The USCGC Icarus vs Uboat U-352
Outmatched Coast Guard Cutter Sinks Deadly Submarine off NC Coast
Fighting a better armed opponent three times her size the underdog coast guard cutter Icarus fought and sank a German u-boat on the surface with no casualties.
On December 7th, 1941 the United States was thrust into World War Two with an attack on her pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor by the navy of the Empire of Japan. Adolf Hitler, who had been chomping at the bit to cut off US military aid to an embattled and alone Great Britain immediately declared war on the United States on December 11th. The tip of the Nazi spear to keep the United States crippled and on the other side of the Atlantic was the u-boat arm of the Kriegsmarine. Within weeks Operation Paukenschlag or "Operation Drumbeat” erupted on the US east coast as German u-boats slaughtered the largely unprotected shipping lanes. In an eight month period the u-boats sank 609 ships off the coastline of the United States from Maine to Texas. The only defenses during this time period were the "Bucket Brigade Convoys." These slow convoys escorted terrified merchant men from port to port along the coast. The escorts were a motley group of elderly wooden patrol boats that the navy had all but forgotten, converted yachts of the "Corsair Navy" and a handful of coast guard cutters.
One of these cutters was the USCGC Icarus (WPC-110).The small warship was an Argo class patrol cutter that was built by Bath Iron works in 1932 to fight rum runners. The cutter was 165 feet long and displaced 334 tons when fully loaded. Her diesel engines on builder’s trails propelled it forward at an economical 16 knots but could be relied on for 14. Her 75 man crew was commanded by Lt Maurice Jester, a career coastguardsman with more than twenty years service. The cutter boasted a quaint 76mm/23 caliber deck gun and a couple of machine guns before the war. This armarment was fine for firing warning shots over the bows of poachers but was inadequate for wartime service. When war broke out she was ‘up-armored’ with world war one era sound detection gear, depth charges, and a few more machine guns taken from storage and turned loose. In the waters off Cape Lookout, North Carolina on May 9, 1942 she ran into U-352 –pride of the Kriegsmarine. The U-352 was a Type VIIC u-boat and was three times the Icarus size (1070 tons full load), could make turns for 18 knots, and carried 14 torpedoes and a 88mm/45 caliber deck gun.
The Icarus made contact with the larger, faster and better armed U-352 at 1620 when it passed within 1900 meters of it. Within minutes the cutter began dropping depth charges and made a total of four attacks on the u-boat in less than an hour. At 1709 the damaged uboat surfaced and was quickly taken under fire by every weapon on the Icarus. During the battle the Icarus expended 11 depth charges, 14 shells from its 76mm deck gun, and some 350 rounds of small arms ammunition. The u-boat sank within five minutes at 34 12.5’ North and 76 35’ West in 34 meters (114 feet) of water and didn’t get off a shot in defence. The coast guard cutter switched into rescue mode and picked up 33 survivors and a body from the uboat’s 45 man crew. The next day the Icarus sailed into Charleston Harbor and turned over the Germans to the navy brig. The Icarus had sunk only the second u-boat by a US ship and was the first US unit to capture German prisoners of war in World War II.
The Icarus served the rest of the war quietly and professionally. Her sister ship, the USCGC Triton (WPC-116) was one of the nine other Coast Guard ships to sink a u-boat when she destroyed U-157 off of Key West June 13, 1942. The Icarus was retired in 1948 and sold to the Dominican Republic. There she was given the name Independencia (hull number P105, later P204). She was rearmed with a 76mm/50 gun, a 40mm bofors and three 20mm Oerlikon cannons. She saw combat during the Dominican Civil War in 1965. The old girl, built for chasing rum runners spent her retirement chasing drug runners in the Caribbean. She was still active as late as 1982 and listed on Jane’s Fighting Ships as a part of the Dominican Navy as late as 1995. She is possibly still afloat in some forgotten island port.
U-352 on the other hand, is a very popular wreck dive of the Carolina coast.
Sources
The Official USCG report on the sinking at the U-Boat Archive
Gannon, Michael Operation Paukenschlag. (Operation Drumbeat) 1998,
Sharpe, Richard Janes Fighting Ships 1995-1996
DAVID AND GOLIATH: The ICARUS And THETIS Battle German U-boats
By Dr. Robert M. Browning Jr. USCG Historical Website
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