LST 333's Rendezvous with War: Loss of a Norfolk Ship

By CAPT Alexander Monroe, USN (Ret.)
HRNM Docent and Contributing Writer

On October 15, 1942, at 7:30 AM, Mrs. Cornelius Kneeburg, wife of the Master of the Shipfitters and Welders Shop of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY), smashed a bottle of champagne across the bow of the newly-constructed Tank Landing Ship LST 333, and the ship slid down the ways of NNSY, into the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth, Virginia. Towed to the St. Helena Annex of the yard for outfitting and receiving its first crew, it was the first of twenty of such “curious appearing ships” built and sent to war by the yard. Barely eight months later, it was the first of the novel ships lost to enemy action.[1] They sailed to landing beaches in the Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, and Pacific, where their crews performed admirably, contributing significantly to Allied victory.

Mrs. Cornelius Kneeburg, wife of the Master of the Shipfitters and Welders Shops of Norfolk Naval Shipyard, smashes a bottle of champagne of the bow of LST 333 on October 15, 1942, as the Flag Lieutenant of the yard watches. (NNSY photo 3994/42)

The LST was a new class of ship “of which there was no counterpart in the U.S. Navy.” It was developed hurriedly and put into service to meet the exigencies of a new type of operations: Amphibious Warfare.[2] Amphibious warfare required that “landings on enemy beaches have to be made if the war was to be taken to our foes.” These shallow draft vessels would be “capable of running up on a beach, opening bow doors and depositing men and machines directly on the land.” After an early 1942 meeting of various shipyard staffs wherein allocation of construction tasking was formulated, the Secretary of the Navy ordered twenty ships from NNSY on May 19, 1942. Over 1,000 were built, many at sites on inland rivers known as “cornfield shipyards.” Transit to open sea along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers provided initial training for life at sea.[3]

LST 333 is launched from Builder’s way 1 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on October 15, 1942, with a tug standing by in the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. (NNSY photo 4003)

LST 333 was towed to the yard annex to be outfitted for sea and receive a crew for intense training. Following various trials, the ship was delivered to the fleet. On November 20, 1942, it was commissioned USS LST 333, under the command of Lieutenant Paul O. Krahenbuhl, a former Chief Boatswain’s Mate. Four days after commencement of the invasion of North Africa known as Operation Torch and shakedown at Camp Bradford (a part of what is now Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek/Fort Story), the ship left for Africa. Its crew would prepare for Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. By May 6, 1943, the ship was berthed at the Advanced Amphibious Training Base Arzew, Algeria. Motor Machinist’s Mate Harvey R. Alexander recalled that, “we met practically no resistance and set up a naval repair and supply base in preparation for the later invasion of Sicily.”[4] Taking the island would provide a foothold for later operations in continental Europe.

LST 333 underway for pre-commissioning trials in the Elizabeth River near Norfolk, Virginia, on November 17, 1942.  (NNSY photo 4173/42)

In mid-June 1943, LST 333 joined Convoy Elastic from Arzew to Bizerte, Tunisia. It had been modified to enable carrying pontoons on either side of the ship, permitting the transfer ashore of equipment when the area inshore of the beaching point was too deep. U-593, built at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, and commanded by Oberleutnant Gerd Kelbling, concurrently left Italy on June 13, 1943, for its eleventh war patrol. The skipper had destroyed 43,216 tons of allied shipping since March 1942.

Lieutenant Paul O. Krahenbuhl reads orders placing USS LST 333 in commission on November 20, 1942, with Rear Admiral Felix Gygax, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, standing behind him. (NNSY)

The U-593 CO reported in his ship’s war diary that at 9:30 PM on June 22, 1943, near Cape Corbelin, Algeria, he fired three torpedoes at two targets that he assumed were merchant tankers.[5] These torpedoes hit both LST 333 and 387, and LT Krahenbuhl’s subsequent letter reported the time of the attack as 7:19 PM, just after sunset and under clear skies. The ship was steaming on course 080 (T), 6 ½ knots and was hit in the starboard quarter.[6] Blown back to the bridge frame and dazed by the explosion’s force, Krahenbuhl understood the serious injuries to his ship that had rendered it powerless and rudderless. Though holed and taking on water, it was beached. When the dead and wounded had been evacuated, an unsuccessful attempt to salvage it was made, and Krahenbuhl brought his crew ashore.[7] Oberleutnant Kelbling and his boat escaped by evasive maneuvering and ended his 11th patrol in Toulon, France, ten days later. His crew used all torpedoes and 9,408 additional tons of shipping were added to his record. Kelbling was awarded the Knight’s Cross on August 19th, 1943.[8]

