About hours her look-outs saw 'five sloops and a Catalina engaged in a U-boat hunt'. The captain of 'B for Baker' decided to take a hand and had just altered course to do so when he 'sighted a U-boat two miles away on the starboard bow'. The submarine was some six miles from the nearest sloop and was moving on the surface at a speed of about ten knots. During the run in, that most perilous of moments--for if the depth charges were to be accurately dropped it was necessary to fly straight and level--she came under heavy mm.
This was returned by the Sunderland's forward gunner, but soon the flying boat was in trouble. First the inner port engine was hit and then, when there were still some yards to go, the starboard main fuel tank was pierced and petrol poured into the cockpit in which sat the captain and his two co-pilots, all three of whom were by then seriously wounded.
Despite the petrol and the pain, they flew on and from a height of fifty feet dropped six depth charges of which three fell on one side and three on the other of the target. The foam and spray of the explosions had scarcely melted when the rear gunner 'saw the U-boat lift out of the water and then sink by the bows'.
Her captain made for the sloops, but was forced to set down before he reached them. The Sunderland bounced heavily twice and then began to settle. In a few moments the starboard mainplane broke away with six of the crew upon it. They were picked up by the sloop, Wren , and twelve of the survivors of the U-boat were rescued by H. The destruction of U. To wage the twin battles of the Bay and the Atlantic was Coastal Command's main task and its main contribution to victory.
Early in the Allies were so well aware that the war could not be won unless the menace of the U-boat was countered, that they regarded the fight against enemy submarines as the most important of the tasks laid upon their sea and air forces. This view, it will be remembered, was expressed very forcibly at the Casablanca Conference and found clear expression in its directives. He had in his hand the weapon which his predecessors had forged.
