Convoy SC 7 - The Night of The U-boats

The Night of The U-boats

On the night of 18th/19th five boats made a concerted attack. They were U-46, U-99, U-100, U-101 and U-123. U-99 was captained by the famous ace Korvettenkapitän Otto Kretschmer. The attack was coordinated from Lorient by Admiral Karl Dönitz and his staff.

An early casualty was the iron ore ship, SS Creekirk, bound for Cardiff, Wales. With her heavy cargo, she sank like a stone, taking all 36 crew members with her. Later that night, SC 7 lost many of its members, including the SS Empire Brigade with her cargo of trucks and six of her crew and the SS Fiscus with her cargo of steel ingots from Sydney. She sank like a stone as well, taking with her 38 of her 39 man crew. Also among the casualties was the commodore's ship, SS Assyrian, down with 17 crew (though Commodore Mackinnon was rescued after a long immersion in the chilly waters). In all, 16 ships were lost in this six hour period.

On 18 October, SS Blairspey was torpedoed by U-101 and was abandoned. She was torpedoed again on 19 October by U-100 but remained afloat. She was towed to the Clyde and later repaired at Greenock.

The escorts were unable to prevent any of these losses; their responses were uncoordinated and ineffective. They never realised that the attacking submarines did not attack submerged or from outside the convoy, but were actually running surfaced between the ships inside the convoy. Therefore the escorts were unable to mount any serious attacks on the U-boats, and had to spend much of their time rescuing survivors.