U-Boats and Convoys

Heroes Remember

U-Boats and Convoys

Transcript

Occasionally you had convoys passing through, close to your area. We only ever did two convoy escorts, but we often pass by converts on patrol, but we didn't actually go to them and this, there was a call from the convoy it for help. They knew we were out there somewhere. They might know not know exactly where we were, but they probably knew, oh it's gonna be an aircraft going passed us you know at 1300 hours or 2 o'clock in the morning or whatever it is and if they needed help, they would just call us. We were on communication with the navy all the time. We could talk with them at any time and occasional they would call us in to help. We were never called in, but we we always on an extremely serious lookout when we were passing anywhere near a convoy. Because the U-boats had a habit of laying in wait for U-boats, for convoys to pass them and then try infiltrate the convoy as they approached. And if there was any opportunity you could break up that flotilla of German U-boats, you were there. Even if you did nothing more than put them under, cause they weren't firing torpedo's when they were under the water. They were trying to get away from you, so you'd chase any U-boat that you could, think you had one nearby so that, force them to submerge, so that. And almost no torpedos were fired from under, underwater by the way. They were occasionally, but very, very few. Almost all attacks were made from a surface boat, which leaves them somewhat vulnerable with a great improvement in radar. And what the navy had, they had a system which they called HFDF, which was signals between ships, where they could zero in on a contact and therefore attemp to attack it. And they also had ground control, which we're patrolling that all the time and who were all, of course they were receiving messages from aircraft so they were attacking a U-boat in such and such a position. Ground control knew that right away and it was passed right through to the navy right away. So the navy would say, well we got a convoy, you know two hundred miles away from that. Because perhaps it was an approach group of German U-boats, going after a convoy and convoys were pretty slow. Most cases they didn't go much faster than, the majority of them, about eight knots. A fast convoy might do ten or eleven knots.

Description

Mr. Allen describes general strategies used to protect convoys from U-boats.

Bruce Allen

Mr. Allen was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1923. His father worked in the foreign service of the Royal Bank, and returned to Toronto, Ontario, in 1930. Mr. Allen enlisted at the age of eighteen, completed basic training, and shipped overseas to England where he joined 172 Squadron, Coastal Command. His wartime experience involved convoy protection and submarine patrol. After returning to Canada, Mr. Allen pursued a career in various facets of television broadcasting. He remains very interested in Veterans' issues, and belongs to several Veterans organizations; 403 Sarnia Wing Air Force Association, Royal Canadian Legion, Veterans Club of Sarnia, and the Bomber Command Association.

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