Feats In Submarine

[Dave Homewood]

FEATS IN SUBMARINE

HASTINGS LIEUTENANT

(Speoial P.A. Correspondent.) Rec. 9 a.m. LONDON, June 5.

After commanding a submarine for a year in the Mediterranean, where he sank two enemy ships, damaged five more, and was mentioned in several communiques, Lieutenant L. E. Herrick, D.S.C., R.N., of Hastings, is now on leave in England. He was the first New Zealander in the Royal Navy to command a submarine. The only other one is Lieutenant C. P. Thode, of Auckland.

Lieutenant Herrick, who joined the Royal Navy in 1935, spent 2½ years in the cruiser Suffolk in Chinese waters before the war. He volunteered to serve in submarines at the end of 1939, and joined the Tigress early in the following year as fourth in command. He was in the Tigress for a year and was mentioned in dispatches for his part in the actions when two U-boats were sunk by torpedo in the Bay of Biscay.

In September, 1941, he was appointed second in command of the P34, which used Malta as a base during the period when the island was being heavily bombed. It also patrolled the Mediterranean when Rommel was trying to rush supplies to North Africa. But before attacking the merchant ships P34 gave Lieutenant Herrick opportunity of seeing another U-boat sunk by torpedo, this time off Cape Spartivento. For his part in this action Lieutenant Herrick was awarded the D.S.C.

DAYLIGHT BOMBARDMENT.
His most exciting attack while commanding his own submarine was his 4½-minute bombardment of an oil tanker in Oneglia Harbour, near the border of the French and Italian Rivieras. It was a 5000-tonner, of which all but the upper works were hidden by a wall. Surfacing at 3 p.m. on a perfect day, the submarine fired 32 shots, obtaining 50 per cent hits before it had to dive to escape the attention of the shore defences.

"It was," said Lieutenant Herrick, "one of the most exciting things I have ever done. We felt so naked coming up only a mile away from the harbour, in full view and in broad daylight, but it was well worth it."

It was last December that Lieutenant Herrick was appointed to command the submarine Uproar. He has two brothers in England, Lieutenant-Commander T. D. Herrick, D.S.C. and Bar, R.N., who holds a training position, and Squadron Leader M. Herrick, D.F.C. and Bar, who is with a Mosquito squadron.


EVENING POST, 6 JUNE 1944

[davidd]

Good find Dave H, and particularly interesting to me as I am about a third of the way through reading a book titled "One of our Submarines", by Edward Young (Commander, DSO, DSC, RNV(S)R), Penguin, 1952). I would thoroughly recommend this paperback (or any other version), as you should become thoroughly familiar with the British submarines of WW2, their design and operation, as well as the training of submarine commanders, and the perils of operating in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Far East stations, as well as at least one return run to Murmansk for good measure. You should feel a bit like a submarine expert by the time you finally get to the last page! (As mentioned I am only part way through), but SO MUCH great detail of exactly how a submarine is operated, its strengths and weaknesses, and how his mind had to mull over so much vital (and usually incomplete) information to come to the correct decision in dangerous operational situations, also quite a few personal sketches and assessments of his other trainee sub commanders (First Officers, "Jimmy the One"). Occasionally he made the wrong decision (and does not make excuses), but with a little luck and swift counter-action they always managed to get through these extremely dangerous times and survived the war. His brother Michael did not last very long in his Mosquito squadron (305 Polish), killed just 10 days after this edition of the paper came out.
David D