Hi John, The attack you are referring actually occurred at 2323 on 31 July. The submarine was DELFINO (C.C. Alberto Avogrado di Cerrione) and she reported the attack in 32°12.7' N, 24°46' E (the patrol report has 14°46' E but this was a typo). The Sunderland attacked from the moon side and the submarine replied with her four Breda machine-guns, six bombs narrowly missed but t
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Hello Martin, The submarine involved must have been the Italian UARSCIEK (Tenente di vascello Raffaello Allegri) who reported being attacked twice by bombers North of Ras Haleima (31°38' N, 25°54' E) on that day. The first time at 1630 when a twin-engine bomber dropped four bombs which fell 150 meters astern, the second at 1745 when a Blenheim bomber dropped six bombs 200 meters ah
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Hi Rainer, Many thanks for clearing up the BELGRAVIAN incident. I have not seen (so far) the weather report from U-122 but will keep my eyes open. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Platon
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Hi John, I have not seen the collision report by SAN FELIPE so I have no opinion on the matter. ARABIS carried out an attack on a U-boat at 2213/23.06.1940 in 49°21' N, 08°47' W. This could well have been U-122 as she was supposed to go to Grid Square CF 30 and this was certainly in the general direction. By digging through my files, I did locate the last signal Of U 122 which i
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Hi John and Rainer, On 20 June, U 99 who had a sick man requested permission from BdU to land him in Norway, I think this is probably the source of your "long message in the North Sea". U 99 was not involved in any collision with WILK or any other submarine but (as reported on this site) was bombed in error by an Arado from SCHARNHORST at 1623 on 21 June in Quadrat Qu 2883 l.u (the a
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Hi Rainer, Many thanks for the Info! Platon
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Hi Brian and Rainer, Definitely not an Italian submarine. MOROSINI was much further West, returning home from a patrol in the West Indies and encountered an unidentified U-boat of the 750 ton type at 2050/2 April in 44°52' N, 13°16' W. U 404 was in the general area of the attack (in BF 4666 at midnight on 1 April) but did not report anything unusual. She did sight a U-boat which d
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Hi Rainer, CLAN OGILVY and BENWYVIS are in 2136, RODNEY STAR in 2137. I have taken the habit of photographing the index pages of each volume I check, this helps future research. Have fun! Best regards, Platon
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Hi John, BATNA did not directly rescue the survivors of CLAN OGILVY but those of RODNEY STAR who had some of the survivors of CLAN OGILVY as passengers (check my earlier post). AFAIK CABO VILLANO was the only vessel which rescued OGILVY survivors. Only one boat was found, a search for the other two failed to locate them. Platon
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Hi Rainer, The BENWYVIS report is in ADM199/2136 but I do not have a copy, so may be a good soul can supply us with the answer. Her captain was on board the lifeboat from CLAN OGILVY which was rescued by CABO VILLANO. Best regards, Platon
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Hi John and Mark, One of the three lifeboats with survivors from CLAN OGILVY (including Captain E. Gough) were picked up by CABO VILLANO on 1 April 1942 and landed at Santos and remained there for three weeks. They took passage on RODNEY STAR to return home, leaving Santos on 6 May, This vessel was also torpedoed on 16 May and her survivors (including ex CLAN OGILVY) were picked up by BATNA on
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U-320 was attacked and damaged by Catalina "X" of 210 Squadron on 7 May 1945 and I think another U-boat was also attacked in the Belts on the same day. It is possible that there were other attacks after that.
