The 430-foot Joseph M. Cudahy, a 7,053-gross-ton tanker, departed Houston, Texas, on 1 May 1942, bound far Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. Her skipper witnessed the attack on the tanker Munger T. Ball and broadcast the incident on the radio. But Schacht was listening too, and soon the Cudahy would join the other tanker on the bottom ofthe Gulf ofMexico. Schacht had his vessel approach the life rafts. The survivors likely feared that the U-boat's machine guns might mow them down. Instead, Schacht stood on the bridge in a pair of shorts and, looking fit and tanned, said in perfect English, "Hope yo u get ashore okay." Then he asked the name of the ship and its tonnage since it did not have time to put out an SOS. The sailors refused to answer. Schacht surprised them once again, this time giving them forty packs of cigarettes, water, crackers, lime juice, matches, and even a cake decorated with French writing. Then the U-boat commander bade them farewe ll and ended the strange meeting by saying, "Sorry we can't help you further." U-507 had sunk two ships, but neither was the prize Schacht was looking for. The next night, however, the hunting improved. The 5,100-ton tanker Munger T Ball was twice the size of the previous two vessels sunk; unlike those, this one was fully loaded with gasoline. Traveling from Port Arthur, Texas, to Norfolk, Virginia, with a crew of forty-one, the tanker was unarmed and unescorted, and made no attempt to evade detection by zigzagging. Schacht could hardly believe how easy the shooting would be. He maneuvered to within 500 yards, ordered a forward torpedo fired, and then watched the ship explode in flames, sending aloft what the commander called
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"a rising mushroom cloud of smoke." Flaming gasoline spread completely around the ship, preventing most of the sailors from jumping overboard. Thirty-seven crewmen went down with the ship. Just a few miles away, a second tanker, the Joseph M. Cudahy, saw the smoke from the torpedoed Ball, and the captain radioed that a ship had been hit, and added that he was only nine miles away at a "position 65 nautical miles northwest of Tortugas." Schacht, of course, was monitoring the radio. In his log, he wrote, "the vessel that made the report must be within visual range. Therefore searched the horizon especially attentively." A half-hour later, he added, "Tanker sighted. This was the one that reported us. Maneuvered ahead. The tanker has obviously moved off from sinking location and steers a zigzag course. The night very dark, therefore surface attack." When U-507 was 600 meters away, Schacht fired his first torpedo but missed. "Apparently the steamer has seen me and stopped at the last minute ." Feeling safe on the surface despite the fact that he had been spotted, the commander moved to within 400 meters, fired again, and this time, "Hit center. Steamer exploded and immediately burst into bright flames from forward to aft." The Cudahy joined the Munger T Ball at the bottom of the Gulf. Schacht slowly pulled away and headed toward New
Orleans and the Mississippi River mouth. U-507's patrol, however, was interrupted by a serious injury. That night after they sank the two tankers in a single day, Schacht surfaced to re-arm, a process whereby torpedoes stored on the deck are carefully moved through the open torpedoloading hatches and into the firing tubes. During the transfer, a winch broke and a torpedo slid down the gliding rails, where it surprised a radioman assisting with the job, crashing into his arm, splintering bones and causing excruciating pain. The crew carried the groaning man below, but soon realized the sub 's supply of morphine and other painkillers wasn't on board. There wasn't so much as an aspirin available, and fellow crew members helplessly watched as the radioman writhed in agony. Schacht sent off a radiogram to Kerneval, France, which was Donitz's headquarters outside Lorient. The message described "a multiple open arm fracture ... no pain-relieving means on board. Requesting instructions." A few hours later, headquarters conveyed medical advice, along with the suggestion that, "if no morphine onboard, give cognac." Schacht responded that this had been done, adding, "The patient lies in a bunk in the officers' mess and is attended to by a constant vigil." Headquarters (Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote or "BdU," Command ofU-boats) then issued instructions for Schacht to rendezvous with a second U-boat that had since entered the Gulf, U-506 commanded by Erich Wurdemann. They were told to meet "for delivery of relieving drugs, on May 6 at 1500 be in grid square DL 31 upper right. In case oflate arrival, Wiirdemann report by short signal." The grid reference was a clever way of replacing latitude and longitude with a zone designation whereby the entire ocean was divided into squares designated by two letters, and within each of these were smaller squares designated by two to four numbers. This provided brevity in radio communications and also a measure of secrecy. The rendezvous for Wurdemann and Schacht was easier said than done: Coast Guard and Navy planes were patrolling the area after the attack on the American tankers, making it difficult for either U-boat to stay on the surface for extended periods.
SEA HISTORY 155, SUMMER 2016