U-Boat Crew Yelled for Help after his Ship was Sunk

Image size: 1600 x 1306 pixel. 1.03 MB

Date: Saturday, 17 April 1943
Place: North Atlantic, Southwest of Ireland, in position 47.53N, 22.04W
Photographer: Jack January

The official Caption is "NAZI SEEKS AID: One of the Germans to escape, when a Coast Guard convoy cutter sank their submarine in the Atlantic, this Nazi lifts hands and voice in a plea for help." The picture itself was taken on 17 April 1943 by Jack January (Photo No. 1567). The German sailor was identified as Obersteurmann Helmut Klotzsch (born 12 February 1914) from U-175.  Some of the U-175's crew later joked that while still on board of the U-boat - just prior to abandoning ship - Klotzsch ordered the men not to call out for assistance once they entered the water! He was then rescued by USCGC (United States Coast Guard Cutter) Spencer. U-175 (commanded by Korvettenkapitän Heinrich Bruns) from 10. Unterseebootsflottille was sunk while preparing to attack Convoy HX-233. USCGC Spencer detected U-175 ahead of the convoy and conducted two depth charge attacks. Forty minutes later the boat was forced to surface and was scuttled by her crew. Spencer and USCGC Duane rescued 44 survivors

Sources:

United States National Archives (NARA). Identification Code: 26-G-1567

http://historisches-marinearchiv.de/projekte/crewlisten/ww2/ergebnis.php

http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-175Rescue.htm

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/spencervsu175.asp

http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=2262

Indian Sailor Begs for Water After his Ship was Sunk

Image size: 1600 x 1442 pixel. 496 KB
Date: Friday, 16 January 1942
Place: Off the Sumatra coast, Indian Ocean
Photographer: Frank Noel

Indian sailor begs for water after his ship was sunk in the Indian Ocean. This photo was taken by photographer Frank "Pappy" Noel. Noel was in Singapore at the time of the Japanese attack and is able to board a British vessel, S. S. Jalarajan (5,102 tons displacement) of the Scindia Steam Navigation Company which leaves for Calcutta, India. About 270 miles (434.5 kilometers) west of Sumatra, the ship was attacked by Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-65 (later I-165). Five crewmembers were killed. Noel and the others take to lifeboats, where they drift for five days. Two days after the sinking his lifeboat encountered another lifeboat, also victims of the Japanese. The men asked for water but Noel's boat had none. The men were rescued and taken to Sumatra and Noel was able to get out before the Japanese captured the island. He won the Pulitzer Prize for photography in 1943 for this image. Thousands of men, women and children in hundreds of cargo ships and small craft sought to escape the advancing Japanese, fleeing from Java, Sumatra and Singapore. Japanese submarines, surface ships and aircraft sank many of them. Historical research reconstructing the transits and losses of these vessels is ongoing; many of the ships were lost with no record of their transit. Bodies washed up, one as far away as Christmas Island. Other Allied soldiers and civilians who survived being sunk were captured as prisoners of war or executed by the Japanese. 

Source:

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1142

Destroyers Stand By to Pick Up Survivors as USS Yorktown (CV-5) is Abandoned

Image size: 1600 x 1308 pixel. 363 KB
Date: Thursday, 4 June 1942
Place: Midway, Oceania
Photographer: Unknown

Destroyers stand by to pick up survivors as USS Yorktown (CV-5) is abandoned during the afternoon of June 4, following Japanese torpedo plane attacks. Destroyers at left are (left to right): USS Benham (DD-397), USS Russell (DD-414), and USS Balch (DD-363). Destroyer at right is USS Anderson (DD-411). Photographed from USS Pensacola (CA-24). At about 1400 on June 4, 1942, soon after Yorktown began to move again following bomb damage repairs, her radar detected a second incoming raid from the Japanese carrier Hiryu. This formation included ten torpedo planes commanded by Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga, plus six escorting fighters. As they approached, Yorktown steadily increased her speed to about twenty knots and launched additional "Wildcats", some with very little fuel. Despite losses to the defending F4F fighters and heavy anti-aircraft fire, the Japanese planes pushed on to deliver a beautifully coordinated torpedo attack. Approaching Yorktown from both sides, in an attack designed to divide her defenses and make it impossible for her to maneuver to avoid all their "fish", the Japanese strike force dropped several of the very effective Type 91 torpedoes. Those coming from starboard missed, but one hit Yorktown squarely amidships on the port side. She immediately took a slight list and started to turn. Then a second torpedo hit, in almost the same place. The two warheads opened a very large hole, flooding machinery spaces and other compartments. Her propulsion knocked out once again, Yorktown coasted to a stop and began to list dangerously. Within a few minutes of her torpedoing, USS Yorktown had listed heavily to port, almost bringing her hangar deck to sea level. More importantly, she had lost all steam and electrical power, and therefore could not effectively control and counter flooding. Facing a threat that the stricken carrier might capsize, drowning most of her crew, her Commanding Officer, Captain Elliot Buckmaster, made the reluctant decision to abandon ship. At about 1500 hours on 4 June, the grim process got underway, as crewmen began to go down knotted ropes into the oily water surrounding their ship. Escorting destroyers sent boats and stood by to pick up the survivors. One destroyer, USS Benham (DD-397) took in over 700 men, three times as many as in her own crew!

