U-853-- Part 6: Battle of Point Judith

The Black Point was the last U.S.-flagged merchant ship lost in World War II.  One of the ships rescuing the survivors, the Yugoslav freighter Kamen sent a report of the torpedoing to authorities.

The U.S. Navy organized a "hunter-killer" group that included four American warships:  USS Ericsson, USS Amick, USS Atherton and USS Moberly.

They discovered the U-853 on the bottom in 108 feet of water and dropped depth charges and hedgehogs during a 16-hour attack.  At first, the U-boat attempted to flee, then tried to hide by lying still.  Both times it was found by sonar.

On the morning of 6 May 1945, two K-Class blimps from Lakehurst, New Jersey, K-16 and K-58, joined the attack, locating oil slicks and marking suspected locations with smoke and dye markers.

K-16 also attacked with 7.2-inch rocket bombs.  Numerous depth charge and hedgehog attacks from the Atherton and Moberly resulted in planking, life rafts and an officer's cap floating to the surface.

The U-853 was one of the last U-boats sunk during WW II and the last to be sunk in U.S. waters.  (The U-881 was sunk on the same day in the North Atlantic.)

The Atherton and Moberly were given credit for the kill.

--GreGen

U-853-- Part 5: Sinking the USS Eagle 56 and Battle of Point Judith

Although several survivors of the Eagle claimed to have seen a submarine sail with yellow and red insignia, a Navy inquiry attributed the Eagle's sinking to a boiler explosion.  The Navy reversed its finding in 2001 to acknowledge that the sinking was due to hostile action and awarded Purple Hearts to the survivors and next-of-kin of the deceased.

BATTLE OF POINT JUDITH

On 5 May 1945, the new president of Germany, Karl Donitz ordered all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.

The U-853 was lying in wait off Point Judith, Rhode Island at the time.

Either the submarine didn't receive this order or ignored it.

Soon afterwards, a torpedo from her blew the stern off of the collier Black Point underway from New York to Boston.  Within 15 minutes the Black Point had sunk in 100 feet of water less than four nautical miles south of Point Judith. Twelve men died and 34 were rescued.

--GreGen

German Submarine U-853-- Part 4: Third and Final Patrol

SECOND PATROL

In seven weeks between 27 August and 14 October 1944, the U-853 was on it second patrol, but sank no ships.  The ship had been fitted out with a Schnorchel, a retractable air intake and exhaust that allowed it to remain submerged while running her diesel engines.  This reduced the need to spend dangerous periods on the surface charging batteries.

LAST PATROL

ON 23 February  1945, the U-853 was sent on her third war patrol to harass U.S. coastal shipping.  She did not sink any targets during the first weeks of patrol.  On 1 April she was ordered to the Gulf of Maine.

On 23 April, she fatally torpedoed the USS Eagle 56  near Portland, Maine.  The Eagle has been towing targets for the US Navy dive bomber training exercise 3 nautical miles off Cape Elizabeth when she exploded amidships and sank.  Only 13 of her 67 crew survived.

The same day, the USS Selfridge dropped nine depth charges on a suspected submarine.  The next day, the USS Muskegon made sonar contact and attacked the U-853, but failed to destroy her.

--GreGen

German Submarine U-853-- Part 3: First War Patrol, Weather-Watching and the Queen Mary

On her first war patrol from May to June 1944, the U-853 was assigned weather watching duty.  German intelligence believed weather would have a major impact on an expected Allied invasion of Europe.  On 25 May, she spotted the RMS Queen Mary, loaded with American troops and supplies.  (The Queen Mary most likely was carrying 15,000 soldiers at the time.)

The U-853 submerged to attack but was outrun by the much faster ship.  As she surfaced in the Queen Mary's wake, she was attacked by British aircraft from an oil tanker and a grain ship converted into Merchant Aircraft Carriers.

No major damage took place to the submarine, however.

Meanwhile, the escort carrier Croatan had been hunting weather boats for nearly a month and had already sunk  the U-488 and U-490.  German radio messages were intercepted from the submarine and the Croatan and six destroyers went looking for her.

The U-853 proved elusive, but on 17 June, a weather report from the U-853 was picked up just 30 nautical miles away.  Planes were scrambled and an attack made within minutes.  Strafing runs were made and two sailors were killed and 12 wounded.  The submarine crash dived to safety.

