HELL-BENT FOR ADVENTURE

Chapter Seven: U-Boats, Convoys and Strange

                           Skippers

The saga of the United States Navy Armed Guard is the least known story of World War II.

I know.  I was a navy lieutenant in that unit, yet when people ask me what I did in the war and I say, “I served in the Armed Guard,” they inevitably ask, “The what?”

Even veterans...and this includes navy vets...look befuddled and react the same way: “The armed what?”

Why has nobody ever heard of a combat command that lost 1800 dead from its small contingent of 144,000 young sailors?  (The death rate was second only to the Marines.)

What was this mysterious unit?

That story takes some explaining. 

In the early days of World War II, long before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the German Navy was winning the “Battle of the Atlantic.”  Nazi U-boats were paving the ocean floors with cargo ships on their way to supply the beleaguered British Isles.  President Roosevelt’s Lend Lease operation, with its “loan” of aging destroyers to England, was an attempt to stem the horrendous tide of ships sunk.  In 1941 and 1942, more ships were sunk than were built, over 1500 going down in 1942 alone. Winston Churchill said, “The only thing that ever scared me in World War II was submarine warfare.”

Many of the vessels--Liberty and Victory ships--flew the American flag.  Indeed, the first U.S. casualties in the war were sailors in the merchant marine who went down with their ships.   Had the carnage continued at that rate, England would have been defenseless and the chances are that German would be the second language spoken there, possibly in the U.S. as well.  The stakes were that monumental.

Once we entered the war after December 7, 1941, we greatly increased our aid to Britain.  Looking forward to the invasion of Europe, it became all the more vital to win the Battle of the Atlantic and protect those vital supplies from surface raiders, airplanes and submarines.

The key to self-protection was the convoy.  Merchant ships leaving New York City harbor were instantly formed into convoys for security and secrecy.  At the very last minute, the ship’s captains received their orders in sealed envelopes to be opened at sea.  At a convoy conference, the officers were given their destinations, the assumption being that no spy would be privy to such closely guarded papers.  Trouble was, the longshoremen on the docks who loaded the ships already knew those orders simply by observing the names of destination ports stenciled on crates and boxes in cargo. Not exactly airtight security!

Naturally, every effort was made to keep the longshoremen from talking.  No one doubted that German agents in New York City were in radio contact with their Nazi superiors about ship movements, which gave rise to the cautionary slogan, "Loose lips sink ships."

Once out to sea, the convoys lined the ships up five and six deep, each ship blindly following the one ahead of it.  And, of course, the slowest ship determined the speed of the convoy, the average being six knots for ships and 18 knots for U-boats.  At night the tightly bunched ships proceeded in total darkness. Smoking on deck at night was a serious offense since even the flare of a match could alert the watching subs. All ship portholes and windows were covered with heavy blankets at night and even loud music was prohibited.

Lucky ships had a small navy escort vessel or two that continually circled the convoy.  Shepherding their ships like a border collie running sheep, these intrepid escorts armed with depth charges afforded some security, but enemy U-boats soon learned to lie in wait until the escort was on the far side.  Hiding behind their targets concealed their periscope trail and made it easy     to slap a torpedo into the nearest ship.

Often as not, wolf packs of several subs worked as a team and sometimes these deadly packs would knock off an entire convoy of thirty ships, even the escort. Something had to be done and one answer was the Armed Guard.

Desperately, our government recalled all American cargo ships, sent them into shipyards and outfitted them  fore and aft with heavy guns easily capable of sinking enemy subs.  A U.S. Navy gun crew of thirty men was placed on each ship under the command of a lieutenant (junior grade).  As a j.g., I was one of that small company.