Louisiana's Military Heritage:

     Battles, Campaigns, and Maneuvers

The 2^nd War Patrol of U-507

(April 04 ~ June 04, 1942)

by Tim NesSmith

In January of 1942, German Karl Admiral Dönitz, commander of the U-boat Arm of the German Kriegsmarine (navy), unleashed his U-boats into American waters.  Codenamed Operation Paukenschlag (or "the rolls of drums", aka Operation Drumbeat), the assault on merchant shipping was staggering as the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine were caught vastly unprepared.  Ships were still traveling unescorted along the coastline, alone, and backlit at night against a brightly lit shoreline.  The results were terrifying as ship after ship was torpedoed and sunk beneath the waves.  The U-boat crews referred to this period as "the Happy Times."  The attacks occurred all up and down the Atlantic coastline, but that was soon to change.

 

On April 04, 1942, the U-507 departed the harbor at Lorient in German-occupied France where the 2nd U-boat Flotilla was forward-based.  Her commanding officer, Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht, was a sixteen-year veteran of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) who had trained under Erich Topp, one of Germany's most successful U-boat commanders.  His vessel had been in commission for just under six months.  For this, her second war patrol, U-507 would truly test the limits of her and her crew's abilities and endurance.  Schacht's sealed orders—opened once the boat had put to sea—sent them to prey upon shipping in the Gulf of Mexico.
	(Left) Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of the U-boat Arm of the German Navy.  (Right) Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht, commander of U-507.  Photos courtesy of uboat.net.

U-507 was a Type IXC U-boat.  She was 252 feet long and 22 feet wide and could dive to a depth of 750 feet beneath the ocean's surface.  The Type IXC sported six torpedo tubes (four forward; two aft) and an arsenal of twenty-two 21-inch torpedoes, a 105mm deck gun with 110 rounds (forward), a 37mm deck gun (aft) and an anti-aircraft gun (usually a 20mm, 30mm, or 37mm) on the aft section of the conning tower.  She carried 43 tons in fuel capacity more than her predecessors of the Type IXB class which extended her maximum range (distance capable of being traveled) to 11,000 nautical miles.  This added distance made the Type IXC boats perfect for reaching the virgin hunting grounds of the Gulf.

Type IXC German U-boat.  Photo courtesy of The-Blueprints.com.

U-507 Ship's Statistics

U-507 arrived in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico via the Florida Straits in the first few days of May.  Prior to entering the Gulf, she sank the U.S. flagged tanker FEDERAL off the northeast coast of Cuba on April 30.  This was the first of a rapid string of attacks.  The first sinking to occur in the Gulf of Mexico by U-507 was the U.S. flagged freighter NORLINDO on May 04.  The U.S. flagged tankers MUNGER T. BALL and JOSEPH M. CUDAHY were both sunk the next day on May 05.  Four American vessels totaling 17,621 tons were now on the ocean floor in just six days' time.  Fortunately, FEDERAL and NORLINDO had been empty of cargo, carrying only water ballast.  But the BALL had held 65,000 barrels of gasoline and the CUDAHY carried 77,444 barrels of crude and lubricating oil.  Sixty-seven sailors had perished.

During the night of May 05 after the sinking of the BALL and the CUDAHY, Schacht moved his boat to a relatively safe position.  The forward torpedo tubes needed to be reloaded.  Extra torpedoes were carried on the exterior of the U-boat between the top deck and the pressure hull.  Reloading torpedoes was a tricky, time-consuming job.  The "fish" were delicate 3,300-pound mechanisms measuring 23 feet in length.  A loading hatch had to remain open to allow the torpedo to be moved in from the boat's exterior storage.  Calm waters were a necessity, not only for maneuvering this heavy weapon, but also to prevent taking on water via waves through the open hatch.  U-boats, after all, had a low freeboard (distance between water line and deck).  With the loading hatch open, the boat could not dive quickly if it was spotted by enemy aircraft and attacked.

While making this transfer, the rigging on a winch broke, causing a torpedo to slide out-of-control down into the boat.  One of the crewmen—a radio petty officer—was struck on the arm, suffering compound fractures and severe bleeding.  Surprisingly, the boat was not stocked with pain medication.  With the sailor in pain and in danger of infection, Schacht instructed his radioman to call back to base in France for instructions.  With the Germans' Enigma code machines, the U-boats frequently communicated with their home bases.  It was known that U-506 had followed close behind the 507 en route to the Gulf.  A rendezvous between the two boats was attempted several times over the next three days to no avail.  Finally, U-507's deck logs record that the flotilla medical officer back at Lorient sent the following instructions:

A PBY Catalina flying boat like the one pictured here attacked U-507 south of Pensacola twice during her war patrol in the Gulf of Mexico. Official U.S. Navy photo.