The U-853 returned to its base at Lorient in northwest France, ending the patrol.

--GreGen

German Submarine U-853-- Part 2: The 'Tightrope Walker'

The U-853 was built by DeSchiMAG AG Weser of Bremen, Germany.  Ordered on 5 June 1941, her keel was laid on 21 August 1942 and commissioned on 25 June 1943.

The Germans nicknamed the ship "der Seiltanzer" meaning "The Tightrope Walker" and her crew pained an emblem of a yellow shield with a red horse on the sail.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

LENGTH:  251 feet 10 inches

BEAM:  22.6 feet

SPEED:  18.3 knots surfaced, 7.3 knots submerged

TEST DEPTH:  750 feet

COMPLEMENT:   4 officers, 44 enlisted

ARMAMENT:

6 torpedo tubes (4 bow, 2 stern)

one 4.1-inch deck gun

one 31.5-inch AA gun

one twin 2 cm FlaK 30 AA guns

--GreGen

German Submarine U-853

From Wikipedia.

This was the German ship that is now given credit for sinking the USS Eagle 56.

Was a Type IXC/40 U-boat.  Her keel was laid down on 21 August 1942 and commissioned  on 25 June 1943.  She saw action in the Battle of the Atlantic, conducting three war patrols, sinking two Allied ships.

On her final patrol she had been sent to harass Allied ships along the United States coast.  She destroyed the USS Eagle 56 near Portland near Portland, Maine, and just days before the German surrender torpedoed and sank the collier Black Point during the Battle of Point Judith.

Then, the day before the surrender, American warships located the U-583 and sank her 7 nautical miles  east of Block Island, Rhode Island, resulting in in the loss of her whole crew of 48.

Today the wreck is a popular deep sea diving spot in 121 feet of water.

--GreGen

USS Eagle 56-- Part 6: General Characteristics

BUILDER:  Ford Motor Company

COMMISSIONED: 26 October 1919

LENGTH:  200 feet 9 inches

BEAM:  33 feet 1 inch

DRAFT:  8 feet 6 inches

SPEED:  18.32 knots

COMPLEMENT:   Officers: 5, Enlisted :56

ARMAMENT:

2 4" caliber guns

1 3" caliber gun

2 .50 BMG machine guns

--GreGen

USS Eagle 56-- Part 4: Afterwards

On 5 May 1945, the U-583 sank the collier Black Point off the coast of Cape Judit, Rhode Island, causing the loss of 12 lives.  During the ensuing Battle of Point Judith, the U-583 was chased and sunk by Navy and Coast Guard ships on 6 May.

Because the Allies had cracked Germany's codes, the U.S. intelligence knew in 1945 that U-boats had been sent across the North Atlantic to disrupt shipping in hopes of obtaining better surrender terms.  However, only general warnings rather than specific information about this plan were passed to commanders.

RECLASSIFICATION

In 2001, the Naval Historical Center reviewed the case and reclassified the sinking as a combat loss. In June 2001 Purple Heart medals were awarded to three survivors and the next of kin of those killed.

As of 2007, this is the only time that the U.S. Navy has overruled its own Court of Inquiry.

WRECK DISCOVERY

The ship's wreckage was located in June2018 and visited by a civilian dive team later that same month.  It lies 5 miles off the coast of Maine at a depth of 300 feet.  A video taken by the divers shows that the Eagle 56's boilers intact.  The ship's steel plating is starting to waste away, but the site has been designated a war grave and has all the protections associated with it.

GreGen

USS Eagle 56-- Part 3: The Sinking Was It a Boiler Explosion or U-Boat?

Next, the Eagle was assigned to Naval Air Station Brunswick from 28 June 1944.  

At noon 23 April 1945, the Eagle exploded amidship and broke into two pieces 3 miles off Cape Elizabeth, Maine.  The destroyer USS Selfridge was operating nearby and arrived 30 minutes after the explosion to rescue 13 survivors from the crew of 62.

The Selfridge obtained a sharp, well-defined sonar contact during the rescue and dropped nine Mark X Mod 2 depth charges without obvious result.  According to a classified U.S Navy report, the German submarine U-853 had been operating in the waters off Maine.

