Battle of the Caribbean: Difference between revisions

Battle of the Caribbean
Part of Battle of the Atlantic
The Antilles, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
Date 1941 to 1945 Location Antilles, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Allies: United States Navy  Royal Navy  Royal Canadian Navy other allies	Axis:  Kriegsmarine Marina Militare
Commanders and leaders
Ernest J. King Jesse Oldendorf Sir Percy Noble Sir Max K. Horton	Erich Raeder Karl Dönitz

The Battle of the Caribbean was fought during World War II and was part of the Battle of the Atlantic, from 1941 to 1945. German U-boats and Italian submarines attempted to disrupt the Allied supply of oil and other material. They sank shipping in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. They also attacked coastal targets in the Antilles. Improved Allied anti-submarine warfare eventually drove the Axis submarines out of the Caribbean region, resulting in an Allied victory.

Axis Operations

Attack on Aruba

Seven German and Italian submarines under the command of Commander Werner Hartenstein launched a coordinated strike against the Lago Company refinery on Dutch-owned Aruba and Allied oil tankers in the area on February 16, 1942. Six tankers were sunk by the wolfpack and others were damaged. The Germans slightly damaged a large storage tank which resulted in an increased American occupation of the island for it's protection. The Germans suffered an accident on the deck of their lead boat when they were bombarding the Aruba refinery, as result; the German submarine withdrew. A Venezuelan gunboat, General Urbaneta, assisted in rescuing the crews of several torpedoed vessels and an American A-20 Havoc light bomber skirmished with one of the German U-boats but was unsuccessful in defeating it. Dutch shore batteries also engaged but were also unsuccessful in hitting any U-boats.^[1][2]

Other Operations

A German submarine shelled the American island of Mona, some forty miles west of Puerto Rico, on March 3rd, 1942. No damage or casualties resulted.^[3]

An oil refinery on Curaçao was shelled on April 19th, 1942 by U-130 under Captain Ernst Kals. The small engagement ended in a German failure. Kals ordered the bombing of several petroleum storage tanks but after only five shots, a Dutch shore battery responded which forced him to abort. Later a German U-boat attacked a merchantship off Curacao and was engaged by Dutch anti-aircraft and naval gun batteries but again the submarine escaped harm.^[4]

Attacks on Allied Shipping

SS Norlantic was an American flagged 3,860 ton cargo ship that was sunk on the morning of May 13th, 1942 in the Caribbean by a U-boat. She was transporting a load of random cargo from Pensacola, Florida to Venezuela when attacked by the German Navy U-69 ninety miles (170 km) east of Bonaire. At 3:38 am, U-69, under the command of Captain Lieutenant Ulrich Graf, fired two torpedos from a surfaced position. Both torpedos missed so Graf ordered his crew to close the range to 2,000 meters (2,200 yd) and to opened fire with the deck gun at 3:47 am. U-69 began shelling Norlantic as she attempted to flee the scene. After several hits the American ship signaled the Germans to cease fire so they could escape the inferno in their liferafts. The Germans failed to hold their fire while two lifeboats were lowered, then at 4:11 am they fired a coup de grâce which hit Norlantic's boiler room. She sank, taking six men down with her, two men were killed by the torpedo and four men killed from the shelling. Norlantic's survivng crew were then adrift at sea for several days before being rescued by Allied ships.

German U-boats sank two Mexican tankers, the Potrero del Llano on May 14th, 1942 by Reinhard Suhren's U-564 off Florida, and Faja de Oro on May 21st 1942 by Hermann Rasch's U-106 off Key West. Sixteen men died in the two attacks. This prompted Mexico to declare war on Germany on June 1st, 1942.

SS Sylvan Arrow was a freighter of the Standard Oil and Transportation Company during World War II when the German boat U-155 torpedoed her. The attack occurred on May 20th, 1942 just southwest of Grenada in the Caribbean Sea. Attempts to tow her to port did not succeed, and she sank on May 28th, at position 12° 50' north, 67° 32' west.

The tanker SS Hagan was sunk by U-157 on June 11th of 1942 about five miles north of he Cuban coast. The American ship holding thousands of barrels of molasses was hit in the engine room. The torpedo destroyed the engines and caused a boiler to explode and a moment later another torpedo hit the ship. Six men were killed and thirty-eight surviviors made it to shore. Two days later U-157 was sunk by a United States Coast Guard cutter.

U-171 attacked the Mexican tanker SS Amaltan of 6,511 tons on September 4th, 1942 at the position 23°27′N 97°30′W / 23.45°N 97.5°W / 23.45; -97.5. The Mexicans evaded three attacks of two torpedos each before being hit by one in a final spread. Amatlan sank with ten men and another twenty-four sailors survived.

On September 11th, 1942 German U-Boat U-514, under Kapitänleutnant Hans-Jürgen Auffermann, torpedoed the armed Canadian steam merchant SS Cornwallis off the coastline of Bridgetown. The ship sank in shallow waters after a short exchange, but was raised and towed to Trinidad in December 1942 and later towed to Mobile, arriving on January 24th, 1943. The ship was repaired and returned to service in August 1943, but was torpedoed a second time, this time by U-1230 on December 3rd 1944 in the Gulf of Maine, and sank.^[5][6][7]

On July 5th, 1943, seventy miles to the west of Port Salut, Haiti, U-759 encountered the American flagged steamer Maltran which was part of Convoy GTMO-134. U-759 fired torpedos and at least one hit the vessel. Maltran sank within fifteen minutes of being hit though all of her crew survived and escaped the danger in lifeboats. The crew was later rescued by USS SC-1279. On the 7th of July, U-759 torpedoed a Dutch cargo ship the Poelau Roebiah, in Convoy TAG-70. The ship sank just east of Jamaica, taking down two men. Sixty-eight others were rescued. After sinking the Poelau Roebiah U-759 was chased down and attacked by the United States Navy the following day on July 8th, 1943. A PBM Mariner first drobbed a load of explosives over the sub and then for seven hours American surface vessels depth charged the area but U-759 escaped without damage or loss of life.

