On the evening of 18th July 2003 I was working on the web site when an old Goldonian, Jim Hargreaves phoned me, he had been at Goldings with his two other brothers Arnold and Arthur, all three learnt the print trade and were in the same house Mount Steven House. All three brothers were in the gym squad. They had also been at RCNS Poole, Dorset. before coming to Goldings
Jim was very
impressed with the Goldonian web site as he was able
to view information of most of
the old homes and Goldings. Jim spoke of his
time at Goldings with great affection; he went
on to tell me about his older brother
Arnold, he had taken part in a secret operation while serving on HMS Bulldog.
He was one of eight of a
boarding party of U-110 he said Arnold had never spoken of the event
until the film U-571 in which it is suggested uncle Sam not only won
the war he also captured the first U-boat with an intact
Enigma machine.
This got me searching the internet for any information on HMS Bulldog which held only limited information, there was more information on the Enigma machine code which Alan Turing had started to try and crack back in 1938, but his problem was every two weeks the code seemed to change. Below is what I have found over the years since the phone call from Jim. The true story of a 24 year old Able Seaman Arnold Hargreaves and his part in Adolf Hitlers' downfall,,,,,,
The first recorded capture of a Enigma I can find came in February 1941, with the capture of the German trawler named Krebs off Norway. On board were two Enigma machines and the Naval settings for the previous month. This allowed German Naval Enigma to be read, albeit with some delay in April, by code breakers at Bletchley. Then in the start of May 1941 a weather ship named the München was attacked and found with part of Enigma code-books for June. On both occasions the crew had started to destroy the Enigma machines. One code was not found the all important short code book, this allowed the U boats to shorten the messages sent. Without this Bletchley were unable to break the U boat code.
On the night of 8 May Kptlt. Lemp's U-110, from Lorient's 2nd U-Flotilla, had been successfully shadowing convoy OB.318 awaiting the arrival of U-201 which arrived on station on the 9th May 1941 at Cape Farewell the convoy OB.318 was steaming steadily east towards America from England awaiting the arrival of the Canadian Navy for the onward trip to America. They were not aware they were now being stalked by two wolf pack subs the U-110 and U-201 The attack started when Kptlt. Fritz-Julius Lemp of U-110 fired three torpedoes two found there mark with one hitting the Esmond and the other hitting the Bengore, the third had gone wide of convoy. Lemp stayed at periscope depth and had been manoeuvring for another shot when the escort corvette HMS Aubretia spotted his periscope and started an attack, forcing Lemp to crash dive in position 60N, 33W
Just before the attack from HMS Aubretia the U-110 might have sunk a third ship had it not been for an accident on board. The final torpedo fired had remained stuck fast inside the tube. This was to have fatal consequences for many of the crew of 47. Normally, after a torpedo is fired from the U-boat's bow tube, water was pumped into the tanks in the bow to compensate for the departure. The torpedo on this occasion, never left the U-boat, the pumped-in water merely unbalanced it for just long enough to stop it diving out of harm's way.
Both HMS Aubretia and HMS Bulldog were now directly above and both laying down 10 depth charges that exploded at the depth the asdic sonar equipment had detected U-110. The U-boat vibrated and shook with each explosion. The damage reports started to come in, the batteries had been damaged, the port propeller had been damaged, but worst of all the emergency compressed air was leaking into the submarine. Once this was gone Lemp would not be able to control the sub so he used what compressed air that was left in the tanks to surface.
The surface was no safe haven as HMS Bulldog was heading straight for the U-110 firing her three 4.7 Guns and all the Lewis machine guns from the bridge, adding more damage to the already damaged U-110. Kptlt. Lemp ordered "Abandon Ship". He had figured that since the boat was about to be rammed (and presumably sunk) its secrets were safe within so they all abandoned U-110 there had been no time to set any scuttling charges, the engineers had opened up the vents so that the diving tanks would flood. This on the earlier Mks would have taken the sub to the bottom. It was only when it failed to sink that Lemp and one another officer tried to swim back so they could climb back on board to see what could be done. Lemp was never seen again.
