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| I talked a good deal with the four officers captured from U.110 and had two hours talk with the 1st Lieutenant, Ober-Leutnant. Hanns Joachim Eichelborn. | ||||||||||||||||
| 2. They had a tremendous admiration for their Captain, Capitan Lemp, and were disturbed about his loss. He had evidently impressed on them that big risks must be taken. It was almost impossible to extract any operational details from them. but I elicited the following facts. | ||||||||||||||||
| 3. They realised that it would have been less risky to have attacked by night. This did not effect their decision. The inference is that they have to wait until other U boats have been summoned. | ||||||||||||||||
| 4. They saw the strength of my asdic line but were confident they could get in an attack. They had not seen Aubretia. | ||||||||||||||||
| 5. They could not understand how we had detected them as they said they had methods of preventing detection. The inferences that they put great faith in the ruse of getting in a ships wake. (see E.R.A. Mathews report). | ||||||||||||||||
| 6. It is doubtful whether they know much about Asdics. | ||||||||||||||||
| 7. The number of the U.boat is not allowed to be divulged. They were angry that one of the crew had given it away. | ||||||||||||||||
| 8. They were confident that the U.boat had sunk before we could reach it, There was not the least suspicion in their minds that we had boarded it. (They were naturally taken below as soon as they were picked up by Aubretia). | ||||||||||||||||
| 9. They expected that we would have left the convoy before the morning of 9th May, and were surprised that we were still there and wondered if we would still have been with them evening. | ||||||||||||||||
| 10. I had told E.R.A. Mathews what I particularly wanted to find out. He talked some French and friends with war correspondent in the crew. I consider that Mathews played his part extremely well and elicited some valuable information. The war correspondent may well be persuaded to talk further. | ||||||||||||||||
| 11. E.R.A. Mathews' report and the report received from "Amazon" are attached. | ||||||||||||||||
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| Commander (D) | ||||||||||||||||
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Report of E.R.A. James Mathews. P/Mx.56574. |
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| The prisoners were most confident we had no Knowledge submarine was in the vicinity until convoy was attacked and surmised we followed wake of torpedo and guessed position. | ||
| Were quite indignant at the idea they could be heard. They said "Seal" was submarine training ship at Kiel. | ||
| When told "Seal" was faster than any German U boat since she had a speed of 8 knots submerged, they were quite sure German submarines could travel at least 1-1/2 times this speed. | ||
| When questioned as to exact speed were reticent to talk and said this was specialty of German Navy. | ||
| Said they had followed American destroyer for quite a time but would not disclose any definite time but obviously knew convoy had been attacked on previous occasion. | ||
| Apparently they had seen convoy and saw escort proceeding parallel with them. They submerged and fired, and on coming to the surface were depth charged which caused lights to fail. At this moment crew panicked but had lights on again on reaching the surface with partially blown tanks. | ||
| Were most surprised to see destroyers steaming towards them for on last occasion they had steaming parallel with them and destroyers should have passed on. | ||
| Some report 3 (others 4) submarines were waiting on either side of the convoy and it was dependent in which convoy turned, which submarine fired. | ||
| When asked if German Propaganda had told submarines could not be detected immediately behind destroyers. It was obvious such was the case from the talking amongst them as well as an agreement. | ||
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