Block Island's U-boat

This is a shortened version of an article I wrote for a magazine a few years ago:

Midway between the low hump of Block Island and a rocky point called Judith, lie the remnants of the final skirmish of World War II's Battle of the Atlantic. 

Sixty-nine years ago, in early May 1945, the paths of an ambitious German Submarine Captain and the worn-out, rusty hulk of a coastal collier crossed. Now, both rest on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic near the Rhode Island coast.

The submarine, U-853 was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy in June, 1943. She was a long-range type IXC submarine, 252 feet long and 23 feet in diameter and carried a crew of 55 men.

The pressure hull of the U-Boat was shaped like a large, iron cigar. Saddle tanks for fuel and ballast lined her sides. All this was encased in a streamlined, steel envelope and topped by a wooden deck.

At 6-foot-10,  Helmut Fromsdorf was exceedingly tall for the U-Boat service. Inspired by men who had destroyed great tons of allied shipping, he volunteered immediately after graduating high school. 

Fromsdorf took command of the U-853 the first of November, 1944. By that time, he may have been frustrated by his career in the Kriegsmarine. Instead of sending Allied ships to the seafloor, he'd spent the bulk of his naval career as second-in-command on mundane weather reporting missions.  Now, with his own boat, he'd have his chance. 

Fromsdorf's boat was assigned a patrol area from Halifax, Nova Scotia to New York.

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The Black Point, a small coal hauler, was making the run from Virginia to Boston in the late afternoon of May 5th, 1945. It was the end of a clear, cool New England day. The sea was calm.

The ship was 369 feet long and had been built 27 years before in Camden, NJ. She was old and worn out.  If not for the war's insatiable demand for ships, she most likely would have been scrapped long before 1945.

Fromsdorf's submarine was lurking in the shallows just off Block Island. At about 5:40 pm he fired at least one torpedo. 

The torpedo slammed into the starboard side of the Black Point blasting forty feet off the stern just above the keel. A dozen men who were in the after part of the ship disappeared forever.

Fromsdorf and his crew didn't know it, but just a few miles away, behind the silhouette of Block Island, four American warships, submarine hunters, were heading North to the Boston Navy Yard. 

The destroyer escort Atherton, destroyer Amick and Frigate Moberly, the first ships on the scene, began searching for the submarine.  They set up a line and began to methodically sift through the sea. Later, Amick was called away for escort duty and the destroyer Ericson arrived to command the hunt and attacks.

Fromsdorf must have been worried. He was being hunted by three sub hunters in shallow water. He was facing impossible odds. The submarine was attacked repeatedly between 8:15 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. The American warships continued hunting, criss crossing the area for hours dropping depth charges and launching hedgehogs into the green sea.

A quote from the action report: 

"All projectiles exploded. A short time after, large quantities of oil, pieces of broken wood, life jacket, mattress, oil, impregnated cork and air bubbles were seen in the area. The oil and air bubbles were coming up to the surface as from a spring."

The pressure hull had given way. The cold sea rushed in. Fromsdorf and his men were dead. Those not killed outright by the explosions, drowned. 

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Today, the submarine is in poor condition. The steel shell that encased the pressure hull and fuel tanks is gone, a victim of rust and marine growth. The ship bears little resemblance the sleek shark she once was. A clutter of hydraulic lines and piping cover the top of the pressure hull. The conning town is draped by an anchor chain left by the Navy in 1945.

Inside, everything that could be removed by scavenging scuba divers has been taken. Gauges, controls, labels, tags, hatches, and the ship's radio have been cut and pried off the bulkheads. The floor of the boat is layered in sand and silt. Divers have methodically sifted thorough this material pulling out serving china, pistols, helmets, watches, an empty cognac bottle, and other personal gear.

U-853 is a novelty for the divers who visit her. But once inside, they can not help but think of the 55 men who brought her across the Atlantic to the New England coast – the men who stay, when the divers return to the surface off Block Island.