The second “Happy Time” for
the U-boats created by an abundance of targets and the
Americans’ reluctance to adopt the convoy system – 216
ships sunk off the US East coast, mostly oil tankers.
Jan 13th:
Operation Drumbeat was the first of
several waves of German U-boat attacks on the US eastern
seaboard: in this first wave, five German Type XI long-range
U-boats sank 25 ships by Feb.
Feb:
‘Dolphin’ code replaced
by ‘Shark’ code. Station X’s Ultra (special
intelligence) was effectively blacked out for the following
ten months.
Mid-March:
Introduction of submarine tankers (“milch
cows”) increased the operational endurance of the
U-boats.
April 1st:
Americans’ introduced a partial
convoy system.
July:
Introduction of “huff-duff”.
HF/DF. High Frequency Direction Finding, or ‘huff
duff’, allowed an escort to find a bearing to a U-boat
when it communicated by radio. By co-ordinating shore-based
huff-duff or huff-duff on another escort, it was possible
to ‘triangulate’ on a U-boat and get both direction
and range to the target.
May 27th:
HX129 convoy first to be escorted “end-to-end” across
Atlantic; Canadian Navy joined.
June:
British cryptographers at Station X
(Bletchley Park) crack the German ‘Dolphin’ code
allowing rapid and regular access to U-boat signal traffic
in the Atlantic.
July 5th:
PQ17 to Murmansk lost 23 of 36 ships
to U-boats and Kondor bombers – worst single loss
of war.
Aug 22nd:
Brazil declared war on Germany after
U-boat attacks.
Oct 27th:
U-96 departed St Nazaire on its 7th
patrol, source of film “Das Boot”.
Oct 30th:
HMS Petard captured U-559 in the Mediterranean.
Lieutenant Anthony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and
16 year-old Tommy Brown (a NAAFI canteen assistant) boarded
the U-boat and retrieved Enigma code books. Fasson and
Grazier lost their lives as the U-boat sank and were posthumously
awarded the George Cross. Tommy Brown survived the incident
but died later in the war trying to rescue his sister from
a house fire.
At the close of 1942, the Admiralty
reported that the shipping situation had never been tighter.
Fuel stocks were low and there were still not enough naval
and air escorts for the convoys, a number of escort ships
had been taken away from North Atlantic convoy duties during
November to facilitate the North African landings.
