Convoy SC 118
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Through World War II and Iceland
Background
As western Atlantic coastal convoys brought an end to the "second happy time", Admiral Karl Dönitz, the Befehlshaber der U-Boote (BdU) or commander in chief of U-boats, shifted focus to the mid-Atlantic to avoid aircraft patrols. Although convoy routing was less predictable in the mid-ocean, Dönitz anticipated that the increased numbers of U-boats being produced would be able to effectively search for convoys with the advantage of intelligence gained through B-Dienst decryption of British Naval Cypher Number 3. However, only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943 lost ships to U-boat attack.
On 2 February U-456 sank three ships from convoy HX 224. A survivor of one of the sunken ships was picked up by U-632 and told his rescuers a slower convoy was following behind HX 224.
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Battle
4 February 1943
A careless merchant seaman of convoy SC 118 fired a pyrotechnic snowflake projector aboard the Norwegian freighter SS Vannik in the pre-dawn darkness of 4 February. U-187 observed the snowflake display, reported sighting the convoy, and was promptly sunk by Beverly and Vimy after Bibb and Toward triangulated the submarine's location from the sighting report, using high-frequency radio direction-finder (HF/DF or Huff-Duff). The destroyers rescued 44 of the submarine's crew. The Polish freighter Zagloba was torpedoed on the unprotected side of the convoy by U-262 and U-413 torpedoed the straggling American freighter West Portal.
5 February 1943
On 5 February the convoy escort was reinforced by the Treasury-class cutter Ingham and the Wickes-class destroyers USS Babbitt and USS Schenck from Iceland. The reinforced escort damaged U-262 and U-267.
7 February 1943
In the pre-dawn hours of 7 February, Kapitänleutnant Siegfried von Forstner's U-402 torpedoed the British freighter Afrika, Norwegian tanker Daghild, Greek freighter Kalliopi, American tanker Robert E. Hopkins, American cargo liner Henry R. Mallory, and convoy rescue ship Toward.
Henry R. Mallory was capable of 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) but had been straggling well astern of the convoy for several days and was not zig-zagging in that exposed position. Mallory would normally have been assigned to one of the faster HX convoys, but there had been no Iceland section of the preceding convoy HX 224. No commands came from the bridge after Mallory was torpedoed, no flares were sent up, no radio distress message was sent out, and no orders were given to abandon ship. There were heavy casualties from Mallory's crew of 77, 34 Navy gunners, and the 136 American soldiers, 172 American sailors, and 72 American Marines she was transporting to Iceland.
U-614 sank the straggling British freighter Harmala while Lobelia sank U-609.
B-17 Flying Fortress J of No. 220 Squadron RAF sank U-614 on 7 February. U-402 sank British freighter Newton Ash that night. On 9 February Kapitänleutnant von Forstner was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for ships sunk by U-402 from this convoy and from Convoy SC 107 on the previous patrol. SC 118 reached Liverpool without further loss on 12 February.