USS Borie (DD-215) was a in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the first ship named for Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Navy, Adolph E. Borie. She served in the Black Sea, the Asiatic Fleet and the Caribbean between the wars, and in the Battle of the Atlantic, the long campaign to protect Allied shipping from German U-boats during World War II. As part of the antisubmarine Hunter-killer Group unit Task Group 21.14, the crew earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary performance." Borie also earned distinction in her final battle with in November 1943, exchanging small arms fire with and ramming the surfaced U-boat, although she was crippled during the engagement and thereafter scuttled by friendly ships.
Construction
Borie was launched on 4 October 1919, by William Cramp & Sons; sponsored by Patty Borie, great-grandniece of Secretary Borie; and commissioned on 24 March 1920.
As a typical "flush decker," Borie was armed with four guns, one anti-aircraft (AA) gun, six .30 caliber (7.62 mm) machine guns, and twelve torpedo tubes in four triple mounts, two mounts on each side. She was also fitted with depth charges and sonar for use against submarines. Her top speed was 35 knots (65 km/h).
Due to the heat in the tropics, it was customary for crewmen to sleep on the open decks of their ships, to be cooled by the breeze. The "flush deckers" often sported canvas awnings over their decks for this purpose.
Service history
In April 1920, Borie joined the United States Naval Detachment in Turkish Waters for service in the Black Sea. The following year, she reported to Destroyer Division 38, Asiatic Fleet, and for the next four years alternating between the Philippine Islands during the winter and Chefoo and Shanghai, China, during the summer. She then returned home and patrolled in the Caribbean until the spring of 1927, when she made a cruise to Europe. Borie remained with the Atlantic Fleet until 1929 when she began a three-year tour with the Asiatic Fleet.
Following conversion to a Squadron Leader at San Diego (1932–33), Borie joined Destroyer Squadron 2, Battle Force. She remained in the Pacific on normal destroyer duty until late 1939, when she transited the Panama Canal to join the Neutrality Patrol. After the breakout of hostilities between the US and the Axis powers, she served first on the Inshore Patrol, 15th Naval District, in Panama Bay. In December 1941, in the face of the growing U-boat campaign in the Caribbean, she replaced as flagship of Destroyer Division 67, which also included and . On 15 June 1942, she rescued survivors of USAT Merrimac, which had been torpedoed.
After returning to Philadelphia in November 1942, Borie went to New Orleans for an overhaul and then was reassigned to the Caribbean. During her refit, she had surface search radar installed; four of her .30 cal. (7.62 mm) machine guns were removed, and replaced with two single-mount Oerlikon 20 mm AA guns. For three months beginning in February 1943, Borie, Barry and Goff were attached to Escort Unit 23.2.4 with gunboats and and the patrol craft PC-575 and PC-592, which operated between Trinidad and Recife, Brazil with Admiral Jonas Ingram's South Atlantic Fleet (later Fourth Fleet). The escort unit accompanied convoys from Trinidad to Recife, where it was relieved by Brazilian Navy units who took the convoys to Bahia.
Patrols with Task Group 21.14
Returning to Norfolk, Virginia in May, the three destroyers escorted convoy UGS-13 to Casablanca, French Morocco and on their return were assigned to hunter killer Task Group 21.14, escorting the escort carrier under her Captain Arnold J. Isbell. On 26 June 1943, under the command of Lt. Cdr. Charles H. Hutchins, at the time the youngest destroyer commander in the Navy, the destroyer departed the Caribbean and on 30 July put to sea in the North Atlantic as a member of the antisubmarine group built around Card. Borie completed three patrols with Cards group, providing valuable support for sister ships in the pursuit and sinking of German U-boats. The Presidential Unit Citation was awarded to Task Group 21.14 for actions during these three patrols:
In late October 1943, TG 21.14 went out for a fourth patrol, searching for a reported refueling concentration of U-boats around a Milchkuhe (Milk Cow) tanker sub in the North Atlantic. The report was the result of the triangulation of bearings taken with high frequency radio direction finders (HFDF, nicknamed "huff-duff").Account of the battle and aftermath by Petty Officer Bob Maher, USNR, USS Borie.
Final battle with U-405
During her fourth patrol, Borie got a radar contact on shortly after 1943 hours, 31 October and closed in. The U-boat promptly crash-dived. Two depth charge attacks forced her back to the surface, but she again submerged; after a third attack, a large oil slick was observed. Though U-256 made it home badly damaged, Hutchins believed the target to be sunk, and signalled Card: "Scratch one pig boat; am searching for more."
Borie then got another radar contact about from the first, at 0153 hours on 1 November 1943, range and charged in to engage.Action Report by Sonarman Lerten V. Kent, USNR, USS Borie. At radar contact was lost, but sonar picked up the enemy sub at about the same time. Borie engaged (a Type VIIC U-boat) hours before dawn, at 49°00' N., 31°14' W. There were seas, with high winds and poor visibility. The destroyer initially launched depth charges, after which the submarine came (or was probably forced) to the surface. Borie then came about for another attack, engaging with 4-inch and 20 mm gunfire at a range of .