Sunken Warships

Axis Vessels

U-157 was sunk on June 13th, 1942 by the United States Coast Guard. The U-boat was surface cruising just southwest of Key West, in position 24°13′N 82°03′W / 24.217°N 82.050°W / 24.217; -82.050, when sighted by USCGC Thetis. The German submarine submerged and attempted to flee but the fast Thetis quickly was over the U-boat and initiated a depth charge attack. After several minutes of bombing the Germans the action ended when debree and oil were spotted by the Coast Guard crew. Thetis sank U-157 with her crew of fifty-two officers and men.

Seven days after escaping a fleet of attacking Allied ships off Haiti on July 8th, 1943, U-759 was reportedly sunk though post war research discovered that it was not until a July 23rd attack that the U-boat was actually destroyed. An American PBM Mariner at the approximate position of 15°58′N 73°44′W / 15.967°N 73.733°W / 15.967; -73.733{{#coordinates:}}: cannot have more than one primary tag per page bombed the boat and all fourty-seven hands were lost in the sinking.

On August 28th, 1942 U-94 was in operation against an allied convoy off Haiti when attacked by American and Candian escorts. First an American PBY Catalina swooped down and bombed the U-boat and then the Candian corvettes HMCS Halifax and HMCS Snowberry attacked. Oakville deployed depth charges which forced the submarine up to the surface. The corvette then rammed U-94 twice before it slowed to a stop. A boarding party of eleven sailors were sent from Oakville to capture the boat. They boarded the vessel and entered through the conning tower. Only two Canadians actually went through the hatch, they were suprised by two Germans who came running towards them. After ordering halt the Canadians fired and killed the attacking Germans when they ceased to stop. The rest of the crew surrendered without incident. After just barely capturing the vessel, the Canadian sailors realized the Germans had already scuttled the boat and it was taking on water. The Candians left U-94 and it sank to the bottom of the Caribbean. Nineteen of forty-five crewmembers from U-94 were killed in the action, twenty-six men survived the attack including the commander. Oakville rescued the German submariners.

U-162 was detected and sunk northeast of Trinidad by the Royal Navy on September 3rd, 1942. Three British destroyers, HMS Vimy, HMS Pathfinder and HMS Quentin, attacked U-162 with depth charges, killed two Germans and sinking the boat. Forty-nine additional sailors survived the sinking of their U-boat and became prisoners of war in the United States. The crew was interrogated and provided valuable information to the United States Army Intelligence about U-boats and their submarine base at Lorient. The German Captain Jürgen Wattenberg escaped incarceration in late 144 before being captured a month or so later.

The German auxiliary cruiser Stier was scuttled on September 27th, 1942 in the Caribbean. This was after Stier sank the American liberty ship SS Stephen Hopkins in a short battle.

On May 15th, 1943 the Cuban freighters Camaguey and Honduran Hanks were being escorted by three small Cuban Navy submarine chasers from Sagua La Grande to Havana. The convoy was nearing Havana in the Gulf of Mexico when an American reconnaissance aircraft spotted a German U-boat. The aricraft dropped a smoke float over U-176 and submarine chaser CS-13 under Second Lieutenant Alférez Delgado, picked up the enemy craft with sonar. CS-13 attacked with depth charges and quickly sank the U-boat which killed all of her crew.

Allied Vessels

SS George Calvert was a one gun liberty ship during the war, she was sailing off eastern Cuba when sunk by [Ggerman submarine U-753|U-753]] on May 20th, 1942. Ten men were killed when three torpedos slammed into George Calvert and she was underwater within minutes. The survivng crew were captured by the Germans and interogated before being free in lifeboats. The survivors made it to the Cuban shore.

On June 23rd, 1942, the unarmed USAT Major General Henry Gibbins was steaming alone almost 400 miles west of Key West, Florida when she was attacked by the German submarine U-158. Two torpedos hit the coffee laden Henry Gibbins on her portside over the course of twenty minutes and she sank soon after. All of her forty-seven crew and twenty-one United States Army guards survived the encounter and were rescued a day later.

SS Stephen Hopkins was an armed American liberty ship which fought during World War II. On September 27th, 1942, Stephen Hopkins was returning to Dutch Guiana from Cape Town when attacked by the German auxiliary cruiser Stier. Stephen Hopkins was ordered to stop by the Germans, the Americans refused, so they opened fire with their main battery. A lone 4-inch gun was then put in operation by the American sailors and a short but violent battle was fought. Both vessels suffered casualties and by 10:00 am the American ship was sunk. The Stier was badly damaged as well and could nolonger make steam so her commander scuttled her less than two hours after defeating the American vessel.

Steaming from her home port of Cristobal, Panama in November of 1942, the gunboat USS Erie was escorting Convoy TAG-20 in the Caribbean between Trinidad and Guantanamo Bay when attacked by a German U-boat. U-163, under Kurt-Eduard Engelmann, surfaced and fired three torpedos at USS Erie. The Americans spotted the submarine and the torpedos, then took evasive maneuvers. Erie escaped two of the torpedos but was hit by the third and badly damaged. Her crew grounded her on the nearby Cuban shore and she burned for several hours before the flames were brought under contol. American forces suffered seven killed and eleven wounded in the attack. Later Erie was towed to Aruba's Willemstad Harbor but capsized and sank on December 5th, 1942.

References

External links

• Cubans sunk a German submarine in WWII

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