At a Naval Board of Inquiry in Portland the following week, five of the 13 survivors claimed to have seen a submarine. Several spotted a red and yellow emblem on the submarine's sail.  These insignia match the markings of the the U-853: a red horse on a yellow shield.  The Eagles boiler had been overhauled just two weeks before she sank and none of the other boilers on the Eagle boats had ever exploded.

Nevertheless, the official Navy inquiry concluded that Eagle 56 had suffered a boiler explosion.

--GreGen

USS Eagle 56-- Part 2

The Eagle 56 was patrolling off the Delaware Capes in January 1942 and remained at sea  almost constantly during the Second Happy Time of the Battle of the Atlantic, referring to German U-boats attacking Allied shipping along the east coast of the U.S.

When her depth charges were expended, a small ship from Cape May, New Jersey, would come out with a new supply.

The Eagle 56 rescued survivors of the Jacob Jones off Cape May in February 1942.  It was damaged by a collision with the submerged wreck of Gypsum Prince while rescuing survivors from a British freighter that had collided with the British tanker Voco on 4 March at the entrance to Delaware Bay.

It was repaired by using parts from another Eagle-class boat.

Next it was assigned to the Key West Sonar School in May 1942.

--GreGen

USS Eagle 56

From Wikipedia.

The USS Eagle 56 (PE-56) was a U.S. Navy World War I-era patrol boat that remained in service through World War II.  On 23 April 1945, while towing targets for U.S. Navy bomber exercises off the coast of Maine, it was sunk by German U-boat U-853.

Only 13 of the 62 crew survived

The loss was classified as a boiler explosion until 2001, when historical evidence convinced the Navy to reclassify the sinking as a combat loss due to enemy action.  The Eagle was the second to last Navy warship to be sunk by German during the war.

It was one of 60-Eagle Class patrol craft built by Henry Ford late in World War I as submarine chasers, none of which saw action.  Unpopular due to their poor sea handling, only eight remained in service by the time WW II began for the United States.

It was the second to last U.S. warship to be sunk by Germany during WW II.

--GreGen

Naval Ceremony for the USS Eagle-- Part 2

This was held this past Tuesday.

The sinking occurred during the waning days of World War II, with the Germans surrendering just two weeks later, on May 7, 1945.  Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, ending the war.

*  The vessel was one of a class built by Henry Ford at the end of World War I.

**  The U-583 didn't survive the Eagle by long.  The submarine was discovered in 18 fathoms (108 feet) and depth charges and hedgehogs were dropped during a 16-hour attack.  At first, it tried to hide by lying still.  Both times it was found by sonar.

On the morning of 6 May 1945 two K-Class blimps from Lakehurst, New Jersey, the K-16 and K-58 joined the attack, locating oil slicks and marking suspected locations with smoke and dye markers.  The K-16 also attacked with 7.2-inch rocket bombs.

Numerous depth charge and hedgehog attacks from the USS Atheron and USS Moberly resulted in planking, life rafts, a chart tabletop, clothing and an officer's cap floating to the surface.

The U-853 was one of the last U-boats sunk during World War Ii and the last to be sunk in U.S. waters.

--GreGen

Naval Ceremony for USS Eagle This Tuesday

From the April 20, 2024, Portland (Maine) Press Herald "Navy vessel sunk off Maine coast during World War II to be remembered at ceremony" by Joel Lawlor.

The ceremony will be held at 11 am Tuesday, 79 years to the day since the USS Eagle 56 was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Cape Elizabeth.

The U.S. Navy will host a wreath-laying ceremony Tuesday, April23, to commemorate the sinking of the USS Eagle 56, a Navy patrol vessel that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the waning days of the war with Germany.

It is believed that the German submarine U-853 sank the Eagle.

Forty-nine sailors died in the sinking off the coast of Cape Elizabeth (Maine) on April 23, 1945-- exactly 70 years ago Tuesday.  Just 13 were rescued.

The ceremony is set to begin at11 a.m. at Fort Williams Park, will be at the plaque memorializing the USS Eagle, which is located on the south side of the Portland Head Light driveway.

--GreGen

Search for Richard Bong's Plane-- Part 4: His Death

Richard Bong married Marge Battendahl in 1945 and was assigned duty as a test pilot in Burbank, California, after his three combat tours in the South Pacific.

