German submarine U-552

Later on in her career, she sank the freighter SS David H Atwater off the US seaboard during the Second Happy Time. It has been mistakenly reported that she targeted the crew. After-war analysis indicates that in this case, as in other similar cases, the U-boat was actually firing at the ship in order to disable and sink her, during which incidental fire damaged the lifeboats.

Unusually for such a long service boat, she survived right to the end of the war, evacuating her French bases during the spring of 1944 and operating on training duties in the Baltic Sea until the 2 May 1945, when her crew scuttled her to prevent her falling into enemy hands.

War Patrols

Following construction, which was completed on the 4 December 1940, the U-552 was given two months of working up training, during which she prepared her crew and equipment for the operations ahead. She then sailed from Kiel on the 13th of February for her first war patrol into the Western Approaches of the English Channel. This first operation yielded one enormous British tanker, and one tiny Icelandic coastal freighter. Her later patrols were all conducted from the enormous U-boat base in the French port of St Nazaire, which gave her easy access to the Atlantic Ocean and longer patrol endurance. This allowed the U-552 to make the most of operations against allied convoys.

On her next two patrols, in May and June 1941, she sank five large freighters and damaged one, as well as a tiny minesweeper, all taken out of convoys passing to the North of Ireland from North America. Her next three patrols all took her further into the Atlantic, where the danger was lessened, but so were the targets, meaning that she only hit four more cargo ships. This was also the time, during her final patrol on 1941, that she sank the Reuben James, which was torpedoed on the 30 October in controversial circumstances.

In 1942, with her same commander, Erich Topp, who would later become an admiral of the Bundesmarine, U-552 participated in the Second Happy Time, in which German submarines had great success against unescorted American merchantmen sailing alone up and down the US seaboard. U-552 was a particular successful in these conditions, sinking 13 ships and damaging another in just three patrols in the first six months of the year. Two further patrols under Topp during the summer netted four more ships, but U-552 was badly damaged by heavy seas during one of these, and was put into port for repairs, during which Topp was promoted and a more cautious commander named Klaus Popp replaced him.

U-552 had less success in later years, as did the U-boat force in general, as U-boats failed to keep ahead of rapidly increasing numbers and capabilities of allied anti-submarine efforts. She was transferred to operations off of the Spanish, Portuguese and African coasts, which were nearer to base and less dangerous than the newly reorganized defenses of the United States, where she attempted to sink troopships during Operation Torch. Whilst on this duty, Topp sank a small British minesweeper and later a cargo ship, but failed to enter the Straits of Gibraltar or seriously threaten the landings.

During 1943, U-552 was increasingly unable to serve effectively against the well prepared and organized allied convoy system, a fact reflected by her failure to sink a single ship during her two patrols into the North Atlantic Ocean. During one of these, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator aircraft spotted her and she was seriously damaged by depth charges, prompting four months repairs. In 1944 she had a single unsuccessful patrol, but was unable to close with or threaten allied convoys, and so was withdrawn to Germany in April 1944 for use as a training craft in the 22 U-boat Flotilla, a role she fulfilled until the 2 May 1945, when her German crew scuttled her in Wilhelmshaven bay to prevent the allies capturing her when they overran the port.

The sinking of the Reuben James

The destroyer USS Reuben James holds the unfortunate distinction of being the first US Navy warship to be sunk in the Second World War, occurring in the Mid-Atlantic just over a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor on the 30 October 1941. The Reuben James was an old destroyer, who had been assigned to the Neutrality Patrol early in the war, before taking on duties escorting convoys from North America to Britain. At Iceland, British warships would take over for the second, more dangerous half of the voyage, but via this expedient, much effort and resources were saved for Britain.

On two occasions in recent months, US destroyers and German submarines had skirmished around these convoys, such as the USS Niblack incident, with the situation coming to a head on the 16 October, when the USS Kearny was torpedoed and eleven sailors killed performing the same duty as the Reuben James. On 31 October 1941, the James was escorting convoy HX-105, close to the switchover point near Iceland, when a torpedo from U-552 impacted her side as James tried to shield the convoy from an imminent attack. The torpedo blew off the bow which sank immediately, the rest of her about five minutes later. When the stern sank the unsecured depth charges exploded killing some survivors in the water. 115 of her 160 man crew were killed. The incident provoked a furious outburst in the United States, especially when Germany refused to apologize, instead countering that the destroyer was operating in what Germany considered to be a war zone and had suffered the consequences. It was a boost for the American war party, and is sometimes considered a motivator in the outbreak of war on the 10 December 1941 between Germany and the United States.

The sinking of the David H Atwater

The destruction of the SS David H Atwater, in the Atlantic Ocean ten miles off Chincoteague Inlet on the coast of Virginia has been incorrectly reported for years.

Men were probably killed by gunfire but there is absolutely no evidence it was intentional although it has been reported that way in a few books.

