One of the longest standing bits of USCG lore was that the sea service chalked up the only U-boat victory ever in the Gulf of Mexico when on 1 Aug, 1942, Coast Guard Grumman J4F-1 Widgeon, No.V-212, piloted by Chief Aviation Pilot Henry Clark White, Coast Guard Aviator No. 115, along with crewman RM1c George Henderson Boggs, Jr., were patrolling about 100 miles south of the air base at Houma, Louisiana, at an altitude of 1,500 feet. They spotted a U-boat on the surface and immediately dove on the target. The U-boat crash dived but at just 250 feet, White released all of his ordnance, a single depth charge into the dark Gulf water below. Afterward the crew saw a slick on the surface and reported the attack on RTB.
Well after the war, the Navy awarded the kill, that of U-166 commanded by one Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Gunther Kuhlmann, which went missing about that time with her entire 52 man crew according to German records. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Boggs was awarded the Air Medal.
Grumman J4F-1, No.V212 of the United States Coast Guard preserved at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola, Florida
Well, it turned out that in 2001, U-166 was found– right next to her last victim, the SS Robert E Lee which she sank on 30 July, 1941– the day *before* White and co bombed their credited submarine.
You see, in the end, the Navy realized that a little 173-foot subchaser, PC-566, which was escorting the Lee and attacked a periscope it saw directly after her charge was sent to the bottom, were in fact responsible for scratching the unterseeboot in question.
The craft, one of the 343 (not a misprint) PC-461-class submarine chasers built between 1941-44, was a light 450-ton ship who, powered by a pair of diesels, could barely break 20-knots, but they were built to escort much slower merchantmen such as the Lee. Armed with a single 3″/50 a 40mm gun mount, 3 20mm guns, and depth charges, they were built to bring the pain to German and Japanese subs. Manned by a 65-man crew PC-566 was commanded by LCDR Herbert Gordon Claudius, USNR, on that fateful day.
That’s 173-feet of sub-killer right there. Photo from The Ted Stone Collection, Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA via Navsource
Now, long after Commander Claudius has left us and PC-566 was scrapped (in 1978, after being transferred to Venezuela in 1961), SECNAV Ray Mabus, with CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert in tow, posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit with combat “V” to the patrol coastal skipper and set the record straight last month.
Oh and White’s attack? According to records by the Germans, another boat, U-171, was attacked but survived by a flying boat in the Gulf around that time and location. So yes, the Coasties did attack a German sub, but it was the Navy, in the end, that brought down U-166.
And Herbert Gordon Claudius, Jr. has the medal to prove it.
