On Aug. 27, 1941 a rare incident occurred in the stormy waters of the North Atlantic. The incident was even
made into a Hollywood film, however as with most subjects, Hollywood got the details completely wrong. She
sailed from Trondheim, Norway on Aug. 24, 1941 for a patrol in the North Atlantic, the voyage was being
made under less than ideal conditions. The engines were not working properly, the air compressor was
malfunctioning, ammunition was not properly secured and was moving around and most importantly the crew was new and untested.

A few days later she arrived in her patrol area, but by this time many of the crew were seasick, the heavy seas were something the men had not been exposed to so to relive the crews distress the commander dived under the surface to steady the boat, they stayed down for over two hours. As you have by now figured out the unnamed subject is a submarine.

The boat is the U-570, a new boat on her first patrol under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hans-Joachim
Rahmlow, this was also his first war patrol. After the crew settled down he decided to surface and begin
scouting for the convoy he was ordered to attack. He looked through the periscope and scanned the area
looking for enemy ships, which he saw none of, so he surfaced. To his surprise when he got out of the hatch on the conning tower, a RAF Hudson from 269 Squadron dove on the boat and dropped four depth bombs before he could dive the boat.

The bombs exploded under the boat causing some damage, but scaring the young crew enough that they thought the boat would sink. They abandoned the engine room and closed the hatch behind them, reporting to the captain that the aft area was flooding and the batteries were leaking chlorine gas. Rahmlow apparently believed the reports without checking the facts for himself and ordered the crew to prepare to scuttle and abandon the boat.

He surfaced and had the Enigma machine and all the boats papers thrown overboard, they were then met with machine gun fire from the Hudson. After making several passes the pilot of the Hudson, piloted by James H. Thompson saw a German waving a white shirt and another with a board painted white, the crew was surrendering. Thompson ordered his gunners to hold their fire and he circled the boat. Thompson contacted his base in Iceland and told them of the situation and an armada of two destroyers and four trawlers were ordered to the scene with one objective, capture the U-570.

Rahmlow had already contacted Admiral Dönitz by sending a plain language message "Am unable to dive.
Being attacked by aircraft." Dönitz ordered the U-82 to assist, but her commander was unable to surface due
to the aircraft. Rescue by friendly forces would not be possible.

It took almost eleven hours for the first ship to arrive on the scene, the trawler Northern Chief closed in on the U-570 and had orders to prevent the boat from scuttling by all means. Captain N. L. Knight of the Northern Chief signaled the U-570 by lamp as the sea was too heavy to approach and of course he did not trust the Germans as their deck guns were still in working order as far as he knew.

His order was simple "If you make any attempt to scuttle, I will not save anyone and will fire on your rafts
and floats." Rahmlow replied "I cannot scuttle or abandon. Save us tomorrow". Knight stayed with the boat
and waited for the rest of the force to arrive.

By morning HMS Burwell and HMCS Niagara and the other trawlers had arrived. The situation for the crew
of the U-570 was still precarious. The British had intercepted the signal sent by the U-570, but were not
totally convinced that it was not a trick so were very careful. One would think that during the war a simple
deception to entrap enemy ships by faking a surrender and drawing an enemy force into range of other waiting submarines would have been tried, but if it was I am not aware of it at this time.

The British had decided to capture the boat as I said before, but the Germans still had control of her and it
was feared they would set the charges and blow her up after they were taken off, so the decision was made
not to take them off, but to tow the boat to Iceland, this they believed would prevent them from scuttling her. Her commander was again reminded that if he did scuttle they would be shot in the water or just left to die.

Seas still running heavy, several ropes were sent over to the U-570, but the Germans seemed less than
enthseastic to attach them to the boat as they probably figured out just what the British were up to. A burst
of machine gun fire from HMS Burwell convinced them to cooperate. The "burst" was supposed to be fired
over the heads of the U-boat crew, but according to the British, the rolling of the two boats caused several
rounds to hit the boat and wounded several crewmen.

The tow line was finally attached and the boat was boarded by four men from the trawler Kingston Agathe
led by H. B. Campbell, he checked the boat for the Enigma, but found nothing as everything had already been
disposed of. He also checked the engine room and found water up to the floor plates and could smell chlorine
gas and reported to his superiors that the boat was indeed sinking, backing up the story being told by Rahmlow.

The truth was that the boat was not sinking and could have been saved by her crew, had they been a little more experienced, and perhaps not so seasick. The mechanical condition was fairly sound, but the crew's living condition was appalling. The smell of vomit from dozens of sick men mixed with overflowing toilets and rotting food permeated the boat, so it was no mystery why the crew gave up so easily, but this part of the story would be ignored later by other U-boat men.

The U-570 was a Type VIIC and would prove to be a gold mine for the British and Americans who studied
her. The crew had destroyed as much of the sensitive equipment as possible, but there was much to learn
about the performance and operation of such a submarine. After making her seaworthy she was sailed to
Barrow-in-Furness and repaired, she was then commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Graph. On Mar. 20,
1944 she ran aground and was abandoned, she was later scrapped.

For the crew the war was over, but they still had to face other U-boat men with the shame that they had
surrendered without a fight. The officers were placed in the Grizedale Hall POW camp in the Lakes District
where they were tried in a Council of Honor by the other U-boat men in the camp. Rahmlow was placed in
solitary, but the other three, including Oberleutnant zur See Bernhard Berndt, the first watch officer, were
found guilty of cowardess by the council headed by Fregattenkapitän Otto Kretschmer, whose U-99 had been
scuttled on Mar. 19, 1941. He recommended that they be tried after the war by a German military court and
executed.

Berndt and the other U-boat men learned that the U-570 had been taken to Barrow and Berndt hatched a plan
to help return some semblance of honor to himself by escaping from the camp, which was really a mansion,
and destroying the U-570. As Barrow was only 30 or so miles away the plan seems to have been feasible,
however he was caught by the Home Guard after he escaped and, while trying to run was shot and killed.