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Page 1 Sinking of U-371 |
Page 2 Photos |
Page 3 USS Pride Action
Report | Page 4
Interrogation of U-371 POWs
The Sinking of
U-371
Date of Action: 4 May 1944
USCG Unit(s) Involved: USS Pride, USS Menges
Sinking/Capture/Assist? Assist (USS Pride, a Coast Guard-manned
destroyer escort)
Location of event: 37.49N x 05.39E
Credit by US Navy? Credit for an assisted sinking among four total
allied warships: the US Coast Guard-manned USS Pride; USS Joseph E.
Campbell; FFS Sénégalais; and HMS Blankney
Enemy warship's Commanding Officer: Oberleutenant Horst-Arno Fenksi
Enemy casualties: 3 killed in action; 49 survivors
USCG casualties: 31 killed in action on board USS Menges
In May 1944, the cutter Taney and Coast Guard-manned naval vessels
escorted convoy UGS-38 through the Mediterranean from the coast of
Africa back to the United States. The U-371, a Type VIIC U-boat
under the command of an experienced 25-year-old U-boat ace,
Oberleutenant Horst-Arno Fenksi, was patrolling in the area off the
coast of Algeria. He spotted the convoy and submerged.
After all of the Allied vessels had passed overhead, Fenski ordered
the U-371 to the surface. The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort
Menges, under the command of LCDR Frank McCabe, then picked up the
U-boat on radar. Menge immediately reversed course to investigate.
The U-371 fired an acoustic torpedo at the closing destroyer escort
and then quickly submerged. The torpedo blew the Menges's stern
off, killing 31 crewmen. Although seriously damaged, the Menges
remained afloat.
McCabe and his crew stayed with their ship while another Coast
Guard-manned destroyer escort, USS Pride, under the command of CDR
Ralph R. Curry, located the submerged U-boat and seriously damaged
it with a depth-charge attack. The Pride then tracked it and, in
concert with an international team of escorts, cornered it near the
African coast. Surrounded, with water leaking in the hull and the
batteries almost dead, the U-boat's crew surfaced, scuttled, and
abandoned their submarine. Fenski and all but three of his
U-boatmen were rescued.
The Menges was safely towed into port and later to the United
States where it received a new stern off of another damaged
destroyer escort. She then rejoined the fleet and after making two
more convoy runs, Menges reported for duty in the first Coast
Guard-manned hunter-killer group to see service on the North
Atlantic.
Information
courtesy of the
USCG
website
Page 1 Sinking of U-371 | Page
2 Photos |
Page 3 USS Pride Action
Report
| Page 4
Interrogation of U-371 POWs
|
