December, 1940)
On September 1, 1940, Dönitz moved his headquarters from Sengwarden near Wilhelmshaven to Paris, as part of the scheme to group together all the command posts for "Operation Sea Lion"— the invasion of England. He set up his offices in one of those large, generously planned houses on the Boulevard Suchet; it was here that he spent what was probably the happiest time of the war—happy because the U-boats were achieving great successes while their own losses fell away to nothing. With him was his small personal staff, and every few days his U-boat captains came there to report, as they returned from patrol.
Every morning on the stroke of nine he would enter the operations room and the operational staff officer would deliver an account of the events of the night; he would report on the signals
received and dispatched, the details of boats due to sail and those returning to base, and the developments of any operation currently in progress. The staff officer would be succeeded by
other experts, announcing requests for escorts or submitting the latest intelligence reports, logistics, details of new boats, and so on. Occasionally the admiral would interrupt with a question as to detail and follow this up with an order. Then began the daily problem of the U- boat dispositions. What would the enemy do? Which course would he take? The main problem was always the same—what is the best way of spreading a small number of boats over the widest possible area, so as to cause the maximum damage to the enemy? There were still wide gaps in the ring round Britain and these could not be closed until there had been a substantial influx of new boats; but this could not occur before 1941.
Because of the desperate shortage of aircraft there was little information they could rely on: a handful of reports from boats at sea, an occasional intelligence report based on the interception and decryption of enemy signals, a few secret agents' reports on the assembly and departure of convoys from enemy ports.
[The word decryption is used to denote the complex cryptographic process of unraveling an encyphered enemy signal, which the enemy believed to be secure against such a process.] There was no more urgent need than that of a regular air-reconnaissance service, and since this was not forthcoming the U-boat operations staff had to rely upon a sort of sixth sense of their own. From time to time a short incoming signaJ would show that their guesses had been correct. Then messengers would dash to the radio room with a batch of signals for immediate dispatch:
"U 32, 46 and 52 are to attack the convoy reported by U 48. U 48 is to maintain contact for the
rest. . . ." And then for twenty-four hours or more, the staff on shore would wait tensely for the outcome. Would the boats get there in time? What was the weather like in the Atlantic? How big was the convoy and how strong was the escort? Piece by piece they built up a picture of the operation, as brief reports came in from the attacking U-boats. At last a signal would come in which showed that the climax was approaching: "Enemy in sight, position xyz, course southeast, am attacking. . . ."
From lime to time the admiral flew to the bases on the Biscay coast, to maintain contact with his men; someone who accompanied him on these trips has described a visit to Lorient He was at the water's edge one evening, surrounded by his officers, their laughter and talk echoing out over the water. They were all awaiting the return of one of their number; they never missed such an occasion, for each of them knew what it meant to find a welcome when your boat came back from an operation.
As twilight was falling the boat came in sight, her gray paint rusted over and her colors faded. The crew were standing on deck—it was the first time for many a day that they could safely do so in broad daylight. Their beards were long and their clothes reeked of U-boat, but their spirits were high at the prospect of coming home. The U-boat slid slowly alongside; on the bridge the officer of the watch, with the. confidence bom of long practice, was giving orders for making fast The cheers of greeting rang out as ropes flew through the air and were secured. There was a shout of "Finished with main engines!" and the slim young captain came quickly over the side to jump on to the landing stage.
"Beg to report, Sir, U Thirty-eight returned from patrol." "Well, are you satisfied?"
"Not entirely, Sir, only twenty thousand tons. We ought to have got far more." "Muster your ship's company," said the admiral.
There was a shouting of orders, the rush of feet, then silence as he stepped on board. "Heil, U
Thirty-eight!"
"Heil, Herr Admiral!" came the reply in unison.
He walked slowly down the line of men, each one of whom felt the searching eye upon him; then he addressed the crew. "Men! Your boat has sunk over one hundred thousand tons in only three patrols. The credit for this splendid performance goes chiefly to your gallant captain. Lieutenant Liebe, the Führer has conferred upon you the Knight's Cross and it is my pleasure to hand it to you." The broad red ribbon gleamed in the evening light as the flag lieutenant clipped it round the young officer's neck. The admiral shook his hand, then stood back and raised his hand to his cap. "Three cheers for Lieutenant Liebe!" As the cheers echoed through the harbor, Liebe stood motionless at the salute. He had a faraway look, as though still regretting the convoy that had eluded hin.
In October it was finally decided to postpone Operation Sea Lion for that year, and U-boat headquarters were promptly moved to a villa requisitioned from a sardine merchant at Ker-nevel, which stood near the sea between Lorient and Lamor-plage, in the shelter of some fine old trees. From the broad windows of the operations room there was a fine view over toward Port Louis and the fort at the entrance to the harbor.
The first year of hostilities had ushered in many changes; the war at sea grew more intense as the land victories in Denmark, Norway and France gave the U-boats valuable bases in Northern and Western Europe. Yet Dönitz made it clear to his officers that he expected even greater stresses in the future, and that the successes they had achieved so far were no more than pinpricks in the enemy's veins. Their task, he said, was to bleed the enemy white, slowly but surely; although they would soon be getting more U-boats, he warned them that the war would last a very long tune.
