General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: Snowflake and more
Posted by:
Antonio Veiga
()
Date: August 27, 2001 06:04PM
<HTML>Hi Peter
In my previous post I wrote \"whitesnow\".The correct name was \"Snowflake\".
Snowflakes were mortar charges, fired from convoy vessels which exploded at
an altitude of 1000 feet.The burning embers, which iluminated the area within a convoy, often revealed surface submarines running between the columns.
Here is an extract from \"BLOODY WINTER\" by John M. Waters, describing the
battle around convoy SC121:
\"The U-boats were everywhere.BIBB sighted and chased down one astern, and DAUPHIN sighted another on the port quarter being fired at by a merchantman.
ROSTHERN narrowly avoided a torpedo which she not only heard coming, but sighted vissually as it sped by.
The escort commander gave the order \"Zombie Crack!\" and each escort swung out through a pre-planned search pattern.At the order to illuminate, all began pumping starshells into the night around th convoy, hoping to expose any surface
U-boats.\"
As you can see this american \"Zombie Crack!\" counter-attack pattern was near identical to the British \"Raspberry\", and shows how blackout was not a sacred rule and were sometimes altered, specially when being within a convoy and attacked or trailed by a wolfpack of surfaced U-Boats.
Best regards
</HTML>
In my previous post I wrote \"whitesnow\".The correct name was \"Snowflake\".
Snowflakes were mortar charges, fired from convoy vessels which exploded at
an altitude of 1000 feet.The burning embers, which iluminated the area within a convoy, often revealed surface submarines running between the columns.
Here is an extract from \"BLOODY WINTER\" by John M. Waters, describing the
battle around convoy SC121:
\"The U-boats were everywhere.BIBB sighted and chased down one astern, and DAUPHIN sighted another on the port quarter being fired at by a merchantman.
ROSTHERN narrowly avoided a torpedo which she not only heard coming, but sighted vissually as it sped by.
The escort commander gave the order \"Zombie Crack!\" and each escort swung out through a pre-planned search pattern.At the order to illuminate, all began pumping starshells into the night around th convoy, hoping to expose any surface
U-boats.\"
As you can see this american \"Zombie Crack!\" counter-attack pattern was near identical to the British \"Raspberry\", and shows how blackout was not a sacred rule and were sometimes altered, specially when being within a convoy and attacked or trailed by a wolfpack of surfaced U-Boats.
Best regards
</HTML>