German Submarine U-559 - Sinking

Sinking

It was her own demise that made her most famous. At dawn on 30 October 1942, U-559 was spotted by a Royal Air Force Sunderland patrol aircraft from No. 47 Squadron 70 miles north of the Nile Delta. The destroyer HMS Hero was alerted by radio and steamed to intercept her, while the destroyers HMS Petard, Pakenham, Dulverton and Hurworth sailed from Port Said. U-559 detected Hero's approach and dived. The destroyer group hunted for the U-boat for 16 hours, constantly depth charging. After dark, U-559, with a cracked pressure hull, unable to maintain level trim and four of her crew dead from explosions and flooding, was forced to the surface. She was close to Petard, which immediately opened fire with her 20 mm Oerlikons.

The German crew hurriedly scrambled overboard without destroying their codebooks or Enigma machine and, crucially, having failed to open sea-water vents to properly scuttle the U-boat. Three British sailors, Lieutenant Anthony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown, then boarded the abandoned submarine. There are differing reports as to how the three British men boarded the U-boat. Some accounts say that they "swam naked" (such as that of Kahn), to U-559 but Sebag-Montefiore states that they either leapt from Petard or, in Brown's case, from a whaler, which was sinking, but slowly. They retrieved the U-boat's Enigma machine and the codebooks with all current settings for the U-boat Enigma key. Two German crew members, rescued from the sea, watched this material being loaded into Petard's whaler, but were dissuaded from interfering by an armed guard. Grazier and Fasson were inside the boat, attempting to escape, when the U-boat foundered; both were drowned.