The text of the two war emergency signals monitored on 16 and 19 January leaves no doubt that a U-boat was probably involved in both cases. Both signals appear also in British 'Ultra' documents, which make it unlikely to have been a fake signal sent by Allied radio stations. It is however significant that the wording of both signal is very similar. There can be no doubt that a U-boat is unlikely to survive a torpedo hit. Therefore both boats must be considered as sunk providing the two signals are genuine. Taking the loss of U 377 and U 641 as being given above, the only alternative for the boat reportedly hit early on the 16 January is U 305 as all other boats then at sea and lost afterwards reported at least once thereafter without mentioning the incident.

The originator of the second signal on 19 January remains yet unclear. The only possibility for this incident is U 571 which reported last at 1830 on 18 January about an encounter with a small westbound convoy in AL 9843 during which it had fired a T-5 on a destroyer followed by a torpedo explosion ten minutes later. U 571 was later assigned to groups Rügen and Hinein. Presently U 571 is however believed sunk during its operation against convoy ON.221 on 28 January. Although in the past some sources attributed the loss of U 972 to one of the torpedo incidents, this is not supported by the historical facts. It is highly unlikely that U 972, which reported last on 15 December 1943, carried on for over one month without signalling. Even in the case of a receiver breakdown in its radio station it would have been reasonable to expect that the boat had met with one of its group neighbours in the meantime to inform U-boat Command about the situation.

Based on the information presented above it is proposed to amend the records to show that:

U 305 was lost with all hands on 16 January 1944 probably to one of its own torpedoes in the approximate position 49°n/18°w.

U 377 was lost with all hands on 17 January 1944 in the attack of HMS Wanderer and HMS Glenarm in position 49°39n/20°10w.

Dr. Axel Niestlé

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Note
Axel Niestlé says that he hopes his report will encourage someone to use it as a starting point for further research into the two mysterious torpedo hit reports as mentioned on page 4, 2nd paragraph. He writes:

I was yet unable to find a report from one of the British Escort groups then employed in the Bay of Biscay that could be linked to one of the incidents. Normally a torpedo is fired with the enemy nearby. Thus there is a chance that an unexplained explosion was heard by the escort ships. I have already checked the US carrier groups but drew a blank. Maybe some visitors have a short distance to the documents at the NA in London to conduct a thorough research on this topic... The prospect to fix the final fate of those men lost with U 305 is certainly worth the effort.