"Attacking a U-boat is a dangerous thing"

Heroes Remember

"Attacking a U-boat is a dangerous thing"

Transcript

An attack on a U-boat is a pretty, pretty serious and pretty dangerous matter. First of all the radar man picks up a contact which he identifies as a possible U-boat. The next thing that happened, and that might be twenty, twenty-five miles away, as far as thirty-five miles away, but more likely twenty-five miles And the first thing that happens is the pilot first opens the bomb doors, navigator lowers the lee light below the bottom of the aircraft and the pilot starts descending ‘til he's flying at fifty feet above the water, and the only reason he can successfully do that is ‘cause he has a, now he has a radio indicator for height. So he knows exactly where he is, this within inches accurately. And so you start tracking the U-boat or if, you hope it's U-boat, and when you're at a half mile range you turn the light on, and the second pilot has the controls for light in the nose of the aircraft and he swings the light around ‘til he has the object illuminated. If it happens to be a U-boat you're about eight seconds from when you're gonna be at the U-boa and so you're all set, you do your bombing (inaudible), and you drop six depth charges. Depth charges are 250 pound and they're spaced at 100 feet, and they're set to go off at fifty feet below the surface. And if you have a good string, you're right alongside the boat, there's no way he's gonna survive. Of course the other, soon as you turn that light on, you know what's gonna happen on the U-boat, they're gonna open fire with their anti-aircraft guns and they can be pretty dangerous. In 1944, getting on towards the middle part of 1944, almost all U-boats carried twin 20mm guns on the back end of the conning tower and then where the old deck gun used to be, they have a quad 20mm gun located. So you got six barrels firing 20mm shells at an aircraft it can be pretty lethal. And if you get away with it, you turn of light and you circle around and it, the minute, just before you turn the light off, the wireless operator fires a, a photo cartridge and a picture is taken automatically. Turn off the light and you circle around and then if the contact is still there you come in a second time and light it up to see if there' damage, or whether he's sinking, or whether he's carrying on as usual and that is provided you're still flying. Our squadron had twenty-seven aircraft shot down by German U-boats and we were successful in sinking ten U-boats.

Description

Mr. Allen describes in detail attacking a U-boat and its dangers.

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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