Part 1 [KTB 161]

First, we apologize for not being able to continue this story last month. This is a good story, but space just did not allow it.

On March 11, the American freighter CARIBASEA was sunk near Ocracoke. Survivors were tossed about on life rafts all day until they used a metal can as a reflector to attract a passing steamship, NORLINDO, bound for Baltimore.

EDITOR NOTE – CARIBSEA, the former BUENAVENTURA, was loaded with 3,500 tons of manganese ore & was sunk by U-158 under Rostin. As an aside, NORLINDO, the former VOLUSIA, was sunk not quite two months later on 4 May 1942 by U-507 under Schacht.

One of those lost was James Gaskill from Ocracoke and his brother still lives there. It’s said by island residents that the ship’s nameplate floated through the Ocracoke Inlet and washed ashore near where Gaskill lived. Marvin Howard found it, and made a cross which can be seen today in the Methodist Church located on the island.

It wasn’t until the Fall of 1945 that the Fifth Naval District released the number of merchant seamen and guncrews lost off the coast by Axis submarines in World War II. In this District’s waters, which extend halfway to Bermuda and include the shores of Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina down south to Onslow Bay – 843 men lost their lives.

Alarmed by the large number of ships being sunk off the eastern coast of the United States, the British Government, in February 1942 at the request of the United States, agreed to loan the United States Navy twenty-four anti-submarine corvettes. These ships were about one-half the size of a World War II type destroyer, being 170 feet long with a crew of four officers and thirty-three enlisted men. Their armament consisted of a four-inch quick-fire deck gun and a .303 caliber Lewis machine gun. They also carried approximately 100 depth charges and were equipped with sonar.

It seems ironic that only two years after the United States had given, through its Lend-Lease Program, fifty destroyers to the English that they would have to turn around and give us ships to combat our submarine menace.

Among the twenty-four corvettes leaving England in early March was the HMS BEDFORDSHIRE. The ships traveled through the North Atlantic to Newfound land, then Halifax and finally to New York. At least one ships was lost during the winter gales on this trip, and the others arrived in New York in much need of repairs. Among the officers aboard the BEDFORDSHIRE was Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham. The BEDFORDSHIRE spent April and part of May patrolling off the North Carolina coast between Moorehead City and Norfolk, with Moorhead City being its homeport. These ships were coal burners and required frequent refueling.

EDITOR NOTE – HMS BEDFORDSHIRE and the other vessels, were actually classified as anti-submarine trawlers rather than actual corvettes.

In early May, a Naval Intelligence officer visited the ship to obtain British flags to use in burial of Englishmen at Cape Hatteras who had lost their lives in ship sinkings. Sub-Lieutenant Cunningham was the officer who procured these flags for the U.S. Navy. The BEDFORDSHIRE then refueled at Moorehead City and left to check out a submarine sighting report.

On the night of 12 May, U-558 under Günther Krech, was cruising between Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout. Its mission to date had been uneventful, and the Skipper was beginning to wonder if he would have as successful a cruise on the American coast as his counterparts. Suddenly, the noises of a ship’s screw were heard on the U-Boat’s listening device & a lookout saw BEDFORDSHIRE.

Visibility was low. Because of the faster speed at which submarines could move on the surface, U-558 made her attack on the surface. After missing with its first torpedo, the submarine’s second torpedo hit the BEDFORDSHIRE squarely amidships, catapulting the ship into the air and sinking it almost immediately. No one survived this sinking to explain how the ‘hunter was killed by the hunted’. We can only speculate that our British friends had become too complacent in their efforts to assist their allies.

The U. S. Navy, to which the British ships were attached, was not diligent in keeping track of these patrol craft, as evidenced by the fact that the Navy was not aware of what had happened to the HMS BEDFORDSHIRE for several days.

On 14 May, while patrolling the shore at Ocracoke, a Coast Guard patrol discovered the bodies of Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham and telegraphist Stanley Craig. Later, two other bodies (unidentifiable) were recovered. These were removed to a small plot next to a local cemetery at Ocracoke Village and, with Coast Guard assistance and protestant graveyard service, they were given proper burial. Ironically, the flag used for Cunningham’s funeral was one of the very ones given by him to the Navy about ten days earlier.

More Outer Banks

Part 1 [KTB 161]
Part 2 [KTB 163]
Part 3 [KTB 164]