The British Sea War

They joined the convoy out of sight of Gibraltar knowing full well that German spies would be operating from the Spanish side, they had been given their position in the convoy in the centre column, and everything went smoothly. The Admiralty signaled that there was four U Boats now in the area.

To their surprise it was three days before the U Boats attacked just after midnight. The first indication of the attack was when a large tanker blew up in on the Starboard quarter of the convoy. Then a Merchant vessel at the head of their column was hit.

Mike decided it was time to go, and so he gave the order to go to diving stations then he told the lookouts to "Clear the bridge" and then he gave the order "Dive. Dive. Dive." As he shut the voice pipes, and followed the lookouts, shutting the top hatch after him.

In the control room Mike ordered "Two hundred and fifty number one." The sonar operator reported that he had Hydrophone effect coming from the direction of the convoy mostly reciprocating engines from every quarter. Mike took the microphone and said "Captain speaking sorry to put you in the position of possibly being attacked by our own side. But I feel safer down here. We did envisage this, and we do know what to say if someone finds us. But from now on I want complete silence in the boat."

Later he took the boat to 300 feet and they cruised at slow speed to conserve battery power. There were a large number of sonar transmissions from the escorts, as they swept the sea searching for U Boats, but none came near them..

For the next hour or so they were bombarded with the sound of depth charges, and explosions as ships blew up. Eventually the noise faded. The Sonar reported that all was quiet. It was just after dawn that Sonar reported a number of reports of submarines blowing their ballast tanks, and Mike gradually brought the boat to 30 feet using the planes to avoid using the pumps or blowing tanks.

A quick look round through the periscope brought the boat to action stations as Mike reported four U Boats in sight, but only two are possible targets as the others were way out of their range, unless we surface, and that will not be good odds for us."

He said. "Unfortunately we would have to surface to get in an attacking position, but I will have the guns crew standing by, just in case we have a chance to have a pop at one or two of these chaps later after our attack.

"Ninety feet Number One full speed ahead, he looked round the control room as the lights dimmed slightly as the motors took the power to run at full speed . Mike looked at his watch. Lieutenant Ray Trafford was ready at the chart table with all his pencils sharpened and young Sun Lieutenant Trevor Masefield sat ready at the Fruit Machine which calculated all the attack details.

For twelve minutes Tenacious travelled at full speed to get into a better attacking position. The atmosphere was tense throughout the boat. Eventually he brought the boat back to periscope depth, as he looked at the targets on the attack periscope

"Stand by all tubes." I am attacking two U boats who are travelling close together and they are an overlapping target.. Port fifteen Steer 250 Set the masthead height as for a U Boat, Start the attack. Bearing is that,. Range is that. I am 40 degrees on their Starboard bow. Down periscope.

Trevor Masefield on the Fruit machine said Range 3,600 yards sir and distance off track 3,400, then Mike ordered the boat deep at full speed. Then he announced "I am tracking two U boats trailing the convoy and I am hoping we can at least get one of them.

Then after a few minutes Mike brought Tenacious back to periscope depth, to give Mike a chance to give more ranges and attack details. The U boats were idling with their main engines and charging the batteries. Then Mike started the attack, he fired the first torpedo followed by the rest in quick succession, as he watched the depth gauges carefully to ensure that the boat did not break the surface. But the tubes automatically filled with water to partially compensate for the loss of weight of the loss of the torpedoes.

The two successive blasts rocked the boat hard, as they were quite close to the targets. But as Mike looked through the periscope and he could confirm that they had sunk two U Boats. Looking round he could see that the other two U boats farther away were diving. They were taking no chances.

Tenacious dare not surface with two U boats in the area in case they were torpedoed themselves. The U boats in turn could not surface for the same reason, and they could not charge their batteries, so Mike hoped that the convoy would have a quiet night.

Tenacious stayed dived for the rest of the day, and did not surface until after dark as then she sped after the convoy at full speed with a running charge on her batteries. Mike signaled that two U boats had been sunk, and two more forced to dive.

Before they could rejoin the convoy they were ordered to leave the convoy and to return to their previous patrol area

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Rumours were rife in the boat that they may be home for Christmas, but the Coxswain refuted that rumour, when he pointed out that he had some tins of roast chicken that he had been ordered to save for Christmas on board.

It was December 8th when Tenacious surfaced after dark as was usual to hear the broadcast message of her recall signal.. At the same time they had got the news that Pearl Harbour had been attacked by the Japanese the day before, and that Germany had declared war on the USA

Mike was hoping that he would have a chance to marry Rita if they were allowed leave,. But then another message was received to tell him that he was being re-appointed and had been promoted to a full Commander forthwith. His orders were to report to the Admiralty on January 15th for re-appointment..

He was surprised because he had only done one patrol on Tenacious and the promotion was much quicker than he had expected. But he did get a chance to get married......

January 15th saw a small gathering at the Admiralty Commander Tony Nash was now promoted to full Captain Lieutenant Mike Smith to acting Commander, and Tony's sister First Officer Angela Nash were all together in the waiting room. They were joined by Captain Tim Howard and he said "Well you lock lot you are all being posted to the USA as liaison with the US Navy.

In the past few years we have learned a lot about the Germans and their tactics, and it has been suggested that we can pass on a few tips on Convoy work and anti U Boat tactics as U Boats are already heading their way.

Turning to Tony and Mike he said "There is no reason why you can not take your wives with you. How long you will be there we do not know. You will sail next week on the Queen Mary and report to the British Ambassador in Washington, you lucky lot. Meanwhile you have a few briefing conferences this week to bring you up to speed on what is happening on this side of the pond.

The End