U-Boat Battle – Convoy ONS5

Author

Downes, A.M., Captain

Subjects

Biographies and personal histories, WWII operations, History - WW2

Tags

U Boats, HMS Tay, HMS Duncan, Anti-submarine operations

RAN Ships

None noted.

Publication

September 2010 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)

Ace of the Escort Groups

So much for the protagonists. I was a Lieutenant and the navigator of Tay, which was the Number 2 ship in the B7 Escort Group. My job was to plot the information coming from the Asdic, radar, etc. on track charts, and my station was in a small hut next to the A/S cabinet at the front of the bridge, where the skipper could look down from above and see the display. I also had the job of monitoring the signals from the other ships. Our boss in B7 Escort Group was Commander Peter Gretton. He was a brilliant commander and he worked up B7 to become the ace of the close Escort Groups in the same way that Captain Johnnie Walker was the ace of the Support Groups.

The Escort Group operated as the close escort to the convoy, usually taking station 1 mile clear, whereas Support Groups were fairly fast, free-roaming ships, whose function was to close any convoy under attack and provide additional support. When they detected a submarine, they could sit on it for perhaps 24 hours until it surfaced and could be killed. The Close Escorts had to remain with the convoy and, whilst we did detach for single submarines when there were no others threatening, we usually concentrated on holding the submarine down until the convoy had gone past.

Convoy ‘ON5’

ONS 5 was a medium-sized, slow convoy, outward bound to North American ports. The convoy speed was officially 7½ knots but in practice was nearer to 6 knots, and about half that in heavy weather. The 44 ships formed up in 12 columns of 4 or less having a front of about 5½ nautical miles, the escorts were zigzagging approximately three quarters of a mile further out. There would be a fast ship sweeping across the front, the slower but very effective corvettes protecting each side, and one or two faster ships astern ready to reinforce or take over an attack as necessary.

The battle started on 27th April when we beat off attacks by eight submarines during the night. This kept up and our first loss was on the following morning. This was to set the pattern for the next few days, with many attacks being made and a number of ships sunk. The battle lasted eight days, fought in gales with wind force between 6 and 10 or more, with very heavy seas which frequently scattered the convoy. In fact, 10 ships became detached and formed their own convoy under the escort of Pink. Strangely enough, that group did not get attacked again.

Ice and bitter cold

The rest of us battled on, beating off attacks, frequently in ice and constant bitter cold. During the heavy weather, our Asdic transducer in Tay jumped its support bearings and became jammed so that we were impotent against submerged submarines. Then Peter Gretton in HMS Duncan began to run out of fuel. The weather was so bad that he was unable to refuel from the tanker provided for this purpose. In those days, when we refueled at sea, the tanker paid out perhaps 150 yards of hose, the end of which we picked up on the fo’c’sle head. The bight of this hose was always dragging in the water and the strain, when both ships were pitching in heavy seas, would often prevent it being connected up and, if and when this was done, could break it even before any oil was pumped. Eventually, Duncan had to leave to refuel in Greenland and Tay, with our skipper Bob Sherwood as Acting Senior Officer of the Escort, was left in charge for the final three nights.

I clearly remember being on afternoon watch on 5th May looking around towards the convoy just in time to see three ships hit almost simultaneously. The first was the Selvestan which sank stern first, second the Gharinda which sank bow first and the little ship Bonde broke in two, all three of them sinking within two minutes. It was a sight I’ll never forget. These were the last ships sunk and at this point in time, the score was 11 ships to one U-boat. We had a rescue ship, the trawler Northern Spray, which was already full, having picked up 146 survivors. We in Tay picked up some 143 survivors from those three ships and this also made us very crowded as our own crew was only 126.