UC-75
Posted by:
prw
()
Date: October 04, 2003 11:55PM
<HTML>I would like to share a sea story.
The encounter between HMS Fairy and UC-75 has been described as a battle between the submarine and the escorts of a convoy, in which destroyer rammed sub, and both were sunk. This story, which gives an alternative version of the encounter, has not been widely known, owing to the extreme rarity of the book which contains it.
"The Captain of the lucky ship ( HMS Fairy) and I were very good friends and former shipmates and we used to knock around together a lot. The Garry happened to be lying alongside, when my pal Grant came ashore on his way to hand in his written report of how, where and when , he came to sink this submarine and capture her entire crew. Seeing the Garry alongside, he just dropped on board for a minute’s yarn. Of course, I heartily congratulated him as soon as he showed his nose in my cabin and asked him just how he had managed to ram and sink this submarine, which was quite a modern one and carried two four inch guns against Grant’s measly 12- and 6-pounders. He shoved his report into my hand and told me to read it, when I would then know all about it.
I read all the usual preamble and trimmings, till I came to where he “sighted this submarine whilst in his position astern of the Convoy." “Astern of the Convoy?†I said. “Why you are the one, above all others, who condemns that method of following up astern. How the devil did you come to be there?â€
He laughed and after swearing me to secrecy told me his tale.
It appeared some slight trouble had developed in his engine-room. The engineer came on the bridge and asked permission to stop the engines for half an hour or so. Instead of following the correct routine and making a wireless signal to the S.O. of the Division and having, perhaps, to state whys and wherefores, he said to the engineer, “Well if it’s only going to take half an hour, I’ll slip round astern of the Convoy and stop her. Get through as soon as you can and we will put her to it and pick ‘em up again and no one will be any the wiser." The repairs took a bit longer than the time stipulated and Grant got a bit anxious. It was pitch dark and there was just the horrible chance that he might lose the Convoy altogether and then he would get a sound scrubbing, if he was found wandering around looking for a Convoy when daylight broke. The result was that when the word did at last come from the engine-room that they were “ready to proceed,†Grant at once put her to twenty knots, intending to slow her down when he had run his distance to within a couple of miles of where the Convoy should be and then pick them up at an easy speed, for it was far too dark to see more than a hundred yards ahead. As it turned out, Grant’s underwater friend had heard the convoy lumbering along and as it was far too dark for him to even take a “Browning†shot, he had submerged until the ships had all passed overhead. When they were past and even the Destroyer that, as he knew, in some cases trailed out astern, would, he judged, be well out of the way, he rose to the surface intending to lie there and get a breath of fresh air till daylight.
The first thing they knew was Grant came blinding along at an absolutely unheard of speed, for a Destroyer following up a Convoy, hitting them half way between the conning tower and tail. As Grant said, he “never saw a blame thing till he was right on top of him and couldn’t have missed him if he had tried.†Grant actually went right over, doing little or no damage to the submarine. The skipper of the submarine got a horrible shock, on seeing a Destroyer shoot out of the darkness and, literally, leap over him. He fully thought that Grant’s ramming had been intentional, also that his sub. would be damaged and being unable to submerge, would be sunk by gunfire. To avoid this, he ordered the Kingston flooding valves to be opened and took to the one and only boat and sang “Deutschland über Alles†whilst his ship went down. Meantime, Grant, who had ripped the bottom out of his ship had just time to signal the S.O. of his Division, take to the boats and his ship went down. All he could do now was to await the coming of a Destroyer to pick them up—unaware, of course, that the submarine had opened her Kingston valves and abandoned ship. It was a perfectly calm night and as they could hear the Germans in the distance singing their song of success, Grant’s crowd retaliated by joining the marine musical comedy with “Rule, Britannia.†When the S.O. arrived on the scene and heard the row, as he said, he thought everyone had gone completely crazy. But the utter disgust of the sub. skipper can be best imagined, when a bit later on he learnt the facts of the case."
C.H.Lightoller Titanic and Other Ships</HTML>
The encounter between HMS Fairy and UC-75 has been described as a battle between the submarine and the escorts of a convoy, in which destroyer rammed sub, and both were sunk. This story, which gives an alternative version of the encounter, has not been widely known, owing to the extreme rarity of the book which contains it.