He was killed on August 6, 1945, when the P-80 jet fighter he was testing crashed. That was the same day that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Vattendahl was 21 when he died and went on to become a model and magazine  publisher in Los Angeles.  She died in September 2003 in Superior.

The search for Bong's plane comes just weeks after a deep sea exploration team searching for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's lost plane in the South Pacific said it captured sonar image that "appears to be Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra aircraft.

--GreGen

Search for Richard Bong's Plane-- Part 3

Richard Bong's Medal of Honor reads: "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action in the Southwest Pacific area from October 10 to November 15, 1944.

"Though assigned to duty as gunnery instructor and neither required nor expected to perform combat duty, Major Bong voluntarily and at his own urgent request engaged in repeated combat missions, including unusually hazardous sorties over Balikpapan, Borneo, and the Leyte area of the Philippines.

"His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his shooting down enemy airplanes totaling eight during this period."

Bong also earned the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses and 15 Air Medals.

--GreGen

Searching for Bong's Plane-- Part 2: A Good Chance the Wreckage Will Be Found

Another pilot, Thomas Malone, was flying the plane in March 1944 over what is now known as Papua New Guinea when engine failure sent it into a spin.  Malone bailed out before the plane crashed into the jungle.

Pacific Wrecks founder Justin Taylan will lead the search for the plane and plans to leave for Papua New Guinea in May.  He believes the search could take almost a month and cost $63,000 generated through generations.

Furthermore, he is confident that he will be successful since historical records provide an approximate location of the crash site.  But, he is not sure that there is enough left to positively identify the plane as the Marge.

Bong shot down more planes than any other American pilot, earning him celebrity status.  General Douglas MacArthur awarded him the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military decoration in 1944.

--GreGen

That Land and Those Waters Are Still Dangerous-- Part 2

Continued from April 13.

In the water surrounding the islands, hundreds of corroding shipwrecks from the war still contain trapped oil supplies that some describe as a ticking time bomb.  A major oil spill from one of these rusting wrecks could be a massive disaster.

Indeed, Savo Sound by Guadalcanal was renamed Iron Bottom Sound because of all of the ships sunk in it.

The Solomon Islanders believe those who fought the war on their land should be doing more to clean up the mess they left behind.

In the words of one local:  "When the war ended US, Japanese and allied forces went home in peace. We still do not have peace, until we are safe in the Solomon Islands."

--GreGen

Searching for Bong's Plane

From the March 26, 2024, CBS News "WW II ace pilot Richard Bong's plane crashed in 1944.  A team has launched a search for its wreckage in the South Pacific."

The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin, (far northern part of the state) and the nonprofit World War II historical group Pacific Wrecks announced a search for the plane's remains on Friday according to Minnesota Public Radio.  

Bong grew up in Poplar, Wisconsin and is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft during World War II-- the most ever, according to the Air Force.

He flew a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane nicknamed "Marge" in honor of his girlfriend, Marjorie Vattendahl.  He plastered a blowup picture of her on the nose of his plane (known as nose art).  At the time, Bong said that Vattendahl "looks swell, and a hell of a lot better than these naked women painted on most airplanes."

Bong was not in the plane when it crashed.

--GreGen

That Land and Those Waters Are Still Pretty Dangerous

From the April 11, 2024, ABC News "Video: How World War II is still wreaking havoc in the Pacific" by Stephanie March.

More than eight decades ago in the 1940s, WW II rages across the Pacific as ferocious battles between the Allies and Japanese took place.

One of the most significant ones was at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands where the Japanese advance across the ocean was finally stopped and where 30,000 lives were lost.

Now, over eight decades later, the deadly legacy of the battle continues.

On land, the islands are littered with unexploded devices-- almost 50,000 have been discovered since 2011.

Accidental detonations of the bombs and other munitions have caused deaths and injuries and survivors are left to struggle for themselves with very little support.

--GreGen

Lou Conter, Last Surviving Crew Member of USS Arizona Dies at Age 102

From April 1, 2024, KRA 3 NBC, Sacramento, Ca., News.

Lou Conter, the last living surviving member on board the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, has died.  He was 102.

He had been in hospice the last four weeks and was surrounded by family in Grass Valley, California.

To me it is another in the passing of the Greatest Generation.  Not too long ago, we lost the last surviving member of Doolittle's Raid.

I knew this was coming, but it sure doesn't make it any easier.

--GreGen