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grow longer still. Operating off first the Azores and then Dakar in Senegal, on the bulge of West Africa, U-
515’s
third cruise, like the second, had been mostly a run of bad luck, with only two merchant trophies of 10,657 GRT to show for sixty-nine days of steaming—a poor individual tonnage rate per sea-day of 154 GRT.
    The first sinking had come on the evening of 4 March while U-
515
was northwest of the Azores. On a calm sea with little wind and good visibility, Henke sighted a large freighter proceeding independently at 15 knots on a course of 050° (degrees). He advanced on the surface toward the target. What happened next he described in his war diary
(Kriegstagebuch,
hereafter
KTB):
    Double fan launch [
Fächer
] from [torpedo] Tubes II and IV. [Torpedo] speed 14 knots, range [to target] 1,200 meters. [Target’s] bows on right, bearing 80 degrees, [torpedo] depth 5 meters, running times 37 and 38 seconds. Two hits amidship and forward [but] the steamer doesn’t sink. Coup de grace
[Fangschuss]
from [stern] Tube VI, depth [set to run below the keel of the target] 9 meters, [torpedo warhead equipped] with Pi 2
[Pistole-2:
a detonator designed to be activated by the magnetic field of a ship’s steel keel], running time 36 seconds. Hit toward the stern, in the engine room—a powerful explosion. The steamer sinks slowly on an even keel, transmitswireless signal. [Another] coup de grace, this time from Tube I. Depth 10 [meters] with Pi 2, running time 25 seconds. Hit forward—great explosion. Ship goes down after about 10 minutes. It’s the
California Star
at 8,300 GRT, [which was sailing] from New Zealand to England with butter, cheese, lard, and meat. The Second Officer was taken prisoner. The Captain and First Officer probably went down with their ship. 2
    The
California Star,
which carried general cargo as well as food, was a motor ship of British registry. Fifty of her seventy-four men on board were killed, fatally wounded, or drowned. The sinking took place at latitude and longitude coordinates 42°32'N, 37°20'W. On 21 March and 1 April U-515 rendezvoused with two returning boats, U-106 (Kptlt. Hermann Rasch) and U-67 (Kptlt. Günther Müller-Stockheim), to take on fuel, provisions, and spare parts. Henke’s second success on this patrol came thirty-six days after the first, on 9 April, at night, while steaming off Dakar. This victim, the French motor ship
Bamako,
was a smallish 2,357 GRT, slightly overestimated by Henke:
    Advanced on a freighter of 3,500 GRT. Double fan launch from [stern] Tubes V and VI. [Target’s] speed 8.5 knots. [Torpedo] depths set to 3 and 4 meters. [Target’s] bows on right bearing 80 degrees. Range 800 meters. [Torpedo] running times 60 and 61 seconds. Hits fore and aft. Ship capsizes and sinks very quickly. 3
    Twenty of the ship’s thirty-seven crew and passengers went to watery graves at position 14°57'N, 17°15'W.
    The wages of war were not only bottoms and cargoes—a reminder, if one were needed by affronted humanity, that the fragile tissue of men was no equal to the violent and deadly instruments that roamed the spring Atlantic seeking whom they might devour. In that connection, it bears mention that if there has been a general fault with histories of the Atlantic war it has been their tendency to concentrate on the uniformed fighting services of sea and air, while giving scant notice to the civilian British, American, and other Allied merchant seamen who experienced the most danger of U-boat attack at sea and suffered by far the most human casualties. 4
    A summary of wartime losses in the British Merchant Navy makesthe point: about 185,000 merchant seamen served aboard freighters, tankers, and motor ships, of whom 32,952, or 17 percent, lost their lives. That was a higher casualty rate than the 9.3 percent suffered during the war by the Royal Navy, the 9 percent by the Royal Air Force, and the 6 percent by the British Army. To the merchant seamen casualties must be