Gerd Kelbling’s success as a U-boat commander ended on December 13, 1943, northeast of Bougie, Algeria. His boat had torpedoed HMS Holcombe (L 56) and HMS Tynedale (L 96) on the 12th. It was sighted and attacked by a Wellington aircraft from RAF 36 Squadron B, whose pilot radioed USS Wainwright (DD 419) and HMS Calpe (L 71). They successfully forced Kelbling and his entire crew to surface, abandon, and scuttle the boat. The U-boat’s crew spent the remainder of the war in a Canadian POW camp and returned to Germany in 1947.[9]

Nineteen LSTs followed USS LST 333 from the builder’s ways at NNSY. They served in all areas of hostilities. Four were transferred to the United Kingdom. Two more were lost to enemy action and one to grounding. Two were lost in the Mediterranean and one in the Pacific near New Georgia Island. Ten were involved in Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. The LST, more than any class of U.S. Navy ship, performed well in a variety of operations, from transporting enemy prisoners of war away from the battlefield to transporting medical surgical units to invasion sites.[10] Most were decommissioned and broken up at the war’s end. Only one NNSY-built LST survived, USS LST 344, later named USS Blanco County. It sailed to Vietnam from its Norfolk home port and was sold for scrapping on July 1, 1975. In the Second World War, these ships played a central role in winning the war and brought great credit on those who built them.


*Many thanks to Marcus Robbins, Captain Jerry Mason, and Zach Smyers for their help with the research and writing of this blog.

Notes:
[1] “Four Tank Landing ships will be launched Thursday,” Norfolk Naval Shipyard DEFENDER, October 14, 1942, p.1. ; “4 Landing Craft Launched At Norfolk Navy Yard,” Norfolk LEDGER STAR, October 15, 1942, p.2.
[2] “Six more landing ships are launched, a tribute to the Yard’s Speedy War Production,” Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s DEFENDER, Vol. 1, #19, November 11, 1942, p.2.
[3] “History of the Norfolk Navy Yard in World War Two,” Lieutenant Commander Arthur Sydnor Barksdale, USNR, November 1945, p. 158.
[4] Harv’s site.info, at Interview page 1. This is a series of his recollections of service aboard LST 333
[5] U-593 11th War Patrol War Diary, Admiralty Registry Number 30625/12, Uboatarchive.net, Captain Jerry Mason, USN (Ret.) Translator
[6] Ltr, CO, USS LST 333 to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet, “LST 333-Final Report of Torpedoing and Beaching of,” 29 June 1943.
[7] Idem.
[8] Ibid., U-593 War Patrol Diary
[9] U-boat.net, U-593, the pilot of the aircraft was F/O C.F. Parker. Though struck by AA fire from U-593, the plane landed safely at Bone, Algeria.
[10] History, Company B, 48th Armored Medical Battalion, landed at Normandy, June 12, 1944.

One Century Ago: Breaking Ground for an Assembly Plant of Doom

This map from May 1917 shows many of the facilities that would be built at the St. Juliens Naval Ammunition Depot during World War I, including buildings for the largest mine assembly complex to be built up to that time.  (Courtesy of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard Archives)

Although the official opening of the new Naval Training Station at Sewells Point on October 12, 1917, made the front page (below the fold) of the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch, it gave more prominent billing to a story about a new auto factory that was said to be in the works from Guardian Motors. A wire service story that ran in the middle of the page quoted the former head of Germany's Imperial Navy Office, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, as saying, “We can continue confidently to expect a final triumph over England as long as we continue to sink vessels faster then she constructs them.” At the time, he was technically correct about the ongoing unrestricted submarine campaign that had very nearly brought the British to the negotiating table earlier that year. But on October 24, ground was broken on a special type of assembly plant, the largest of its kind in the world, that would render the German admiral's prognostications to be about as prescient as those of Guardian Motors.