She was built like a tanker with the bridge, radio room, lifeboats and probably the engine room and crew quarters all at the stern together unlike a typical freighter which has the bridge amidships and the lifeboats fore and aft. The engine room, bridge and the radio room were legitimate targets and unfortunately for them the men would have had to go into that area to get to the lifeboats and thus the confusion about what was being targeted. It should also be noted that U-boats were very poor platforms for gun action, with their low draft and narrow hulls making them especially prone to rolling. Gunfire accurate enough to either deliberately hit, or miss, specific small items on a ship such as lifeboats or individual crewman, was usually not possible. The crew apparently mistook fire that struck them or the lifeboats prior to being launched as having been deliberately aimed at them. The lifeboats were on the David H Atwater and in the open as they normally were so when the shooting started the incidental gunfire damaged them, leaving them full of holes. They were damaged while still on the ship, not after they were in the water.

The attack occurred at night. Topp fired ninety-three shots with the 88mm deck gun at the freighter, struck her over 50 times and set her on fire. The Atwater sank in 45 minutes. The crew of eight officers and 19 men were unable to abandon ship in the now damaged lifeboats and most jumped into the water and drowned.

There was an enemy warship in the area at the time so it wasn’t practical for U-552 to try to help the survivors.

Various writers have taken the few facts available and embellished or interpreted them to include wrongdoing by U-552 but there is no actual evidence to support that. It was not policy in any navy’s submarine force at that time of the war to radio any type of warning before opening fire on an enemy ship. There was also no requirement that firing be stopped to allow the crew to abandon ship although German U-boats usually did when they could. However, as long as the crew was aboard and trying to keep the ship afloat or fight fires etc. the ship was a legitimate target. In the case of the SS Cardonia the U-boat stopped the shelling when they heard the international abandon ship signal (a certain number of blasts on the ship’s whistle) in order to give the men time to get the boats away. There is no record of an audible abandon ship signal from the David H Atwater and as all of the officers were killed there may not have been anyone alive at the time to order the abandon ship signal once the firing started and perhaps no working whistle to boot.

When the Coast Guard cutter Leagre arrived just fifteen minutes later, only three crew from the original twenty seven were found alive, along with a number of bodies. The U-552 had escaped the scene without attracting attention to herself and continued to have a successful cruise.

Raiding career

Date	Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
1 March 1941	SS Cadillac	British	12,062	Sunk
10 March 1941	SS Reykjaborg	Icelandic	687	Sunk
27 April 1941	HMS Commander Horton	British	227	Sunk
27 April 1941	MV Beacon Grange	British	10,160	Sunk
28 April 1941	MV Capulet	British	8,190	Damaged
1 May 1941	SS Nerissa	British	5,583	Sunk
10 June 1941	SS Ainderby	British	4,860	Sunk
12 June 1941	MV Chinese Prince	British	8,593	Sunk
18 June 1941	SS Norfolk	British	10,948	Sunk
23 August 1941	SS Spind	Norwegian	2,129	Sunk
20 September 1941	SS T.J. Williams	Panamanian	8,212	Sunk
20 September 1941	SS Pink Star	Panamanian	4,150	Sunk
20 September 1942	MV Barbaro	Norwegian	6,325	Sunk
30 October 1941	USS Reuben James	American	1,190	Sunk
15 January 1942	SS Dayrose	British	4,113	Sunk
18 January 1942	SS Frances Salman	American	2,609	Sunk
25 March 1942	MV Ocana	Dutch	6,256	Damaged
3 April 1942	SS David H Atwater	American	2,438	Sunk
5 April 1942	SS Byron T Benson	British	7,953	Sunk
7 April 1942	MV British Splendour	British	7,138	Sunk
7 April 1942	SS Lancing	Norwegian	7,866	Sunk
9 April 1942	SS Atlas	American	7,137	Sunk
10 April 1942	SS Tarnaulipas	American	6,943	Sunk
15 June 1942	SS Etrib	British	1,943	Sunk
15 June 1942	MV Pelayo	British	1,346	Sunk
15 June 1942	MV Slemdal	Norwegian	7,374	Sunk
15 June 1942	SS City of Oxford	British	2,759	Sunk
15 June 1942	SS Thurso	British	2,436	Sunk
25 July 1942	MV British Merit	British	8,093	Damaged
25 July 1942	SS Broompark	British	5,136	Sunk
3 August 1942	MV G.S. Walden	British	10,627	Damaged
3 August 1942	SS Belgian Soldier	Belgian	7,176	Damaged
19 September 1942	HMS Alouette	British	520	Sunk
3 December 1942	SS Wallsend	British	3,157	Sunk

Notes

References

Browning, Robert M. Jr. U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. ISBN 1-55750-087-8.
Sharpe, Peter, U-Boat Fact File, Midland Publishing, Great Britain: 1998. ISBN 1-85780-072-9.