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HENRY OWEN L’ESTRANGE AND THE CAPTURE OF U-570
On the 27th August, 1941, while on patrol, the crew of a Lockhead Hudson plane stationed near Reykjavik sighted a German U-boat surfacing at about 100 miles south of Iceland. This was U-570. When its captain saw the Hudson he shouted orders to crash dive, but before the submarine could do so the aircraft dropped four depth charges which straddled the vessel on either side, wrecking the electrical circuit, blowing out the lights and causing a leak of chlorine gas from the batteries. The forward compartment was flooded causing the ship to become bow heavy. On a second run the Hudson sprayed the U-boat’s conning tower with .303 bullets, slightly wounding five of the German crew. A white flag of surrender was waved from the deck of the U-boat. Meanwhile inside the submarine the German radio operators were smashing the radio equipment with hammers and perhaps beating distress signals on the side of the vessel in the hope that it might be heard by another German submarine which they knew to be in the area.
The aircraft signaled to all relevant shore, stations, including H.Q. Western Approaches in Liverpool. As a result all available allied warships were directed to the scene with orders that the submarine was at all costs to be prevented from scuttling. At dusk the U-boat was kept under observation by a Catalina aircraft together with a reinforcement of Hudsons. The crew were ordered to remain on deck and to keep a light burning during the hours of darkness.
The ships which came on the scene were the following, listed in the order of their appearance:
1. Northern Chief, trawler
2. Kingston Agate, trawler
3. Burwell, 4-stack U.S. destroyer transferred to R.N. under lease-law
4. Windermere and Buttermere, two whalers
5. Niagara, Canadian destroyer
Kingston Agate was commanded by Lieut. Henry Owen L’Estrange, R.N.R, this being his first independent command. Both trawlers had been patrolling between Iceland and the Faroes. Agate arrived at 0100 hours on the 28th August, having been sailing at maximum speed for six hours. She passed close to the stern of the U-boat, assisted by flares dropped by a Cataline, with her crew closed up to action stations. L’Estrange signalled W.R.A. which meant in international code: ‘Stop. Do not lower boats. Do no scuttle. Do not use radio. If you disobey, I will open fire’.
Northern Chief, which had reached the submarine one and a half hours before Agate had decided that it was not possible at that time to board the U-boat because of the gale which was blowing. L’Estrange on arrival signalled to Northern Chief requesting permission to attempt to board her. The captain of Northern Chief was senior to L’Estrange, hence the request for permission. The same procedure was followed when Burwell approached. Northern Chief replied to L’Estrange’s request by signalling : ‘No. I am waiting till daylight’. Thereafter Northern Chief remained at about a mile and a half to two miles to the east of the U-boat. Agate remained to the west as close to her as weather conditions permitted, with her guns, a 4 - inch at the forward end and a light A.A gun at the stern, trained on the enemy ship.
At daybreak Burwell approached closer. To L’Estrange’s request to attempt to board, Burwell replied: ‘No. I will lower a boat’. L’Estrange then suggested that he should move to windward and spread oil, but after a considerable lapse of time Burwell considered that weather conditions were too unfavourable to lower a boat.
At this stage Burwell moved close to the U-boat and opened fire with a machine gun, wounding eight Germans in the conning tower. L’Estrange could see no reason for this action which, because the U-boat had surrendered, was plainly in breach of the rules of warfare. the explanation subsequently given was that Burwell, observing that the U-boat’s bow was dipping further into the sea, signalled to her: ‘Blow ballast and pump oil’. When no reply was received, fire was opened.
After all the allied warships had arrived the two trawlers and the two whalers circled the U-boat in an endless chain sweep using asdic to deter the approach of any enemy submarine. At about 1100 hours Windermere left the circle and, while towing a Carley float, passed to windward of the U-boat hoping that the float would blow down on her and that the wounded men would be able to board it. But at no time did the float get close enough for any men to board it. While this was going on Agate signalled Burwell requesting permission to take the U-boat in tow. Agate had recently been fitted with a towing gear but a three and a half inch steel wire rope for towing had not been provided and her only towing hawser was that which she had used in her fishing days in peace time.