"Place injured horizontal.  Keep splintered arm elevated.  Danger of infection high, therefore use sterile bandages and salve.  If no morphine aboard, use cognac."   After four days' time, the injured crewman's condition improved.  But the U-boat herself was soon spotted and attacked by a U.S. Navy PBY Catalina on May 09.  This occurred approximately 225 miles south of Pensacola, Florida (27.09N / 86.30W).  Schacht evaded the aircraft, but was attacked a second time by a Catalina the following day on May 10, this time about 56 miles south-southwest of Pensacola (27.09N / 87.42W).  Again, the crew escaped destruction and continued prowling the shipping lanes.

The United States, though at war since December 07, 1941, was still mired in a peacetime mindset when the U-boats arrived in the Gulf of Mexico.  Merchant ships still sailed alone rather than in convoys, with running lights on, and without armed escort vessels.  Not even the coastline was under blackout conditions, causing ships just offshore to be silhouetted against a brightly lit shore.  Captain Schacht and his crew marveled at the lack of wartime preparedness on the part of the Americans.  His deck logs have comments remarking about the "lights on as in peacetime" and how lighthouses and navigation buoys "lit up the night for friend and foe alike."

 

The freighter SS ALCOA PURITAN was the first vessel sunk off of the Louisiana coastline by a German U-boat during World War II on May 06, 1942.  Photo courtesy of uboat.net. Originally contributed to uboat.net by the Library of Contemporary History, Stutgart, Germany.

Even while attempting a rendezvous with U-506 on behalf of his injured crewman, Schacht kept the 507 hunting.  Just one day after the accident, he brought the war to the waters off of Louisiana.  At 12:00 noon on May 06 in broad daylight, lookouts aboard the U.S. flagged merchant ship SS ALCOA PURITAN spotted a torpedo passing astern of the ship.  The freighter's captain, Yngvar Axelstein Krantz, immediately ordered full speed and turned his stern to the attacking U-boat so as to present as small a target as possible.  U-507 surfaced and the chase began.  Unfortunately for Krantz and his crew, the Germans' top speed of 18 knots while surfaced outclassed that of the PURITAN's top speed of 16.5 knots.  As the distance closed, the Germans opened fire with their deck gun.  Schacht's gunners fired approximately 75 rounds, of which about 50 struck home.  When the freighter's steering gear was disabled, Captain Krantz gave the order to abandon ship.   When the lifeboats were clear of the ship, the U-boat fired a torpedo to finish off the beleaguered freighter.  She sank stern-first in about eight minutes.  The crew

SS ALCOA PURITAN Ship's Statistics Launched 1941 Owner Alcoa Steamship Company Nationality United States Builder Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company—San Francisco, CA Type Type C1-B Cargo Ship Displacement 6,759 tons Length 417 ft., 9 in. Beam (width) 60 ft. Draft (depth) 27 ft., 6 in. Speed 14 knots Propulsion Cross-compound steam turbine engines with one (1) four-bladed propeller Cargo 9,700 tons of bauxite Crew 10 officers & 33 crew Armament None

later reported that Schacht then brought the 507 over to the vicinity of the lifeboats and expressed his regrets for having to sink their vessel, as well as his hopes that they made it ashore safely.  Of the 54 passengers and crew aboard ship, there were no fatalities.  Only two crewmen were injured by shrapnel during the shelling.  Seven passengers were shipwreck survivors from the American tanker T.C. McCOBB which had been sunk by the Italian submarine PIETRO CALVI on March 31 off of British Guiana.  Fortunately, the survivors were spared the ordeals of being shipwrecked at sea (sharks, sunburn, dehydration, drowning, etc.) as lifeboats were soon spotted by a U.S. Navy patrol plane.  The USCGC BOUTWELL (WPC-130) picked them up and landed them ashore that same day at the Naval Section Base at Burwood, Louisiana.

This was not the first time that Harro Schacht was reported to express concern over the well-being of his beaten opponents.  After sinking the NORLINDO two days earlier when he entered the Gulf, Schacht returned to the sight several hours later.  He provided the survivors drinking water, tobacco, cigarettes, and crackers.

U-507 moved out into the deeper waters of the Gulf and, on May 07, shelled and sank the Honduran freighter ONTARIO.  The next day, the 507 sank the Norwegian freighter TORNY by torpedo.  Captain Schacht recorded in his deck log at this time the following passage:

"I have discovered that we are out of ammunition."

