or other survivors, but after some time, to their immense relief, the destroyer Inglefield came into view, heading straight for them. By the time they were taken on board, Wilcox and the others on the raft were close to exhaustion and would not have lasted much longer. They were to be the only survivors from Daring, in addition to McBride onboard Thistle.29 Kretschmer continued to stalk the convoy from a distance during the day, but ran into several A/S groups and another heavily escorted convoy, protected by aircraft, that could not be attacked during daylight. HN-12 was no longer to be found.30
A week later, at 21:00 hours on 24 February, the 3,840-ton neutral Swedish Santos, sailing independently from South America to Gothenburg with general cargo, was torpedoed and sunk by U63 off Kirkwall. Thirty-one persons were lost, while the twelve survivors were picked up by the destroyer Gallant the next day, about 50 miles east of Duncansby Head.31 Meanwhile, the commander of U63, Oberleutnant Günther Lorentz received a signal from BdU that he was in a favourable position to intercept convoy HN-14, which had left Bergen for Methil on 22 February. The convoy consisted of fifteen to eighteen merchant ships and the escort consisted of the cruisers Edinburgh and Arethusa, the A/A cruiser Cairo, the destroyers Escapade, Eclipse, Escort, Electra and the minelayer-submarine Narwhal.32
Following the Altmark affair (see Chapter 23), there was increased German air and sea activity in the North Sea. Surface ships were also reported and the Admiralty, wishing a covering force to be available, had ordered the eastbound convoy ON-14 departing Methil for Bergen on 17 February to wait in Kirkwall until Rodney and Hood with escorts were in place in the area on the 20th. Meanwhile, the NCSO in Bergen was alerted and held HN-14 back, waiting for the escort to be ready to take over and bring this convoy back across the North Sea. Eventually, early in the morning of 24 February, the escort had found most of the remaining ships and the convoy was reformed, steering west. In the early morning of the 25th, Electra and Eclipse were detached to go north of the Orkneys with some ships destined for the British west coast. The rest continued towards Methil. At 07:00 the destroyers Inglefield and Imogen fell in, coming from Scapa Flow. At this time Escapade was on the port bow of the convoy, with Escort on the starboard bow and Narwhal abreast the leading ship of the port column.
At 07:55, east-south-east of the Orkneys, Narwhal reported: ‘Suspicious object 025 degrees’. Lieutenant Commander Eric Oddie had immediately turned his submarine towards the sighting, working up speed, and Commander Harry Graham in Escapade followed suit on receiving the signal. At that time, the weather was calm with a swell from the north and, shortly after, a U-boat became visible on the crest of a swell. Graham held his fire, hoping to get closer, but when it was at some 5,500 yards the U-boat, which was U63, dived rapidly.
Narwhal was ordered back to take care of the convoy and get out of the way, while Graham ran on for another few minutes at full speed before slowing down to give the Asdic a chance. Almost at once contact was obtained at 800 yards and he turned to attack. Contact was lost during the turn, though, the ship still having considerable way on her. Contact was regained, and a second attack was commenced. Meanwhile, Inglefield, Escort and Imogen were also closing and in their eagerness to deliver the first successful attack the destroyers got in each other’s way and contact was lost again. At about 08:30 Escort obtained contact and went straight in to attack. After this, Captain Percy Todd of Inglefield took charge and formed the four destroyers in line abreast, commencing a sweep. Unknown to the British destroyer captains, U63 had been damaged by the depth-charges dropped in spite of the melee, and Lorentz was compelled to take his boat to the surface at around 09:55. At the time, Escapade was furthest away and ordered by Todd to rejoin the convoy while Inglefield and Imogen headed for the German, both ships opening fire with their forward guns. U63 sank within minutes, and Inglefield, Imogen and Escort lowered boats, picking up survivors. The entire crew of four officers and twenty-one ratings were rescued. One man later died and was buried at sea. During interrogation, some of the officers criticised Lorentz for the handling of the boat, while he criticised his watch officer for not having torpedoes ready in the tubes when attacked, thus rendering U63 defenceless.33
On 8 March ON-18 was attacked by three Heinkels from KG26, but few bombs were dropped and no damage done. On 20 March, both sections of eastbound ON-21 were attacked in the Fair Isle area, as was a group of ships from Kirkwall, joining westbound convoy HN-20. Some of the ships were damaged, but none sank. Similar air attacks occurred during the next weeks on virtually every North Sea convoy, eastbound and westbound. Skuas and Hurricanes stationed on Shetland and the Orkneys or in the north of Scotland combined with the gunfire of the escorting anti-aircraft cruisers, effectively kept the Luftwaffe bombers at a distance and no ships were lost in the North Sea convoys.
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