"The Captain of the lucky ship ( HMS Fairy) and I were very good friends and former shipmates and we used to knock around together a lot. The Garry happened to be lying alongside, when my pal Grant came ashore on his way to hand in his written report of how, where and when , he came to sink this submarine and capture her entire crew. Seeing the Garry alongside, he just dropped on board for a minute’s yarn. Of course, I heartily congratulated him as soon as he showed his nose in my cabin and asked him just how he had managed to ram and sink this submarine, which was quite a modern one and carried two four inch guns against Grant’s measly 12- and 6-pounders. He shoved his report into my hand and told me to read it, when I would then know all about it.
I read all the usual preamble and trimmings, till I came to where he “sighted this submarine whilst in his position astern of the Convoy." “Astern of the Convoy?†I said. “Why you are the one, above all others, who condemns that method of following up astern. How the devil did you come to be there?â€
He laughed and after swearing me to secrecy told me his tale.
It appeared some slight trouble had developed in his engine-room. The engineer came on the bridge and asked permission to stop the engines for half an hour or so. Instead of following the correct routine and making a wireless signal to the S.O. of the Division and having, perhaps, to state whys and wherefores, he said to the engineer, “Well if it’s only going to take half an hour, I’ll slip round astern of the Convoy and stop her. Get through as soon as you can and we will put her to it and pick ‘em up again and no one will be any the wiser." The repairs took a bit longer than the time stipulated and Grant got a bit anxious. It was pitch dark and there was just the horrible chance that he might lose the Convoy altogether and then he would get a sound scrubbing, if he was found wandering around looking for a Convoy when daylight broke. The result was that when the word did at last come from the engine-room that they were “ready to proceed,†Grant at once put her to twenty knots, intending to slow her down when he had run his distance to within a couple of miles of where the Convoy should be and then pick them up at an easy speed, for it was far too dark to see more than a hundred yards ahead. As it turned out, Grant’s underwater friend had heard the convoy lumbering along and as it was far too dark for him to even take a “Browning†shot, he had submerged until the ships had all passed overhead. When they were past and even the Destroyer that, as he knew, in some cases trailed out astern, would, he judged, be well out of the way, he rose to the surface intending to lie there and get a breath of fresh air till daylight.
The first thing they knew was Grant came blinding along at an absolutely unheard of speed, for a Destroyer following up a Convoy, hitting them half way between the conning tower and tail. As Grant said, he “never saw a blame thing till he was right on top of him and couldn’t have missed him if he had tried.†Grant actually went right over, doing little or no damage to the submarine. The skipper of the submarine got a horrible shock, on seeing a Destroyer shoot out of the darkness and, literally, leap over him. He fully thought that Grant’s ramming had been intentional, also that his sub. would be damaged and being unable to submerge, would be sunk by gunfire. To avoid this, he ordered the Kingston flooding valves to be opened and took to the one and only boat and sang “Deutschland über Alles†whilst his ship went down. Meantime, Grant, who had ripped the bottom out of his ship had just time to signal the S.O. of his Division, take to the boats and his ship went down. All he could do now was to await the coming of a Destroyer to pick them up—unaware, of course, that the submarine had opened her Kingston valves and abandoned ship. It was a perfectly calm night and as they could hear the Germans in the distance singing their song of success, Grant’s crowd retaliated by joining the marine musical comedy with “Rule, Britannia.†When the S.O. arrived on the scene and heard the row, as he said, he thought everyone had gone completely crazy. But the utter disgust of the sub. skipper can be best imagined, when a bit later on he learnt the facts of the case."
C.H.Lightoller Titanic and Other Ships</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
UC-75
|
prw | 10/04/2003 11:55PM |
|
Re: UC-75
|
David H | 10/05/2003 07:33AM |
|
Re: UC-75
|
prw | 10/05/2003 03:16PM |
|
Re: UC-75
|
Alemap | 10/06/2003 04:45PM |
|
Re: UC-75
|
Alemap | 10/06/2003 05:02PM |