OPERATION PAUKENSCHLAG (Drumbeat)

Dönitz requested 12 long-distance Type IX boats from the Naval High Command in Berlin. The answer was disappointing: he would receive only half the number he had requested. Two were type IXB (U-109, U-123) and four were IXCs (U-66, U-125, U-128, U-130). As the boats were being released, U-128 could not be released on time since it had just been commissioned, and so Operation Paukenschlag would begin with only 5 boats. Dönitz sent the fleet off with orders to "beat the waters like a drum."

The Drumbeaters headed for the US East Coast guided by little more than guide books they had borrowed from one of the municipal libraries. Since the East Coast had been off limits for so long, there were no operational charts. U-123's mission began in New York Harbor and extended to Cape Hatteras, accompanied by U-125 and U-66.

The Cyclops, commanded by Leslie Webber Kersley, was the first to meet the Drumbeat fate on January 12, one day before the operation was to officially begin. The U-130 commenced with the second and third victims, the Norwegian steamer Frisco and the freighter Friar Rock, some miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Most of the ships sunk during Operation Paukenschlag were cargo ships, as the Allen Jackson, an oil tanker that met a fiery fate and lost all but 13 of her crew. On January 28, the Kosmos II, a Norwegian whaling factory nearly intercepted U-123, but Commander Hardegen outran the freighter. Hardegen's last victim was the Malay, which was damaged but did not sink, excluding it from Operation Drumbeat's casualty list.

Operation Drumbeat ended with a bang on February 6, 1942, after the U-130 sank the Panamanian steamer Halcyon with one hit. Altogether Operation Drumbeat accounted for 25 sunken ships and 156,939 tons of material. As the operation ended, the U-boat war had just begun.

Source: Gannon, Michael. Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany's First U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.