Agate proceeded at slow speed as close as practicable to the U-boat and on her weather side. The former stopped with her midships section abreast of the conning tower. She then fired a line across the U-boat which was hauled in by the Germans. Attached to the line was a Carley float in which the Agate’s 1st Lieutenant, Lieut. Hector Campbell, R.N.V.R. with for ratings crossed over to and then boarded the U-boat. The crossing was hazardous; an eye witness later described how the float was in sight one moment and hidden by towering waves the next. Each of the boarding party was armed with a revolver. While Campbell went below with two ratings to ascertain that no attempt had been made to scuttle the submarine that no time bombs had been set, the other two ratings assisted the wounded onto the float. This was done with great difficulty as the swell was then at its maximum. When the float was hauled back to Agate the Germans were hoisted one by one aboard by means of a boat davit. They were wet, hungry and miserable. Their wounds were attended to and splints applied to their broken legs and arms and members of the crew gave up their bunks for them.
On its return trip to the submarine the float carried Sub-Lieut. Wrightson, R.N.V.R. L’Estrange intended to transfer the officers, petty officers and key ratings to the Agate, leaving the rest of the crew on the U-boat under an armed guard. A signal was sent by Agate ordering the captain and engineer officer to transfer from one vessel to the other. The following signals followed by Aldis lamp:
From U-boat: ‘Commander refuses to leave his ship’.
From Agate: ‘Unless Commander leaves immediately I will open fire’.
Those words appear in the log, but the words in fact used by L’Estrange were: ‘Tell them there’s a 4 inch gun here that says he gets into that float damned quick’.
One of the German officers pointed out to Wrightson that the British would not open fire with their own men aboard, to which Wrightson replied that the boarding party had orders at a given signal to jump overboard. In the event the German captain left his ship in a hurry. When he boarded the Agate he was in a very nervous condition and his lower lip was trembling with fear. In view of what happened later one can understand his fears. He had surrendered a U-boat and must face the consequences.
At about 1000 hours the end of Agate’s towing rope was passed to the submarine by Carley floats. Campbell organised his own ratings and the Germans to haul on the rope and had them all singing as they did so. Shortly afterwardsCampbell reported that the U-boat was filling with chlorine gas from the batteries. This information was passed to Burwell which then signalled that Agate was to abandon the submarine. L’Estrange enquired whether this meant that she was to continue to tow, though taking off her seamen, to which Burwell replied that the tow was to be discontinued. L’Estrange reminded Burwell of the original signal from higher authority that the U-boat should be prevented from scuttling by any means possible. Burwell signalled back: ‘Continue to tow’.
But Burwell closed Agate and communicated by loud hailer that if the U-boat had not been taken in tow by 1800 hours she (Burwell) would sink her by gunfire. L’Estrange by loud hailer replied that he refused to get out of the line of fire. By 1600 hours the tow was secured. The remainder of the U-boat’s crew then transferred to Niagara.
While Agate was towing the U-boat round so as to set out on a course for Reykjavik, the five and a half inch manila rope fouled the stern of the boat and chafed on the hydrophones, rudder and screw and parted. Northern Chief which had a good rope on board undertook the tow, while Agate proceeded at full speed to Rekjavik with the wounded who were on board.
The Kingston Agate had been on the scene for about sixteen hours. Campbell had been on board the U-boat for about 5 hours and had nearly been swept overboard on two occasions when he had to crawl along the submarine’s narrow deck over which heavy seas were breaking.
In his report dated the 1st September, 1941, addressed to the Admiral Commanding Iceland Command, the captain of Niagara wrote:
‘Very fine seamanship was displayed by Commanding Officer of Trawler (KA), and great bravery was shown by Lieut. Campbell and Sub-Lieut. Wrightson in boarding the U-boat and making bow line fast in heavy sea, going below in submarine with hostile enemies around. Myself and my officers of my ship have nothing but the highest praise for the above named officers for the courage, seamanship and determination to bring U-boat to port.
I wish to thank you for your very kind messages to the Ship’s Company of H.M.C.S. Niagara for the part they played but we feel the officers and crew of the Kingston Agate in boarding and taking off wounded men and towing U-boat towards Harbour were supreme’.
