DIG WWII: Rediscovering the great wartime battles

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

I have studied battles for a decade but focussing on the archaeology allowed me to break these encounters down into seconds. By plotting all the finds, we have been able to forensically reconstruct the course of some of the most important moments of World War Two.

Dan Snow

Still within living memory, the Second World War continues to fascinate each new generation, thanks to feature films, documentaries, newspaper articles and museum exhibitions, as well as through books and websites produced by veterans, historians and dedicated enthusiasts – not forgetting the dignified ceremonies of remembrance held annually around the world. The official archive of contemporary files, newsreels, photographs and radio broadcasts is vast. With so much information not just available but increasingly accessible, archaeology might seem unnecessary: a tool for reconstructing events and lives from a more distant and poorly recorded past.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As Dan Snow demonstrates in Dig WW2, the painstaking investigation of a site, as opposed to the mere plundering of wartime relics for ‘trophies’ or for commercial gain, has much to add to the recorded events of 1939–1945. The official files had to leave many questions unanswered, either because nobody was in a position to answer them at the time or because the war had moved on. More than half a century later the discovery of, for example, Spitfire wreckage in France may at last solve the mystery of why that aircraft crashed, thus writing a tiny footnote in history and completing an unfinished chapter in the memory of a family and a squadron. Developments in deep-diving techniques, and the increasing sophistication of submersibles, have begun to reveal the fates of surface ships and submarines that went down with all hands or in uncertain circumstances.

Dig WW2 also brings to life the visible but neglected legacy of the war in one part of the United Kingdom. Why is there a pillbox by the canal at Portna? What is the significance of the rotting wooden posts in the river at Lisahally or the iron ring in the slipway at Castle Archdale on the shores of Lough Erne? The answer is that they are all evidence of a time when Northern Ireland became not just important to the Allied war effort but vital to the conduct of the Battle of the Atlantic, a time when the accents of Ulster mingled with those of Allied countries as far away as New Zealand, Canada and Poland. This book goes further, looking at the defence of the whole of the United Kingdom, as well as exploring in greater depth the stories told in the television series and including others that deserve to be told, such as the shooting down of a Messerschmitt Bf 109 over Essex in 1940.

None of the tangible evidence, whether visible or unearthed, would be so engrossing without the human dimension. The astonishing sight of Sherman tanks strewn around the seabed becomes the poignant narrative of a U-boat attack on a converted whaling ship and the rescue vessel that went to her aid, seen through the eyes of those who were there. A visit to a ‘doodlebug’ launch site in France leads on to the pilots who risked, and gave, their lives to bring the V1 rockets down before they could hit London. A soggy piece of leather proves to be a pilot’s helmet. This was an essential piece of flying kit: issued to a particular man, grabbed whenever the call to scramble came through, a witness to every mission he flew, pulled off, damp with sweat, as he climbed out of the aircraft after returning safely – and finally left in the cockpit on the day he bailed out. It is as remarkable as the gun from the same aircraft that was restored to firing condition after 70 years in an Irish bog.

Careful archaeology reveals the fragile remains of a helmet belonging to one of Canadian 1st Infantry Brigade during their assault on the left side of the Hitler Line in May 1944.

A regimental diary may tell us that a particular unit attacked the Hitler Line south of Rome, but empty German machine gun cartridges and the broken remains of a Canadian helmet in front of a fortification are sobering evidence of the bitter fighting in the final assault on one specific position out of many that faced the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the tank squadrons supporting them. They represent instants in time, usually too small to have been recorded individually, and they are intensely visceral. To stare through the embrasure of a bunker at the English Channel, as tens of thousands of Germans did on D-Day, is a first step towards putting oneself into the shoes of someone who watched the approaching Allied armada and wondered what the day held. When added to the surrounding archive of memories, images and documents these visual and tactile experiences speak directly to us, providing a new dimension and helping us to an emotional as well an intellectual understanding. The past becomes as substantial and as real as the present.

Convoys zig-zagged to make an attack more difficult for U-boats. In their columns, this Atlantic convoy steams on the port tack.

