McCabe, Assistant Steward William John,
Merchant Navy, died aged 26 years in the sinking of the S.S. Bengore
Head (Belfast). He was the son of James and Susan McCabe. The couple,
James McCabe, a 21-year-old groom, then of Fortwilliam Park, Belfast,
had married 18-year-old Susan Coburn, daughter of sailor Thomas and then
of 8, Canning Street, Belfast, in St. Anne’s, Belfast on the 13 April
1893. He was the husband of Margaret McCabe, of Broughshane, Co. Antrim.
He is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial.
James
and Susan indicated on the 1911 census return that they had had eight
children and that six were still alive at that date. Those who can be
traced – Sarah Coburn (20 September 1904), Meta (Martha Maria, born 19
August 1906) and Andrew (born 30 Nov 1909) - were born in Islandmagee,
and the absent records of others may indicate that they were born
outside Ireland. Other children names in the census returns of 1901 and
1911 are Hunter, James, Louie, Sylvia and Thomas J.
SS
Bengore Head IV was launched by Irvine's Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.
Ltd. in West Hartlepool in 1922 and was torpedoed and lost on the 9th
May 1941, William McCabe being the only crew member to perish,
apparently from shock and the exhaustion of being in the sea. The
master, 35 crew members and four gunners on the armed merchantman were
rescued. Sixteen were taken by the Norwegian merchantman Borgfred and
landed at Sydney on 18 May. The remaining twenty-four survivors were by
transported by HMS Aubretia to Reykjavik.
SS
Bengore Head IV was one of the ships in convoy OB-318, a west-bound
convoy of 38 ships that sailed from Liverpool on 2 May 1941 and was
bound for ports in North America. At 11.58 hours on 9 May 1941, U-110,
one of a group of U-boats operating in the area, attacked convoy OB-318
east of Cape Farewell, Greenland and sank Bengore Head and Esmond.
U-110
had departed Lorient on 15 April 1941, and she sank merchantman Henri
Mory on the 27th April about 380 miles west northwest of Blasket
Islands, Ireland, before heading out in the deeper ocean. She was soon
part of a group hunting the ships of convoy OB-318 east of Cape
Farewell, Greenland. She successfully attacked and sank Esmond and
Bengore Head, but the escort vessels responded. The British corvette,
HMS Aubrietia, located the U-boat with ASDIC (sonar). Aubrietia and
British destroyer Broadway then proceeded to drop depth charges, forcing
U-110 to surface. What happened then became Operation Primrose, 9 May
1941.
U-110 survived
the attack, but was seriously damaged. HMS Bulldog and Broadway remained
in contact after Aubrietia's attack. Broadway changed course to ram the
damaged submarine, but instead fired two depth charges beneath the
U-boat; her intent was to make the crew abandon vessel before scuttling
her. Lemp, U-110’s commander, did order "Abandon ship", but as the crew
scrambled onto the U-boat's deck they came under fire from two attacking
destroyers Bulldog and Broadway and there were casualties. The British
believed the crew were trying to use their deck gun. They ceased fire
when they realised that the U-boat was being abandoned and the crew
wanted to surrender.
Lemp
then realised that U-110 was not sinking and attempted to swim back to
it to destroy the secret code books and other sensitive material. He
died, a German sailor saying he was shot in the water by a British
sailor. Fifteen men, including Lemp, were killed in the action, and 32
were captured, fated to become POWs in Canada.
Bulldog's
boarding party, led by sub-lieutenant David Balme, got onto U-110 and
stripped it of everything portable, including her Kurzsignale code book
and the vessel’s Enigma machine, the latter retrieved by William Stewart
Pollock, a former radio operator in the Royal Navy and on loan to HMS
Bulldog. The documents captured from U-110 helped Bletchley Park
codebreakers solve Reservehandverfahren, a reserve German hand cipher.
U-110 was taken in tow back toward Britain, but sank en route to Scapa
Flow. Some say she was deliberately sunk to keep the Nazis from finding
out that their codes and Enigma machine had been compromised. U-110's
capture, later given the code name "Operation Primrose", was one of the
biggest secrets of the war, remaining so for seven months. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt was only told of the capture by Winston Churchill
in January 1942. It was sad that William George McCabe did not survive
to know the momentous events of that day.
U-571,
a film inspired by the capture of U-110, saw Hollywood use American
characters instead of British seamen in their recounting of the tale.
They depicted a German submarine boarded by disguised American
submariners in an effort to capture their Enigma cipher machine.