Even after the Allies had taken the whole Normandy coast, the Germans clung to the offshore Channel Islands of Jersey, Alderney, Guernsey, and Sark. On Jersey, they maintained a base for small craft which made annoying nightly sorties.
To seal off the Jersey base, the Navy ordered PT Squadrons Thirty and Thirty-four to patrol nightly from Cherbourg to the Channel Islands in the company of a destroyer escort for backstop firepower and for radar scouting.
ENGLISH CHANNEL
NETHERLANDS BELGIUM FRANCE PT 509 SUNK BY MINESWEEPER PTs 510 and 521 “BOMBARD” FORTS RICH SUNK BY MINES
On the night between August 8th and 9th, the Maloy and five PTs were patrolling west of Jersey. The weather was good all night, but shortly before dawn a thick fog settled over the sea. At 5:30 A.M. the radar watch on the Maloy picked up six German minesweepers.
Lieut. H. J. Sherertz, as the officer in tactical command of the PT patrol, was riding Maloy to use its superior radar. He dispatched three PTs from the northern end of the scouting line to attack the Germans. The skipper of PT 500, one of the north scout group, was Lieut. Douglas Kennedy, now editor of True magazine. Blinded by the peasouper, the PTs fired torpedoes by radar, but missed.
Thirty minutes later, Lieut. Sherertz vectored the southern pair of torpedo boats to the attack. The 508 and 509 approached the firing line through the fog at almost 50 knots. Lieut. Harry M. Crist, a veteran of many PT battles in Pacific waters and skipper of 509, risked one fish by radar aim from 500 yards. Lieut. Whorton (the officer who had tried in vain to save the armless sailor of the Rich) couldn’t fire, because his radar conked out at the critical moment, so the PTs circled and Lieut. Crist conned the 508 by radio. The boats fired but missed.
As they came about to circle again, Whorton reported that he heard heavy firing break out between the other PT and a minesweeper, but he couldn’t shoot because his buddies were between him and the Germans. Whorton lost the 509 in the swirling fog, and when he came around again, everybody had disappeared. He searched almost an hour and returned to the Maloy on orders of Lieut. Sherertz, because his burned-out radar made his search ineffective.
The 503 and the 507 took up the search for their missing comrades. At 8 A.M. they picked up a radar target in the St. Helier roadstead at Jersey, and closed to 200 yards. The fog lifted briefly and unveiled a minesweeper dead ahead and on a collision course. The 503 fired a torpedo, and both boats raked the enemy’s decks, but suffered hard punishment themselves from the enemy’s return fire. Before the boats escaped from the enemy waters, two PT sailors were killed and four wounded on 503, and one wounded on 507.