Base: Aldergrove
Take off time: 0200
Op: A/S patrol

Update July 2012: According to the Ubootwaffe site - Confirms that the three U-boats attacked by this crew were U-600, U-257 and U-615.

This attack is officially recorded, however in his memoirs F/L EE Allen DFC recalls being rewarded a kill and a probable kill the day after from CC HQ. Whilst this may well be the case, what he doesn't go on to mention is that U-600 survived and was officially sunk on the 25th of Nov 1943 by two British frigates, HMS Bazely & HMS Blackwood. He also makes mention of another attack on the 21st of June 1943, which I have not been able to verify the U-Boat for.

At 09.04 hours, a group of 3 outbound boats was attacked by the British Liberator Mk.V aircraft FL973 (59 Sqdn RAF/C, pilot F/O E.E. Allen, RCAF) northwest of Cape Finisterre. The aircraft dropped six depth charges on U-600 in the centre and caused minor damages, but was hit four times by AA fire from all boats. Strafing from the rear gunner killed one crewman [Matrosengefreiter Georg Laub]. As the pilot flew away to examine the damages, the boats began to dive. The aircraft dropped its remaining depth charges ahead of the swirl of the starboard boat before leaving for the base.

NOTE: 2 days earlier on the 14th of June 1943, (U-257, U-600 and U-615) were attacked as a group on four separate occassions. At 0948 hrs British Sunderland JM687 from 228 Sqdn dropped 3 D/C's without success. At 1605 hrs, 2 Whitley's from 10 OTU Sqdn, unsuccessful. At 2015 hrs a Fortress IIA FK212 Sqdn 220/V attacked U-257 and was hit badly by AA fire. The Fortress was later to be shotdown all crew lost by a Ju.88 on return. At 2112 hrs, a Wellington 'H' of 547 Sqdn attacked U-615 strafed boat and killed one gunner. It is most probable these three were the same group attacked on the 16th.

excerpt from the memoirs of the captain:

"...on June 16, 1943, we set out at 2 a.m. to do an anti-sub sweep down through the Bay of Biscay in a parallel sweep with two other 59 Squadron aircraft. Our aircraft had the inside or easterly of the three tracks. At briefing we were given the story about intense air coverage on the Bay of Biscay both day and night. (Wellingtons equipped with Leigh lights were the night aircraft, but of course in June the hours of darkness were very short.) This intense coverage was resulting in more and more U-boats staying on the surface and fighting it out with the aircraft. By this time all U-boats had a four cannon 88 mm turret mounted behind the conning tower. This weapon was well respected by attacking aircraft. A Sunderland had been shot down the day before in the area we were to patrol.

About 150 miles west of the north-western tip of Spain, again with AI Henry covering the radar and radio set, we picked up a radar contact suspected to be a U-boat. We were flying at 5000 feet above a broken cloud, relying on the radar on the assumption that this U-boat was outbound into the Atlantic, we turned away to the west to manoeuvre so that we would be attacking head on, on our approach. We came busting out of the base of cloud at about one thousand feet and there, a mile and a bit ahead of us was not one, but three, U-boats. We had been briefed that we might find three to five U-boats together on 'anti-aircraft patrol' and that if we did, we should circle and call in the other two aircraft for a combined attacked.

I momentarily considered whether to do this, but it appeared we had the element of surprise in favour of our pressing our individual attack so that's what we did. The three U-boats maintained their VIC formation - until we were in range of their flack, and then turned away so that all three could get their 88's to bear on us. Soon we had a rattling sound like gravel on a tin roof, it was the 'shot going through the thin metal skin of our aircraft. We had built up so much speed in our dive, I had to pull the power off to avoid building up too much speed. It was very difficult to control direction at high speed, and needless to say, accurate direction was necessary to track over the U-boat. LaForme would have killed me if I didn't put us in the right place for him to drop his depth charges. Also, knowing we would want a lot of power after the drop, I had pressed forward the little metal bar that pushed the little electric toggle switches which advanced the propeller pitch. Just as I was doing that there was a yell from Tommy in the co-pilot's seat - "I'm hit!" By this time we were pretty close to the target and I was 'busy'. I remember thinking somewhat cynically, "What the hell does he think I can do about it?..."

U-600
Type

VIIC

Ordered 22 May, 1940
Laid down 25 Jan, 1941 Blohm & Voss, Hamburg (werk 576)
Launched 16 Oct, 1941
Commissioned 11 Dec, 1941 Kptlt. Bernhard Zurmühlen
Commanders
11 Dec, 1941 - 25 Nov, 1943 KrvKpt. Bernhard Zurmühlen
Career 6 patrols 11 Dec, 1941 - 31 Jul, 1942 5. Flottille (training)
1 Aug, 1942 - 25 Nov, 1943 3. Flottille (front boat)
Successes 5 ships sunk for a total of 28.600 GRT
3 ships damaged for a total of 19.230 GRT
Fate

Sunk 25 Nov, 1943 in the North Atlantic north of Ponta Delgada, in position 40.31N, 22.07W, by depth charges from the British frigates HMS Bazely and HMS Blackwood. 54 dead (all hands lost).

See the 8 ships hit by U-600 - View the 6 war patrols
Wolfpack operations

U-600 operated with the following Wolfpacks during its career:
Draufgänger (1 Dec, 1942 - 11 Dec, 1942)
Raufbold (15 Dec, 1942 - 22 Dec, 1942)
Knappen (18 Feb, 1943 - 26 Feb, 1943)
Raubgraf (7 Mar, 1943 - 20 Mar, 1943)
Drossel (30 Apr, 1943 - 9 May, 1943)

Attacks on this boat

14 Jun, 1943
At 20.15 hours, a group of 3 outbound boats (U-257, U-600 and U-615) was strafed by the British Fortress aircraft FK212 (220 Sqdn RAF/V, pilot F/O C.F. Callender) in the Bay of Biscay. U-600 and U-615 observed AA hits on the aircraft and claimed it as shot down, but the Fortress was apparently finished off by a German Ju88C fighter (15./KG 40, pilot Lt Lothar Wolff) about 90km northwest of Cape Ortegal at 20.40 hours. All nine crewmen were lost. (Sources: Franks/Zimmerman/Goss)

16 Jun, 1943
At 09.04 hours, a group of 3 outbound boats was attacked by the British Liberator Mk.V aircraft FL973 (59 Sqdn RAF/C, pilot F/O E.E. Allen, RCAF) northwest of Cape Finisterre. The aircraft dropped six depth charges on U-600 in the centre and caused minor damages, but was hit four times by AA fire from all boats. Strafing from the rear gunner killed one crewman [Matrosengefreiter Georg Laub]. As the pilot flew away to examine the damages, the boats began to dive. The aircraft dropped its remaining depth charges ahead of the swirl of the starboard boat before leaving for the base. (Sources: Franks/Zimmerman)

2 recorded attacks on this boat.

During WWII, the RAF used three-letter codes to identify their aircraft from a distance. Two large letters were painted before the roundel, which signified the squadron to which the aircraft belonged, and another letter was painted after the roundel which indicated the individual aircraft. Aditionally, there was the individual serial number for each aircraft, which was painted in a much smaller size, usually somewhere at the rear of the aircraft: (more)

Codes used by RAF 59 Squadron:

PJ Sep 1938 - Sep 1939
TR Sep 1939 - Oct 1942
1 Aug 1943 - Jul 1944
WE Jul 1944 - Oct 1945
BY Oct 1945 - Jun 1946, Dec 1947 - Oct 1950