Movies and Films
This is the forum for Movie and Film discussions. Again, our topic is naval warfare in WWII for the most part.
Re: Fate of Surcouf
Posted by:
CAPT F. H. Hallett
()
Date: February 17, 2011 08:54PM
Dear Robert M. - I have done an operational analysis of SURCOUF's activities from the time she left Brest at about 11 am on June 17, 1940. She was last seen when she left Bermuda on June 12, 1942. Operation PAUKENSCHLAG U-boats had sunk 23 ships in the previous months off the U.S. east coast at the time she sailed, and a U.S. intelligence report of several U-boats entering the Caribbean was issued on Jan. 26, 1942. CAPT Blaison would have been operating in accord with his previous procedures when transiting a combat area - traveling submerged during the day and surfacing only at night to charge batteries. This gave him an SOA (speed of advance) of 5.8 knots. SURCOUF could not have been anywhere near THOMPSON LYKES on Feb. 18 (by my calculation at least 900 miles away if he used the Anegada Passage as I believe he would have). Instead I believe he ran afoul of either U-502 known to have been operating north of Aruba from Feb. 17 to Feb.22, 1942, or one of the U.S. S-boats operating out of St. Thomas (which could easily have mis-identified him as a U-boat.) F. H. Hallett