OCTOBER 2019 69
of the American subs successfully attacked
the behemoth it would have been a stunning
triumph. As usual, Lady Luck thumbed her
nose at the squadron; Tirpitz never sortied
from its hiding place deep in the fjords.
On April 28 a lookout on Barb spotted a
periscope sticking out of the sea a few hun-
dred feet off—a U-boat. “It was a miracle we
didn’t collide,” Steinmetz recalled. “We dove
and went to silent running.” He then chuckled
when he added that the enemy sub was so
close, “his periscope observation [of us] prob-
ably consisted of a lens full of black paint.”
But Barb’s commander was in no mood that
afternoon to tangle in a fully undersea battle,
a fraught enterprise for subs. Otherwise,
sightings were few—far fewer than off Spain.
As Steiny noted, “Why would anyone in their
right mind be there any way?” The only tar-
gets Barb had an opportunity to attack were
dozens and dozens of floating mines. “Fired
at them with the rifle, machine gun, subma-
chine gun, and 20mm. The mines neither
exploded nor sank,” skipper John Waterman
reported. But “it helped relieve the monotony
of the patrol.”
Two new subs, Hake and Haddo, joined
Subron 50 at the end of April 1943, replacing
the departed Gurnard and Gunnel, but there
was little for them to do. In late spring the
Admiralty and the Americans both concludedU.S
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The Barb’s battle f lag
attests to the wealth of
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over the Atlantic. The
sole Nazi flag stands
for a ship later found to
be Spanish. Damage
to ships, as well as
sinkings, are indicated,
as are “kills” from
shore bombardments.that the U.S. submarines were only getting in the way of the Allies’
increasingly successful campaign against the U-boats, which was
using a combination of new technologies and time-tested tactics. In
June 1943 Admiral Harold Stark, chief of United States Naval Forces,
Europe, ordered Subron 50’s six boats transferred to the happier hunt-
ing grounds on the other side of the world.
“Having taken care of the Atlantic,” Steinmetz wryly recalled, “we
were now ready for the challenges of the Pacific.”IN THAT THEATER the former constituents of Submarine Squadron
50 shined. Barb sank 17 Japanese ships, ending its war in fourth place
for most tonnage sunk by a single sub. Gurnard and Gunnel sank a total
of 18 ships; replacements Hake and Haddo racked up the same score,
and Herring got seven. But the enemy got Herring: the boat was lost to
gunfire off northern Japan’s Kurile Islands on June 1, 1944.
The American submariners’ successes in the Pacific can be chalked
up to operating within a command environment that diligently
learned from its mistakes and continually updated its doctrine and
tactics. Subron 50’s time in Europe, on the other hand, yielded few les-
sons learned. And the tangible tally stemming from Churchill’s 1942
request was negligible at best. Throughout 27 patrols, the confirmed
results for Subron 50 were two ships sunk, four damaged.
Nevertheless, there were important intangible benefits of an
endeavor the British considered a modest success. “Your submarines’
actual contribution had been very great, far beyond the numbers of
ships sunk,” the Royal Navy’s commander of subs, Rear Admiral Claud
B. Barry, wrote to squadron commander Ives. While Barry didn’t elab-
orate, the presence of Subron 50 helped relieve Britain’s beleaguered
submarine service. And it provided a show of American support for
Britain in its time of need—support that made the “special relation-
ship” long shared by the two allies even stronger. +In mid-1943
Subron 50 was
transferred
to happier
hunting
grounds.