On March 9th 1941 Schepke left Kiel on what was to be his last patrol. He had spent ten weeks on home leave, holiday and publicity tours. Three days later Fritz-Julius Lemp in U-110 spotted Convoy HX112 and Schepke, Otto Kretschmer and others prepared to strike. In the attack on the convoy on the 17th March, Kretschmer’s U-99 successfully sank five merchant vessels. U-100, attempting to join the fray, was soon spotted by H.M.S. Walker, a destroyer captained by Donald Macintyre who was commanding the 5th Escort Group of five destroyers and two corvettes. (Lemp had only reported ‘at least two destroyers’ with the convoy, giving Kretschmer and Schepke a misleading impression of the strength of the escort.)¹

According to Macintyre "the brash over-confident Schepke determined to have his share in yet another massacre" displayed "a lack of caution bred by repeated encounters with an ill-trained and inexperienced enemy." Macintyre recounted the episode in a book published after the war :

"In the next hour five [merchant] ships were torpedoed. I was near to despair and I racked my brains to find some way to stop the holocaust. While the convoy stayed in impeccable formation, we escorts raced about in the exasperating business of searching in vain for the almost invisible enemy. Our one hope was to sight a U-boat's tell-tale white wake, give chase to force her to dive, and so give the Asdics a chance to bring our depth-charges into action. Everything had to be subordinated to that end and so, with binoculars firmly wedged on a steady bearing, I put Walker into a gently curving course, thereby putting every point of the compass under a penetrating prove. It worked."²

As her bows swung, a thin line of white water came into the lens of my glasses, a thin line which could only be the wake of a ship. There were none of ours in that direction ; it had to be a U-boat! I shouted orders increasing speed to thirty knots and altered course towards the target. Suddenly the U-boat spotted us and in a cloud of spray he crash-dived. A swirl of phosphorescent water still lingered as we passed over the spot and sent a pattern of ten depth-charges crashing down. We could hardly have missed ; it had been so quick we must have dropped them smack on top of him. Then the depth-charges exploded with great cracking explosions and giant water-spouts rose to masthead height astern of us. Two and a half minutes later another explosion followed and an orange flash spread momentarily across the surface. We had every reason to hope that this was our first 'kill'."³

U-100 had not been destroyed though ; Macintyre's depth-charges had exploded too deeply. The submarine was lost until contact was regained half an hour later.

"Our prey had not been 'killed' ; he was, in fact, sneaking back towards the convoy, still bent on attack. Recalling H.M.S. Vanoc to assist in the attack, we set about our target with a series of carefully aimed patterns of depth-charges.

Taking it in turns to run into the attack, pattern after pattern of depth-charges went down as we tried to get one to within the lethal range of about twenty feet of our target. But he was a wily opponent and, dodging and twisting in the depths, he managed to escape destruction though heavily damaged"⁴

The escape was only temporary, though, as the explosions had smashed instruments, knocked out the pumps and caused heavy flooding. The boat slid out of control to a depth of 750 feet, deeper than any U-boat had ever gone. Schepke decided to blow all ballast tanks and surface.⁵ She was soon located by Vanoc with newly fitted type 286 radar. As the destroyer closed in Schepke desperately tried to save the situation ;

"Still shaken by the underwater pounding and with the destroyer closing fast, her high, white bow wave clearly visible, he was momentarily so distracted he ordered astern on the starboard electric motor instead of ahead to try and align himself along the enemy's track. As the boat swung towards a broader angle with the track, he thought for an instant that the destroyer would pass astern, then realised this was unlikely and shouted down the hatch to abandon ship. They seized life belts and ran up the ladders, some even jumping aft to man the 20-mm machine gun on the platform abaft the bridge. It was too late even for that defiance."⁶

Macintyre, rescuing survivors from the lifeboats of ships sunk earlier, had seen the Vanoc draw ahead fast:

"Rupert Bray, on the bridge beside me, said, 'She must have sighted the U-boat.' Even as he spoke, Vanoc came on the air with his radio telephone, with the laconic signal : 'Have rammed and sunk U-boat.'

