U-BOAT PACK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 234, 4 October 1943, Page 4

U-BOAT PACK

ATTACK ON ATLANTIC CONVOY NIGHTMARE SEA FIGHT Recd. 6 p-.m. Rugby, Oct. 1. Survivors from Allied merchant ships were landed to-day at east coast Canadian ports. They had battled their way through the first big German U-boat attack reported Atlantic waters for nearly foumonths. A Canadian destroyer was sunk in this action with a loss of 146 lives, and the British Admiralty has announced the loss of a corvette and a frigate. It is stated in London that countermeasures against the U-bqats were successful and that the action was in no way exceptional. Survivors described a nightmare sea fight. A long, running battle occurred in the Atlantic on the outer rim of the Arctic Circle, when an Allied convoy encountered a pack of U-boats with the loss of the Canadian de- . stroyer St. Croix, several Allied mer- W chantmen and at least one U-boat, says a message from Montreal. Eye-witnesses said it was one of the starkest battles since the war. They told of ships breaking in half as torpedoes ripped their hulls, and of injured and dying men struggling for hours in icy, oil-thick water. A survivor of an American merchantman with an all-negro crew watched a U-boat blasted from the water after being caught in the beam of a warship’s searchlight. “It was the best fireworks I have ever seen,” said the negro captain. He added that a shot must have hit the magazine. There was a tremendous blast of flame and the U-boat sank. The sinking of the St. Croix, of whose crew only one was rescued, is described as the heaviest single loss the Canadian Navy has suffered so far.—B.O.W.