The Welcome Escorts

About a week out, the convoy steamed smoothly along the broad Atlantic seaway. Lookouts were on the alert. The ships were out of range of the landbased PBYs and Liberators which gave them anti-submarine protection on the first stage of their journey. Now they were on their own.

Late in the morning a plane came boring in from the horizon--single-engined, stubby-winged, deep-bellied where the depth bombs lay: a U.S. TBF Avenger.

This was something new to convoy crews, a single-engined land plane so far out to sea. It could mean only that a carrier was in the vicinity. But carrier escort, too, was unusual for an ordinary convoy. Hours later the crew spotted the answer: up over the horizon came a "baby flattop," a carrier converted from a merchantman, escorted by several old four-stacker destroyers. By blinker light the little carrier reported:

"My operations for the last 24 hours: I have attacked Uncle-boats [U-boats] at following positions. . . . What have you been doing?"

"Hell," said the navigator on one of the convoy vessels, "you can't help knowing you're going to win the war when a thing like that comes up from nowhere and is on your side!"

Little Ships. Escort carriers, converted or built from merchant hulls, do not carry many planes--a few fighters, and torpedo bombers which carry depth charges--but with those planes they can provide extensive cover for convoys beyond the range of land-based patrol planes. When the Allies announced the formation of an "air umbrella" which would provide air protection for convoys from continent to continent (TIME, May 10), escort carriers took over in that loneliest spot of the convoy lanes where the land-based planes turn back and leave the ships on their own.

Since their entry into the ocean battles they have been doing jobs far out of proportion to their size. Last week the Navy released the story of one of them, "Escort Carrier B."

Big Deeds. "Escort Carrier B," in four sustained engagements, attacked eleven U-boats, scored two sure kills, four "very probables" and four "probables." Her planes allowed no enemy submarine to get closer than 18 miles to the convoy. Her casualties: one TBF damaged by 20-mm. ack-ack from a U-boat, its radio operator wounded.

The carrier's first attack was made at dusk, when a TBF attacked a U-boat many miles off the convoy's starboard bow. Depth bombs straddled the fully-surfaced submarine, but it sank with no trace of a definite kill. At dawn next day the planes took off again. Another sub was spotted and attacked. But there was no certain evidence of a kill.

Attacks 3 & 4 came in quick succession, but the first definite kill did not come until sunset after the sixth attack. A TBF placed all its bombs right under the U-boat's stern. It went down at once, then popped up, hopelessly out of control. Once more it sank at a steep angle, then resurfaced. The crew poured out of the crippled vessel; 24 were taken prisoner. The next engagement of the carrier lasted 14 hours, from dusk to daylight. Twice again the escort carrier's planes struck. In the last attack four TBFs and two Wildcat fighters swooped in on the U-boat. The last of their depth bombs were direct hits on the deck; only 17 crew members survived.

They Tip the Scales. The great value of the escort carriers lies in their ability to break up wolf pack attacks before the U-boats get within firing range. Hitting swiftly, the TBFs and fighters can disrupt the careful coordination, the intricate patterns of attack on which the success of the submarines depends. Small though they are, the escorts are tipping the scales in the fight to get the convoys through.

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