IN PERIL ON THE SEA

After the declaration of war on 3 September 1939, nothing much happened until the spring of 1940 when Germany unleashed its armies against Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

Try telling that to anyone who served at that time in the Royal Navy, the Merchant Navy and RAF Coastal Command, or, for that matter, Germany’s Kriegsmarine, and the politest response will be a sigh. They have no memory of what became known as the ‘Phoney War’. Their war began the instant it was declared, and within hours the U-boats had chalked up their first success when Oberleutnant Fritz Julius Lemp, commanding U-30, sank the Anchor-Donaldson liner Athenia, with the loss of 118 lives. On 17 September the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous was torpedoed by U-29, and on 3 November 1939 HMS Rawalpindi became the first of 15 armed merchant cruisers to be sunk when she had the misfortune to encounter the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau while on patrol off Iceland. The Battle of the Atlantic was a tonnage war in which the Allies fought to neutralize Germany’s naval forces before German submarines and surface raiders could strangle vital supply lines by sinking Allied merchant ships faster than they could be replaced. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in no doubt of this, telling the House of Commons on 27 January 1942: ‘But for the Merchant Navy who bring us the food and munitions of war, Britain would be in a parlous state and indeed, without them, the Army, Navy and Air Force could not operate.’

After the First World War Germany had been forbidden to construct submarines, but a covert building and crew-training programme was nevertheless well established before Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and began to expand the navy. During the inter-war years Karl Dönitz, himself a submarine commander from that earlier conflict, and since January 1936 in charge of Germany’s U-boat arm, had promoted the idea of using groups of submarines offensively to hunt individual ships and convoys.

The submarines of each group would conduct independent patrols in their assigned areas until the first of them spotted a convoy. Breaking off patrol, this boat would report the sighting to FdU.¹ While other boats of the group, and any others operating at sufficiently close range, were being vectored in, the first boat would maintain contact with the convoy, running submerged by day and on the surface by night. When sufficient submarines were in place, the attack could commence. The German name for this was rudeltaktik (‘pack tactic’), which became better known in English as ‘wolfpack’, and the attacks generally took place at night when it was far harder for lookouts to spot the prowling enemy on the surface. In fact, although they were called submarines, the U-boats operated more like torpedo boats with diving capability. Diesel engines powered the U-boats on the surface and recharged their batteries; when they dived, the engines were shut down and the batteries took over, but both speed and range were heavily curtailed. It proved to be a frighteningly successful tactic, but it could not be implemented immediately.

Dönitz had calculated that he needed 300 U-boats in order to starve the French and British out of any war: 100 would be on patrol, a further 100 on passage between the patrol area and the submarine bases, and the remaining third in dock for maintenance and repair while the crew enjoyed some leave. Unfortunately for him, the war broke out some four years too early, when he had only 57 U-boats at his disposal, of which only 24 were suitable for the task, effectively giving him only eight on offensive patrol at any one time at the start of the war.

However, Dönitz was not alone in finding his forces inadequate. The Royal Navy was gravely short of ships with which to defend Britain’s convoys, and had to resort to arming merchantmen.

ARMED MERCHANT CRUISERS

The 50 passenger ships that were requisitioned in 1939 and 1940 by Britain’s Admiralty for conversion into armed merchant cruisers (AMC) ranged in size from the 22,575 grt (gross registered tonnage) Queen of Bermuda to the 6,500 grt Bulolo. In addition, the navies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand requisitioned three, two and one AMCs respectively. An AMC’s main armament consisted of between six and eight 6-inch guns: outdated and feeble firepower with which to oppose a German raider. Only three of the AMCs had a firing range exceeding 15,500 yards (14,175 metres), far less than that of even the secondary armament of a German battleship. Before she was sunk, Rawalpindi managed to hit the Scharnhorst, but the shell inflicted only minimal damage. AMCs did not possess the armour associated with warships of their size, and with the best of them capable of around 16 knots, they lacked speed. Flying the Royal Navy’s White Ensign rather than the Merchant Navy’s famous Red Ensign, or ‘Red Duster’, and designated HMS, AMCs were mainly used as auxiliary warships for patrols and convoy escort duties, and they paid a high price. Three were torpedoed in the 10 days from 16 June 1940, and a further 4 in a period of 30 days later the same year.