The sub's six 20mm autocannons scored hits in the forward engine room and several scattered and harmless hits near the bridge, and her deck gun crew traversed their gun and took aim for their first shot at Bories waterline; but Bories 20 mm gunfire killed every exposed member of the sub's crew topside, and a salvo of three 4-inch shells then blew off the sub's deck gun before it fired a round. Borie then closed in and rammed U-405, but at the last moment, the submarine turned hard to port and a huge wave lifted the Bories bow onto the foredeck of the U-boat.
After the ramming, Borie was high-centered on top of U-405, and until they separated, exchanges of small arms fire took place. This was a unique battle: unlike most other modern naval battles, it was decided by ramming and small arms fire at close range. Bories 24-inch spotlight kept the submarine illuminated throughout the following battle, except for brief periods when it was turned off for tactical reasons.
The two ships were initially almost perpendicular to one another; as the battle progressed, wave action and the efforts of both crews to dislodge from the enemy ship resulted in the two vessels becoming locked in a "V" for an extended fight, with the U-boat along Bories port side. The two ships were locked together only 25–30° from parallel. The action of the seas began to open seams in Bories hull forward and flood her forward engine room. The submarine's hull, made of thicker steel and sturdier beams to withstand deep diving, was better able to handle the stress. Hutchins reported later, "We were impressed by the ruggedness and toughness of these boats."Historical Research by E. Andrew Wilde, Jr. (1998, revised 2001) Transcript excerpt, Lt. Cdr. Hutchins' oral history.
Normally, in a surface engagement, the superior armament, speed and reserve buoyancy of the destroyer would have been decisive. But in this unusual case, the destroyer was unable to depress her 4-inch and 3-inch deck guns enough to hit the sub, while all of the submarine's machine guns could be brought to bear. One or two 4-inch gun crews attempted to fire, but their shells passed harmlessly over the target. Bories crew had a limited number of small arms, however, and the German deck mounts were completely open and had no protection. The executive officer had presented a virtually identical situation during drills on 27 October – a theoretical ramming by a U-boat on the port side – and as a result, after the ramming, Bories crew took immediate action without orders.
In the extended and bitter fighting that ensued, several German sailors were killed in desperate attempts to man the submarine's deck weapons. As each man emerged from the hatch and ran toward the guns, he was illuminated by Bories spotlight and met by a hail of gunfire. Bories crew engaged the enemy with whatever was at hand: Tommy guns, rifles, pistols, shotguns intended for riot control, and even a Very pistol. Bories executive officer and a signalman fired from the bridge throughout the fight. One German sailor was hit in the chest with a Very flare. One of the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon was also able to fire.
Bories crewmen could clearly see a polar bear insignia painted on the conning tower and the three numerals of the submarine. The bow of the sub had been badly damaged by the depth charges and she was unable to submerge. U-405s deck armament was extensive: in addition to the 88 mm gun, she also had six Flak 38 autocannons, in one quadruple and four single mounts (note that a quad mount + 4 singles is 5 mounts and 8 guns not 6). These weapons would have been devastating to Borie'''s exposed crew if they had been continuously manned. Occasionally, a German crewman would reach one of the Flak mounts, and open fire briefly before he was killed. Other German sailors kept up a sporadic small arms fire of their own from open hatchways.
Sinking of U-405 Finally, U-405 and Borie separated and the crews attempted to engage each other with torpedoes, to no effect. At this point, about 35 of the German crew of 49 had been killed or lost overboard. Borie had been badly damaged and was moving at a reduced speed, while the sub was still capable of maneuvering at a similar speed. U-405s tighter turning radius effectively prevented Borie from bringing her superior broadside firepower to bear, and her skipper, Korvettenkapitän Rolf-Heinrich Hopmann, did a masterful job of maneuvering his badly damaged boat with his remaining crew.Borie shut off her searchlight, with her crew hoping U-405 would attempt to escape and provide a better target for gunfire. The submarine did attempt to speed away, and Borie switched her searchlight back on and turned to bring her broadside guns and a depth charge thrower to bear. The sub was bracketed by shallow-set depth charges and struck by a 4-inch shell and came to a stop. Bories crew observed about 14 sailors signalling their surrender and abandoning ship in yellow rubber rafts, and Hutchins gave the order to cease fire; several of them were apparently wounded, being loaded into the rafts in stretchers by their shipmates. The last man to leave the stricken ship was wearing an officer's cap. U-405 sank slowly by the stern at 0257. She was seen to explode underwater, probably from scuttling charges set by the last officer to leave. Hutchins reported later,
The survivors were observed firing star shells: Bories crew believed this to be a distress signal, and maneuvered in an attempt to recover them from their rubber rafts, as they approached off the port bow. But as it turned out, the Germans were signalling another surfaced U-boat, which answered with a star shell of her own. A Borie lookout reported a torpedo passing close by from that U-boat, and Borie had no choice but to protect herself by sailing away. Borie was forced to sail through the U-405 survivors' rafts as she turned away from the other U-boat, but the men on the rafts were observed firing another Very flare as Borie steamed away in a radical zigzag pattern. No German survivors were ever recovered by either side; all 49 crewmen were lost.