Joe Baker-Cresswell could see the submarine crew all leaving the sub, so stopped his attack and ordered an armed boarding party to launch so they could see what was about onboard, this would be the first ever intact U-boat captured. Only two others during WW II would be taken intact and boarded as the U110. Official records show 15 men were lost or killed in this action while 32 were captured and taken on board other Escort vessels and kept in a secure location.
Picture of the whaler going over to U-110
Sub-Lieutenant David
Edward Balme, R.N.V.R (Left) who was aged 20 was put in charge of
the armed boarding party, which included Able Seaman Arnold Hargreaves
and six others. They boarded the whaler from Bulldogs port side at
about 12:20Hrs and were lowered towards the sea, the photo above shows the 8
man boarding party rowing over. It was David Balme who
went down the conning tower first, followed by the rest of his crew.
Inside the darkness was broken by the blue emergency lighting. The
boarding party now began a search of the deserted submarine. The bookshelves
still contained books of every description - navigation manuals,
seamanship manuals, code books and signal books. The Bulldog's
telegraphist Allen Osborne Long pointed to an interesting piece of
equipment that looked like a typewriter but had no place to put
paper. This, along with all the
books from the shelves, were put to one side to be transferred with
utmost care to HMS Bulldog. It was important that everything
was kept dry as the code books and signal books were printed in ink
that disappeared if they were dropped in seawater.
Picture of
the U-110 and boarding party
The U-110 was now even low in the water at it's stern, with the bow sticking out. Inside the abandoned U-110 every bang of the whaler that had been moored on the seaward side sounded as if the sub was about to sink or explode, but in fact the reverse was true the whaler smashed against the side of the submarine one too many times, the U-110 was to claim its last victim as the whaler sunk to the bottom. A second stronger motor boat was sent over so they could load what had been found. The young sub-lieutenant was to find more important information in Lemp's roll top desk, this would give this country a breathing pace to re-stock with food that was in very short supply along with materials for the ever growing war machine. In total the boarding party spent some six hours on board the U.110 and returned to Bulldog at 18:35Hrs
This was not the first Enigma machine captured, but it was the first fully working Enigma machine with the next six months of codes plus they also found many other code and cypher books in the U110. There were also some vital charts hitherto unknown to the British. The most important of these were the special grid charts used for positioning U-boats throughout the Atlantic and charts showing all the German mine-fields and swept channels which Britain would use to great effect for various raids, especially the St Nazaire operation.
A 2 inch steel cable from the U-110 was attached to HMS Bulldog, towing the yawing U-110 Baker Cresswell steamed back to Iceland at 6 Knots which was some 400 nautical miles to the north of their position, he received the following signal about the operation which had been code-named "Primrose" from Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord: "Hearty congratulations. The petals of your flower are of rare beauty." The U-110 was kept afloat for some 17 hours then they let the towline slip as U-110 started to upended as it took on more water, in the end sinking vertically with her bow high in the air. Two days later, HMS Bulldog docked in Scapa Flow, the British naval base in the Orkneys. Baker Cresswell was greeted by Alan Bacon, an intelligence officer who took charge of the documents removed from the U-110 Alan Bacon arrived in London on the 13th May by 18:00Hrs. Some three hours later, he was driven through the gates of Bletchley Park. As he walked into the naval intelligence section, he triumphantly held his briefcase containing the most important captured papers over his head, like an athlete who had just won a gold medal. With this information they had a near crystal ball which was used to sink about fifteen German supply ships stationed around the North and South Atlantic used for refuelling U-boats and armed raiders such as the Prinz Eugen which had sailed from Norway with the Bismarck in mid-May 1941.
The boarding party of the U-110 were presented to King George VI, who stated that the operation was "perhaps the most important single event in the whole war at sea." The information was kept secret under the 50 year rule so not many people got to hear about the boarding party. the Enigma code during W.W.II. Which as we know from history gave us the edge in the Atlantic war until about February of 1942 This had been the turning point in history as England had been starved of food and ammunition for the war machine. One member of the crew the Telegraphist Allen Osborne Long was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and all the others were ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for ‘good work in salving documents under conditions of danger and difficulty.’
Arnold Hargreaves holding the lamp off the U110
To see the continuation of this story collated by a Goldings boy Frank Cooke click hear to view