Some warfare aspects
British Naval “Cavalry” Riding the Sea
Sea around Britain was ploughed by a naval flotilla
from day one of
WWII. Mr Winston Churchill supported the naval tactic. A group of three
to five naval vessels would systematically search large areas of sea
‘like a cavalry division’ and guard sea-lanes (Lit.:
Winton, p.130)[2].
Especially the Navy’s few and precious aircraft carriers with an
escort
of destroyers were put into action during the early days of the
war. Thus, at any time, thousands and thousands of miles of sea
were criss-crossed by a number of British naval flotillas searching for
enemy U-boats, dropping depth charges whenever a threat was suspected,
real or assumed. The number of depth charges dropped during the four
war months of 1939 was never counted. It could have been many thousands.
Enormous search activities to detect and destroy U-boats that
“stirred
the sea” around the British island find little mention in naval
historical essays. These activities without any military results
were quickly forgotten, although their impact on the “summer heat
storage” position of the sea remained significant. The work of
the
‘Cavalry’ was recorded only if something happened, either
success or
doom, both had great impact on the sea. Following two cases are shown
as examples from the first month of war to illustrate a similar
situation.
On 14th September 1939: U-39 operating off the Hebrides shot its
torpedo at the 22,000-ton aircraft carrier ‘Ark Royal’, but
missed.
Escorting destroyers Faulkner, Foxhound and Firedrake
depth-charged U-39 in a series of attacks. U-39 surface briefly and
sunk. The crew was captured. (Lit.: Winston, p 129)[3].
However, the next U-boat attack succeeded. 22,000-ton British aircraft
carrier ‘Courageous’ was on an enemy hunt along with four
destroyers in
the Southwest approaches (Southwest of Ireland), 150 nautical miles WSW
of Mizen Head, Ireland, in the early evening of 17th September 1939.
The carrier could travel at a speed of 30.5 knots (56 km/h). But HMS
Courageous’ days were numbered. “A German submarine struck
a telling
blow at the British Navy last night by sinking the 22,000-ton aircraft
carrier Courageous, with loss of an unknown number of her complement of
1,100 officers and men. It was the first real success scored by the
German Navy in this war.” (NYT, 19 September 1939)
She was attacked by U-29. From a salvo of three torpedoes the
Courageous was hit portside by two. The destruction was devastating as
described by Sub-Lieutenant Charles Lamb:
‘There were two explosions, a split second apart, the like of
which I
had never imagined possible. If the core of the earth exploded, and the
universe split from pole to pole, it could sound no worse… In
the
sudden deathly silence which followed I knew the ship had died.’
The Courageous turned over and sank within fifteen minutes, with loss
of 519 of her crew. (Lit.: Winton)[4].
Lieutenant Wesmacott ‘heard two
violent explosions which seemed to lift the ship’; (NYT, 19
September
1939).
Another crewmember reported: “Then the order to “Abandon
Ship” was
given by the Captain. I waited a few more minutes and then took the
last of my clothes off and dived in. I swam out in the direction of the
destroyer. After about fifty yards I turned and saw the last of the
ship as she went under. After that I was swimming and catching hold of
pieces of wood for about 45 minutes. The water was black with men and
oil, of which I drank mouthfuls!”
Other ships hurried to the spot where Courageous went down and assisted
in the rescue operation. Survivors reported that destroyers scurried
over the water after the submarine and it was believed that one of the
depth charges they dropped sank the U-boat (NYT, ditto). However,
that was not the case; U29 returned to its home base safely.
“The night was dark, weather fine and the sea smooth”,
survivors said.
Visibility was described as moderate’ (NYT, ditto).
Hunting German vessels
The Royal Navy formed small groups of naval vessels to control traffic
(Northern Patrol) and seize enemy vessels. Within the first 6 weeks,
about 300 vessels were controlled and more than 60 brought to the port
of Kirkwall/Orkney.
The ‘diamond pattern’
The New York Times reported in September 1939 on procedures for U-boat
hunting as follows: “Once a submarine is found, British
naval
plans, so far as they were known before the war, call for attack by
familiar methods of an enclosing diamond pattern of depth bombs,
supplemented, of course, by shell fire and ramming if the submarine
could be forced to the surface. In the diamond-pattern attack, the
destroyer goes at full speed for the spot where the submarine, slow and
clumsy under water, is thought to be. One depth bomb is let go just
before the spot is reached. A few seconds’ later two more are
lobbed
out by a Y-gun so that they land out on either side of the
destroyer’s
wake. The forth point of the diamond is another depth bomb dropped over
the stern some distance ahead of where the Y-gun fired. In this way a
large area of the sea is covered by diamond pattern. The effect is
further increased by the fact that the bombs are timed to go off at
different levels, so that the area is covered not only horizontally but
vertically as well. The bursting area of a modern depth bomb is
considerable”. (NYT, 16 September 1939).
Arming the merchantmen
By the end of September 1939, Churchill said that 2,000 ships would
receive guns (NYT, 1 October 1939). Within twelve months after the
outbreak of the war 3,000 vessels were armed. The key defence was a 4.7
inch gun (Lit.: Slader, p.56)[5].
A story about the heroic act of gun
personnel in 1939 reads as follows: “As Culebra sank ‘in a
heavy cloud
of smoke and steam’ the survivors, which included her six
gunners, took
to the remaining lifeboat. Sadly, no one survived the gale which sprang
up twenty-four hours later’, (Lit.: Slader, p.57)[6].
Minesweeping
Minesweeping became a pressing issue for the major countries at war.
Particularly Britain needed an effective force for minesweeping
operation. The naval minesweeping branch requisitioned some 800
trawlers, drifters, whalers and fishing vessels. In December 1939 it
was indicated that more than 100,000 men would be engaged in sweeping
of German mines in British sea-lanes. (NYT, 10 December 1939). By the
end of the year the sweeping force consisted of a searching force with
150 trawlers and 100 drifters, and a clearing force with 16 fleet
sweepers and 32 paddle sweepers (Lit.: Elliot, p. 31)[7]. For
more details see: Sea mines 1939 (2_14).
Convoy
Sending merchantmen in convoys escorted by naval forces had been proved
very successful during WWI. ‘The previous war had proved the
sovereign
merits of convoy’, Winston Churchill had acknowledged.
Implementation
of the convoy system in 1939 went quite smoothly. The first convoy of
eleven troop transporters sailed on September 5, from Clyde for
Gibraltar, escorted by the battleship Ramillies and eight destroyers.
By December 1939, 5,756 ships had sailed in convoys (Lit.: Winton,
p.128)[8]. By year’s end
only
twelve vessels in convoys and five
stragglers from convoys were torpedoed by U-boats and sunk, with a
total tonnage of 421,156 tons (Lit.: Winton, p.130)[9].
Aerial bombing and mining
Neither the German navy nor the British had a fully operational aerial
arm at the start of the war. The German Navy never got one. British
Royal Air Force Coastal Command became operational sometime in 1940.
However, airplanes for bombing and mining missions were operating
frequently, the British in the Helgoland Bight and the Germans on
England’s East coast. On September 3, 1939, Britain possessed an
operational strength of 2,600 aircrafts (Lit.: Saunders, p. 379)[10];
and the Germans presumably not less. For more details see:
Bombing and depth charge (2_15).
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