Loss
On 16 April, south of Nantucket Island, she located convoy CU 21, bound for Great Britain from New York City. The SS Pan-Pennsylvania, one of the largest tankers in the world, was unwisely straggling behind the convoy; U-550 torpedoed her. The ship quickly caught fire and began to sink. As the vessel settled, the submerged U-boat maneuvered underneath her hull in an effort to hide from the inevitable counterattack by the convoy's escorts.
Convoy CU-21 was escorted by Escort Division 22, consisting of Coast Guard-manned destroyer escorts reinforced by one Navy DE, the Gandy (DE-764), which took the place of the Leopold (DE-319), which had been lost in action the previous month. The escort division's flagship, Joyce (DE-317) and the Peterson (DE-152) rescued the tanker's surviving crew, while the Joyce detected the U-boat on sonar as the Germans attempted to escape after hiding beneath the sinking tanker. U-550's engineering officer later said, "We waited for your ship to leave; soon we could hear nothing so we thought the escort vessels had gone; but as soon as we started to move – bang!" The Joyce delivered a depth-charge pattern that bracketed the submerged submarine. The depth charges were so well placed, a German reported, that one actually bounced off the U-boat's deck before it exploded.
The attack severely damaged U-550 and forced her to the surface, where the German sailors manned and fired their deck guns. The Joyce, Peterson and Gandy returned fire. Gandy rammed U-550 abaft the conning tower and the Peterson dropped two depth charges which exploded near the U-boat's hull. Realizing they were defeated, the U-boat's crew prepared scuttling charges and began abandoning their boat. Joyce rescued 13 of U-550's crew, one of whom later died from wounds received during the fire-fight. The remainder of the U-boatmen went down with their submarine. Joyce delivered the prisoners of war and the Pan Pennsylvania survivors to the authorities in Great Britain.
Read more about this topic: German Submarine U-550
Famous quotes containing the word loss:
“Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Claudio. The old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls.
Leonato. Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)