German Submarine U-550 - Loss

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.