The year before, the Royal Navy had deployed a series of nets and mines close to U-boat bases along the Belgian coast, but their Vickers Elia mine was so unreliable that German submarine officers sometimes used their harvested casings to create punch bowls for their messes. After the American entry into the war against Germany in April 1917, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, who had recently reported to London as the liaison to the British Admiralty, subscribed to their view that “To absolutely blockade the German and Belgian coast against the entrance and departure of submarines has been found quite infeasible.” adding in a message to Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels a couple of months later, “Nets do not stop submarines. Mine barriers can not be wholly effective.”

There were those within the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd), however, who did not agree with this assessment. Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, its chief, was convinced that mines, properly designed, constructed and deployed in sufficient numbers, were key to neutralizing the "hornet's nests;"a term President Woodrow Wilson was fond of using to describe the U-boat bases. Planning began at BuOrd for much larger and more sophisticated mine barrages, both in the North Sea and in the Adriatic, before the ink was dry on the declaration of war against Germany. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt was a fan of the plan, but his boss, Josephus Daniels, was not, at least at first. He called the plan “A stupendous undertaking--perhaps not impossible but to my mind of doubtful practicability. North Sea too rough & will necessitate withdrawing all our ships from other work and then can we destroy the hornet’s nest or keep the hornets in?”

By September, President Woodrow Wilson had had enough with the British Admiralty’s handling of the war and agitated for a more proactive, assertive approach to be led by the U.S. Navy. Meanwhile, Sims, ostensibly in command of all the American naval forces being sent to Europe, was still maintaining the British line, telling Rear Adm. Earle, “It is by reason of the very bitter experience which the English and French have had in this particular respect that they are reluctant to accept a mine which is believed by those having no war experience to be superior to theirs. . . this is a good scheme if it works but a very expensive one if it does not.”

A diagram of the operation of the Mark VI mine. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

By then, however, Earle was well underway with producing a mine far superior to that which had been produced by the British; which would make the idea of a barrage long enough to block an entire sea possible. Unlike the “horned” British and German mines with firing mechanisms that required close proximity to detonate, BuOrd pioneered the Mark VI mine and its “K-pistol” mechanism, which utilized copper wires extending above and below the mines to enhance its sensitivity. This would make it possible for fewer mines to deny a larger area to U-boat traffic.

As indispensable as he was as liaison to the British, Sims would not be the man to finally bring the Admiralty around to the more audacious American approach towards dealing with the submarine threat. President Wilson and Secretary Daniels dispatched Vice Admiral Henry T. Mayo of the Atlantic Fleet to London that month.  Daniels later remembered Wilson's exhortations to Mayo about the “absolute necessity of finding and ending the hornet’s nest, & destroying the poison or removing the cork. [Wilson] impressed upon them the need of an offensive and reiterated his view that we cannot win this war by merely hunting submarines when they have gotten into the great ocean.”

A diagram of the North Sea Mine Barrage shows the general location of the mines and antisubmarine nets crisscrossing the sea. The mines were spread in an area approximately 230 miles long from Norway to Scotland. The first operation in June 1918 laid 5,500 mines. The mines were laid in three areas titled “A” “B” and “C”. “A” was the center, and largest, section, “B” went towards the Orkney Islands, and “C” went towards Norway. Section “A” was purely American, but the Americans also provided mines to sections “B’ and “C”, which were mined by the British. Due to the efficiency and production of the Americans, the US Navy provided more mines to both “B” and “C” than the British. The width of the barrage went from 15 to 35 miles. The depth of the mines ranged from 45 to 260 feet.(Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

At a “War Council” convened in London in September, Mayo made little headway with Russian, French, and Italian representatives, but crucially he was able to convince the First Sea Lord, Admiral John Jellicoe, to accept the plan. They ultimately settled upon a nearly 300-mile stretch across the North Sea, between the Orkney Islands north of Scotland and Norway. To him, its most attractive feature was that the barrage would be nowhere near German-controlled waters, where they had so effectively swept British mines the year before. But both men realized that if the plan was to work, an unbelievable number of reliable mines would have to be produced first. In any case, BuOrd had not waited around for the dithering British to make up their minds. The first contract for 10,000 Mark VI mines had been awarded on August 9, 1917, before Mayo even left for London. Even so, planners estimated that it would take a staggering 100,000 mines to block the North Sea.  On October 3, a contract for 90,000 more mines was approved.