U-507's captain had used his deck gun to good use, launching his valuable torpedoes sparingly.  He reported in to his flotilla headquarters at Lorient that twelve torpedoes remained as well as 130 cubic meters of fuel.  Another two vessels totaling 5,523 tons were on the bottom along with 3,650 tons of nitrate and a cargo hold full of bananas.  Two more sailors had lost their lives.  Schacht turned his boat in a northwesterly direction and sailed back toward the Mississippi River.

 

The tanker SS VIRGINIA was sunk at the mouth of the Mississippi River by U-507, one of the most audacious sinkings of the war in the Gulf of Mexico. Official U.S. Coast Guard photo.  Photo courtesy of The Mariner's Museum.

On May 12, 1942, the U.S. flagged tanker SS VIRGINIA was en route from Baytown, Texas, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with 180,000 barrels of gasoline.  At approximately 3:00 p.m., she stopped at the pilot buoy offshore from the Southwest Pass at the mouth of the Mississippi River.  The pilot boat UNDERWRITER had approached and was preparing to board river pilot Captain Albro Michell when a torpedo sped by underneath.  In seconds, VIRGINIA was struck by a torpedo on the port side, followed shortly thereafter by two more hits in the engineroom.  Amidst this chaos, an explosion erupted nearby as a torpedo struck the jetties used to keep the mouth of the river from silting up.  A fourth torpedo had run too deep due to the differing buoyancy of the fresh water pouring from the river's mouth, passed under VIRGINIA, and exploded against a jetty.   Burning gasoline spread outward from the stricken tanker as she quickly sank.  Out of a crew of 40 men, only 14 survived the inferno, some of them severely burned.  No time available for them to launch the

SS VIRGINIA Ship's Statistics Launched 1941 Owner National Bulk Carriers, Inc. Nationality United States Builder Welding Shipyards Inc.—Norfolk, VA Type Tanker Displacement 10,731 tons Length 501.2 ft. Beam (width) 70 ft. Draft (depth) 38.5 ft. Speed   Propulsion Steam turbine Cargo 180,000 barrels of gasoline Crew 40 Armament None

lifeboats.  The survivors jumped overboard from the windward side, thus avoiding the worst of the flames.  They were picked up by PY-157 and ferried to Burwood Naval Section Base further up the Southwest Pass.  One crewmen died from his injuries at the Marine Hospital in New Orleans.  Seven bodies were later recovered by USS COURLAN (AMC-44).

The tanker SS GULFPRINCE escaped from her encounter with U-505 with only light damage and no casualties. Photo courtesy of uboat.net.  Originally contributed to uboat.net by  The Mariner's Museum.

U-506, by this time, had also moving into the waters near the mouth of the river and had damaged the tanker AURORA in Louisiana waters on May 10.  The presence of two U-boats in close proximity proved deadly.  On May 13, the U.S. flagged tankers GULFPENN and GULFPRINCE were steaming eastward about five miles apart and approximately six miles off of the Ship Shoals sea buoy (southwest of Caillou Bay on the Louisiana coastline).  A lookout aboard GULFPRINCE spotted a periscope about one mile distant astern of the ship.  Her captain, Peter Joseph Sigona, ordered a zigzag course at a speed of ten knots.  The first two torpedoes fired by U-507 were evaded, with one passing ahead of the ship and the other astern.  A third torpedo struck the tanker a glancing blow, ricocheting off the starboard side amidships without detonating.  The blow, however, damaged some hull plating and allowed an oil leak from one of the ship's tanks.  Captain Sigona kept the ship zigzagging and at full speed and managed to make it to safety.  She discharged her cargo at New Orleans and went into dry dock for repairs.  No injuries were sustained by any of her crew.

SS GULFPRINCE Ship's Statistics Launched May of 1921 Owner Gulf Oil Company—New York Nationality United States Builder Union Shipbuilding Company— Baltimore, MD Type Tanker Displacement 6,561 tons Length   Beam (width)   Draft (depth)   Speed   Propulsion Steam Cargo 71,000 barrels of crude oil Crew 42 officers & crew Armament None

Her sistership GULFPENN, upon hearing of the attack, fled the scene at full speed and following an erratic zigzag course.  Unfortunately, it was to no avail as she fled right into the sights of U-506 and was promptly sunk on the same day.

