Authors: Ed Offley
CHAPTER 4: WAR IN THE ETHER
1
. Locations of U-701 and U-653 and numbers of U-boats in the Atlantic on January 7, 1942, from BdU KTB for that date; Feiler background information from Rainer Busch and Hans-Joachim Röll,
German U-boat Commanders of World War II
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999) 66; radio network for U-boat communications described in Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 68; daily staff meeting at BdU operations center including Hessler duties as A 1 operations officer from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 67–69.
2
. German surface raider
Atlantis
seizure of British codebooks from David Kahn,
The Codebreakers
(New York: Scribner, 1996), 465–466; reading Naval Cypher No. 3 from Michael Gannon,
Black May
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1998), 56; B-Dienst provided 50 percent of all intelligence to BdU from David Kahn,
Seizing the Enigma
(New York: Random House, 1991), 262–263.
3
. Naval Enigma machine design and operating procedures from Kahn,
Seizing the Enigma
, 195–198, 285–290; also Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 425–426.
4
. Rejewski solution of Enigma from Kahn,
Seizing the Enigma
, 62–67; Bletchley Park opening, Kahn,
Seizing the Enigma
, 88; OIC role in tracking U-boats from Patrick Beesly,
Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939–1945
(London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1977), 22–23, 96–99.
5
. U-boat Situation Report, week ending January 5, 1942, Operational Intelligence Centre, from the British National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom, declassified from Most Secret.
6
. U-boat Situation Report, week ending January 12, 1942, Operational Intelligence Centre, from the British National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom, declassified from Most Secret.
7
. British-American intelligence sharing from May 1941 from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 165.
CHAPTER 5: OPERATION DRUMBEAT
1
. U-123 attack on
Cyclops
from U-123 KTB for January 12, 1942, provided by U-boat Archive at
www.uboatarchive.net
; also Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 203–209, and “Cyclops,”
Uboat.net
,
www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1243.html
; Dönitz instructions for simultaneous attack from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 80; exception for 10,000-ton ships from Dönitz,
Memoirs
, 198;
Cyclops
casualties from Wynn,
U-boat Operations
, 1:99.
2
. Profiles of other Paukenschlag U-boats and their commanders from Wynn,
U-boat Operations
, vols. 1 and 2, and Busch and Röll,
German U-boat Commanders
.
3
. Eastern Sea Frontier boundaries from Eastern Sea Frontier War Diary, December 1941, Appendix 1, U-boat Archive,
www.uboatarchive.net/ESFWarDiaryDec41.htm
.
4
. Andrews biography from “Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews,” Naval History and Heritage Command,
www.history.navy.mil/bios/andrews_adolphus.htm
; Morison and Stimson comments about Andrews from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 175; Rollins and burning waste can incident from Alexander W. Moffat,
A Navy Maverick Comes of Age: 1939–1945
(Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1977), 48–50.
5
. Rainbow Five war plan responsibilities of Eastern Sea Frontier from ESF War Diary for December 1941, 5; U-boat campaign against Atlantic coast in 1918 from William Bell Clark,
When the U-boats Came to America
(Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1929), 302–305; King letter from ESF War Diary for January 1942, ch. 3, 6.
6
. Many of the warships transferred to the Pacific Fleet after Pearl Harbor were actually returning to their original assignment, including the carrier
USS Yorktown
and the three older battleships. All had been transferred to the Atlantic in mid-1941 when tensions over the U-boats had spiked; see Abbazia,
Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy
, 172; for King warning on coastal threat from U-boats, see King to CNO Stark, undated but written between December 14 and 30, 1941, in NARA RG 80, CINCLANT, Box 108.
7
. Roster of Atlantic Fleet destroyers in December 1941 and January 1942 from Blair,
Hitler’s U-boat War
, 1:750–753; location of destroyers on January 12, 1942, from analysis of individual destroyer histories and deck logs for that date by the author; deck logs from NARA RG 24, filed by ship’s names.
8
. Status of patrol craft and airplanes assigned to Eastern Sea Frontier from ESF War Diary for January 1941, Appendix 2.
9
. OIC messages routed to ESF Headquarters and Lieutenant Braue decrypting procedure from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 173; U-boat dispositions on January 12, 1942, from “Operational Intelligence Centre Special Intelligence Summary” for that date, PRO ADM 223/15, declassified from Most Secret, Public Records Office, Kew, United Kingdom. The previous assessment on January 5 dispatched from the British OIC to US Navy Headquarters, which unmasked U-653’s radio deception operation, also noted “a concentration of six U-boats off Cape Race, St. John’s and Argentia” but at that time had no evidence of their ultimate mission.