Mine casings and other components on flatbed railroad cars await assembly at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in July 1917. (Courtesy of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard Archives)

Norfolk Naval Shipyard already possessed some mine construction capability, but there was no infrastructure in place there that could carry out such an ambitious plan. In any case, there was not enough room, so BuOrd turned to a Naval Ammunition Depot along St. Juliens Creek, about a mile south of the shipyard, which had existed there in one form or another since 1895. “A loading plant of this type and scale had hitherto been unknown not only in this country, but abroad,” wrote Earle of the undertaking. Some buildings could be upgraded, but almost two dozen new buildings would have to be built for mine assembly, the melting of trinitrotoluene (TNT), and filling of the mines, which contained 300 pounds of TNT apiece, plus cold-storage buildings to store the completed mines until they could be shipped. Railroad spur lines would also be required to deliver the mine components to assembly buildings. The shipyard continued to produce the casings for the mines, but BuOrd contracted other components out to different automobile manufacturers, making use of the private sector’s production capability for consumer goods, already the best in the world, for destructive ends.

Meanwhile, the British Admiralty dragged their feet. They did not officially allow the North Sea mining plan to go forward until November, weeks after construction began on the mine plant. Even with the necessary political will and financial support (on the American side, anyway), other obstacles remained. Not only were the ranks of able workmen drained by the ongoing Army draft, the workers who remained labored through one of the worst winters ever recorded in the Hampton Roads area, and construction nearly ground to a halt until February 1918.

This rare image shows the giant conveyor used to load minelaying ships and mine-carrying freighters at the St. Juliens Creek Ammunition Depot south of Norfolk Naval Shipyard. (Courtesy of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard Archives) 

Miraculously, the mine plant began producing the undersea death dealers in March. With a staff of 16 officers and 525 enlisted men, the assembly plant at St. Juliens turned out to be better than Rear Adm. Earle had even hoped, easily able to meet or even exceed their quota of 1,000 mines per day. During the remainder of the war, the facility assembled and shipped 73,000 mines, plus shipping an additional 17,000 that had been assembled at a smaller facility in Wisconsin. The conveyor system used to load the vessels on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River was the largest of its kind in the world.

By the time hostilities ended on November 11, 1918, 56,611 American mines, most of them assembled at St. Juliens, guarded the depths of the North Sea, with only 6,400 mines left to deploy before the American segment of the barrage was complete. All told, the North Sea Mine Barrage was credited with sinking six U-boats and damaging an equal number. It remains unclear how many submarine commanders avoided the open ocean because of the silent but deadly underwater wall, but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that, at the very least, they finally developed a deep respect of the Allied mines. The following passage appeared in a history of the barrage that was published in 1919:

In connection with the enemy’s attitude toward anti-submarine measures taken by the Allies, it is interesting to note the statement of a captured German submarine commander who had had considerable experience on that particular type of vessel. He expressed the opinion that of all the anti-submarine measures which had been taken, mines were by far the most dreaded by the German submarine personnel, principally because there was nothing to indicate their presence. Also, because the quality of allied mines had recently been improved in a most unpleasant manner, the former practice of fishing them up and taking them home for conversion into punch bowls for submarine messes had now been entirely abandoned, he said.

Paraphrasing Sun Tzu, breaking an adversary’s will to fight without direct conflict and the perils that go with it is preferable to undertaking a direct assault. As expensive as it was, the construction of a mine barrage would have been less expensive than, for example, attempting a series of amphibious raids against U-boat bases. This massive yet invisible submarine barrier made possible what President Wilson had wanted all along: A way to neutralize the “hornet’s nests.” While Wilson had originally wanted the U-boat bases attacked directly, the more economical way to go, in terms of both blood and treasure, was deploying these mass-produced mines to form a great underwater wall, modifying the behavior of German commanders, eroding their will to fight, and ultimately neutralizing the threat they posed to the Allied war effort.

