Another tale from Maine’s U-boat file

After cranking out a column based on a recently republished book about the Hancock Point incident of November 1944, written by one of the two German agents put ashore via U-boat in the late stages of World War II to spy on the American armaments industry, I heard from Hugh Dwelley, a former resident of Islesford on Little Cranberry Island.

Dwelley, of Fairfax, Va., is president of the Islesford Historical Society. He offered to send me a report he had compiled for the historical society about the alleged shooting down of the United States Navy coastal patrol blimp K-14 by a German U-boat near Mount Desert Rock on the night of July 2, 1944.

“The Navy said – and still says – that it was ‘pilot error.’ However, I know better,” Dwelley wrote, via e-mail. “The blimp was salvaged in Bunker’s Cove in front of my grandfather’s hotel on Islesford. We watched them take the bag to the Coast Guard station at Southwest Harbor, where it was found to be riddled with bullet holes. My stepfather saw a sub on the surface the night before, and firing was heard on the night of July 2. It would be very interesting to learn the German side of this story…”

Dwelley’s illustrated booklet, “Footnote to History: Salvage of the USN Blimp K-14,” arrived this week, and a fascinating tale it is. (A check for $4 to the Islesford Historical Society, Islesford 04646 will get you a copy.)

At midnight on June 30, 1944, Dwelley’s stepfather, Capt. Francis Fernald, pulled his 32-foot lobster boat “Wormwood” from the Little Cranberry Island dock, bound for his favorite haking grounds 12 miles southwest of Baker Island.

At 1:30 a.m., on a course toward the Mount Desert Rock light, he spotted a dark shape approximately a quarter-mile of his port bow. “He altered course a little to starboard – but not too sharply – just to keep his distance,” Dwelley wrote. “He felt sure it was a sub, but friend or foe he didn’t know. Best to pretend he hadn’t seen it, and hope its captain would do the same…”

Fernald continued on, set his trawls at sunrise, hauled a decent catch and returned home, disregarding his wife’s suggestion to report the sub sighting to the Coast Guard. Two days later, the captain of the Islesford Coast Guard Station was notified of possible submarine sightings near Mount Desert Rock and sent a patrol to investigate. Boat commander Calvin Alley reported seeing the blimp overhead, toward Mount Desert Rock. No sub was spotted and the patrol returned to shore. Come daybreak, one of Alley’s men told him, “We’ve got to go out again – that blimp has been shot down!”

They spotted the wrecked blimp “looking like a big bag in the water” about six miles northeast of The Rock. Six of its 11-man crew were dead. The other five, clinging to the wreckage, were rescued by the Bar Harbor-based patrol boat “Patriot.” One of the five died on the way in.

That same day, Capt. Merrill “Boots” Stanley from neighboring Great Cranberry Island returned from trawling to tell of hearing gunfire “off towards The Rock” during the previous night. Later, numerous bullet holes were found in the blimp’s fabric when it was inspected at Southwest Harbor. Local fishermen, as well as the Bar Harbor naval station commander and rescue personnel were convinced that after a destroyer escort had left the blimp to attend to another matter elsewhere the blimp had engaged in a running gun battle with an enemy U-boat – perhaps the one Capt. Fernald had seen – and had been shot down. A diver said part of the blimp’s gondola appeared to have been shot off, and the gondola floor was littererd with spent 50-cal. machine gun shells. As well, two depth charges carried by the blimp were missing, apparently having been released by the crew.

However, none of the surviving crew – quite possibly sworn to secrecy – testified to a battle, and a Navy court of inquiry quickly found that “pilot error” was to blame. Dwelley says the blimp’s pilot reportedly told an independent investigator in 1995 that the incident was still “just too painful to discuss,” cryptically adding, “I am sure the Navy had a reason for doing what it did…”

Folks around the Cranberry Isles never bought the “pilot error” line in 1944 and they’re not buying it today. In Dwelley’s dreams, he miraculously locates an aging German submariner to provide the “smoking gun” – a first-person account of what really happened that long-ago night near The Rock.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.