On 3 November 1940 HMS Patroclus and HMS Laurentic were both torpedoed by U-99 after responding to a distress call by the submarine’s first victim of the day, the refrigerated cargo ship Casanare. It took seven torpedoes to sink Patroclus, because the process of conversion to AMC had included the packing of the ’tween decks with empty oil drums to improve buoyancy in the event of being torpedoed. The following day, HMS Jervis Bay was sunk by the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, for which she was no match, and on 2 December U-99 disposed of HMS Forfar² 500 nautical miles (925 kilometres) west of Ireland. In all, of the 15 ships sunk while operating as AMCs, 10 were hit by submarines.

After 1942 most of the surviving AMCs were decommissioned as warships but not released from the war effort. Some joined the existing fleet of famous passenger ships requisitioned as troopships, and, with the exception of the unfortunate Laconia, survived the war. Those that continued under the White Ensign did so in the roles of depot, anti-aircraft, HQ or repair ship, Landing Craft Infantry (LCI), or in the single case of HMS Pretoria Castle, escort aircraft carrier.

HMS TRANSYLVANIA

For 14 years, Anchor Line’s Transylvania provided a service from Glasgow to New York via Moville, Donegal. Built on the Clyde by Fairfield’s, the 16,923 grt liner had been launched on 11 March 1925, with accommodation for 279 First Class, 344 Second Class and 800 Third Class passengers. Her acknowledged beauty was partly down to her sleek hull and elegant proportions but also to the rake of her two masts and three funnels, two of which were dummies and constructed purely for aesthetic reasons. At just over 552 feet (168 metres) long, she was powered by six steam turbines driving twin screws that gave her a speed of 16 knots, later upgraded to 17.

Her merchant career was marked by just two incidents, the first during a hurricane in late November 1928 when she responded to a distress call from the German cargo ship Herrenwijk some 560 nautical miles (1,040 kilometres) off Ireland. The height of the waves and strength of the wind precluded the launching of any lifeboats, but the 6,345 grt Danish ship Estonia also arrived and by working on the sheltered lee side of Transylvania rescued some of the crew before the conditions deteriorated further and the freighter sank.

The transatlantic liner Transylvania nearing completion at Scott’s Yard, Greenock, Scotland.

The following year Transylvania had her own difficulties, grounding on the La Coeque rocks off Cherbourg in fog and having to return to the Clyde for repairs. Like most liners she underwent refits to remodel the passenger accommodation, and on 7 September 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty as an AMC. Now with only one funnel, HMS Transylvania joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron, which patrolled the Denmark Straits to enforce the blockade of Germany, and under the command of Captain Francis Miles, OBE, RN, she successfully intercepted three German merchant ships.

On 9 August 1940 at around noon Transylvania sailed from Greenock on her eleventh patrol. Coincidentally, U-56 was coming towards the end of her eleventh patrol, and Oberleutnant Otto Harms, her commander on five previous patrols, finally had something to show for his efforts: the sinking on 5 August of Elder Dempster Lines’ 5,408 grt Boma, part of convoy OB 193. This was at a time when Harms’ fellow captains – and rivals – such as Lemp, Schepke and Kretschmer were sinking Allied ships with impunity and winning the Knight’s Cross. U-56 had just moved to the French Atlantic base of Lorient, and at last luck was on her side.

At one minute past midnight, as the watch was about to hand over, Transylvania was steering a zig-zag course, her degaussing equipment operating to protect her against magnetic mines. Her crew were well aware of the even greater danger from German submarines, and her officer of the watch, Lieutenant John Wilson Tone, testified that:

‘… we had one man in the crows nest, two men not only on the forecastle head but two on each side abaft the blast screens for P2 and S2 guns, two men in each wing of the bridge, the control part on the upper bridge and one man each side of the boat deck aft of the store shell guns crews’.³ [All were equipped with binoculars.] ‘I was on the starboard side of the bridge at the time and felt a heavy vibration of the ship. I had my binoculars to my eyes at the time, looking at some trawlers [sic] lights nearly ahead. I turned and saw just forward of the funnel a heavy column of what I presumed spray obscuring the horizon. I ran through the wheelhouse to the port side, looked aft and immediately assumed we had been struck.’

