Harry Edelmayer

Seaman First Class Harry Edelmayer was born on October 24, 1921, to Philip and Elizabeth Edelmayer. Philip Edelmayer worked as a butcher. The Edelmayers had come from Hungary shortly before America’s entrance into World War I. The family lived at 2717 Cleveland Avenue, in the Cramer Hill section of Camden, NJ. The Edelmayers belonged to the St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church. Harry attended Woodrow Wilson High School and was employed by the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines before the war. A fine baseball player, Harry Edelmayer played for the Pierce Athletic Association, a neighborhood team.

After enlisting in the United States Navy in 1942, Harry Edelmayer served aboard merchant ships as part of the Naval Armed Guard.

On February 5, 1943, Harry Edelmayer was serving aboard the SS West Portal, part of convoy SC-118. Of the 69 ships sailing in convoy SC-118, 11 were sunk when 20 U-boats attacked. The West Portal was torpedoed and sunk by U-413 in the North Atlantic, 600 miles SSW of Iceland (55.18 N / 26.29 W), taking 40 of the crew and 12 of the Armed Guard, including Harry Edelmayer, to their doom. He was awarded the Purple Heart. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the East Coast Memorial, New York City.

Harry Edelmayer was survived by his parents, sister Helen Hall, and brothers John, Philip Jr., and Matthew.

Sydney – UK, 4–8 February 1943

The convoy consisted of 61 ships. The British escort group B2 (Lt Cdr Proudfoot) consisted of the destroyers Vimy, Vanesa and Beverly and the corvettes Campanula, Mignonette and Abelia, the Free French corvette Lobelia and the American Coast Guard Cutter Bibb. The rescue vessel Toward was equipped with HF/DF.

The story of the battle around convoy SC-118 begins as soon it leaves port. The German B-Dienst decodes some messages concerning the convoy and is able to track the convoy route. A second clue for the BdU is a POW report from U-632. A survivor of a ship sunk by U-456 out of convoy HX-224 is picked up by U-632 and he informs captain Karpf about a slow convoy following HX-224.

Taking in account the B-Dienst report, the U-632 rapport and the fact that the convoy will probably avoid the HX-224 battle grounds, Dönitz forms the patrol line Pfeil. Indeed the convoy steams right on to the centre of the patrol line but it passes the line unnoticed on the 3rd Feb.

Unfortunately a merchant ship fires accidentally a snow flake and gives the position of the convoy away to U-187. The sighting report of the boat is detected by the HF/DF of the Toward. She sends immediately the Beverly and Vimy out on the bearing and they manage to sink U-187.

On the sighting report, Dönitz orders also 5 boats from the Haudegen gruppe and U-456 and U-614 to the scene. The boats concentrate around the convoy and attack during the night of the 4th. But the boats continually transmit contact and sighting reports, giving excellent occasion to the escort to charge on the HF/DF bearings. The escort manages to keep the situation under control and drives off U-267, U-402, U-608 (twice) and U-609.

But the convoy is again short on good luck: when it changes course in an effort to shake off the U-boats, the 3 left columns do not follow and romp from the convoy. Most of the U-boats in contact follow the smaller section, but are unable to exploit the confusing situation. U-609 gets a thorough plastering from the Lobelia but continues the operation and remains the contact keeper.

In the morning of the 5th the two sections of the convoy join. The U-boats have lost contact due to the offensive actions of the escort and the increasingly bad weather. U-413 sinks a straggler. Three American escorts (the destroyers Babbitt and Schenk and the cutter Ingham) coming from Iceland reinforce the escort in the night.

During the next day, the U-boats manage to concentrate again around the convoy, led by U-609. U-465 is heavily damaged by a Liberator guided by the signals of its contact report. U-266 sinks a straggler which has had machine trouble, and picks up the captain and chief engineer. U-262 and U-456 come up and U-454, U-438, U-135 and U-267 make attacks in the evening but are driven off. U-267 is severely damaged by the Vimy and must return to port.

Finally U-262 gets through the escort screen on the port side of the convoy, while all escorts on this side are busy dealing with other U-boats. She moves in between two columns in the convoy, fires all 5 torpedo tubes but misses all her targets around her. But the 2 torpedoes of her second spread who have missed a large ship, continue to run and they blaze a small ship out of the water. This ship perishes with all hands, so quickly no one, not even U-262, has noticed it. U-262 is then detected by Bibb, and the Lobelia damages her with depth charges. U-262 must also return to port.

Until this point the escort is well in control of the situation, but things change when U-402 enters the battle scene. When the starboard side of the convoy is left uncovered shortly after midnight, U-402 moves in quickly and sinks 2 ships. U-402 retires to reload the tubes.

The loss of one of these 2 ships is to have big consequences, for it was the rescue ship. A dangerous situation is developing, in which the escorts have now the responsibility to rescue survivors. In doing so, they have to leave their position in the screen and weaken the defence of the convoy, making it easier for the U-boats to sink other ships, for which again escorts must provide help.

U-614 sinks a straggler on the other side of the convoy. The escorts lose control of the situation and leave wide gaps in the screen, through which U-402 attacks again and damages a large tanker, who is later finished off by U-608.

The Lobelia who is searching for survivors astern, runs into U-609 and damages her with canon fire. U-609 dives and is finished off with depth charges. U-402 attacks again and sinks a freighter. She falls astern of the convoy and sinks 2 stragglers, one of them a troop ship that perishes with heavy loss of life.

When dawn comes, most U-boats have lost contact and air patrols prevent any boat to come up. U-624 is sunk by a B-17 of 220 Sqdn. Only U-402 and U-456 make contact. U-456 is driven off by the Beverley but U-402 sinks its seventh victim with its last torpedo in the night of the 7th and is lucky to escape from a counterattack from the Bibb and Ingham. U-608 makes also an attack on the escort and a straggler but has no success. The other boats cannot approach the convoy. Both U-135 and U-614 are damaged by aircraft trying so. Still the convoy loses again one of its number in a collision.

The battle around SC-118 was by no means the biggest convoy battle, but “it was perhaps the hardest convoy battle of the war” as Dönitz wrote after the war. Indeed the Pfeil gruppe has been thoroughly worked over by the escorts, sending many to the dockyard for extensive repairs. Three boats have been destroyed. The escorts did not get away unharmed too: the Lobelia arrives back in port on the end of a towing line after her machines had broken down and all ships have suffered a lot from the heavy weather conditions. Still, the U-boats were lucky that the experienced commander of the escort group, McIntyre, was left behind in port where his ship, the Harvester was undergoing repairs after ramming a U-boat in the previous convoy escort trip.

With 12 ships against 3 U-boats, the balance wasn’t quite in favour of the Germans and even more alarming was that 4 of them were stragglers and only 2 U-boats managed to penetrate the escort screen. The correct, offensive use of the HF/DF and radar made attacks on the surface difficult and this would soon lead to a change in tactics. Article compiled by Tom Linclau.

Ships hit from Convoy SC-118

(d.) = the ship was damaged in that attack. Convoy info: S = straggler, D = dispersed, R = Romper. 12 ships sunk for a total of 59,908 tons from Convoy SC-118.