OTDIH 23 October 1943

70-years ago today…

Großadmiral Karl Dönitz has 95 U-boats at sea. The Battle of the Atlantic was not over.

In the South Atlantic:

U-170, a Type IXC U-boat, KptLt Günther Pfeffer commanding, on its 2nd war patrol, torpedoed and sunk the unescorted Brazilian steam merchant Campos (4,663 GRT) 5-miles south of Alcatrazes Island, Brazil. The crew of 57 and 6 passengers took to the ship’s lifeboats, tragically two of which were struck by the ship’s screw, throwing the occupants to the water. 10 crew members and 2 passengers were lost.

SS Campos.

In the Black Sea:

U-23, a Type IIB U-boat, KptLt Rolf-Birger Wahlen commanding, on its 12th war patrol, torpedoed and sunk the Soviet motor merchant Tanais (372 GRT) anchored at Poti, Georgian SSR. The U-Boat was operating in the Black Sea with the 30th U-Boat Flotilla… having been transported overland to Konstanza, Rumania in 1942.

Type IIB coastal U-boat.

Setting a wartime record:

U-196, a Type IXD U-boat, KKpt Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat commanding, returned to Bordeaux, France… thus completing the longest patrol by any submarine during the Second World War: 256-days from 13 March to 23 October 1943.

KKpt Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat.

Attacked in the Atlantic:

U-190, a Type IXC U-boat, KptLt Max Wintermeyer commanding, on her 3rd war patrol, was surfaced ahead of convoy GUS-18 when attacked by the US Navy Gleaves-class destroyer USS Turner (DD-648). The Turner attacked the surfaced U-boat with her Mk 12 5-inch/38-caliber guns. When the U-190 submerged, the Turner attacked with depth charges… shock waves from which disabled the destroyer’s radar and sound gear. By the time Turner was able to resume her search, U-190 had escaped.

USS Turner (DD-648).

Royal Navy suffers double disaster during Operation Tunnel:

During Operation Tunnel, HMS Charybdis, a Dido-class cruiser commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1941, Captain George Arthur Wallis Voelcker, RN commanding, was sunk off north coast of Brittany, France in position 48º59’N, 03º39’W by 2 torpedoes from the German Elbing-class torpedo boats T-23 and T-27 (not MTBs, but torpedo-armed destroyers). 464 men died (including the commanding officer) and 107 survived.

HMS Charybdis.

During the same action, HMS Limbourne (L57), a Hunt-class escort destroyer, Cdr Walter John Phipps, RN commanding, was heavily damaged by German torpedo boats T-22 and T-24. Damaged beyond repair, Limbourne was sunk by gunfire from HMS Rocket (H92) and HMS Talybont (L18).

HMS Limbourne.

OTDIH 9 October 1943

70-years ago today…

U-244, a Type VIIC u-boat, was commissioned into the Kriegsmarine, Oblt. Ruprecht Fischer commanding. The boat conducted 4 war patrols before surrendering at Loch Eriboll in 1945.

Ruprecht Fischer, Kriegsmarine crew photo.

U-616, a Type VIIC u-boat, Oblt. Siegfried Koitschka commanding, sunk the American destroyer USS Buck (DD 420) with a G7e acoustic torpedo off Salerno, Italy in position 39.57N, 14.28E. The destroyer lost 150 dead and there were 97 survivors. Koitschka was awarded the Deutsches Kreuz (in gold) on completion of his patrol.

USS Buck (DD 420)

U-645, a Tupe VIIC u-boat, torpedoed and sunk the US merchantman SS Yorkmar (5,612 GRT) during an attack on convoy SC-143 approx. 475 miles south of Iceland. The ship sank by the stern after 15-minutes. 13 crew members were lost and 54 survivors were picked up by HMCS Kamloops (K176) and HMS Duckworth (K351).

Type VIIC U-boat.

U-737, a Type VIIC u-boat, Kptlt. Paul Brasack commanding, came under fire from a shore battery at Barentsburg, Spitsbergen. The u-boat managed to dive before it sustained any damage. (The moral of this story is that littoral combat is bleedin’ dangerous, chum!)

Barentsburg, Spitsbergen.

The Battle of Atlantic was most decidedly not over. It continued apace. Indeed, on this day 70-yrs ago (9 October 1943), Großadmiral Dönitz had 95 U-boats at sea.

And yet the Allied naval forces continued to grow in strength…

USS Sand Lance (SS-381), a Balao-class submarine built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, was commissioned into the United States Navy, Cdr. Malcolm Everett Garrison, USN. Garrison would win the Navy Cross twice while in command of Sand Lance and retire from the US Navy as a Rear Admiral.

HMS Goodson (K480), a Captain-class frigate built under Lend Lease at the Boston Navy Yard, was commissioned into the Royal Navy, Lt.Cdr. Frank Brown Allen, RNR commanding.

