by Captain Emmett Evans, USNR (Ret.)
Vietnam Donut Dolly Penni Evans sent us a note about our recent program with Nick Devaux and Lars McKie about World War II in the Caribbean. She wished her father was still alive to see it. Emmett Evans had hunted German u-Boats in the Carribean aboard a Martin PBM Mariner, a twin-engine American seaplane bomber of World War II. Penni shared this story her dad wrote long after the war about a firefight he had on July 28, 1943 with the crew of German U-359. It was only decades later Emmett discovered the fate of U-359. Emmett would go on to serve in air sea rescue in the Pacific.
On 28 July 1943, Kapitanleutnant Heinz Forster, commander of U-359, was on his third and last patrol of the Caribbean, Lieutenant Junior Grade Dave Pinholster was on his first call out of San Juan as ready plane PPC (Patrol Plane Commander) from VP-32. A Pan Am plane had reported spotting a submarine on the surface in Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.
U-boats were highly active in the area. VP-325 Lieutenant Bob Mayo had successfully attacked U-159 on 15 July south of Haiti, and on 26 July Lieutenant Ralph Rawson successfully attacked U-759 south of Navassa Island, just east of Jamaica.
As we approached Mona Passage our radar operator spotted a target on our port side at five miles, and as Pinholster turned in he spotted a wake in the haze to the south. My job in the right seat was to direct the bow guns.
The old saw “hold your fire ’til you see the whites of their eyes” still holds in modern warfare, but when the tracers from a U-boat’s 20mm and 40mm guns seem to be coming right at you your first reaction is to retaliate. We did and ran out of ammunition long before we got to the drop point.
Miraculously, we were not hit as Pinholster made a perfect drop straddling the sub. This good luck did not last. In antisubmarine warfare it was jokingly said that if you couldn’t bring back the U-boat skipper’s under-pants, pictures were the next best thing.
Accordingly, we circled so the waist gunner could get some photos. Immediately we started taking hits.
The radioman, in the midst of sending off his contact report, suddenly screamed, “I’m hit!”
He came up to the cockpit with blood streaming from his leg. Once he realized he was not mortally wounded he cried out gleefully, “I’ll get the Purple Heart!”
The rest of us persuaded the PPC that we had done our job; it was time to get out of range and get the wounded back to base.
Darkness had set in by the time we returned to San Juan Harbor, and we had no idea how bad damage below the waterline was or if the damaged wingtip float would keep the wing out of the water after landing. Quick work on the part of the beaching crew got us on the ‘dry ‘quickly and the ambulance dashed off with the wounded, none of whom was seriously hurt.
The aircraft was another story. We had taken three hits, one of which just missed severing the flight controls to the tail assembly.
Admiral John Hoover debriefed us, and we went on with the war.
It was many years later that confirmation was finally received that the U-boat we had attacked was last heard from on that day and never returned to base. By that time we all had our hands full raising families and trying to progress in our chosen professions.
In 1981, retired and carrying out a long dreamed of voyage In my sloop Ytiempo II, I found myself in a familiar area Just south of Mona Island. The voyage from the Panama Canal had been tedious, with strong headwinds all the way, breakdown of rigging and trouble with the diesel engine. We were wet and tired as we neared the end of our two month voyage from Los Angeles to the British Virgin Islands, and my three man crew was looking forward to completing the trip.
We were crossing between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, just south of Mona Passage. As the light faded with the setting sun and we enjoyed our evening scotch I thought again of that evening 38 years prior when two small groups of young men found themselves pitted against one another in an unfriendly theater.
As I contemplated the darkening sea, I tried to imagine what it would be like on the deck of a mortally wounded submarine, thousands of miles from home. Our little sloop had life jackets and a life-raft with all kinds of emergency supplies. We weren’t expecting to have to use them, but they were there if needed. A U-boat could not afford such luxuries. The water now, as then, was 79 degrees. Land was no visible anywhere. It would take a long time for hyperthermia to set in.
That we would be passing over this exact spot had occurred to me early on. Thoughts of a little ceremony as we did so crossed my mind, but I had not mentioned it to my crew. Now, here we were at the exact spot on the earth’s surface I had been in 1943, and coincidentally, in the same twilight conditions.
Somehow it seemed a private matter. I raised my glass and drank a silent toast to a band of courageous young men who rested forever many thousands of feet beneath our hull.