Sea Stories of the USS Eberle DD430
I have a sea story. While passing through Cape Hatteris in 1943, on our way to the Carribean to sweep for German subs in the area of Trinadad,the Ericsson DD440, Livermore DD429 and Eberle encountered a severe storm (must have been on the edge of a hurricane) about 2300. It was dark, large waves,high winds and a lot of tossing around ( the eberle laid over 72 degrees once). The ship ahead lost a man overboard and with the help of search lights the Eberle made an attempt to rescue him. Our skipper did a great job of bringing the ship around for the rescue. A big armed boatswains mate got hold of him but was unable to hold on to him. He drifted aft and was washed aboard our fan tail. He was wearing a Mae West life jacket. Lucky guy In the Carribean six destroyers lined up to make a sweep, when a german sub surfaced ( must of thought we were a convoy and would have easy pickings). He then made a crash dive and turned in front of us. We then dropped a pattern of depth charges on him. We did not brake formation but were informed later that we sunk it. Ernest Schmidt |