Submarine warfare raged on Louisiana’s coast

As World War II raged in battlefields of the European and Pacific theaters, less heralded action occurred in Gulf of Mexico waters not far from Terrebonne, Lafourche and other coastal parishes.

Houma historian C.J. Christ describes the Gulf during 1942’s spring and summer as “the deadliest place on earth for allied war shipping” in his book “WWII In The Gulf of Mexico.”

In the month of June 1942 alone, according to Christ’s account, 41 ships were sunk by Germany’s submarine fleet in the waters of the Gulf and on Florida’s Atlantic coast. One of these, sent to a watery grave on July 30, 1942, was the steam-powered passenger vessel Robert E. Lee.

During 1942 and 1943, U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management documents say, a fleet of over 20 U-boats targeted oil tankers from Texas and Louisiana, as part of an initiative called “Operation Drumbeat.”

“They succeeded in sending 56 vessels to the bottom; 39 of these are now believed to be in state or Federal waters off Texas, Louisiana and Florida,” a BOEM report states. The Caribbean was not immune from U-boat attacks, various historical accounts state.

On June 23, 1942 the Norwegian tanker Andrea Brøvig, carrying 14,000 tons of oil, was torpedoed twice off of Trinidad by Germany’s U-128 and sank, but no deaths were reported. All 40 survivors reached Trinidad and Tobago in lifeboats two days later.

On July 11, 1942 the Panamanian tanker Stanvac Palembang was en route from Santos, Brazil to Port of Spain, Trinidad when she was torpedoed by the U-203, about 15 miles off Tobago, and further came under attack from the U-boat’s deck gun. Two crew members and three Navy gunners, onboard to provide protection, were lost.

Survivors from both of those vessels gathered at Port of Spain, Trinidad, awaiting transport to Tampa Florida, where they boarded the steam vessel Robert E. Lee, which was equipped with a three-inch gun and a Navy crew to man it. The Robert E. Lee, with Master William C. Heath at the helm, headed north toward Key West, escorted by the destroyer USS Greer.

The following account is based on the BOEM report, accounts from Christ’s research, a report from NOAA and a paper done for C & C Technologies Inc., a marine surveying firm, as well as U.S. Navy records.

For the Key West to New Orleans trip the Greer peeled off and the ship picked up a different escort, the PC-566, under Navy Lt. Cdr. HG Claudius.

The PC-566 was brand spanking new, a 173-foot submarine chaser armed with three 20mm guns, two rocket launchers, and four depth charge projectors.

The vessel was also equipped with mounts for a 3-inch and a 40mm gun, though it is not known whether those mounts were armed.

Conditions on board the Robert E. Lee, packed at twice its capacity; crew and passengers combined numbered nearly 400 and descriptions were descried as unbearable.

Overheated by fetid and still summer air with minimal ventilation, the passengers begged to be dropped off at Tampa.

A pilot was required for the trip through Tampa Bay, due to mines and submarine nets; one could not be secured. And so the Robert E. Lee resumed course for New Orleans.

The PC-566 notified the Gulf Sea Frontier command by radio of those plans, a required move but one that may have contributed to a bad outcome.

One of the 10 U-boats believed patrolling the Gulf in July, the 251-foot U-166, skippered by Nazi commander Hans-Günther Kühlmann, had completed laying mines somewhere off the mouth of the Mississippi River on July 27, more than a month after sinking three ships in as many days.

Although not verified by any record, the presumption is that the 29-year-old Kühlmann and his crew of 51 began a new prowl for shipping victims.

According to information decades later garnered by Herbert G. Claudius Jr., son of the PC-566 commander, from Navy records, the Robert E. Lee was traveling faster than the Navy commander recommended as it headed to the New Orleans coast.

The Robert E. Lee traveled forward at 18 knots.

Although the PC-566 was rated for 20 knots, records show, such speed would not have allowed it to follow the protocol required for escorting a ship.

Zig-zagging while traveling, Claudius Jr. said, was the method used to avoid torpedoes and could not be accomplished at the speed the Robert E. Lee was traveling. According to records viewed by Claudius Jr. his father’s ship was 3,000 feet – nearly ¾ of a mile – off the steamer’s port side.

According to most accounts, at a location about 25 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, some Robert E. Lee passengers saw something streaking just at the water’s surface, at first thinking it to be a dolphin.

Lookouts on the vessel, however, saw the wake about 200 yards away and knew.

The Robert E. Lee was hit by a torpedo fired from the U-166.

“It struck just aft of the engine room,” the C&C report states. “The explosion destroyed the #3 hold, vented through the B and C decks and wrecked the engines, the radio compartment and the steering gear.”

The PC-566, by that time a half-mile ahead of the Robert E. Lee, was radioing New Orleans for a pilot when the Robert E. Lee was hit. As the sub-chaser sped to the scene sailors spotted a periscope and a spread of depth charges was released, an oil slick was seen but other than that there was no confirmation on the fate of the attacking sub.

But there was other business to be done besides the counter-attack.

The Robert E. Lee listed first to port, then to starboard, and sank by the stern within 15 minutes.

Passengers and crewmen jumped off the sinking ship, most wearing life jackets, as six lifeboats and sixteen life rafts were hastily lowered.

The PC-566 crew did what they could to assist amid what has been described as absolute chaos.

Holmes, the Robert E. Lee’s captain, is quoted in the C&C report describing the scene.

“After all the racket stopped, we paddled around looking for anyone alive in the water,” Holmes is quoted as having said. “Those we reached were dead, either from the concussion of the depth charges or having their necks broken by jumping into the water with a cork life jacket on. Then the sharks came and took over.”

One officer, nine crewmen and 15 passengers were lost.

What was not known until the 21st Century was that the U-boat was indeed crippled and killed by the PC-566.

It sank with all hands in 5,000 feet of water, its wreckage eventually found a mile from the Robert E. Lee’s final resting place.

The U-boat wreck is classified as a maritime grave and it is not allowed to be disturbed.

Two days after the attack, on Aug. 1, a Coast Guard J4F Widgeon amphibious aircraft piloted by Chief Aviation Pilot Henry Clark White and crewman George Henderson Boggs, Jr., were patrolling near Last Island, off the Terrebonne Parish coast, at an altitude of 1,500 feet.

“They spotted a U-boat cruising on the surface and immediately dove on the target,” a Coast Guard account states. “The U-boat crash-dived as the J4F closed in. At 250 feet, White released a single depth charge, the only weapon he had on his aircraft, slightly ahead of the swirling water left by the now submerged submarine.

The depth charge exploded and soon White and Boggs discerned a growing oil slick on the surface of the Gulf. They then returned to their air base and reported their attack.”

Claudius, once back ashore, was subjected to a rigorous inquiry, during which he could only say he thought he sank the U-boat, leaving the Coast Guard’s well intended version to stand as the best account of that vessel’s fate.

Stripped of his command, Claudius was sent to anti-submarine warfare school, although his military career rebounded in the years that followed the fighting.

Later research pioneered by Christ, coupled with archeological findings, proved by the 21st Century that the PC-566 sank the U-166; the U-boat the Coast Guard hit off the Terrebonne Parish coast was the U-171, which made it back to Europe but struck a mine and sank off the coast of France.

With the record corrected, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus conferred posthumous honors to Claudius’ son late last year for bravery in combat.

“It’s never too late to set the record straight,” Mabus said.