April 24, 1943 – Iceland

Hallicrafters and a host of other suppliers were involved in the project and like any complex project the April fifteen delivery date for the direction finding system had slipped twice. The site, the one thing they thought would be the last thing done was ready. The Quonset huts were assembled, the antenna towers erected, mess halls were in place and the men to operate and maintain the equipment were on site but the listening post was still off-line. Most of the equipment was already in the racks but there were some obvious holes in the racks, some of the equipment had not arrived. One of the missing components was a frequency standard needed to calibrate the equipment. Its special quartz crystals were made in Carlisle Pennsylvania, transported to St. Louis for assembly in a temperature controlled oven then the oven was taken to Boston for final assembly in the oscillator. It was assembled and on the dock for shipment when the German U-boats raided the Boston harbor. The unit was destroyed. The manufacturers estimated the replacement unit would not be available for two months. Several other components were likewise not available. What the military procurement people had missed when they signed the increase in the quantity of the units was the note that the military would be responsible for ordering all equipment not assembled by Hallicrafters. One of these items was the Lock Frequency Standard. Only three were produced, all were in the same carton on the dock. There were no spares.

April 26, 1943

Bert Wallis of Standard Piezo at Carlisle Pennsylvania was surprised to see several men in uniform in the outer office. They were expecting no visitors. He walked out of his office to see what they wanted.

The ranking officer was a Full Colonel. He was accompanied by three captains and four lieutenants. They were from Ft. Indiantowne Gap, they wore side-arms and several platoons of armed men were already deployed outside the building. The Colonel handed Bert a piece of paper. It declared that the plant was under military control and the Colonel had authority to commandeer any equipment and persons necessary to carry out his mission. Anyone who refused to carry out his orders would be arrested. He had authority to use deadly force to carry out his mission. It was simple. The Colonel would not leave the facility until they produced a half dozen of the critical crystals and they were on their way to the customer by diverse routes and by three couriers. They were never to risk more than one third of the units by having them in the same place.

The Colonel asked for a list of the production steps, the names of who would be needed to perform them and any materials needed. Bert was ordered to expedite the function under penalty of a charge of obstructing the war effort. The people involved in the production were informed that failure to come to work would result in their arrest.

April 28, 1943 – 3:43 PM

Nobody thought the crystals could be made in the time allotted but they were finished in two days. The Colonel and one Captain personally followed the units through the plant leaving them only twice to catch some sleep while the other two Captains guarded them. Everyone noticed that all of the officers wore side arms and the Colonel never snapped the holster. Bert had been told to start twelve units, the expected yield would be ten good units. The military would buy any or all of the units that passed inspection. The actual yield was twelve, there were no rejects. Bert smiled. Because of the critical nature these were priced so that the twelve would produce revenue of over 300 usual units.

Four of the completed crystals were given to each of the three captains in brief cases chained to their wrists. What Bert had not known was that each critical component of the frequency standard had been given the same intense consideration. Each of the men with the crystals were assigned three soldiers and they were sent to St. Louis by different routes. One courier flew, the other two took surface routes.

May 1, 1943 – 11:22 AM

Four completed Lock Frequency Standard units were ready for shipment to Iceland. Two were put on separate planes, to be flown there. When the first unit arrived it was installed. The first listening post was complete, it went on line at 0204 on May 3. It would take some time to calibrate the unit to make its information valuable. That calibration would be carried out by having ships at sea make short transmissions from known points and comparing the data with the estimates from the site. The listening posts were manned and contacts were reported. Until the contacts were verifiable the data would not be passed to the British.

May 14, 1943 Western Iceland – 2345 hours

Bill Jarvis was at one of the twenty five listening posts in the center. A light flashed on the screen and the recorder started. He looked at the meters on the three receivers. He checked the recording needles on the meters and recorded the numbers. He then looked up at the three Cathode Ray Tubes mounted above the receivers. He switched the ranges on so the bar was on the screen as it scrolled. He recorded the three lengths and the range settings. He pressed a button that called the LT. He would take the numbers and they would work out a position using the strengths of the signals and one using the time differential between the receipt of signal on three antennas located in a precise row, a mile apart. The combination of the angles and the time differential would make up a set of triangles that would pinpoint the spot in the ocean that the transmitter occupied. This was the first contact since the unit came on line about twenty minutes earlier.

May 15, 1943 British Naval Headquarters – 0320 hours

The new listening station in Iceland had reported six U-boat contacts in the last three hours. At first they thought the contacts were from the same boat, the contacts were in a circle a little over sixty miles in diameter but the radio interpreters listened to the recordings. There were definitely five boats, most likely six, close together. What Bill Jarvis, the Lt., the radio interpreters and the plotters did not know but the grim men in British Headquarters knew was the significance of the location of that group of submarines. A very large convoy of ships was even now approaching that location. Convoys kept radio silence so at any given time their location was an estimate based on “dead reckoning” information, when they left, their estimated speed and planned course. Given the uncertainty of the convoy’s location and the possibility of error of U-boat’s locations, the convoy and the U-boats would meet in the Atlantic within hours, in fact, it could be as soon as noon or as long as midnight. Unless something was done, six U-boats, nearly 150 torpedoes and six deck guns were headed for that convoy. The convoy was headed for a disaster.

The men, ships and supplies in that convoy were priceless. There was only one thing to do, have it turn 70 degrees south till about 1600 and hope the U-boats were not already shadowing it. The U-boats would hopefully not know of the course change and would continue on course till sometime after that time, by then they would be too far north for an attack within the next twenty four hours. They would have a long run to the south to find the convoy. Maybe by then it could be too far to the east. One possibility existed for a respite for the convoy, an attack on the wolf pack by some force, but there were no ships within range. The convoy was over eighteen hundred miles from the English coast.

May 15, 1943 B-17 Bases in Northern England – 0500 hours

Everyone was turned out at 0430, the men were grumbling, they had flown the day before and everyone expected to have the day off. They were tired, flying a long high altitude mission was hard on the body, they needed at least one day of rest. The armors were given orders to load each of the planes with 40 – 100 pound bombs. They would be carrying a minimum of machine gun bullets and the waist and top gunners were being left behind. Many thought this might be a suicide mission, without the waist gunners, the bomber’s defenses were definitely weakened. The maintenance men were told to load the planes with the maximum fuel, based on a bomb load of 4000 pounds and the reduced personnel and ammunition. In this configuration a B-17 could fly a very long mission. The crews knew they were in for a really bad day.

The pilots were briefed, they would be flying east, looking for U-boats, hoping to find them on the surface. At least they would not be facing German fighters. The planes would be split into flights of 15 that would take off every hour starting at 0600, each accompanied by a British patrol plane. This would place the first of them in the area near the U-boats at just about 1500 hours. If the U-boats were sighted they would attack. If not they would stay in the area as long as possible searching, then turn for home.

The briefing and the arming were completed, then the word came to hold the takeoffs. Nobody knew why yet, nor would they know. The reason could not be given to them without compromising the source of the intelligence. All they could be told was that they were being held on the ground for now. The crews were advised to get some sleep but stay with their aircraft.