"Scratch One Hearse!"

At 3 a.m. one morning last month, the raucous bell-and-siren summons to General Quarters routed officers & men of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer from their bunks to battle stations. In the distance a huge Atlantic convoy, Europe-bound, was silhouetted in a streak of silvery light. Somewhere in darkness was an enemy submarine. Aboard the Spencer was TIME Correspondent William Walton, whose account of what followed was released by the Navy this week: The seconds dragging by seemed an age. "Jesus, why don't we do something?" muttered a gunner's mate. Nothing but dark waves could be seen ahead. The tension grew. A man with headphones relayed an order to the starboard 3-in. gun: "Load a star shell."

"He's submerging," whispered Headphones.

"Son of a bitch," said the gunner's mate. "We won't get to fire."

Another order from the bridge: "Stand by K guns! Ready! Fire!"

The squat little guns on either side of the quarter-deck sent TNT-laden depth charges hurtling into the dark sea. Then another burst, and another. The ship's stern bucked like a blooded stallion. From the sea came a lightning flash and muffled thunder, then the water fountained. The next and the next charges were deeper, making the sea boil and rumble.

The order came to "secure." It was over for the moment. Results: uncertain. If the submarine had not been hit, he would certainly radio the convoy's position to other U-boats. More action could be expected soon.

At 7 o'clock, in the dazzling morning light, the same pattern of action was repeated. Results: again uncertain; but the enemy was still near. No one slept much.

The Enemy. At 11 o'clock, it came again. The deck plates rattled as a pattern of depth charges thundered in the Spencer's wake. But the tension was less than during the attack in darkness. Daylight seldom yields much in the battle against submarines. In their sea-stained zipper jackets and dungarees, Coast Guardsmen joked and talked about their next shore leave.

Then, without warning, a shout came: "Submarine breaking water off the port quarter!"

For a split second every eye turned toward that quarter, unbelieving. Then we saw it: a long grey U-boat not more than 600 yards away, deck awash, conning tower, guns and even men plain to the naked eye. It was moving slowly: it had evidently been hurt by depth charges.

On the Spencer, first into action was the forward 3-in. gun. A splash foamed beyond the submarine. Another was closer. The port 3-incher roared. Big 5-in. guns fore & aft plowed furrows of water near the U-boat. The air reeked of cordite fumes. Black dust and smoke settled over the Spencer's decks and hung in the air. Stocky, gruff Captain Harold Sloop Berdine kept his ship on a course that gave the gunners a maximum chance.

Now the guns blasted regularly, closer to the target, now directly on it. Aboard the Spencer, after the first wild confusion, there was order, but out in the blinding sunlight and on the glittering blue water there was death. Chattering 20-mms. sent tracer patterns curving into the slowly moving submarine. On the sub's decks a few figures still moved in the storm.

The Kill. The Spencer was turning. The port guns ceased. The sub was dead ahead, so close it could be rammed. But there was no need to ram when it could be smashed with gunfire. The starboard guns took up the battle, blazing at close range. The U-boat's conning tower by now was badly smashed. A lone man, his back toward the Spencer, clung desperately to the conning tower as though being crucified. A shell hit him squarely in the back. He crumpled, slumping down over two other corpses on the narrow deck.

The submarine, crippled, was still dangerous, and its deck guns were firing. On the Spencer's bridge a radioman dropped, clutching his belly. The ship's starboard davit had been smashed by a shell that sprayed fragments of steel over bridge, starboard passage and deck. Two men fell headlong in the passage, others reeled back from their posts.

"I'm bad hit," gasped the radioman, Julius Petrella. "Gimme something quick." As they picked him up gently, a warm, thick gush spilled from his back and darkly stained the deck. In his eyes was the hurt surprise of a man looking into unexpected death (it came within the hour). Hastily the sick bay was emptied of regular patients for the wounded.

As the Spencer passed beyond the submarine, firing slackened. A patch of water was alive with struggling figures, black dots surrounded by bright orange life-jackets, bobbing and pitching in the waves. The sub's conning tower was dented and broken. No life could be seen aboard. Waves washed over her decks. She was done.

"Cease firing!" came a hoarse command from the bridge.

Reluctantly the gun crews halted. For a moment they looked at one another, then broke into a frenzied shout. Gunners clapped junior officers on the back, ammunition passers jumped up & down waving their arms.

"Now who says the Coast Guard only guards the coast?" screamed a red-faced, grimy gun-pointer.

Smeared with grease and smoke, they celebrated, forgetting for a moment the days and months of bitter cold, the towering waves, the torturous nights of hunting submarines in all weather, hunting an enemy that seldom could be seen and even more seldom struck squarely. This was victory, and they shouted.

To nearby ships went a victory message: "Scratch one hearse! Scratch one hearse!" (In Navyese, a U-boat is a hearse.) As an afterthought, the message added: "Pallbearers in the water!"

The Rescue. Germans in lifejackets floated near. One moaned. Another, his officer's cap no longer jaunty, raised dripping hands in supplication. As the ship passed the officer, an exuberant seaman who had fought such enemies for 14 months leaned over the rail and shouted: "Ya, ya, ya, now who's the supermen!"

From Captain Berdine came an order to pick up survivors. Latticed cargo nets were slung over the stern sides. Single lifelines dangled from the forward decks. Several bobbing Germans drifted within range, shouting "Kamerad! Kamerad!" A few hundred yards away the U-boat rocked and rolled, waves washing higher & higher over its knife-slim deck. She began to settle by the stern.

Now she tilted suddenly. For a moment the sharp bow pointed a long finger toward the sky, then vanished. One of Hitler's Atlantic Fleet had sunk at 12:37 p.m., little more than an hour after she surfaced.

White-knuckled Nazis, ignoring their ship' last moment, were clinging to the Spencer's ropes. The first taken aboard flopped on the deck, shivering uncontrollably in his wet clothes. Another merely clung to a line, moaning and making no effort to help himself. "Hold your water, bub, we'll save you," said a seaman, as he was lowered over the side to give a hand. From either side desolate, streaming figures were fished from the water. One gasped a weak "Heil Hitler" and an angry seaman threatened him with an oar. Wet, exhausted, stripped of their sodden clothes, they were given thick, white blankets stamped U.S.N. Soon mess stewards were passing hot coffee to Americans and Germans alike.

The Prisoners. Next day six German officers paced the wet, misty quarter-deck while armed guards stood by. All six were over 5 ft. 8, sturdily built, healthy-looking without any trace of the fatigue or pallor that comes from malnutrition or too lengthy duty on submarines. The U-boat's captain had been killed, so the executive officer had become their commander. He marched first in line on their daily turns around the quarterdeck. Whatever the leader did, the rest did. When they halted in the lee of a gun shelter to light cigarets, he got the first match. Yesterday he had been sullen and silent. Today he spoke English.

"You must pardon my English. You see, I have not used it for some three years," he said with a half-smile. He was about 40, rather wrinkled and weather-beaten for his age, and his face was hard and stern except when the half-smile played briefly. His name was Moeller.

"You Americans do not understand Germany," he said. "You should visit our cities after the war. Then you would know. We just want a little room, a little sunshine, that is all."

He was asked about food and living conditions inside Europe. Moeller suddenly forgot how to speak English.

For the Spencer. On the ship's bulletin board appeared a message from the Commander in Chief of the Western Approaches, Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton, R.N., addressed to the officers and enlisted men of the Coast Guard Cutter Spencer:

"Well done."

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