What a blissful moment that was for us, the successful culmination of a long and arduous fight. Something in the way of revenge for our losses in the convoy had been achieved. There was grim joy on board Walker, and not least amongst the merchant seamen from the J.B. White, who felt they had a personal score to settle. But for the moment our part was confined to circling Vanoc in protection, while she picked up the few survivors from the U-boat."⁷

Vanoc's Captain, Commander J.G.W. Deneys, reported that :

"While proceeding at 15 knots to take station on Walker for an organised search, the ASV (type 286 radar) operator reported a contact starboard side 1,000 yards. Submarine was sighted bearing Green 10, steering from right to left. Wheel was put over to ram and engines stopped about five seconds before collision. Vanoc struck the submarine almost at right angles just before the conning tower : ship came up all standing and submarine sank immediately before B gun. Vanoc's asdic was wrecked. About ten survivors were floating and six picked up. While jiggling the ship to pick up the remaining survivors another submarine was sighted at about 1,000 yards at 0400."⁸

Schepke's end has been described in a different account in more gruesome detail :

"As U-100 came up, the radar operator in Vanoc reported to the bridge that his screen showed a dark green blob that might be a U-boat. This radar sighting made naval history, for it was the first known time that those primitive and crude sets had led to a night attack on a U-boat.....The sleek destroyer headed straight for the conning tower of U-100. Cries of alarm sounded thinly in the night air as the U-boat crew saw the knife-edge bows of the destroyer coming at them in a cloud of spray. Some of them jumped overboard and tried desperately to swim out of the way. On Vanoc's bridge they heard the roar of Schepke's voice as he shouted in German : 'Don't panic. They are going to miss us. They will pass astern.' Then came the rending, grinding crash as Vanoc struck U-100 amidships by the conning-tower, throwing the remainder of the crew into the water. Her bow cut both Schepke's legs off at the trunk and jammed him behind the periscope sheath. Vanoc, carried forward by her speed, ran right over the stricken U-boat before coming to a halt straining to release herself with both engines pulling astern. Eventually they came clear with a sharp jolt and U-100 rose high in the air. Schepke, still alive, was jerked free from the conning-tower and his body thrown into the air to fall helplessly into the sea. His white-covered cap was still worn with all its rakish dash as he thrashed wildly for a few seconds and then sank beneath the heavy swell, to be followed a few moments later by U-100. Despite his weaknesses, Schepke had died like an 'ace' - on his bridge."⁹

Six of Schepke's crew were picked up from the sea, including Schepke's deputy, Kapitänleutnant Siegfried Flister. He recounted the events to his captors in the following words :

"U-100 (500 tons) was sighted on the surface by a destroyer and dived to 200 feet. Not damaged by this attack. Later we heard thirty-five depth charges, the last of which damaged the U-boat putting out lights, causing leaks with which the pumps could not compete, and loss of compressed air....The U-boat came to the surface with the intention of escaping in the dark on the surface, and was manning this gun when rammed."¹⁰

According to their captors, the rescued crew members, "showed high morale despite their shattering experiences (under depth-charge attack) and a common unshakeable confidence in a German decisive victory this year"¹¹, but British intelligence also stated that they had never seen "such a lot of nasty little Nazis" as those captured from U-100.¹²

Almost immediately after the sinking of U-100 Macintyre's crew made contact with another enemy submarine. Depth-charges forced it to the surface, and following much gunfire U-99 signalled that it was sinking. William Begg was a Chief Petty Officer aboard H.M.S. Walker, and recalled that :

"As we swung around again, the submarine suddenly broke the surface and as her gun's crew ran towards their gun, I ordered our gun's crew to open fire. The U-boat started sinking stern first. Suddenly the Captain called across in plain English 'Please save my crew'. Captain Macintyre said, 'Let the bastards sink!' Don't forget we were in the heat of battle and had lost good men and ships, and some of them to a horrible death. Then he ordered us to throw over the scrambling nets and we drifted over towards the submarine, ourselves now a sitting duck for any other U-boats in the vicinity. We were off Iceland and death was quick in those waters."¹³

Within the space of minutes Macintyre's escort group had added the scalp of leading tonnage ace Otto Kretschmer, who was taken prisoner, to its earlier success. A jubilant reception awaited Macintyre's ships on their subsequent return to Liverpool. William Begg recounted how the following morning the captured U-boat men were assembled on the upper deck and paraded up and down the lines of merchant ships to the cheers of the merchant sailors who had survived the battle. On being landed in Liverpool they were then marched to Lime Street Station. During this procession local women began screaming and tried to attack the prisoners. The Army intervened and the U-boat men were taken by lorry to Walton Prison for the night before being taken to London the next day. Liverpool suffered great losses of men and ships to the U-boats and many of those in the crowd would have lost loved ones.

Later Kretschmer, when questioned by Captain (later Admiral Sir) George Creasy, was shocked to find out how much the British knew about the U-boat commanders and their operations. He was also shaken when Creasy referred to Schepke's death :

'Poor Schepke!' he said. 'We are very sorry about that. It was a horrible death for a bold commander. Please believe me when I say that while we are glad he was sunk, we would have preferred him to have died differently.'¹⁴

Fred Chilton served on HMS Vanoc during the war and his recollections of this period, including the sinking of U-100, can be read at The Wartime Memoirs of Fred and Iris Chilton. More pictures of Joachim Schepke can be viewed at the Gallery.

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