578 Part Four: The North Atlantic Lifeline present had made SONAR contact and sank u-550 within sight of the burning tanker .33 These operations may have benefited from better acoustic conditions in the waters south of Nova Scotia. They also demonstrated what could be done by experienced surface and air forces working in close harmony, especially in the case of u-856. By contrast, a large Canadian effort - 197 sweeps totalling 1756 hours and 158 flights of 1340 hours in support of convoys by Eastern Air Command in the period from 18 March to 4 April, and searches by as many as fifteen ships - had not produced even a single opportunity to attack. Rear- Admiral H.E. Reid, flag officer Newfoundland, writing his report of proceed- ings for March I 94,offered a blunt explanation from the navy's point of view: 'Recent unsuccessful hunts off Halifax and Newfoundland, where a U-boat was known to be present, by motley assortments of ships in various states of efficiency and training, lends emphasis to the fact that none but a highly trained, thoroughly co-ordinated and ably led team can hope to destroy U-boats at this stage of the ~arnpaign."~Air force failures suggested that Reid's criticism applied as much to the RCAF as the RCN. Dismal results in February and March had exhausted the patience of the new chief of the air staff, Air Marshal Robert Leckie. He decided to intervene directly after the failure, on 24 March, by 10 Squadron's Liberator 'G' to make an attack or achieve a second sighting after apparently detecting a periscope and receiving sonobuoy returns. An acoustic torpedo had apparently not been dropped because the crew had insufficient experience with the equipment. Training was obviously inadequate if that were the case. In Leckie's view, however, a far greater mistake had been made: the command had allowed several hours to elapse before the relief aircraft anrived on the scene. The weather had been good, and no extraordinary operational pressures had created a shortage of available aircraft: It is most emphatically considered that whenever a submarine is definitely known to be in a small area, every possible effort should be made to cover this area continuously, day and night, and to extend it as necessary, with the object of obtaining a second sighting. An organized hunt to exhaustion may not always be possible, particularly if the sighting is a great distance from the nearest base, but at least continuous cover for the next 24 hours should be given. It is fully realized that an aircraft not equipped with the Leigh Light has perhaps little chance of making an attack by night, and that therefore night sweeps by such aircraft are not of great value unless they are based on very definite information; but when the position of a submarine is actually known with considerable accuracy, it should be of great value to patrol the area by night using ASV,in the hope either of obtaining a contact which will further fix the submarine's position, or of forcing the submarine to stay submerged throughout the night and thus increase the chances of sighting it on the surface next day.35 A common sense of purpose among air and sea forces, moreover, was still singularly lacking. In February Eastern Air Command had published the instructions for Salmon, but no one thought to distribute them to warships until Securing the Lifeline, I 943-4 579 HMCS New Glasgow used improper procedures to home aircraft on 19 March during the first combined hunt for u-$02.~~Much more than such patchwork reform was needed to solve the problem; even though the RCN and RCAF were making a greater effort to hunt down U-boats, a more thoughtful, coordinated approach had to be developed, as well as a willingness to pay more attention to detail - particularly in training. On 23 April, after the Canadian Northwest Atlantic had enjoyed a total absence of U-boats for about ten days, U-548 crossed 40 degrees west longitude en route for St John's. The orc was aware both of its presence and destination. Canso 'A'S from Torbay and Liberators from Gander began to hunt for the submarine that day. When by the orc's estimates the U-boat should have been within one hundred miles of St John's, Hudsons from I I Squadron at Torbay began local patrols. Towards the end of the month, however, bad weather restricted flying to a few hours a day, and on I May the enemy had reached Conception Bay undetected. 37 That afternoon u-548 surfaced east of the bay to ventilate the boat with fresh air (see map ONS 236, 2 I -5 May I 94,below), and a Liberator of I o Squadron, returning to base after a long convoy escort, saw the boat in the distance. u-548 crash dived. The U-boat captain thought, wrongly, that the aircraft had not sighted the submarine, but within two hours a Salmon had been ordered. The Liberator had in fact dropped sonobuoys and was able to follow the U-boat's course. Passing the limit of endurance, the aircraft then had to return to base before a Canso 'A' from 5 Squadron arrived on the scene, shortly to be relieved by another Liberator. The weather closed in, forcing this aircraft to leave as well, but over the next $4 hours twenty-one ships joined in the hunt, assisted when flying conditions permitted by two Liberator, three Canso, and six Hudson sorties.38 u-548 had seen the large number of ships and aircraft arriving late on I May and had shifted position to the south, miles away from the main search. The submarine surfaced after dusk the next day half way between St John's and Cape Race, to find the destroyer-escort HMS Margood a little more than a mile away. The U-boat attacked the ship with a homing torpedo which missed just as a Liberator of I o Squadron appeared on the scene. Having picked up Margood on radar, the aircrew illuminated the vessel with their Leigh Light and then fired an identification flare that failed to function properly. However, the U-boat captain assumed he was under attack and immediately responded with 2omm flak, crash dived, and lay still on the sea bed to avoid detection. The airmen, incensed at being shot at, apparently by a friendly vessel, promptly flew away. 39 The British seamen on board Margood were thoroughly bewildered. They appear to have searched for a U-boat, because the submarine's log records a 'shrill, undulating turbine noise' overhead for more than an hour, but they gained no contact. The whole affair was put down as an unsolved mystery. Wargood signalled to flag officer Newfoundland: 'A08002 aircraft circled ship in position 47 3 IN 52 02w when on bearing 045" appeared to have short bursts of Oerlikon [gunfire] fired at it .. Have you any information? Continuing patrol. '40 The shore authorities had no informa- tion, failed to realize they had cornered u-548, and called off Salmon on 3 May.41 580 Part Four: The North Atlantic Lifeline The submarine took up a position south of Cape Race, lying quietly among the ice clutter at periscope depth, a tactic that made it virtually impossible to detect. Meanwhile, Rear-Admiral Reid ordered an air and sea search of the area beginning early on 6 May; perhaps the shore authorities had belatedly realized the significance of Hargood's strange encounter. Close to midnight on the 6th, a mid-ocean escort group crossed the search area, hurrying for St John's after a long spell of escort duty, and ran over u-548's hiding place. The U-boat fired a homing torpedo at HMCS Valleyfield, the nearest vessel in the group. Within three minutes the frigate had broken in half and sunk with only thirty-eight survivors from the 163 men on board. u-548 again descended to the bottom and did not move for four hours.42 It was more than thirty minutes before the other ships even realized that Valleyfield was missing. Then followed a search around the frigate's last known position and a counter attack that was too far away to damage the U-boat. Admiral Reid upgraded the search already in progress to Salmon status as soon as he received the report. A Canso 'A' had already joined the search by that time, and before dawn on the 7th, as RCN escorts arrived, I I Squadron had begun the first of seven Hudson sorties that day. u-548 retreated to the southwest and after dark, as fog rolled in to halt further air searches, the submarine heard the last faint sounds of the hunt. Two days later on the afternoon of the 9th a transmission to U-boat headquarters, intercepted by at least two escorts, placed the submarine about 200 miles south of Cape Race. The escort from an American convoy nearby immediately searched the area, with support from a 10 Squadron Liberator and a 5 Squadron Canso. The ships and aircraft made no firm contacts, but u-548 believed it was under attack and slipped away as Canadian warships and additional aircraft from I Group arrived on 10 May.43 On 14 May the OIC ceased issuing Otter signals for u-548. The submarine went on to evade all further detection, swinging far to the south before arriving off Halifax on 17 May. It lingered there for ten days, making contact with two convoys and two independent steamers, but not striking.