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Hi, The Italian submarine patrol reports are held at the Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare in Rome. Access is available by appointment (due to the very limited space available). See Platon
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Hello, I believe C.A.T. stands for Corpo Aereo Tedesco (German Fliegerkorps). C.T. stands for cacciatorpediniere or destroyer. Best regards, Platon
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Hello Rainer and Gaines, On the other side of the coin: did German and Italian aircraft ever used depth-charges as an A/S weapon? They appear to have used bombs most of the time, perhaps later in the war? I understand that bombs were preferred as the enemy could often be a surface ship as well as a submarine but any information on the subject will be appreciated. Thanks, Platon
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Hi John, David and Mark, You may add to the submarines mentioned: The first convoy escort of the war was actually provided by the FS SURCOUF for convoy KJ 2 (September 1939). Other French submarines were also active on the Halifax route in 1939-1940 (CASABIANCA, SFAX, PASTEUR, ACHILLE, SIDI FERRUCH, BÉVEZIERS, AJAX, ARCHIMEDE). OTUS covered the first Australian-New Zealand troopship convoy
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Hello "Tubby", I have nothing more precise than the initial reference: 264° - Punta Licosa (Salerno) - 34 miles. Best regards, Platon
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Bruce, Italian submarines did not participate directly in a convoy operation, at least in the Mediterranean theatre (Italian midget submarines did escort German convoys in the Black Sea theatre). However, they did carry out a large number of supply missions to North Africa and several of these were for the Panzerarmee Afrika or the GAF and on occasions also transported German military personne
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Tubby, ARDITO'S patrol report has survived, relevant extracts can be found in "La Lotta Antisommergibile" (Ufficio Storico). At 0745/6 March ARDITO reported sighting a Ju 88 bomber dropping a depth-charge in position 264° - Punta Licosa (Salerno) - 34 miles. This was 3,000 meters ahead of her position and the Italian torpedo-boat rushed to the attack while the convoy altered co
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Bruce, German Navy personnel were also used to train Italian crews with the use of S-Gerät (from memory this was about November 1941) but I think this was during a fairly short period. It is possible and probably likely that the Italian German-built U-boats (S.1 to S.9) used German liaison officers during their Baltic training and probably GIULIANI as well when she had a training period there
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Bruce, The reference numbers in ADM223/31 for the HMS TURBULENT's episode may be ZTPI numbers but the heading of the column is blank (so I cannot be positively sure, the same column has a ZTPI heading in most pages of the volume). As far as I know ULTRA's signals were not solely derived from Enigma decrypts but from other sources such as the Italian C 38m machines (of Swedish orig
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Hello Bruce, Many thanks for your input. ADM223/31 contains a Special Intelligence Summary from O.I.C. "Italian Convoy Situation" and covers the period from 5 October 1941 to 9 May 1943 (Fall of Tunisia). Although mainly concerned with Italian convoys, it does list on occasions movements by Italian warships. It does not contain the original ULTRA signals but most of the information i
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Hello Tubby, The Ultra reference comes from ADM223/31 although not specified as such, it is obvious that it came from Sigint. This volume contains a great deal of information concerning Italian convoys gathered from Ultra decrypts but it is not complete by any mean. I found some instances of signals which were not listed. You may perhaps find the original reference in the HW1 files. The bo
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Hi John, It appears the mistake is also repeated on their website (http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-09.htm). I do not know the source of this error as it seems that FROLIC never went to the Mediterranean during the war. I believe that the escort of the convoy during the U-boat attack consisted of the 45th Escort Group (SOUTHERN SEA, SOUTHERN MAID, PRIMULA and FALK) in addition to SOUTHE
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Hi John, I think that FROLIC was not part of convoy UGS.17 as she was commissioned in 1944. Platon
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Hi John, Thanks again for the information. Platon
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Hi Jim, Thank you very much for the information. Platon
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Hi John, Many thanks for the information, Do you know the number of survivors and victims of CALIFORNIA? Platon
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Hi Jim and John, Perhaps something was not translated right as the French version of Peillard's book mentions the date as 4 September 1942. The KTB of U-459 mentions that at 1400/4 September in Quadrat EJ 8573 they came alongside a lifeboat with survivors of the American CALIFORNIAN of 9000 GRT from Tacoma, USA (sic, CALIFORNIA, 5218 GRT) which had been torpedoed on 13 August 1942 in 10°
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Can anyone provide a detailed account of the sinking of U-375 by the submarine chaser USS PC-624? Thanks. Platon
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