Your Help is Needed in Solving the Mystery of 22 January 1942

A few days after "roll on the Kettledrum" got started, off Atlantic City about sunrise 22 JAN 42, the crew of patrolling US Navy airship K-5 spotted an oil slick, bubbles, debris and a substance seen in a rough circle described as "chimney soot on the water."

EDITOR NOTE – ‘roll on the Kettledrum’ refers to Operation Paukenschlag; the opening attack against the United Stated by German U-Boats in middle January 1942.

Respected command pilot Charles Becker and his crew of about 9 men, from newly formed squadron ZP-12, lingered in the vicinity for several hours. They recorded (in 10th Fleet report #101) "...at 1010 about a mile from spot where we spotted the circle, saw large turbulence of foaming water and two subs surfaced about 60 ft apart... The subs were on the surface a full 10 seconds before crash diving... [airship K-5] dropped 3 bombs in succession..."

Radioing in the action, the K-5 tried to re-establish contact. "... at 1110 sighted white and green bubbles and dropped 4th bomb..." Finally, the radio calls yielded some Army planes, which found the hovering airship and attacked the traces before returning home. Hours passed before the disarmed K-5 retired, when K-3, which was equipped with the new MAD gear, arrived at 1300 to pick up the hunt. A half hour later, aboard K-3, "...about 1330 the magnetic instrument indicated the presence of a submerged [moving] object... area was marked..." by dropping yellow floats. Now more airplanes responded to the call, as two Navy OS-2U planes dropped a total of four more bombs.

Meanwhile, another Lakehurst squadron airship, the K-4, was quickly being made ready and was ordered to the scene. But something unusual happened as it flew out to sea. In his book, Vice Admiral C.E. Rosendahl stated the outbound K-4 overflew "a suspicious, unidentifiable fishing smack..." whose two decks contained "some sixteen metal drums commonly used for carrying fuel oil." No time to investigate, K-4 rushed to the scene of the action and "...about 1530 the K-4 dropped a second bomb. Wreckage including one life ring, several pieces of wood similar to deck plating and a considerable amount of oil came to the surface... attempting to retrieve the life ring when 2 destroyers arrived."

While coordination between units was none too good in those early days, the DDs (destroyers) had been intercepted and lead to the scene by ZP-12's only other airship, the K-6, which had been on patrol far to the south. Coming on scene, the USS Ingram (DD444) crew spotted the K-4 and K-3, recording: "At 1649, two airships were sighted. One of them signaled by light that it was over submarine. [USS] Lansdale proceeded to area beneath airship and made depth charge attack [at 1702] on position marked by two yellow buoys dropped by airship... At 1710, the Ingram made a depth charge attack... [light grade blue, possibly diesel] oil and floating wreckage were observed in the vicinity of the marker buoys [positioned by the airships]. The wreckage consisted of a large section of planking, a white life ring attached to the planking, and some indistinguishable debris."

Flying back to Lakehurst, the originator K-5 had been refueled, rearmed and rushed back to the battle with no less than the Airship Group Commander, Captain (Later Commodore) Charlie Mills on board. The crew of K-3 recorded "... More wreckage including painted cans of grey color, an object that looked like a pillow and other life ring came to the surface... the two columns of air bubbles were still strongly in evidence." Nothing more is recorded before darkness ended the action.

Tenth Fleet Report #101 speculates, "It appears highly probable that two submarines sighted were either being fueled by small craft from ashore or that one was fueling the other, the large oil slick sighted at daylight resulted from oil leakage during fueling." Somehow, long after the action, and safely back in Washington, Navy brass rated one of the reports "F," translated to mean "not sure if submarine was damaged." Classified, only bits and pieces of the story surfaced, and little has been published about it.

Sadly, we have not been able to verify the action from the German side. We have obtained and examined all area U-boat (except the U-130's) logs and 22 JAN 42 seemed to be a quiet day; one log records "nothing happed." Some U-boat historians ridicule the idea that U-boats were being refueled off American shores. Since collaboration with local traitors to receive fuel would not necessarily be recorded in U-boat logs, we are going to need some help in figuring out who was where and what exactly happened that cold day 60 years ago. If you or anyone you know can shed some light on the subs or the refueling in this action, let us know at SHARKHUNTERS and we’ll pass the information on to RICH and we’ll publish your answer here in the KTB Magazine.