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Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56
402
by Stephen Puleo, Paul M Lawton (Other)
Stephen Puleo
Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56
402
by Stephen Puleo, Paul M Lawton (Other)
Stephen Puleo
Paperback
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Overview
Due to Enemy Action tells for the first time a World War II story that spans generations and straddles two centuries, a story that begins with the dramatic Battle of the Atlantic in the 1940s and doesn't conclude until an emotional Purple Heart ceremony in 2002. Based on previously classified government documents, military records, personal interviews, and letters between crew members and their families, this is the saga of the courageous survival of ordinary sailors when their ship was torpedoed and their shipmates were killed on April 23, 1945-the last American warship sunk by a German U-boat-and the memories that haunted them after the U.S. Navy buried the truth at war's end. It is the story of a small subchaser, the Eagle 56, caught in the crosshairs of a German U-boat, the U-853, whose brazen commander made a desperate, last-ditch attempt to record final kills before his country's imminent defeat. And it is the account of how one man, Paul M. Lawton, embarked on an unrelenting quest for the truth and changed naval history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781949135442 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Untreed Reads Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/21/2021 |
| Pages: | 402 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.89(d) |
About the Author
Stephen Puleo is a historian, teacher, public speaker, and the author of seven books, including Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission; American Treasures: The Secret Efforts to Save the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address; and Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. A former award-winning newspaper reporter and contributor to American History magazine, the Boston Globe, and other publications, he holds a master's degree in history and has taught at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Suffolk University. He and his wife, Kate, reside in the Boston area.
Read an Excerpt
Due to Enemy Action
The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56By Puleo, Stephen
The Lyons Press
Copyright © 2005 Puleo, StephenAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9781592287390
April 23, 1945, 12:14 p.m., Helmut Froemsdorf, aboard the U-853
Helmut Froemsdorf had the U-853 operating under power of her electric motors as she crept toward the Eagle-56, the sound masked by the noisy wake of the American destroyer Selfridge seven miles away. He could hardly believe his good fortune. The American subchaser was at a dead stop, and made an easy target for his torpedoes.
***
"The honor of our flag on board is sacred to us," [Admiral] Doenitz had reminded the U-boat officers and captains two weeks earlier. "No one thinks of giving up his ship. Rather, go down in honor...The Kriegsmarine will fight to the end. Someday its bearing in the severest crisis of this war will be judged by posterity. The same goes for each individual."
The U-853 was approximately 600 yards from the Eagle-56 when Froemsdorf ordered his torpedo crew to fire.
The U-853's torpedo detonated under the Eagle-56's starboard side amidships, lifting the subchaser out of the water, which broke her keel, tore her in half, and unleashed a geyser of water that shot nearly two hundred feet in the air. The blast killed 49 members of her crew, most of whom were rendered unconscious by the explosion and entombed forever in the ship's bow section, which sunk in seven minutes.
John Scagnelli wasthrown from his bunk and smashed his head against a nearby bulkhead, which most likely saved his life; he was the only Eagle-56 officer to survive and the only crewman to escape from the forward section of the ship. The stern stayed afloat for nearly fifteen minutes, allowing men time to jump into the frigid North Atlantic water. Many clung to debris for a few moments, and then succumbed to the terrible cold, slipping beneath the surface and drowning before rescue ships could arrive. Johnny Breeze, Harold Peterson, Oscar Davis, and nine others from the stern section of the ship held on long enough to be rescued. Along with Scagnelli, they would become known as "The Lucky Thirteen."
***
As they jumped from the fantail of the doomed ship's sinking stern, at least six men, including Breeze and Davis, saw a dark-colored submarine momentarily surface several hundred yards away, before it dove and quickly disappeared. "Look, Breezy, there's a sub," Oscar Davis said to Johnny Breeze as they prepared to jump. Breeze said: "It was completely surfaced and all black. But it didn't stay there very long." Radarman 3rd Class John A. Wisneiwski later testified, "I saw the submarine, roughly speaking, I would say about 500 yards away." In his testimony, Seaman 1st Class Daniel E. Jaronik added: "I looked at the sub for a couple of seconds. It looked all black and I could see red and yellow markings." At the time, not even the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), had any way of knowing that one particular German U-boat operating in the Gulf of Maine, the U-853, bore a red-and-yellow conning tower insignia.
Voices from Due to Enemy Action -
the final chapter in the Battle of the Atlantic
"How can he be missing? How could you have lost him ? He was with me last night."
Phyllis Westerlund, April 1945, Brockton, Mass., when informed that her husband,
Eagle 56 crew member Ivar Westerlund was missing and presumed dead
"Look Breeze, there's a sub."
Eagle 56 crew member Oscar Davis to his buddy, Johnny Breeze, as they prepared to jump from the sinking Eagle into the water
"I looked at the sub for a couple of seconds. It looked all black and I could see red and yellow markings."
Eagle 56 crew member Daniel E. Jaronik testifying before the Court of Inquiry
"One U-boat estimate in the Gulf of Maine from the PE (Eagle 56 Patrol Escort) incident."
Previously classified ULTRA document, from U-boat tracking room ("Secret Room")
to Commander Eastern Sea Frontier, April 25, 1945 (declassified 1987)
"A boiler explosion? A physical impossibility - It just couldn't happen. Yet they let a decision like that stand for more than fifty years. An unbelievable outrage."
Johnny Breeze, Eagle 56 crew member
"What's right is right. This took a long time to get right, but it's finally happened. Every time I'd think of those guys, and I did it often, I'd be sick to my stomach that the official word was 'boiler explosion.' Now, when I think of them, when I see their faces in my mind, I see guys who died as heroes, serving their country. It means something, not just to us, but to everyone. The truth is important to everyone."
Harold "Pete" Petersen, Eagle 56 crew member
Continues...
Excerpted from Due to Enemy Action by Puleo, Stephen Copyright © 2005 by Puleo, Stephen. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Honor and Redemption
Part I: The Hunters and the Prey
Part II: The Kills and the Court
Part III: The Quest and the Truth
Epilogue
Author's Afterword
Appendix 1: Casualties and Survivors
Appendix 2: Vessels and Aircraft Involved in the USS Eagle 56/U-853 Incident
Bibliographic Essay
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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