10
. Discovery of the COMINCH alert message of January 12, 1942, by naval historian Michael Gannon in 1987 in the archives of the National Security Agency is one of the more explosive revelations to emerge from all of World War II, since it, for the first time, explicitly confirmed that the US Navy had detailed, advance information that could have allowed it to preempt the U-boat attacks.
11
. Combat-ready status of destroyers on January 12, 1942, based on analysis of ship deck logs for that date (NARA RG 24): the
USS Benson, USS Bernadou, USS Dallas, USS Du Pont, USS Gwin, USS Lea, USS Monssen
, and
USS Upshur
were at the Boston Navy Yard, while the newly commissioned
USS Ellyson
was undergoing system checks at Newport. In addition, another six combat-ready destroyers were at Casco Bay, Maine, two destroyers were at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, and at least two more were in Norfolk. Another four destroyers were in port undergoing repairs or maintenance, and their ability to get underway on short notice was uncertain. Distance to U-123 at 2200 EWT on January 12 calculated from U-boat position report for that date and time in U-123 KTB at the U-boat Archive; distance determined by latitude-longitude calculator at
Indo.com
.
12
. Details of
USS Gwin
passage from Boston to New York taken from the ship’s deck logs for January 13, 1942, from NARA RG 24, Box 3891; U-123 movements from the U-boat’s KTB for January 13–14, 1942.
13
. Details of
Norness
and its sinking from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 217–220; “M/T Norness,”
Warsailors.com
,
www.warsailors.com/singleships/norness.html
; and “Norness,”
Uboat.net
,
www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/1248.html
. There is no indication from the
Gwin’s
deck log of any message regarding the
Norness
.
14
. Details of Convoy AT10 from Blair,
Hitler’s U-boat War
, 1:445–447, 757; escort ships from “AT10,” Convoy Web,
www.convoyweb.org.uk/at/index.html
; besides the
Gwin
, the destroyers in Task Force 15 included
USS Charles F. Hughes
,
USS Eberle
,
USS Grayson
,
USS Hilary P. Jones
,
USS Ingraham
,
USS Lansdale
,
USS Livermore
,
USS Ludlow
,
USS Mayrant
,
USS Meredith
,
USS Monssen
,
USS Roe
,
USS Rowan
,
USS Stack
,
USS Sterrett
,
USS Trippe
, and
USS Wainwright
. The destroyers
Charles F. Hughes
,
Hilary P. Jones
,
Ingraham
, and
Lansdale
at the last minute were reassigned to Task Force 16, which left New York on January 21 escorting Convoy BT200 with eight troopships bound for the Pacific; reduction of army troops for Iceland from Stetson Conn, Rose C. Engelman, and Byron Fairchild,
United States Army in World War II: The Western Hemisphere—Guarding the United States and Its Outposts
(Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1964), 533–534.
CHAPTER 6: HORRIFIC LOSSES
1
. U-701 operating conditions on January 15, 1942, from U-701 KTB 1 for that date; U-552 sinking of
Dayrose
from “Dayrose,”
Uboat.net
,
www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/1250.html
; comments on weather possibly delaying U-boats from BdU KTB for January 14, 1942.
2
. U-123 movements and actions and Hardegen description of sights in the early hours of January 15 from U-123 KTB for that date; Hardegen later comments from Reinhard Hardegen,
Battle Stations! (Auf Gefechtsstationen!)
(Leipzig: Boreas-Verlag, 1943); von Schroeter on bridge from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 233.
3
. Disclosure of the
Cyclops
and
Norness
attacks cited in articles in the
New York Times
: “10,000-Ton Ship Sunk by U-boat off Canada,” January 14, and “Ship Found Awash: Rescue Craft Rushed to Tanker When Plane Reports Plight,” January 15; Long Island residents spot glow from
Coimbra
fire from Gannon,
Drumbeat
, 234; the ESF report on the
Coimbra
stated that the wreckage was sixty-one nautical miles from the Ambrose Light at the entrance to New York, but it was much closer to Long Island’s eastern coast: twenty-seven nautical miles from Southampton confirmed by latitude-longitude calculator at
Indo.com
.
4
. Actions at Eastern Sea Frontier after
Coimbra
sinking from ESF Enemy Action Diary for January 14–15, 1942; the website
Uboat.net
, citing U-123’s war diary, put the
Coimbra
sinking at a slightly different location about sixteen nautical miles farther out to sea than that of the American patrol plane report; this is most likely due to navigational imprecision.
5
. Long Island officials quoted in “Navy Has No Word—Check Fails to Confirm Report of New Victim of U-boat off Coast,”
New York Times
, January 16, 1942; delay of thirty-seven hours for navy confirmation from ESF War Diary and “New U-boat Victim Confirmed by Navy,”
New York Times
, January 17, 1942; rescue of
Coimbra
survivors from “
Coimbra
,”
Uboat.net
,
www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/1251.html
.