British Submarine HMS Seal

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Then a second Arado arrived in response to the alarm sent by the first pilot. This time Lonsdale himself manned one Lewis gun. But the attacks by the Arados took their toll among crew members on Seal’s bridge. Lieutenant Commander Terence Butler suffered a shrapnel wound in the leg and had to be taken below for treatment. One able seaman was also wounded. Miraculously, however, Lonsdale remained unscathed in the hail of enemy fire. Now one of Seal’s Lewis guns jammed, and cannon fire from the second Arado perforated the sub’s port side main ballast tank, creating a pronounced list to port that could not be corrected. A larger German Heinkel He-115 bomber soon arrived on the scene and commenced a new attack on the listing Seal, whose second Lewis gun also jammed.

Lonsdale now realized that Seal was helpless and his entire crew was in jeopardy. But he was caught in a commanding officer’s ultimate dilemma. The proud tradition of the Royal Navy argued against surrendering Seal, which might be salvaged by the Germans and used for propaganda purposes. Lonsdale’s one alternative was to ensure the sub’s destruction by scuttling her. For this purpose, the submarine was fitted with two depth charges in the bilges, set to explode at a depth of 50 feet if the boat was flooded internally by any cause. But two considerations prevented Lonsdale from scuttling his ship. First, there were no German vessels in sight to rescue Seal’s crew, some of whom could not swim. Second, if the crew abandoned the boat before scuttling her, they would be floating in the sea above the submarine when her depth charges exploded, causing certain injury or death to many of them. Lonsdale was sure that Seal would sink of her own volition before she could be captured and salvaged by the enemy. She was already listing to port and was down by the stern.

Now several unidentified voices among the crew members rose through the conning tower hatch, pleading with Lonsdale to surrender the boat. After quickly reviewing the sub’s condition, he reluctantly opted to do so in order to save the lives of her crew members. In his action report completed after the war, Lonsdale asserted that this decision was ‘One I have ever afterwards deeply regretted, but at the same time seemed the only thing to do.’

Accordingly, Lonsdale asked that the white wardroom tablecloth be passed up from below, and he waved it at the second Arado, still lurking in the vicinity, which then landed nearby. The Arado’s commander demanded that Seal’s skipper swim to the aircraft. After pondering for a moment, Lonsdale turned over command of the vessel to Lieutenant Trevor Beet, the boat’s navigator, because Butler was still being treated below for wounds, and swam to the Arado. Seal, barely afloat, had now been surrendered to the enemy and her commanding officer taken prisoner. The first Arado seaplane that had attacked Seal then landed alongside and took one petty officer aboard as an additional hostage.

Nearly three hours later, with the He-115 bomber still circling ominously overhead, a German converted trawler, U-Jä;ger (submarine hunter) UJ-128, hove to near the foundering sub at 0630. Her first lieutenant, Heinz Nolte, and three sailors boarded the submarine from a small boat.

Nolte, a Regular officer who spoke English, quickly went below to assess the condition of the submarine, and was appalled by the internal damage inflicted by Seal’s crew. Upon request from Seal’s engineering officer, Lieutenant Clark, Nolte had the submarine’s wounded transferred through the engine room hatch and taken aboard the nearby German warship. Nolte then compelled Clark to accompany him on a tour of the entire boat to inspect conditions within the hull and to assure himself that no British crew members remained below who could scuttle the submarine. Clark was impressed by Nolte’s apparent knowledge of submarines, particularly of the sea valves and hatches that could be opened to flood the hull. Based on this inspection, the German lieutenant decided that Seal was in imminent danger of sinking. He ordered all members of the sub’s crew to be transferred to UJ-128 before she foundered. By this time, Seal was listing even more badly to port and settling down by the stern. Neither the Germans nor the British thought the boat would remain afloat.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Amphibious Operations, Historical Conflicts, World War II