Originally Posted by Ducimus

Source:
The Battle of the Atlantic: The allies submarine fight against Hitlers Grey Wolves of the sea. By Andrew WIlliams.

Page 165, Chapter 8, paragraph 4.



Whlist Doniz hoped for favoruble conditions on the American coast, he could never have imagned just howe favoruable they would be. The westword progress of the Drumbeat boats had been monitored carefully by U-boat command. On 2 January, Doniz decided to break his own orders and authorized U-123 to search for a Greek steamer drifting some 200 miles east of Newfoundland with a broken rudder. Hardegen remebers: 'There was a pea-souper of a fog when we arrived there. It was a sudden suprise to see the shadowy outline of a ship. I could see there were two tugs in the process of taking on lines. I coudlnt really shoot - i was too close. And then the fog lifed and suddenly i saw two destroyers. I turned around immediatly and the fog closed in again. They couldnt see me'.

Donitz's message to Hardegen had been intercepted by Bletchley, decrypted and passed to the Tracking room. The two Canadian destroyers were lying in wait for him. 'I said to myself, "if i sink this freighter, and perhaps one destroyer, theres still the second one. It's shallow water and i can't escape, so theres a good chance of my boat being sunk." My mission was to get to New York, so i let the ship go, though i felt very bad about it.'

The U-boat trap did not close but it took U-123 300 miles off course and wasted a great deal of fuel