At 1943 on 31 October, 1943, Borie (DD-215) got a radar contact on the U-Boat U-256. The submarine promptly crash dived. Borie attacked three times with depth charges, at which point a large oil slick was observed. Though U-256 made it home with bad damage, Borie's skipper believed her sunk, and signaled Card: "Scratch one pig boat; am searching for more."
She found another, at 0153 hours on 1 November. She was engaged with U-405, in 15-foot seas, high winds, and poor visibility. The two vessels proceeded to have a WWII-era version of an Age of Sail battle.
At a range of 400 yards, Borie engaged with her four-inch guns and 20mm AA guns. The submarine's machine guns scored harmless hits in her forward engine room and near the bridge, but their 88mm gun's crew was wiped out by Borie's 20mms killing all exposed members of the sub's crew topside. Three four-inch shells then blew off the sun's deck gun. Borie then turned to ram, but at the last moment there was some confusion, with somebody claiming U-405 was some sort of minesweeper. As a result, she turned at the last moment, and hit at an angle instead of straight-on.
After the ramming, Borie was high-centered on top of U-405, and until they separated, the battle was decided with pistols, submachine guns, and whatever improvised weaponry could be found.
The action of the heavy seas opened seams in Borie's hull foward and flooded her forward engine room -- damage that would prove mortal. Borie was unable to depress her four-inch and three-inch guns to hit the submarines, while all of the submarine's machineguns could be brought to bear. Borie's crew had a small number of small arms, and the German deck mounts were completely open and had no protection. Fortunately for Borie, the executive officer had presented a virtually identical situation just four days earlier -- a theoretical ramming of a U-boat on the port side -- and the Borie's crew took immediate action, even before orders were given.
In the fighting that ensued, dozens of German sailors were killed in attempts to keep the machine guns manned. As each man emerged from the hatch and ran toward the guns, he was illuminated by Borie's spotlight and met by a hail of gunfire -- tommy guns, rifles, pistols, shotguns intended for riot control... And one German sailor was hit in the chest with a flare from a Very flare pistol.
U-405 had six MG42 machineguns aboard. If they were able to keep them manned, they would’ve been devastating. At a key moment in the fight, as Borie's crewmen began to run out of ammunition, two Germans ran for the MG42s. A thrown knife hit one in the abdomen and he fell overboard, and unable to bring his gun to bear, one of the four-inch gun captains threw an empty shell casing at the other in frustration, and knocked him overboard too.
Finally, the two vessels separated, with both trying to fire torpedoes at each other. 35 of the 49 crewmembers of U-405 had been killed or thrown overboard, while Borie was badly damaged. U-405 attempted to escape, but that only meant Borie's deck guns could depress low enough to hit her. Bracketed by depth charges and struck by a four-inch shell, the remaining 14 sailors of U-405 abandoned ship and took to life rafts. In fact, a third U-boat was nearby, leaving Borie no choice but to retreat.
Sadly for Borie, the damage proved mortal. While they could've rescued her with a tugboat, the nearest port was 690 miles away, and Card's battlegroup was in the centre of five reported U-boat wolfpacks. Reluctantly, at 1630, Cdr. Hutchins ordered his crew to abandon ship into the heavy seas. None of Borie's crewmen had been killed during the engagement, but because of severe exhaustion, high winds, and 20-foot waves, three officers and 24 men disappeared into the sea during the rescue operation. They remain on duty.
Borie was sunk on the morning of 2 November by TBF Avengers of USS Card (CVE-11).
Borie received three battle stars for her World War II service as well as the Presidential Unit Citation for her actions in the Card group. For the final battle, Borie crewmembers were awarded three Navy Cross medals, two Silver Star medals and one Legion of Merit medal.
