80 Years ago today: Attack on the Type VIIC German submarine, U-134 (Kptlt. Hans-Günther Brosin), by a PBM Mariner of the “Flying Tigers” of VP-201, lat 27-04W, Long 59-48W, the pilot was LT John T. Hitchcock– a gunfighter’s name– in incident #3658, on 8 July 1943.
U.S. Navy photo in the National Archives. 80-G-205264
The U-boat survived this attack, along with three others on 18 and 19 July and 21 August. U-134 notably knocked USN Blimp K-74 (Sqdn ZP 21) from the sky on the 18 July encounter– the only airship shot down during WWII.
U-134 finally met her match on 27 August 1943 in the Bay of Biscay north of Cape Ortegal, in position 44.03N, 08.05W, by depth charges from the British frigate HMS Rother. (Axel Niestlé & Eric Zimmerman, July 2004).
All hands were lost, with Brosin and his 47 tough-to-kill members of the Ubootwaffe, still on patrol.
The pilot of the lumbering flying boat in the image above, LT Hitchcock, would become an anthropologist and college professor of some note after the war, hanging up his guns so to speak.
As for VP-201, it was redesignated VPB-201 on 1 October 1944, then on 15 May 1946 to VP-MS-1, then to VP-ML-8 the next year when they converted to the new P2V Neptune, and finally Patrol Squadron (VP) 8 on 1 September 1948, later becoming the first squadron to field the P-3 Orion. The Flying Tigers are still around, based at Jacksonville as part of AIRLANT. These days they fly the P-8A Poseidon.