World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: What is a Menace?

Twelve hours out of New York, 60 miles off Long Island’s fingerlike north tip at Montauk Point, the Panamanian tanker Norness pressed toward Halifax. She carried 10,000 tons of fuel oil and a 40-man Scandinavian crew.

Suddenly a torpedo ripped into the tanker’s hull on the port side. Ten minutes later another direct hit was scored from starboard. In something like 14 minutes Captain Harold Hansen and his men (save two, who slipped from sight) were struggling with lifeboats and life rafts in the chilling, oil-drenched water. A third, final torpedo struck again from port side. The 9,577-ton tanker canted drunkenly but did not entirely sink. The sub, surfaced after the third shot, made no attempt to pick up survivors. A second officer insisted that his raft was fired on “five or six times” by the sub’s deck gun. A fishing boat, U.S. destroyer and Coast Guard cutter picked up the 38 chilled survivors. Said blond, soft-voiced Skipper Hansen: “I thought we were just as safe there as in New York harbor.”

Less than 36 hours later torpedoes caught the 6,768-ton British tanker Coimbra some 60 miles from the Norness attack scene, a scant 20 miles from Southampton, L.I., only 100 miles east of New York City, and left it sinking.

Off the North Carolina coast the heavily laden U.S. tanker Allan Jackson swerved desperately to avoid a torpedo that broke water 150 yards short of its mark, then scored a direct hit amidships. Only 13 of the crew of 35 reportedly survived. Also off North Carolina the tanker Malay was torpedoed but limped to safety.

What is a submarine menace? It is certainly not the scatter-aim, hope-to-hit show that Jap subs have put on off the Pacific Northwest. It is, in 1942, a grim thing.

Last Time. To many an American who recalls the formidable adventures of German U-boat skippers like Von Nostitz, Janckendorf and Koenig, reports of abandoned survivors and gun-strafed life rafts were far cries from the heroic U-boat actions of the last war. Then the sleek, expertly manned underwater craft slipped boldly into shore waters, in less than six months of 1918 they sowed mines, sank six steamships and 31 other vessels. Then their commanding officers were fighting gentlemen who usually took excellent care of their prisoners and actually had fun matching wits with frantic U.S. harbor-defense units.

There was the U-151. In May 1918, she stood off New York harbor, there to lay mines and cut cables. U-151’s Lieut. Korner later wrote: “When night came we could see the lights of Broadway. Some of the boys suggested that we sneak up the Hudson River and go to a show. What a joke that would be! For three days we crossed what we hoped were the cable areas, and for three nights we were tormented by the lights of Broadway. . . .”

There was the U-156. On a Sabbath morning in July 1918, she popped up opposite Provincetown, Mass., stayed 90 minutes, fired 147 rounds, sank a tug and three barges. Hundreds of appreciative bathers, tourists and thrill-seekers lined the shore watching the engagement like a crowd at a baseball game.

For the U-151 there were moments of risk—when it nosed into Chesapeake Bay within clear sight of the beach. There were moments of romance—when it pushed along towing three lifeboats full of survivors while the German sailors played mandolins and guitars and sang old folk songs. There were moments of humor—when it frightened the skipper of the Texel into turning his vessel in such rapid circles that he thought he saw two submarines.

All too plain last week were indications that Adolf Hitler is coldly uninterested in the romance and color that marked World War I’s submarine clashes. Rather the current sinkings seemed to be pointed at Rio de Janeiro where American foreign ministers were meeting to discuss anti-Axis moves in behalf of hemisphere defense. Hitler well knows U-boats can torpedo, besides ships, the psyches of men.