30th July 1943
An early morning takeoff on a T3 patrol - that is, pick up the Scillies, then in a straight line to the Spanish coast south of Cape Finisterre, a coast crawl to Finisterre then straight back to the Scillies. It was a beautiful day, just outside the 3 mile limit of Spain, we could see people on the beaches, the water was sparkling and blue - how we envied them. Even in the aircraft it was warm - I had my jacket off and sleeves rolled up.
(We kept strictly outside the limit because one day when we strayed in a bit, the Spaniards had a shot at us with a coastal gun. Boy, it was close!)
On our way back, just after leaving Finisterre I was on the set and intercepted a sighting report from another aircraft. It was near us, (grid co-ordinates FKJE2O2O — funny how things stick in your memory), so we changed course and came upon three U-boats on the surface, with 3 other aircraft circling - a British Liberator, an American Liberator and a Halifax.
As we came on the scene, the British Lib attacked and the U-boats opened up. Each boat had a battery of four 20mm cannon aft of the conning tower (called the ‘bandstand’), and a single 20mm cannon each side of the conning tower, with self-destroying shells timed for (I estimate) 1,000 yards. What a barrage!! — it looked like a brick wall. The Lib broke off the engagement and continued circling.
I thought: “Well, that precludes us.” Ours was an early Mk II kite with a single pan-fed Vickers G.O. gun in the nose turret. (Later versions had 2 Brownings in the turret plus 4 fixed Brownings.) We certainly weren’t equipped for a head-on attack. I reckoned our role would be to home in the sloops I knew were nearby.
Much to my dismay the klaxon went to run the depth charges out!!
I thought: “We can’t get through a barrage like that. The skipper’s mad.”
The voice of the skipper, Dudley Marrows, came on the intercom to Jimmy Leigh, the first pilot: “We’ll take the port one, Jimmy,” —
Then Jimmy came on: “OK skip,” - (pause) – “Why not go diagonally across and get the lot in one go?”
I thought: “My God, we haven’t got one maniac on board — we’ve got two!”
Then Dudley came on: “One at a time Jim,” - (pause) – “Get ready to take over if I’m hit.”
Then we were into it, attacking from a very low altitude - around 60 feet - to minimise the effect of the other two U-Boats’ heavy fire. Violent evasive action, shrapnel rattling on the hull like hail with incessant loud bangs as pieces of shrapnel were picked up by the props and flung against the hull. It was too thick even for Dudley. He broke off to port, and as he did so, saw that the Lib had taken advantage and had attacked again. Dudley continued the turn and bored in behind the Lib.
The Lib was hit and turned away smoking badly, but by now we were in to about 600 yards and all the guns turned on us. “Bubbles” Pearce was in the nose - he only had 100 rounds - and held his fire to 400 yards then opened up and swept the decks of ‘our’ U-boat. As low as we were, (about 60 feet), we just cleared the conning tower and straddled it with seven depth charges. It must have been blown apart. We turned around again and flew over to verify the kill. There were about 25 to 30 men struggling in the water, so we dropped them one of our dinghies and took photos.
U 461’s attack on U-461
The depth charges exploding
Survivors of U-461 in the water
By this time the Halifax had bombed another U-boat from about 4,000 feet - out of range of their 20 mm’s - and it (the boat) was going around in circles blowing smoke with the crew jumping into the water, each with a one man dinghy inflating around him. (It looked like a mass of flowers bursting into bloom.)
We turned to the last U-boat, and as we bored in, Dudley was surprised to see splashes all around it. He looked around and saw the sloops had arrived, so he decided he’d leave it to them, so he pulled out and we took stock. We had collected a couple of shells, but no real damage. The only problem was fuel. All the combat had been done in rich mixture, and we had barely enough to get home. So we set course for home.
Half an hour later - another U-boat! Dudley went straight in with our last depth charge, hoping to catch it unawares, but they were waiting for us. Again, the mad evasive action, the shrapnel, then we were hit, on fire, and the kite filled with smoke. But what I didn’t know at the time, the controls had locked and we were heading straight for the U-boat! Dudley yelled to Jimmy and together they pulled on the wheel and just managed to clear the conning tower, the depth charge was jettisoned and we prepared to ditch. While this was going on Bubbles had put the fire out with an extinguisher - (the fire was in the bomb release gear). Then Dudley found he had accidentally pushed the lever to engage the autopilot. He flicked it out and the kite responded again. Again we assessed damage, again the kite appeared OK - but fuel was
very low.
We headed for home again, throwing out all surplus gear in order to lighten the old kite, and made it to the Scillies with about a pint of fuel left in the tanks. There were no refuelling facilities there, so we refuelled by bringing four gallon drums to the aircraft by launch, passing them through the wardroom and galley, up the stairs to the top deck, out the astro hatch on to the wing and pouring the fuel into the tanks.
When we got back to the squadron, poor old ‘U’ went straight up the slip for inspection. They found a large lump of main spar had gone - (if the shell had been a couple of inches higher it would have gone into a tank) - so our faithful old kite was pensioned off and we were issued with ‘E’.
The crew of U 461 the day after sinking U-461