USS Fanning and the Sinking of U-58

By Joseph Miechle

Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator 

USS Fanning at Queenstown, Ireland. Note the "Dazzle" camouflage.

In November 1917, USS Fanning (DD-37) became the first U.S. Navy ship to sink a submarine in combat. The ship was named after Lieutenant Nathaniel Fanning, who sailed with John Paul Jones aboard the Bonhomme Richard in the famous battle against the Serapis. Commissioned in 1912 at Newport News, USS Fanning was based in Norfolk for the majority of time prior to the onset of intensified hostilities in World War I. When two German Auxiliary cruisers visited Norfolk in 1915, Fanning acted as their escort while they sailed in United States territorial waters.

When the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, the war in the Atlantic was already in full swing. German U-boats had been engaging Allied ships in the Atlantic since September of 1914 when U-21 sank HMS Pathfinder. German submarines had exacted a toll on the Allies by sinking over five million tons of supplies worldwide by the time the United States formally entered the war. As part of the U.S. Navy’s expanding operations against the U-boat threat, USS Fanning’s base was transferred from Norfolk, VA, to Queenstown, Ireland, to serve as a convoy escort.

While the ship was escorting an allied convoy with USS Nicholson on November 17, Coxswain Daniel David Loomis spotted the periscope of U-58. Fanning quickly maneuvered into position to attack the U-boat and launched three depth charges into the water. Nicholson also engaged U-58 by firing an additional charge into the water. The bombardment forced the submarine to the surface and both ships fired on it with their 3” deck guns, Nicholson landing at least one hit. The German boat attempted to return fire unsuccessfully and surrendered after about thirty minutes. U-58’s diving planes had been disabled by the gunfire and it could no longer be controlled.

The crew of U-58 emerges from the damaged sub to surrender to USS Fanning on November 17, 1917. 

Prisoners being taken aboard USS Fanning.

Fanning quickly captured the German crew as they scuttled and abandoned their stricken boat. Thirty eight of the forty crew members were captured, including four officers. Two members of the German crew had been killed during the battle. Fanning and Nicholson suffered no casualties during the engagement. Coxswain Daniel Loomis and Lieutenant Walter Owen Henry, both from Fanning, each received the Navy Cross for their contributions during the battle. Fanning continued to serve effectively as a convoy escort and rescue ship throughout the war. Decommissioned on November 24, 1919, Fanning was transferred to the Coast Guard for service until being sold for scrap in 1934.


Editor's Note: Thanks to Mr. Dave Henry of Williamsburg, Virginia, for correcting Lt. Henry's name.

USS Yankton & Rum Running: A Black Mark on an Illustrious Career

USS Yankton at Hampton Roads, December 10, 1916.

Built as a luxury yacht in 1893, the Navy acquired USS Yankton in May 1898. Commissioned at Norfolk, it was prepared for operations in the Spanish-American War. As part of blockading duties off Cuba, it participated in shelling Spanish gunboats and land batteries. After the war, Yankton was converted to a fleet tender. In December 1907, it sailed out of Hampton Roads as part of the Great White Fleet for that around-the-world cruise, returning in 1909.

After the cruise, the converted yacht continued as a fleet tender until America's entrance into WWI. In 1914 it participated in Navy operations off Mexico during the Vera Cruz Crisis. During the war Yankton performed convoy escort duty off of Gibraltar, rescuing a damaged Italian merchant ship from a U-boat at one point. By September 1918, the yacht was summoned back to the United States to operate with the Atlantic Fleet.

Shortly after the Armistice, Yankton was sent back overseas, this time to the Barents Sea off of northern Russia. From February to July 1919, the yacht and a handful of other American ships (including subchasers) supported operations against the Bolsheviks in Murmansk and Archangel. For the remainder of the year it was stationed off England before returning stateside in January 1920.