Harms had spotted the AMC at 23:45 and stopped; she was approaching at speed, a big ship with a long, high superstructure, and a raked bow and funnel. He fired from nearly 550 yards (500 metres) and counted the running time – 45 seconds later came the flash and the sound of the detonation.

Captain Miles had only just turned in for the night and was still awake when the explosion burst on the port side. His gut instinct assessed it as a ‘double shock’: two hits, though the U-boat’s war diary specified one. On reaching the bridge he was joined by Tone, who had just switched on the automatic alarms and greeted him with: ‘I believe they have got us, Sir.’

Down among the engines, Engineer Lieutenant Thomas Phillips, RNR, felt the attack more strongly:

‘There was a terrific explosion and a great deal of vibration … and I thought to myself she has got it on the port side and there may be damage to the port engine and I had better shut her off. I sent them [the engine room crew] upstairs. By the time we got there the relief engineer had pulled the cord acting the emergency cut out of the main engines. I did not see any water in the engine room at that period but the relieving engineer said that he saw water coming in the port side as if from the gland in the bulkhead of the port engine shaft, spraying over the generator.’⁴

Four minutes after the detonation the electric lights failed, and for the quarter of an hour that elapsed until the emergency lighting came on everyone used torches and oil lamps.

Jack Hider, who joined the ship early in the war as a signalman/coder, retained vivid memories of the time:

‘… that evening I had just completed the First Watch with W/T Officer McDonald and was handing over to Signalman Coder Lee when there was a bang which sounded to be immediately below us. We jumped but, instinctively, knew what it was. The bridge immediately phoned for a torpedo message to go out. (Have been torpedoed on port side. Position ————— Time 0001) (A few miles North-West of Bloody Foreland off the North coast of Ireland). We were calm although a bit shaky. A second signal was sent – My 0001. Correct position ————- Time 0011. This was followed immediately by a further signal – My 0001. Torpedoed in Engine Room. Cannot steam Time 0012. We packed books and corrected messages. Leech, the third signalman, came up. The emergency lights were not working. At this time we were not sure whether it was a mine or torpedo and then we sent a further message saying Have been torpedoed or struck by a mine. Am not sure which. Time 0036. Soon after 0100 I went down to collect some of my gear. What a mess. When I came back Lee went down. Signalmen Page, Miller, Leech, Halliday, Middleton were all below. It was very hot. Some of the Stokers were singing and playing a gramophone.’

Harms saw the torches and the lamplight catching on the thickening pall of smoke. Transylvania was stopped and down by the stern. There was activity around the lifeboats. If he had had any torpedoes left he would have administered the coup de grâce. With the sea state and the visibility against him, and needing to recharge his batteries, he headed south, back to Lorient.⁵

Almost two hours after the torpedo hit, Hider had found no cause for serious concern. Like Rawalpindi, Transylvania was packed with empty oil drums for buoyancy.

‘0143 – All’s well. Lieut. Shaw, the First Lieut. says we should keep afloat for 24 hours so, with nothing else to do we sat or stood about chatting. I went down again to fetch some more gear. What a mess there was. I then returned to the Coding Office. An aircraft arrived on the scene at 0316, followed by the destroyers ACHATES, FORTUNE and ANTELOPE.

