Convoy SC 7
| date | October 16-19, 1940 |
|---|---|
| place | North Atlantic |
| output | Loss of 79,592 GRT Allied shipping space |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 7 submarines | 35 cargo ships 7 escort ships |
| losses | |
|
no |
20 cargo ships with 79,592 GRT |
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The Convoy SC 7 was made 35 cargo ships existing convoy in the Second World War , the October 4, 1940 by Canadian Sydney ( Nova Scotia ) towards Liverpool and other British expired ports. During its Atlantic crossing , the convoy was attacked by a so-called wolf pack ( English : Wolfpack ) German submarines and severely hit and decimated in the course of the three-day attack. These attacks highlighted the enormous potential of pack tactics and, at the same time, the great deficits of the British anti-submarine hunt at the time.
The ships of the convoy
The slow convoy left Sydney on October 4, 1940 for Liverpool. Actually, the speed should be eight knots ; however, some of the ships were a little slower. The group consisted of older, smaller ships that had mostly loaded bulk cargo, most of which came from the Canadian east coast, specifically from areas north and east of Sydney. Typical cargo were props from eastern New Brunswick for the British coal mines , timber, pulp , grain , steel and steel billets from the steel mill in Sydney and iron ore from Newfoundland for the major steel plants in Wales . The largest ship in the convoy to the Clyde was the British Admiralty's oil tanker Languedoc, which was loaded with fuel for the Royal Navy and had a gross tonnage of 9512 . Another ship, the Empire Brigad , carried large numbers of trucks .
The attacks
The first days of the crossing were calm; However, when the convoy approached the west coast of Great Britain on October 16, 1940 (especially the area between Iceland and Great Britain, see also: GIUK gap ), the first coordinated attack by seven German submarines began. These were U 38 (under Heinrich Liebe ), U 46 ( Engelbert Endrass ), U 48 ( Heinrich Bleichrodt ), U 99 ( Otto Kretschmer ), U 100 ( Joachim Schepke ), U 101 ( Fritz Frauenheim ) and U 123 ( Karl-Heinz Moehle ). The attack was the French Lorient from Vice Admiral Karl Doenitz coordinated and his staff.
SC 7 was only the fourth convoy to be attacked by a submarine group using the pack tactic. The British sloop Scarborough was the only escort in the convoy. Convoy tactics were still rudimentary at this very early part of the war, and it is difficult to assess which tactic would have helped a single rather weak escort for 35 slow freighters against a pack of German submarines, if there was any promising tactic at all.
The first ship to be sunk on October 16 was the Canadian Trevisa , a small ship of 1,813 GRT loaded with timber for Scotland , which sailed at the end of the convoy.
On October 17, the submarines sank three other ships, including the tanker Languedoc .
The Scarborough could do little, and even when the Sloop Fowey and the corvette Bluebell arrived to support the next day , the defensive measures were barely noticeable, as the escort ships also took care of the survivors of the ships that had already sunk or sinking, and thus the rest of the convoy left unprotected at times.
October 18th was even more lossy for the convoy. Seven ships were sunk, including the Creekirk loaded with iron ore and sailing to Cardiff , Wales . Due to the heavy weight of her cargo, she sank particularly quickly, pulling all 36 crew members with her. During the day, the British sloop Leith and the corvette Heartsease joined the convoy in support.
October 19th was the blackest day for the group. Nine ships, including the Empire Brigand with its cargo trucks, were sunk, as was the Fiscus , which had loaded steel bars. The convoy commander's ship, the Assyrian , was also lost that day. Admiral Lachlan Mackinnon could be saved; seventeen of his seamen were killed, as were six of the Empire Brigand and thirty-eight of the thirty-nine men on the Fiscus .
Whereabouts
The attack on the convoy was chaotic and in the nocturnal confusion several boats reported that they had sunk the same ships. Therefore, the submarine command initially overestimated the sinking numbers and assumed 30 ships with around 200,000 GRT as sunk. SC 7's actual losses were 20 of its 35 ships; seven of them were sunk by Kretschmer's U 99 . The total tonnage lost was 79,592 GRT. The convergence of the convoys SC 7 and HX 79 dispersed the submarines, which sank 12 ships of HX 79 in the further course . A total of 32 ships were sunk in just five days, with none of the attacking submarines being lost.
In contemporary propaganda, the convoy battle against SC 7 was combined with the two days later attack in the same sea area on HX 79 . This gave the impression of an excessively long convoy battle. The propaganda designation " Night of the Long Knives " at the time has been used in publications to this day.
literature
- Paul Lund and Harry Ludlam: The Night of the Submarines. Heyne Verlag , ISBN 3-453-01652-1 .
Web links
- Ship list on convoyweb.org.uk
Footnotes
- ^ Clay Blair : Der U-Boot-Krieg, Die Jäger Heyne (Munich), 1999, p. 248.
- ↑ 9. - 20.10.1940 North Atlantic
- ^ Clay Blair: Der U-Boot-Krieg, Die Jäger 1939-1942, Wilhelm Heine Verlag , Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X , p. 249.