laststandonzombieisland

Some 85 years ago this week, just after 0530 on 31 October 1941, the “Red Devil” boat, German Type VIIC submarine  U-552, Kptlt. Erich Topp, commanding, was less than a week out of St. Nazaire, France, on her sixth war patrol. By that point in the war, Topp, 27, had already sunk 18 enemy ships. He had just joined five other boats of Wolfpack Stosstrupp, combing the North Atlantic for convoys.

And he found one off Iceland.

Stumbling across slow-moving (8-knot) Allied Convoy HX-156, with 43 ships, Topp fired two torpedoes that punched into the port side of an enemy destroyer.

As noted in the Official War History of the humble Wickes-class “four piper” USS Reuben James (DD-245):

A lookout on the escort commander’s ship, USS Tarbell (DD 142), reported that there had been a large flash followed by a deep explosion on the port quarter of the convoy in the direction of Reuben James. Immediately, all escort vessels were called by radio. Everyone answered with the exception of James.

At the time of Topp’s attack, HX-156, sailing from Halifax for Liverpool, was being shepherded by the American tin cans, USS Benson, Hilary P. Jones, and Niblack, along with the aforementioned Reuben James and Tarbell as CTU 4.1.3 under CDR R.E. Webb, with a scheduled handover to British escorts on 1 November.

The U.S. Navy, on FDR’s orders, had only just begun escorting Allied convoys from Canada to a Mid-Ocean Meeting Point south of Iceland (around 58° North and near 35° West) the previous month, with the first being HX-150 which sailed from Halifax on 16 September 1941, with U.S. Navy destroyers USS Dallas, Eberle, Ellis, Ericsson and Upshur replacing Canadian coastal escorts HMCS Algoma, Annapolis and Brandon the next day, then handing over to HMS Arrowhead, Badsworth, Blankney, Camella, Celadine, Churchill and Honeysuckle on the 25th, the convoy arriving in Liverpool unscathed on the 30th.

The follow-on HX-151, 152, 153, and 154 all followed the same template.

HX-156 almost made it without a hitch as well.

The thing is, almost isn’t good enough when torpedoes are concerned.

James, suffering from magazine explosions, broke in two. The forward section sank immediately with all hands while the stern remained afloat for five minutes. When the stern sank, at least two unsecured depth charges exploded, killing some survivors in the water. Niblack picked up 36 men (one of whom later died of wounds), and Jones found ten more.

Among those lost were James’s skipper, Texas-born LCDR Heywood Lane Edwards (USNA ’26)— who wrestled in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam– along with the destroyer’s entire wardroom. Of the 159 souls aboard, 113 perished outright.

The senior-most survivor was the only member of the Goat Locker to make it, the injured Chief Machinist’s Mate (AA), William H. Bergstresser, 35.

Bergstresser told the NYT about his ship’s loss when the crew returned to Brooklyn, something the country allowed because it was still under peacetime rules.

James was the first American warship lost in WWII, lost in the shuffle when Pearl Harbor hit six weeks later.

Ultimately, 86 American “tin cans,” counting both DDs and DEs, were lost in the conflict.

James’s slayer, U-552, almost survived the war, scuttled at Wilhelmshaven three days before Dönitz surrendered what was left of the Third Reich.

As for Topp, after September 1942 he spent the rest of his Kriegsmarine career in a series of training assignments, passing on his experience. By that time, he had sunk 36 ships for nearly 200,000 tons across 12 patrols. He escaped the fate that caught 583 fellow U-boat skippers and survived the war.

He surrendered to the British in Norway in May 1945, later joined the West German Navy, and retired as a rear admiral in December 1969. He retired with the Großes Verdienstkreuz, adding it to his wartime Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.

He later became an industrial consultant for, among others, the submarine maker Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, where he had some input on the Type 209. He died on dry land the day after Christmas 2005, aged 91.

Some are luckier than others.