voraus
—“Both ahead full!” He would pursue the convoy north and see what damage he could do to its remaining ships. At 0513 he sighted its trailing edges, and twenty-seven minutes later, with the air still very dark and visibility down to medium, he nosed his way into the convoy columns, as before, from astern. First Watch Officer Sauerberg took a reading on three separate ships to port that were steaming, he estimated, at 7 knots. Three Etos in the bow tubes were set to run at 7 meters depth, Pi 2 pistols fixed for magnetic detonation. Henke’s KTB:
First shot from Tube IV at a 6,000 GRT freighter, bows right bearing 100°. After a running time of 68 seconds the torpedo hit below the aft mast causing a very wide detonation column containing ship fragments. The steamer burned. We assume it sank.
Second shot from Tube I at a 6,000 GRT freighter, bows right bearing 90°. After a running time of 65 seconds, this ship, too, put out a wide detonation column. It burned immediately. We assume it sank.
Third shot from Tube III at a 7,000 GRT freighter, bows right bearing 90°. After a running time of 35 seconds, the torpedo hit toward the stern causing a large detonation and flames that shot very high. Apparently, artillery ammunition went up. We observed the burning stern sink.
By 0549 the sky was alive with starshells and white rockets that illuminated two nearby “destroyers.” There were three RN destroyers that had come on the scene belatedly from Freetown: H.M.S.
Rapid, Malcolm,
and
Wolverine.
Henke crash-dived in the shallow (80 meters, 250 feet) coastal water, seeking temperature gradients and varying densitylayers that abounded there as a protection against the inevitable British sonar detection pulses (called asdic). Taking a southwesterly course toward deeper water, U-515 again succeeded in eluding her pursuers. The sounds of depth charges and of ship hulls fracturing receded astern.
Henke’s rampage was over. 32 And this time his observations were all correct. During one remarkable night he had equaled the record seven sinkings [plus one damaged] in a single twenty-four-hour day achieved by U-boat “ace” Kptlt. Joachim Schepke (U-100) against Convoy SC.II on 23 November 1940. And he had exceeded the earlier
best night
of six sinkings (one damaged) posted by Kptlt. Otto Kretschmer (U
-99),
the “tonnage king,” on the night of 18/19 October 1940, one of three nights (17–19 October) during which nine U-boats savaged Convoys SC.7 and HX.79 off Rockall Bank near Ireland—nights that came collectively to be called in Germany
die Nacht der langen Messer,
“The Night of the Long Knives.” 33 (This phrase, earlier used to describe Hitler’s bloody purge of Ernst Rohm and his SA ["storm troopers"] leadership in 1934, originated in a medieval legend, known in both Germany and Britain, that told how Saxons who invited the British king Vortigern and his leaders to a banquet slaughtered three hundred of the leaders with their long knives.)
There was no glory for the merchant seamen, of course. Though their cost in lives was less in Henke’s second fusillade, the newly afflicted seamen of Convoy TS.37 experienced anyone’s full share of “peril on the sea,” which, it must be added, they managed with commendable composure. First hit this time was the Belgian freighter
Mokambo,
4,996 GRT, out of Matadi and Takoradi for Freetown and the United Kingdom with a cargo of 1,139 tons of palm oil, 1,520 tons of kernels, 440 tons of copal, 2,000 tons of cotton, 2,000 tons of copper, and 38 tons of wolframite. 34 Other than that the weather at the time was cloudy and showery, that the sky was still very dark, and that there was a slight sea with a west wind, Force 3 on the Beaufort scale, there are no surviving details of her sinking.
Henke’s second victim was the British steamer
City of Singapore,
6,555 GRT, which was sailing from Calcutta and Takoradi for Freetown and Liverpool. Her cargo was 9,000 tons, which
—“Both ahead full!” He would pursue the convoy north and see what damage he could do to its remaining ships. At 0513 he sighted its trailing edges, and twenty-seven minutes later, with the air still very dark and visibility down to medium, he nosed his way into the convoy columns, as before, from astern. First Watch Officer Sauerberg took a reading on three separate ships to port that were steaming, he estimated, at 7 knots. Three Etos in the bow tubes were set to run at 7 meters depth, Pi 2 pistols fixed for magnetic detonation. Henke’s KTB:
First shot from Tube IV at a 6,000 GRT freighter, bows right bearing 100°. After a running time of 68 seconds the torpedo hit below the aft mast causing a very wide detonation column containing ship fragments. The steamer burned. We assume it sank.
Second shot from Tube I at a 6,000 GRT freighter, bows right bearing 90°. After a running time of 65 seconds, this ship, too, put out a wide detonation column. It burned immediately. We assume it sank.
Third shot from Tube III at a 7,000 GRT freighter, bows right bearing 90°. After a running time of 35 seconds, the torpedo hit toward the stern causing a large detonation and flames that shot very high. Apparently, artillery ammunition went up. We observed the burning stern sink.
By 0549 the sky was alive with starshells and white rockets that illuminated two nearby “destroyers.” There were three RN destroyers that had come on the scene belatedly from Freetown: H.M.S.
Rapid, Malcolm,
and
Wolverine.
Henke crash-dived in the shallow (80 meters, 250 feet) coastal water, seeking temperature gradients and varying densitylayers that abounded there as a protection against the inevitable British sonar detection pulses (called asdic). Taking a southwesterly course toward deeper water, U-515 again succeeded in eluding her pursuers. The sounds of depth charges and of ship hulls fracturing receded astern.
Henke’s rampage was over. 32 And this time his observations were all correct. During one remarkable night he had equaled the record seven sinkings [plus one damaged] in a single twenty-four-hour day achieved by U-boat “ace” Kptlt. Joachim Schepke (U-100) against Convoy SC.II on 23 November 1940. And he had exceeded the earlier
best night
of six sinkings (one damaged) posted by Kptlt. Otto Kretschmer (U
-99),
the “tonnage king,” on the night of 18/19 October 1940, one of three nights (17–19 October) during which nine U-boats savaged Convoys SC.7 and HX.79 off Rockall Bank near Ireland—nights that came collectively to be called in Germany
die Nacht der langen Messer,
“The Night of the Long Knives.” 33 (This phrase, earlier used to describe Hitler’s bloody purge of Ernst Rohm and his SA ["storm troopers"] leadership in 1934, originated in a medieval legend, known in both Germany and Britain, that told how Saxons who invited the British king Vortigern and his leaders to a banquet slaughtered three hundred of the leaders with their long knives.)
There was no glory for the merchant seamen, of course. Though their cost in lives was less in Henke’s second fusillade, the newly afflicted seamen of Convoy TS.37 experienced anyone’s full share of “peril on the sea,” which, it must be added, they managed with commendable composure. First hit this time was the Belgian freighter
Mokambo,
4,996 GRT, out of Matadi and Takoradi for Freetown and the United Kingdom with a cargo of 1,139 tons of palm oil, 1,520 tons of kernels, 440 tons of copal, 2,000 tons of cotton, 2,000 tons of copper, and 38 tons of wolframite. 34 Other than that the weather at the time was cloudy and showery, that the sky was still very dark, and that there was a slight sea with a west wind, Force 3 on the Beaufort scale, there are no surviving details of her sinking.
Henke’s second victim was the British steamer
City of Singapore,
6,555 GRT, which was sailing from Calcutta and Takoradi for Freetown and Liverpool. Her cargo was 9,000 tons, which
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