Coast Guard Manned Destroyer Escort Sinks Nazi U-Boat
Washington, D.C., August 5, 1944. A Coast Guard-manned Destroyer Escort won a stirring battle with a German U-boat in the Atlantic recently when it blasted the undersea raider to the bottom. Location of the action was undisclosed.
The duel between the Coast Guard ship and its elusive quarry brought pitted Coast Guard Commander Ralph R. Curry, against a 26-year-old Nazi skipper in a game of wits.
The Destroyer Escort made contact with the German submarine when coming to the assistance of another American ship. It immediately laid depth charges around the sub.
A Navy DE and a French DE joined the Coast Guard vessel in the final stages of the battle.
Finally, the submarine surfaced and the Coast Guardsmen got in their lethal, finishing blow. As the submersible, badly blasted, was about to make its final plunge, its crew took to the sea and were picked up by the Coast Guard ship as prisoners of war.
Several were wounded and given medical care. The Nazis were taken to an Allied port and removed from the DE for transfer to an internment camp.
Commander Curry, holder of the Legion of Merit award, lives at 1648 Preston Road, Alexandria, Virginia. He is married and has two small daughters.
Posted: January 26th, 2007 under World War II.