In the quiet of his office at Kernevel, Dönitz often paced round and round the big table, absorbed in the cares which never left him, even at this tune of great successes and no serious losses. The reports of returning captains emphasized the ever-growing protection that the enemy was giving to his convoys—more destroyers, more escort vessels, more star shells to lift the cover of darkness from the attacking U-boats. What of the future? Had he done all he could to safeguard his boats? He knew that Admiral von Friedeburg, the gifted head of his organization department at Kiel, had got well in hand all the problems of reinforcement and supply, of the quality and efficiency of the new boats; but he was ever alive to the possibility of new enemy A/S devices, which might force the U-boats back on the defensive. It was not essential to destroy them; all that the enemy needed was to foil their attacks by locating them in good lime and forcing them under water for long enough to let the convoy get out of range.
He looked at the balance sheet for September 1, 1940, produced, by Lieutenant Winter, one of his staff officers:
U-boat strength at outbreak of war ... 57 Boats commissioned during the first year... 28 Losses during the first year ... 28 Strength on September 1, 1940... 57 Operational boats in commission in 1939... 39 Operational boats in commission in 1940... 27
The reduction in operational boats in 1940 was due to more boats being on trials and shakedown. Moreover, with the prospect of many new boats commissioning in 1941, it was necessary to transfer some operational boats to the training organizations.
Thus, at the end of one year of war, the Germans had fewer boats available for operations than they had started with. On an average, only seven or eight U-boats were at sea at any one time, representing only a third or a quarter of their total strength. Yet the balance sheet for September 1, 1940, showed unmistakable overall gains. Against the loss of 46 per cent of the U-boat strength could be set the destruction of one battleship, an aircraft carrier, three destroyers, two submarines, five auxiliary cruisers said some 440 merchant ships totaling 2,330,000 tons. These results had greatly exceeded all expectations. The loss of nearly half the U-boats was mainly due to two factors; the initial inexperience of captains and crews, and technical
weaknesses in the boats which revealed themselves only under the stress of depth charging. On the other hand, the boats had mostly survived the ordeal of long submersion; they had not had to surface for lack of air or battery power. Nevertheless, Dönitz faced the future with considerable misgivings and exerted all the pressure he could to get the French shipyards developed and expanded; for this would not only relieve the congestion in the yards at home but would also speed up repairs and turn around between patrols. The short but highly successful patrols in the autumn of 1940 resulted in the U-boats expending all their torpedoes and then returning to base more or less simultaneously; this caused a temporary lull in the Atlantic, much to the enemy's advantage.
Moreover, since the occupation of France, the British had switched their shipping routes from the English Channel—so near to the U-boat bases—to the waters round the Rockall Bank and the North Channel. To counter this move, the U-boats were dispatched to the approaches to the North Channel, often within sight of land, and disposed in scouting Unes, zigzagging to search as much of the area as possible. Their problem was still the same. By keeping close to the coast they reduced the area to be watched, but a convoy would frequently reach the safety of the North Channel before the U-boats on either wing could come up with it. If the boats moved too far out to the west, their numerical weakness made it less likely that they would locate the enemy. Without their own long-range air reconnaissance, the boats were thrown back on their own resources, and had to find their own targets. Occasionally they did so with great success, as for instance on September 20, 1940, when Prien came upon Convoy HX 72, maintaining contact until five other boats could join him; between them they sank twelve ships and damaged another within two days.
[Convoy HX 72, consisting of forty-seven ships, was attacked between the twentieth and twenty- second of September and lost eleven ships.]
As already mentioned, between the seventeenth and twentieth of October, eight boats were involved in an attack on two convoys almost simultaneously and, according to British reports, sank thirty-two ships and damaged four more.
A particular problem now was the visible reinforcement of the enemy's air patrols. Since the end of the summer more and more Sunderland flying boats had been sighted, even far out to the west, and it was clear that if ever the enemy managed to extend his air patrols over the whole Atlantic, the task of the U-boats would be made much harder, especially when attacking in daylight. The secret report, drawn up each month, showing the tonnage sunk by each boat for every day spent at sea, was very illuminating. For example when, in October, the U-boats located two convoys— SC 7 and HX 79—the score worked out at 920 tons per U-boat per day; but although the radio intercept service reported four convoys at sea in November, the U-boats never found them in the
stormy weather and the figure for that month dropped to 430 tons per boat per day. In December,
U 101 under her second captain, Mergersen, located Convoy HX 90. Other boats, including
Prien's, joined in; fourteen ships were sunk and three others damaged, and the monthly figures went up to 697 tons.
[HX 90, consisting of thirty-five ships, actually lost ten ships sunk by U-boats, one ship sunk by aircraft and one ship damaged.]
But the crux of the whole problem was the finding of the convoys; once they were located, the wolf-pack tactics proved very effective.
An: average of only four to six U-boats operated off the North Channel between November, 1940, and January, 1941 —a mere two hundred to three hundred men against the whole of England! And not only against England, for they also had to battle against the everlasting storms and the cold, groping their way blindly through heavy seas which would throw the torpedoes off course and. send great waves thundering down on the bridge, so that attack was beyond the range of human capacity.