Decommissioned soon after returning, the vessel was sold in 1921. Two years later the ship sprang into national news. Operated as part of a rum running ring, the yacht was captured in New York by customs officials. It was registered as a British ship and according to reports, had come to “Rum Row” (a group of smuggling ships anchored outside of the maritime limit) from the West Indies with a valuable cargo of illegal rum worth $500,000. The ship was eventually returned to civilian maritime service but was scrapped in 1930. 

German G7e Torpedo Warhead and Its Ghostly Image

Shown here is a torpedo warhead recovered from the German submarine U-352 by U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal divers in the 1980s.  It is currently on display in the museum's World War II gallery.  The warhead comes from a G7e electric torpedo, one of twelve carried by the submarine. The warhead would have carried about 618 pounds (280 kilograms) of an explosive mixture known as Schießwolle 36 or Guncotton 36 (having been invented in 1936).  It contained a mixture of 67 percent  TNT, 25 percent aluminum powder, and 8 percent HND (a highly toxic explosive booster). 

A type VIIc U-boat, U-352 patrolled the American coast line in the Spring of 1942.  She did not have any success before being discovered by the Coast Guard ship USCG Icarus (WPC-110) southeast of Cape Hatteras.  352 actually got off the first shot, but the torpedo went wide and exploded prematurely.  Icarus closed the distance and fired off five depth charges in a diamond pattern.  The resulting explosions critically damaged 352 and forced her to the surface.  Icarus immediately opened up on the submarine with her 3-inch gun and machine-guns.  Already taking on water, the  submarine went down for the final time. Before the boat went down, thirty-three of her crew jumped into the water.  Icarus rescued and captured them all.


A close up of the pareidolia inside the
 museum's German torpedo warhead.

In the 1980s, the West German government requested that the United States remove all remaining human remains from the boat after receiving reports of looting.  It was during this recovery operation that the museum received the warhead.  Today, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Sanctuary office oversees the site and educates divers about the nature of the wreck.

This artifact is a favorite among HRNM docents because what can been see inside the warhead.  Years of oxidation and corrosion has created a white pattern of what looks like a face.  While this may be no more than a pareidolia, some think they are seeing a ghost.  Come see for yourself!

Approaches to Virginia Capes Mined in 1942: What Did the Swiss Know? And When Did They Know It?

Four tugs gently push the tanker Robert S. Tuttle
 after the ship struck a mine off of False Cape. 
The tugs took the tanker to Baltimore for
 repairs. She survived the war.

In June 1942, the Kreigsmarine began to wrap up Operation Paukenschlag,  the U-boat offensive on the American eastern seaboard. As U-boats started to sail east, U-701 left behind a going away present: a minefield near the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. 

A thirteen ship convoy labeled KN-109 (Key West to Norfolk) steamed into the minefield, shortly after U-701 finished laying the mines. Escorted by the Norfolk-based destroyer USS Bainbridge (DD-246) and the armed fishing trawler HMT Kingston Ceylonite, the convoy switched from a double column formation to a single file formation as it sailed off the coast of False Cape.  Shortly after the switch, one of the tankers in the convoy, SS Robert S. Tuttle, struck a mine on the starboard, forward section of the ship.  Thirty minutes later, Esso Augsta also struck a mine.  During the confusion, Kingston Ceylonite turned to help, only to hit three mines in a row, completely obliterating the trawler. The explosions killed seventeen of her thirty-three man crew.

Thinking a U-boat was in the area, Bainbridge turned to counter-attack and dropped eight depth charges. While there was no submarine the area, the depth charges set off nine mines.  Despite sweeping the area by other ships out of Hampton Roads, the minefield continued to cause further damage well into September. 

Fifth Naval District Map of the mine attacks on convoy KN-109 and other ships.

U.S. Navy intelligence suspected that neutral-flagged, but pro-Axis, merchant vessels were laying mines on behalf of the Germans.  Intelligence officers from the Fifth Naval District (headquartered at Naval Station Norfolk) boarded three ships: the Greek-flagged tanker Helena Kulakunds, the Spanish-flagged freighter Monto Mulhacen, and the Swiss-flagged freighter Calanda.  The officers found no evidence of mines or mine laying equipment.  However, they did find the ships' sailing instructions and noticed they were very different than those of Allied-flagged merchant ships.  Specifically, the instructions informed the ships not to sail in the waters off of Virginia Beach and False Cape.  The officers discovered that the instructions came from the Swiss Embassy in Portugal.