Source:

Official U.S. Navy Photograph #80-G-21694, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/midway/mid-8a.htm

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1043

Two of Eighteen Allied POWs Rescued by USS Queenfish (SS-393)

Image size: 1600 x 1536 pixel. 801 KB
Date: Sunday, 17 September 1944
Place: Off Hainan, South China Sea, China
Photographer: Unknown

Two of eighteen Allied POWs rescued by USS Queenfish (SS-393). On September 12, USS Sealion II (SS- 315) sank the Rakuyo Maru, a 477-foot Japanese-built passenger-cargo vessel carrying a load of raw rubber and, unknown to the crews of the submarine wolf pack pursuing her convoy, over 1300 Allied prisoners of war. Two of Sealion's torpedoes hit the POW ship, one amidships and one in the bow. It took 12 hours for Rakuyo Maru to sink, which allowed the surviving POWs some time to make rafts and search the doomed ship for food and water. The Japanese guards had left the ship immediately after the attack using most of the lifeboats. Four days later, USS Pampanito (SS-383) found two men on a makeshift raft. Pampanito's log recorded: 1634 Hours - "The men were covered with oil and filth and we could not make them out.... They were shouting but we couldn't understand what they were saying, except made out words 'Pick us up please.' Called rescue party on deck and took them off the raft. There were about fifteen (15) British and Australian Prisoner of War survivors on this raft from a ship sunk the night of September 11-12 1944. We learned they were enroute from Singapore to Formosa and that there were over thirteen hundred on the sunken ship." Pampanito rescued as many as she could and radioed for help. Queenfish and USS Barb (SS-220) arrived at 0530 Hours on September 17th to begin their search for rafts among the floating debris. Just after 1300 they located several rafts and began to pick up the few men still alive. They only had a few hours to search before a typhoon moved in, sealing the fate of those survivors not picked up in time. Before the storm hit, Queenfish found 18 men, and Barb found 14. The boats headed on to Saipan after a final search following the storm revealed no further survivors. Of the 1,318 POWs on the Rakuyo Maru sunk by Sealion, 159 had been rescued by the four submarines: 73 on Pampanito, 54 on Sealion, and the 32 found by Queenfish and Barb. It was later learned that the Japanese had rescued 136 for a total of 295 survivors. 

Source:

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1040

Small Boat Rescues Sailor from USS West Virginia (BB-48)

Image size: 1600 x 1274 pixel. 509 KB
Date: Sunday, 7 December 1941
Place: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, United States
Photographer: Unknown

Sailors in a motor launch rescue a survivor from the water alongside the sunken USS West Virginia (BB-48) during or shortly after the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor. USS Tennessee (BB-43) is inboard of the sunken battleship. Note extensive distortion of West Virginia's lower midships superstructure, caused by torpedoes that exploded below that location. Also note 5"/25 gun, still partially covered with canvas, boat crane swung outboard and empty boat cradles near the smokestacks, and base of radar antenna atop West Virginia's foremast. 106 sailors from USS West Virginia died in the attack. Later examination revealed that West Virginia had taken not five, but six, torpedo hits. With a patch over the damaged area of her hull, the battleship was pumped out and ultimately refloated on May 17, 1942. Docked in Drydock Number One on 9 June, West Virginia again came under scrutiny, and it was discovered that there had been not six, but seven torpedo hits. During the ensuing repairs, workers located 70 bodies of West Virginia sailors who had been trapped below when the ship sank. In one compartment, a calendar was found, the last scratch-off date being December 23! The task confronting the nucleus crew and shipyard workers was a monumental one, so great was the damage on the battleship's port side. Ultimately, however, West Virginia departed Pearl Harbor for the west coast and a complete rebuilding at the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton, Washington.

Source:

NARA (National Archives) Identifier: 306532

http://www.archives.gov/legislative/guide/house/chapter-23-joint-pearl-harbor-attack.html

http://www.worldwar2database.com/gallery3/index.php/wwii1012