HMS Stratagem (P234), an S-class submarine built at Cammell Laird, was commissioned into the Royal Navy, Lt. Reginald Lewis Willoughby, RNR commanding.

HMS Stratagem (P234).

USS Kingfish (SS-234), a Gato-class submarine, Lt.Cdr. V.L. Lawrence, USN commanding, torpedoed & damaged the Japanese fleet oiler Hayatomo (14,050 GRT) in the Sibitu Channel, Borneo.

USS Wahoo (SS-238), a Gato-class submarine, Cdr. Dudley W. “Mush” Morton, USN commanding, sank the Japanese army cargo ship Hankow Maru (2,995 GRT) off the Oga Peninsula, Japan.

USS Puffer (SS-268), a Gato-class submarine, Lt.Cdr. M.J. Jensen, USN commanding, torpedoed & damaged the Japanese tanker Kumagawa Maru (7,508 GRT) in the Makassar Strait, Borneo. Japanese escorts damaged Puffer with depth charges and the submarine was forced to abandon its attack on the tanker.

Kumagawa Maru auxiliary oiler.

USS Rasher (SS-269), a Gato-class submarine, Cdr. E.S. Hutchinson, USN commanding, torpedoed & sank the Japanese army cargo ship Kogane Maru (3,131 GRT) about 30 nautical miles west of Ambon, Maluku Islands.

Britain ‘must have two aircraft carriers to be global player’

This really has nothing to do with being a “global power” or “punching above one’s weight” or any of the the other trite reasons so often given by politicians and civil servants who don’t understand the fundamental and abiding reason that Britain requires a strong, capable navy. It is not about the Prime Minister playing with toy boats in a global bathtub and having something shiny to hang his bunting on during national holidays. It is this: Britain is an island nation dependent upon international trade and all of those lovely trade goods arrive by sea in 2013 just as they did in 1913. If you want the shipping lanes to be safe and secure then you need a strong, capable navy. Otherwise the nation starves. That’s it. Nothing to do with the capability to lob cruise missiles into Syria, nothing to do with threatening to stick one up the Iranians, nothing to do with being better than the French. Just life-or-death trade. Karl Dönitz understood that. Winston Churchill understood that. The Chinese understand it. So should the pillock who currently rents 10 Downing Street.

Britain ‘must have two aircraft carriers to be global player’

Britain must have two working aircraft carriers if it wants to be a global military player, a Foreign Office parliamentary aide has said.

Mr Ellwood said: “The UK either needs a carrier capability or it does not.” Photo: REUTERS

A Government cost-cutting proposal to mothball or sell one of two carriers being built would be a poor use of public money, Tobias Ellwood MP said in a report for a military think tank.

Trying to rely on a single carrier would also undermine the UK’s ability to cope with international crises.

Mr Ellwood said: “The UK either needs a carrier capability or it does not.

“If it does, then a minimum of two are required in order to have one permanently available.”

Running both carriers would cement Britain’s position as “a global player with a military power of the first rank,” he said.

The Government has yet to decide the fate of the two 65,000 ton Queen Elizabeth class carriers currently being built, but the 2010 defence review proposed selling one or keeping it mothballed to save money.

Mr Ellwood, in a report for the Royal United Services Institute, said: “A £3-billion carrier waiting in ‘suspended animation’ in Portsmouth to be activated has political consequences, as does the selling of a ship at a loss.

“Neither option is a sensible use of taxpayers’ money. Indeed, the latter should be firmly disregarded.”

He said the lack of British carriers during the 2011 Libya campaign had meant that RAF Tornadoes and Typhoons had been forced to fly a 3,000 mile round trip from the UK to hit Col Gaddafi’s forces.

Even when a base became available in Italy, he said air raids were still four times more expensive than if they had been launched from a carrier in the Mediterranean.

Mr Ellwood, a former Army officer, said: “The carrier’s agility and independence means it is likely to be one of the first assets deployed to any hotspot around the globe.”

He said a single carrier would only be available around 200 days per year because of maintenance work.

Last week backbenchers on the Public Accounts Committee warned the aircraft carrier programme faced further spiralling costs.

The project remained a “high risk” because technical problems had not been resolved and there was potential for “uncontrolled growth” in the final bill.

The committee also said a decision to change the type of planes to fly from the carriers had wasted tens of millions of pounds.

The Ministry of Defence had originally opted for jump jet versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, then switched to the carrier variant, only to return to the jump jets again last year when costs soared.

Philip Hammond, Defence Secretary, said no decision would be made on what to do with the two carriers until the 2015 strategic defence and security review.

But money saved by reverting to the jump jet F-35s meant there was the possibility of having two operational carriers.

He said: “Of course there are operational cost implications of holding two carriers available rather than one, but we will weigh very carefully the benefits of that and the costs of that in the review.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10297397/Britain-must-have-two-aircraft-carriers-to-be-global-player.html