Abbekerk, ON(S)122 and U-604 enter the North Atlantic.

Timezones (Source: Wikipedia)

22 August 1942. Over the next week a lot is going to happen in a short amount of time and therefore I’ll be posting daily. To be able to describe all the events well I took the liberty to stretch the time line a little bit for benefit of the readability. Besides it’s difficult to be exact time wise because multiple time zones are crossed over the next few days. On board Abbekerk the clock was (probably) reset every passing time zone which makes ‘time on board’ (ships time) the real time in place.
On board the U-boats German (summer)time was kept irrespectively of the position of the submarine. That also goes for the German war diaries (Kriegs Tagebuchen or KTB’s) found in the German archives.

Self launching rafts. Equipped with food and water and checked daily. (Source: photo book Maaskerk of Adriaan Kik

The Allied forces used UTC (GMT Greenwich) as reference time in radio messages. 

Abbekerk

The Caribbean Sea with all its islands to hide behind was the playground of the German submarines. Luckily we left the area unmolested and sailed into the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Full steam ahead and of course steering a zig-zag course. Ever since Trinidad we had doubled the lookouts. This gave us heart because we had survived the most dangerous part of the journey from Trinidad-England.
Ass engineer Adriaan Kik

U-604

U-604 is now located at her ‘hunting grounds’ approximately 600 miles North East of Abbekerk. Some fragments of her Kriegs Tagebuch (Source: uboatarchive.net):

These two fragments give some insight in the operations of a U-boat and two relevant observations regarding Abbekerks story:

1. U-604 radiotransmitter is not working. This makes it difficult for U-604 to report to HQ and participate in the wolfpack. But it also means she cannot be followed by HF/DF directionfinders and so the Allies don’t know her position, nor can they warn or re-route ships around her.
2. U-604 cannot keep up with a ship sailing 18 knots and after a two hour pursuit they lose sight of the faster ship.

ON(S)124

In the mean time, 600 miles east, 34 mostly empty merchant navy ships assemble off the west coast of England to form convoy ON(S)124 The convoys speed is only 6 knots and as it leaves has 7 escort ships. That number will be extended in the next few days. One of the escort ships is the corvette HMS Wallflower which is going to play a crucial role in the lives of Abbekerks crew.
And so, less than a week after ON(S)122, ON(S)124 also leaves for Canada. In sharp contrast to the first mentioned convoy, ON(S)124 will have a rather uneventful journey and all ships will reach their destination intact.

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