The Flag Officer Commanding Iceland wrote to the captain of the Niagara on the 10th October 1941:
I am commanded by My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to request that you will convey to
Lieut. H.O. L’Estrange, R.N.R.
Lieut. Hector Campbell, R.N.V.R.
Sub.Lt. J.W. Wrightson, R.N.V.R.
(also four seamen)
an expression of their appreciation of the courage, seamanship and devotion to duty shown by them on this occasion.
L’Estrange was subsequently decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross (DCS) and Wrightson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Squadron Leader James Thomson and Flying Officer Jack Coleman of the Hudson which had at the outset disabled the U-boat were decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross (DCF).
Winston Churchill in ‘The Second World War’, Vol. 3 pp. 460-1, refers to the incident in the following terms:
In August (1941) a Hudson aircraft of Coastal Command attacked a U-boat with depth-charges in the Western Approaches. The U-boat was injured and unable to dive, and the crew attempted to man their gun; but the Hudson with her own machine-guns drove them below, and for the first time in war a submarine hoisted the white flag and surrendered to an aeroplane. A heavy sea was running and no surface vessel was near, but the Hudson maintained relentless watch over her prize. Aid was summoned, and the next day the U-boat was towed by a trawler to Iceland. She was later commissioned into the Royal Navy. The incident is unique.
On the 25th September 1941 Churchill sent the following signal to the First Lord and the First Sea Lord:
Why not give the ‘Graph’ U-boat (as U-570 had been renamed), when she is repaired, to the Yugoslav Navy? They have a submarine crew which has arrive at Alexandria, but their vessel was in too bad a condition for the Admiral to allow it to go to sea. I rather like the idea of the Yugoslavs working a captured German U-boat. (‘The Second World War’, vol. 13, Appendix G at pp. 737).
What follows is a brief account of the subsequent history of U-570 and its officers. It is based on ‘H.M. U-boat’ by John D. Drummond, published in 1958. This book is written in a sensationalised journalistic style and is not a work of serious naval history. Nevertheless the author researched the subsequent history of the U-boat and its officers.
The officers were interviewed in a prisoner-of-war camp at Grisedale Hall on the east bank of Coniston Water in Cumberland. Two of the officers, the captain, Hans Rahmlow, and a lieutenant named Berard Berndt were condemned by a ‘court ‘ of officer POWs on a charge of surrendering their ship, the sentence to be carried out when Germany conquered Britain. The British authorities, sensing trouble, had Rahmlow transferred to a POW camp in Canada. Berndt escaped with the help of the other Germans. This may have been a form of punishment inflicted on him by his brother officers. They would succeed in causing trouble for the camp staff and Berndt would be punished by the British authorities for escaping. Far less probably, the author of ‘H.M.U-Boat’ advances the theory that Berndt in attempted exploitation of his crime was planning to sabotage the U-boat when it was under repair in Barrow-in-Furness. Whatever the truth may be Berndt was captured by the Home Guard within hours of his escape. When he realised that he was being taken back to the camp he broke free from his captors. He was called upon to stop and then a shot was fired. It was not intended to kill him, but he stumbled as the rifle fired and died. He was buried in the churchyard of the nearby Hawkshead.
After temporary repairs in Iceland the U-boat sailed under its own power to the naval dockland in Barrow-in-Furness. It was there comprehensively repaired and commissioned into the Royal Navy as H.M.S. Graph. The details of her construction and equipment were of the greatest value to the British experts. She served in the Bay of Biscay where she torpedoed and sank a German U-boat and thereafter off Norway as part of the submarine screen designed to contain the German battleship Tirpitz and prevent her emerging from a Norwegian fiord to prey on British convoys sailing to Russia. In 1943 she sailed for Chatham for repairs and on entering the Harbour crashed into the dockyard wall. Serious structural damage was caused by this mishap. It was decided that Graph should be towed to Scotland where she would be used as a target for testing depth charges until she became a total wreck. After being towed round the north of Scotland Graph broke adrift from her tow and ran aground and foundered on Islay on the 20plainth March 1944.
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