Convoy HG-76- the Escorts Strike Back by Martin Bourne

Author:Martin Bourne
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Vandering Publications
Published: 1998-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

The U-boats attack.

As dusk fell the U-boats began to close in on the convoy. In the last glow of the setting sun Penstemon spotted one of them (U-574) and calling for help, moved to attack. Both Stanley and Convolvulous responded, and gunfire quickly forced the U-boat down. The three escorts spent nearly two hours prosecuting the contact with asdic, dropping odd depth charges at intervals. Nonetheless, U-574 managed to give her assailants the slip. During the search U-67 attempted to torpedo Convolvulous, and the corvette was forced to make a hasty turn to comb the tracks of several torpedoes. Finally the escorts gave up and set course to rejoin the convoy.

This was the opportunity Korvetten-Kapitan Gentelbach of U-574 had been looking for. He surfaced and followed the escorts, hoping that he would be lead directly to the merchant ships. The British were alive to the possibility of this. The corvettes went ahead, while Stanley used a broad zigzag in the rear to try and throw off such a shadowing attempt. Gentelbach was up to the challenge however, and was able to close in on the convoy.

Around about 0345 Stanley spotted U-574 again. Ten minutes later torpedoes approached her from the port quarter. She turned sharp to starboard at full speed and signalled the flagship that she was under attack. Walker, unsure of Stanley's exact position, ordered her to fire starshell. Before the order could be obeyed the two ships came into view of each other. They were just exchanging challenges when Stanley spotted more torpedoes approaching on her port beam that were too close to avoid. One struck just forward of amidships. There was a titanic explosion, in which flames leaped several hundred feet into the moon-less sky. The luckless destroyer listed heavily, then broke in two and sank. Every merchant ship in the convoy promptly fired off "snowflake" rockets but, as was to happen all too often, the sudden illumination aided the U-boats as much as it did the defenders. The British were lucky, with torpedoes just missing Stork, Audacity and the merchant ship Largo.

Walker had ordered "buttercup astern", and a large number of escorts turned to the rear to hunt U-574. Stork herself made the contact at a mere 700 yards range and Walker ordered a snap attack. Stork fired two depth charge patterns that were so shallow that she damaged her own dynamo. A third attack was begun, but the submarine had been heavily damaged and surfaced only 200 yards from the sloop.

Stork manoeuvred to ram, but U-boats are small and agile and U-574 was able to turn inside the escort. The range was too short to depress guns, and so the two vessels madly turned about each other, the crews exchanging curses and shaking fists. They completed three entire circles in the next eleven minutes. Eventually Stork managed to strike U-574 just before the conning tower and rolled her over. The U-boat scraped down Storks side to her aft, where she was finished off by ten depth charges dropped at minimum setting.

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