Fifth Naval District Intelligence Office map-The solid line is the path followed by west bound
Allied ships, which took them straight into the minefield. The neutral ships, however, followed the
dotted line, which took them north of the minefield.

The Fifth Naval District Intelligence Office concluded that the freighters and the embassy were tipped off by German or Italian officials. It wrote, "It is most unusual, that a neutral nation, supposedly with no first-hand information of the approaches to a belligerent harbor, would undertake to issue routing instructions for the entrance in direct contravention to the instructions issued by nations charged with keeping a channel into such harbor open and free of mines."

Local View of the 1942 U-boat Operation Paukenschlag

January 1942 Fifth Naval District Map showing successful U-boat kills off the coast of the Virginia Capes and Cape Hatteras. (Click image to enlarge)

It is January at the museum, when cold weather slows visitation. Nothing was slow 70 years ago this month when the Battle of the Atlantic came to Norfolk – or more broadly speaking, to the 5th Naval District, a Navy administrative area stretching across the mid-Atlantic region. Its headquarters were at the Naval Operating Base, the installation now known as the Norfolk Naval Station.This location was deliberate, since Commandant of the 5th Naval District also commanded the Naval Operating Base. In January 1942 German U-boats brought their campaign to cripple Allied shipping to the Atlantic seaboard (which the Germans labeled the campaign Paukenschlag, which loosely translates in English as "Drumbeat"). One day alone, January 19, witnessed a swath of destruction across the shipping lanes near Cape Hatteras: SS Lady Hawkins torpedoed, (250 killed); SS City of Atlanta torpedoed, (44 killed); SS Malay torpedoed, shelled, damaged; SS Ciltvaria, torpedoed and sunk.

The reaction of the local Navy commanders to this crisis is detailed in an official report held by the museum: “War Record of the Fifth Naval District 1942.” These 542 typed pages, held in a standard issue Navy green binder, were compiled per the direction of Rear Admiral Manley H. Simons, who was Commandant during the fateful year. (He also simultaneously served as the Commander of the Chesapeake Task Force of the Eastern Sea Frontier.) The report was described by the anonymous staff officers who wrote it as “a digest of verbal accounts, written stories, and reports of officers and men who have taken part in Fifth Naval District war operations during 1942." Its purpose was to “capture the Fifth Naval District’s participation in the U-boat campaign of 1942.”

While the Battle of the Atlantic’s military actions are well documented, the “War Record” does provide a contemporary point of view, and also details the wide responsibilities of the Navy staff. These included assembling all the basic building blocks of military intelligence such as first-hand accounts of enemy actions, charts, and photographs. At one point on January 28 one naval district officer was dispatched to the burning hulk of the unfortunate SS Empire Gem, abandoned after an enemy attack off Cape Hatteras to retrieve “routing instructions, zigzag tables, confidential books, and Navy merchant codes” from the wheelhouse. He found “the entire wheelhouse, chart room and bridge quarters under water … Thus it was impossible to obtain the papers.”

Mark VI Mine and New Online Exhibit

This is a Mark VI mine on display in the museum's gallery. During World War I, the St. Juliens Annex of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard assembled over 100,000 of these weapons. The U.S. Navy's Mine Laying Squadron One deployed about 70,000 of them in the North Sea during an operation known as the "North Sea Mine Barrage." The goal was to seal off the North Sea as an exit point for German U-boats.

The mines were quite advanced for their day. The sphere contained 300 pounds of TNT, more than enough to rip an 800-ton submarine apart. A U-boat would trigger the mine by touching either the sphere itself or the wire cable located above and below the charge.  The mine's trigger, however, was possibly too sensitive as there were many reports of deployed mines exploding due to other objects in the sea such as fish or floating debris.  The Navy stored surplus mines at the newly-established Yorktown Mine Depot in Yorktown, Virginia. Today the facility is known as Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

In cooperation with Commander, Navy Region, Mid-Atlantic, a new online exhibit about St. Juliens Creek Annex and the mines can now be seen at the museum's website.