun and a 303-caliber Louis machine gun. They also carried approximately 100 depth charges and were equipped with sonar.

It seems ironic that only two years after the United States gave (through its Lend-Lease program) fifty destroyers to the British the Americans would need some of their ships to combat the U-boat menace.

Among the twenty-four corvettes leaving England in early March was the HMS Bedfordshire. The ships travelled through the North Atlantic to Newfoundland, then Halifax, Nova Scotia and New York. At least one ship was lost during the winter gales on this trip, and the others arrived in New York in much need of repairs. Among the officers on board the Bedfordshire was Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham. The Bedfordshire spent April and part of May patrolling off the North Carolina coast between Morehead City and Norfolk, with Morehead City its home port. These ships were coal burners and required frequent refuelling.

In early May, a naval intelligence officer visited the ship to obtain British flags to use in the burial of British seamen at Cape Hatteras who lost their lives in ship sinkings. Sub-Lieutenant Cunningham was the officer who procured these flags for the U.S. Navy. The Bedfordshire then refuelled at Morehead City and left to check out a submarine siting report.

On the night of 12 May, U 558, captained by Gunther Krech, was cruising between Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout. Its mission to date had been uneventful, and the captain was beginning to wonder if he would have as successful a patrol on the American coast as his fellow commanders. Suddenly, the noises of a ship's screw were heard on the submarine's listening device, and a lookout saw the HMS Bedfordshire.

Visibility was limit ed. Krech decided to attack while surfaced because submarines can move much faster on the surface. The first torpedo fired by U 558 missed but the second torpedo hit the Bedfordshire squarely amidships, catapulting the ship into the air and sinking it almost immediately. No one survived this sinking.

The U.S. Navy, to which the British ships were attached, was not diligent in keeping track of these patrol craft, as evidenced by the fact that the navy did not know for several days what happened to HMS Bedfordshire.

On 14 May, while patrolling the shore at Ocracoke Island, a Coast Guardsman discovered the bodies of Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham and telegraphist Stanley Craig, later, two other bodies, unidentifiable, were recovered. These were removed to a small plot next to a local cemetery at Ocracoke Village and, with Coast Guard assistance and Protestant graveyard services, they were given proper burial. Ironically, the flag

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