Captain Schacht aboard the U-507 was out of usable torpedoes (the one remaining was defective) and out of ammunition for the 105mm deck gun.  He turned his boat to the southeast and headed for the Florida Straits for the voyage home.  But three days later on May 16, the U-boat encountered the Honduran freighter AMAPALA.  The merchant was headed south at 15 knots and following a zigzag course.  With nothing left to throw at the target, most captains would have left the ship in peace and continued home.  Harro Schacht was not "most captains."  In a 1986 interview with American historian and author C. J. Christ, U-507 crewman George Ortwein recalled how Schacht gave chase to the AMAPALA.  The captain zigzagged his boat to give the gun crews on the 37mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns a bearing on the freighter.  Both guns were located aft of the U-boat's conning tower.  Being of such small caliber, neither were truly capable of sinking the ship.

After taking some small amount of damage and having one man injured, the AMAPALA's captain, Harold B. Christiansen, stopped the freighter and lowered lifeboats to abandon ship.  With no weapon capable of sinking the ship, Schacht pulled up alongside one of the lifeboats and attempted to commandeer one of the lifeboats so as to board the AMAPALA.  The freighter's Chief Officer, Joachim Johansen, twice cut his lifeboat's tow line for fear of damaging or swamping the fully-loaded lifeboat against the side of the submarine.  Schacht gave up this tactic, leaving Johansen and his men six packages of cigarettes and attempting—but failing—to get a bottle of brandy over to them.  Instead, three German sailors (Lt. Scherraus, Machinist Mate Tornow, and one other) stripped down, dove into the water, swam to the ship, and boarded via the jacob's ladder used by the crew to abandon ship.  The trio opened the vessel's seacocks, allowing it to flood.  While this occurred, Schacht developed a severe problem.  An American bomber suddenly appeared, responding to the ship's SOS radio call.  U-507 crash-dived as the aircraft dropped five aerial depth charges in its vicinity.  The AMAPALA crew managed to signal the bomber crew that there were Germans aboard the ship.  The U-boat crewmen emerged from belowdecks only to find themselves under fire as the plane strafed the deck prior to departing.  After a short while, with the AMAPALA sinking beneath them and a hostile freighter crew in the nearby lifeboats, the German sailors spotted the 507 resurfacing and swam for safety.

Schacht turned his boat for home, now in possession of paperwork showing Allied convoy information like zigzag patterns and flag, light, and radio signals—something Christiansen should have destroyed prior to abandoning ship.  Behind him, an AMAPALA crewman died in the lifeboats and was buried at sea.  The following morning (May 17), a Coast Guard aircraft spotted the survivors and directed the fishing schooner GONZALES to their rescue.  They were landed at Burwood Naval Section Base on the same day.  AMAPALA was still afloat but with her aft decks awash.  USCGC BOUTWELL (WPC-130) took her in tow, but the freighter foundered and sank en route back to port.

A photo of a German U-boat, believed to be U-507, under attack by a PBY5-A of VP-83 off the northern coast of Brazil in the South Atlantic. Official U.S. Navy photo.

For Harro Schacht and the crew of U-507, their war patrol to the Gulf of Mexico ended back at Lorient, France, on June 04, 1942.  They were credited with a total of nine (9) ships sunk and one (1) damaged (two sunk and one damaged immediately off of the Louisiana coastline).  Ninety-six (96) lives were lost during these attacks.  From the German point of view, this cruise was a huge success.  For the Allies and the Americans in particular, it spelled a huge catastrophe.  Even before the 507 fully made it home, Admiral Dönitz had more U-boats already en route.  The woes for Allied shipping in the Gulf of Mexico were only just beginning.

Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht and the crew of U-507 sailed to Brazil in August of 1942.  Their sinking of six vessels in Brazilian waters single-handedly brought that nation into the war against Germany.  On her fourth war patrol, she returned to Brazilian waters only to be sunk on January 13, 1943, by depth charges from an American PBY5-A Catalina.  All hands from her crew of 54 were lost.

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Sources used in the compilation of this article:

The Deep Wrecks Project of the PAST Foundation website.

Kriegsmarine U-boats: 1939-45 (2), by Gordon Williamson.  Osprey Publishing Ltd. (2002).

The Mariner's Museum website.

The Naval Historical Center.

The State of Louisiana—Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism.

U-Boat Net — The U-Boat War (1939-1945) website.

Torpedo Junction, by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.  U.S. Naval Institute (1989).

U-Boats in action, by Robert C. Stern.  Squadron/Signal Publications (1977).

United States Coast Guard website.
World War II in the Gulf of Mexico, by C. J. Christ.  (2005).

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