SANK U-BOAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1944, Page 4

SANK U-BOAT

AND SAVED A LINER

SUBMARINE PATROL

A famous British liner which took part in the Allied landings in North Africa last year was saved by a British submarine sinking a U-boat which was lying in wait for her. The submarine—H.M.S. Ursula (Lieutenant R. B. Lakin, D.5.0., D.S.O—torpedoed the. U-boat o?f the coast of southern Spain ,10 minutes before the liner passed almost exactly over the spot. The London "Daily Telegraph's" naval correspondent- wrote that the Ursula' was ■on patrol in the Western Mediterranean when the officer of the watch saw something through the periscope which at first he took to be an aircraft-carrier. Lieut. Lakin went to the periscope and identified the object as a 500-ton German U-boat about three miles away. It was a difficult long-range attack, but inhere was no time to be lost. He fired six torpedoes. One hit and he watched the U-boat sink. Lieut.' Lakin took command of the Ursula in the Mediterranean in November, 1942. Oh her first patrol she .sank the U-boat. The second patrol was in the Gulf of Genoa, where the Ursula shot up railway trains passing along the Italian Riviera and some oil tanks. On this patrol the Ursula also sank a schooner and a French ship in' German service and with a German crew on board. ENEMY TRANSPORT SUNK. The Ursula's third patrol was successful, but very nearly disastrous. Early one morning, about an hour before dawn, Lieut. Lakin sighted an enemy transport proceeding from Naples to Tunis. He began his attack on the surface, and then dived, as the moon gave enough light to see through the periscope. He fired three torpedoes, all of which hit, and the transport sank. Early the next morning an escorted convoy of three supply ships was sighted. "Elated by my previous success," said Lieut. Lakin, "I tried the same tactics, but in pressing home the attack on. one ship I lost sight of another. This ship rammed us while we were submerged and carried away both periscopes and most of the bridge. Getting back to Algiers without any periscopes was a tricky business and took us four days." In April, 1943, Lieut. Lakin took command of the submarine Safari. While in command of her he sar^k 39 enemy ships! ranging in size from a lO.OOOrton tanker to small craft, and probably sank five more. It was during the Safari's •• second patrol off the east coast of Corsica and Sardinia that she was hunted by Italian destroyers for 38 hours. Lieut. Lakin characterised this experience as "rather depressing." Shortly after this hunt the Safari's crew showed that their morale .was not shaken by sinking a steamer laden with cased petrol. On her last patrol before returning to the United Kingdom the Safari got involved in one of the strangest battles of the war. She was on patrol on the main traffic route between Elba and Bastia, in Corsica, when a schooner of the type largely used by the enemy for the transport of supplies was sighted. . She was a long way off, and Lieut. Lakin began the chase on the surface. As the range closed he sighted a merchant ship beyond the schooner. This was a more important target. The Safari fired a torpedo, but this missed, and the Italian merchant ship was thereupon engaged with the Safari's gun. The merchant ship was quick to get a gun into action and to reply to the submarine. FOUR-CORNERED FIGHT. While the gun duel with the merchant ship was in progress two German tank-landing craft ' appeared on the disengaged side of the Safari and opened fire on the submarine. All this gunfire stirred up the Italian shore batteries, which also opened fire. At this stage in the proceedings the Safari was engaged with the merchant ship while being herself engaged by I the German tank-landing craft, while the coastal batteries were throwing shells indiscriminately into the melee. Five Ju.52 transport aircraft then appeared on the scene, and it seems that the German tank-landing craft crews must have thought that they were British aircraft coming to the rescue of the submarine, for they opened fire on the German aircraft. At this point Lieut. Lakin decided that things were getting a little too confused for comfort. He quickly finished off the merchant ship, and the Safari dived out of the battle to let the German tank-landing craft and the aircraft and the Italian shore batteries fight it out among themselves.