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By tk *Proposed zoning changes in North and South Forest Beach designed to eliminate so-called " *Hilton Head Council panel backs 'monster home' limits *Authority: Ferries aren't delivering what was promised
La Perle P 1. French Submarine La Perle, who wants friends that sink you? The west bound Covoy ONM - 243, on the morning of the 8th. of July 1944 was about 800 kilometers south-east of Greenland. It was originally made up of 94 vessels, four of which missed the sailing date, and a further three had been detached, two for repairs, and the third being too slow to keep up with the convoy set speed. Amongst the remaining ships were the MAC Merchant Aircraft Carriers Empire MacCallum and Empire MacColl, a Swordfish aircraft from the former Carrier was on a routine sweep ahead of the convoy formation. The pilot, Lieutenant Francoix Otterveanger of the Royal Netherlands Navy, sighted a submarine on the surface sailing on a north easterly course and immediately assumed his sighting was a German U-Boat. In fact, it was the Free French Submarine La Perle. The senior officer leading the Canadian Escort Group C5, Acting Commander George Stephen, who had wide experience in his job, on receiving the Swordfish report was reputed to exclaim "Sink the bastard." ordering further aircraft from his two Merchant ship Carriers to join in the attack. In all, six more Swordfish joined Otterveanger, all flying clockwise around the submarine before carrying out a series of attacks. It was now one hour and five minutes, since the first sighting report, and the Escort Commander sent off a voice message to the MAC ships, Have aircraft been informed that submarine La Perle might be in our vicinity?" In Empire MacCallum, the poor air staff officer had no knowledge of La Perle, or what he was supposed to do about this latest message from the Escort Commander. Trying to play it safe, he attempted to reach the aircraft with a rather late warning "Look out for recognition signals in case the sub is friendly. If not, attack." With all the radio telephone traffic cluttering up the air waves, only one aircraft got this message, and he desperately asked for it to be repeated, just as the Netherlands pilot was making his first attacking run, one hour and fifteen minutes from the first sighting. From the conning tower of La Perle a series of L's were being flashed, this was the correct letter of identification for that day, Otterveager, not having heard the warning message about the possibility of a friendly boat being in the area concluded it was simply a ruse de guerre, and pressed on with his attack firing four pairs of rockets at his target. The other aircraft followed up with rocket attacks, the submarine now trying to defend itsself by light machine gun fire ( this of course seemed to the attacking planes merely to confirm the target was a German U-boat. ) Now Otterveager ordered an attack with two depth charges, and the friendly submarine was sunk in four minutes. only one Chief Petty Officer from a crew of 60 survived. Why did the Escort Commander take so long to issue a belated warning? There seems little doubt that HMCS Dunver, the ship in which SOE was embarked, would have received signals with information about La Perle and her Atlantic crossing. At the subsequent Board of Inquiry, Stephen's gave evidence that he had not seen the sailing orders of La Perle from St John's, and was unaware of the bombing restrictions in force until after the fatal attack. He however did acknowledge that the most recent signal received from Western Approaches did place La Perle close to the Swordfish sighting. He should have been more careful with his use of attacking aircraft. Stephen's pleaded he was worried about a U-Boat that the Admiralty's situation reports had placed to the north of his convoy, that had been sailing in a SW direction over the three previous days. The findings of the Board of Inquiry indicated this contention had all the hallmarks of special pleading. From evidence at the Board of Inquiry it seems that Stephen's impulsive order to sink the submarine was met with stunned silence. The leading signalman in Dunver, John Seale, had developed appendicitus before the ship returned to harbor, he was sent to hospital, did not give evidence to the Inquiry, or the subsequent investigation into He reports saying to the Escort Commander at the time " Sir, that may be the La Perle" this recollection was received by Stephens with a non-commital grunt. None of the other bridge personnel according to Searle said a word. It is reported that George Stephen had a very dominating presence, the ship's officers stood in awe of him, his men would do anything for him, but over the voyage he refused to formally acknowledge any signals shown to him by a The air staff in the MAC ships were kept ignorant of La Perle's movements as Dunver did not keep them appraised of the situation reports. S-K show 7-9-03 Southpaw NY, NY oh
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