Convoy TM 1

{{GS|U-124|1940|2}} located HMS Godetia on 29 December 1942, escorting two tankers to join up with the main convoy. {{GS|U-514||2}} made contact with the convoy on 3 January and attacked and damaged the tanker {{MV|British Vigilance}}, forcing her crew to abandon her though the ship remained afloat. By now aware that a large tanker convoy was headed through the Atlantic, presumably to deliver supplies to the Allied armies in North Africa, Admiral Karl Dönitz, the German BdU (commander in chief of U-boats) ordered wolf pack "Dolphin" to attempt to intercept it.

{{GS|U-381||2}} made contact with the convoy on 8 January, and the wolf pack launched their first attacks that evening. {{GS|U-436||2}} attacked and sank {{SS|Oltenia II}} and damaged {{MV|Albert L. Ellsworth}}. HMS Havelock launched a counter-attack, damaging and driving off U-381, while Pimpernel and Godetia drove off {{GS|U-571||2}} and {{GS|U-575||2}} respectively.Rohwer & Hummelchen p.184 {{GS|U-522||2}} returned the following morning and attacked the convoy, damaging two tankers, {{MV|Norvik}}, and {{MV|Minister Wedel}}, while {{GS|U-442||2}} damaged Empire Lytton. {{GS|U-181||2}} and {{GS|U-134|1941|2}} attacked, but failed to hit any targets. Godetia damaged U-134 with depth charges.

{{GS|U-620||2}} kept in contact with the convoy, and in the evening of 9 January, U-522 attacked the two tankers she had damaged earlier in the morning, Norvik and Minister Wedel, and sank both of them. Meanwhile, U-442 returned to the damaged and abandoned Empire Lytton and finished her off with two torpedoes, while U-436 returned to the abandoned Albert L. Ellsworth and sank her with shells from her deck gun. {{GS|U-511||2}} came across {{MV|William Wilberforce}}, a merchant ship sailing unescorted and not part of convoy TM 1, and sank her.

The attacks resumed on the night of 10/11 January, with U-522 torpedoing {{MV|British Dominion}}. Her crew abandoned her, but the ship was only damaged and did not sink until U-620 arrived and sank her with a torpedo and gunfire. Other attacks that evening and over the next two days, by U-571 and U-511, fail to score any successes. By now the convoy was approaching Gibraltar, and the destroyer {{HMS|Quentin|G78|6}} and the corvettes {{HMS|Samphire|K128|6}} and {{HMS|Pentstemon|K61|6}} were sent out to reinforce the escorts. Supported by Allied air cover, the convoy reached Gibraltar without further loss on 14 January. Two tankers, Cliona and Vanja, survived from the original nine. The final action came on 24 January, when the abandoned hulk of British Vigilance, torpedoed by U-514 on 3 January, was discovered by {{GS|U-105|1940|2}}, and promptly sunk.

{{legend2|#e3d9ff|This along with the * indicates that the ship was sunk|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}}

{{reflist}}

• Blair, Clay Hitler's U-Boat War The Hunted 1942–1945 Random House (1998) {{ISBN|0-679-45742-9}}
• Darwin, Peter: A Day-By-Day History: World War II, 2007 {{ISBN|978-1-84999-045-5}}
• Morison, Samuel Eliot History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Volume I) The Battle of the Atlantic 1939–1943 Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1947)
• {{cite book|last1=Rohwer|first1=Jürgen|last2=Hummelchen|first2=Gerhard|title=Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945|year=1992|publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis, Maryland|isbn= 1-55750-105-X}}
• [http://uboat.net/ops/convoys/convoys.php?convoy=TM-1 U-boat.net]

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}

TM001

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