At 0324 another message was sent saying Ship sinking slowly. Wind and sea increasing. Lieut. Tone (Signals Officer) phoned to say that Mr. MacDonald (First W/T Operator) and one Signalman Coder were to stay until message was sent and the remainder to go to their boats. As senior Signalman I sent Signalmen Leech and Lee and Third W/T Operator Cornish to their Boat Stations. Lee went but Leech wouldn’t go for a bit until I had to order him to go (pulling that extra week’s rank for the one and only time). Cornish wouldn’t go either at first. MacDonald had a bit of difficulty in getting the message out due to not enough power. Receiving stations were checking certain groups when Tone came and ordered all of us out of the Office. We locked the safes and had a final look round and left the Office for the last time about 0350. We then went along to P 1 Lifeboat. By now the poor old TRANS had a heavy list to port. P1 was just getting away and they had enough already so we asked them to have a boat sent back for us. We then went up top and, being the only signalman left aboard by then I sent a signal to the destroyer saying Please send boat back. About 20 still on board. I had to use only the flashlight that I had been carrying. The Carley Floats were then lowered and some got away in them. The remainder of us went up on the bridge and the Skipper wanted to know why I was still aboard. Although I was a non-smoker I stood and sat on fo’c’s’le smoking one of Lieut. Tone’s cigars and drinking gin. Everybody was happy. I then spotted a cutter coming alongside. Due to the seas it missed S 1 Falls but got to S 2. We were then all able to go down the lifelines or Jacob’s ladder into the waiting lifeboat and, with luck, several of us didn’t even get our shoes wet. The last eight in order were Able Seaman Ironmonger, P. O. Agate, myself, Hay (Midshipman), MacDonald (Chief W/T Operator), Lieut. Tone (Signals Officer), Lieut. Shaw (First Lieutenant or Jimmy the One) and last of all Captain Miles R.N.R. We pulled away from the ship’s side at 0435. Lieut. Tone and I rowed together for a bit after throwing away a cracked oar. Then he took over – since I was merely a Signalman he no doubt figured I was not much help with an oar. Although it was barely dawn I aimed my camera in the direction of the old TRANS when she was up and down but it was still too dark. She slipped out of sight at 0450. By this time there was quite a heavy sea running but we made it over to the Destroyer which was very appropriately named H.M.S. FORTUNE. I was signalling all the time with a lamp lent to me by R.N.V.R. Subbie Bailey. We came alongside the destroyer and I got out when it was my turn. As I waited for a big wave I was able to grasp the top of the hand rail first shot so was soon inboard once again being able to keep my shoes dry. Then I looked at where the TRANS had been and said There goes my brand new tiddly 32/6 [£1.62.5p] suit never used.’

The torpedoing claimed no lives: as Hider explains, the deaths all occurred as the ship was being abandoned:

‘The Gunner was crushed between his boat and the destroyer and then had his arm cut off by the blades of the propeller. Chief Norgate (from the Bank in Cheapside, City of London) went between the boat and the destroyer and although they got hold of him he had too many clothes on so they could not lift him out. Many were tipped out when they left the TRANS, climbed aboard another lifeboat and then were tipped out alongside the destroyer. In one case a wave lifted the boat off the falls but left the stern hanging so that quite a number fell into the sea. My proper boat was one which capsized. Sea. Kellagher was the only one lost in our Mess (No. 16). There were about forty [36] lost and over 300 survivors. No one was lost at the time we were hit. One lifeboat was slipped early with only five men aboard and they were not seen again. The rest of those assigned to the boat crowded into the next lifeboat but being overloaded it capsized. A third lifeboat was over loaded and capsized alongside one of the destroyers and several were lost including one officer who was crushed between the lifeboat and the destroyer (possibly Chief Norgate mentioned above).’⁶

Hider’s conscientiousness in sticking to his post to the very end was in marked contrast to that of others. The enquiry approved the efforts of Captain Miles and his executive officer, but severely criticized several of the engineer officers for putting their safety ahead of their duty and abandoning the engine room too soon. Only one, Lieutenant Commander (E) Young, was found to have carried out his duties completely satisfactorily; indeed, Captain Miles told the inquiry that he was the only engineer who was ‘any use’ to him. Although it was conceded that Phillips might not have been able to prevent the flooding that eventually sank the ship, Admiral Spooner, Rear-Admiral Commanding Northern Patrol, recommended that he and two others should not serve again in any Royal Navy ship.⁷

Otto Harms went on to command U-464, one of the Kriegsmarine’s ‘milk-cows’ – a Type XIV, which carried no torpedoes but acted as a support boat to replenish other submarines. Spotted southeast of Iceland on 20 August 1942 by a long-range Consolidated PBY Catalina aircraft, U-464 was sunk on her first war patrol with the loss of two of her crew. Harms spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war (POW). U-56 was lost at her base in Kiel during an air raid in April 1945, with the loss of six of her crew of 19.

The wreck of the Transylvania lies upright at a depth of 425 feet (130 metres), some 36 nautical miles (66 kilometres) northwest of Malin Head. On a good day –