I recall when I wasn't much more than a teenager my parents tell of their WWII era experiences. It was actually just before the war when they started dating although they had known each other in ‘the neighborhood’ most of their young lives. The neighborhood was Brooklyn.

The USS Ranger, a 14,500-ton aircraft carrier, was built at Newport News, Virginia, and commissioned in June 1934. She made a shakedown cruise to South America prior to transferring to the Pacific in early 1935. Ranger returned to the Atlantic in 1939. Too small and slow for Pacific combat, she remained in the Atlantic for most of the rest of her service. Ranger took part in Neutrality Patrols after war broke out in Europe in September 1939, with these operations becoming increasingly intense during 1941.

My father, an Airman Electricians Mate, was part of the crew when the Germans announced in a broadcast radio address, “"Achtung! Achtung! We are proud to announce that a German submarine has sunk the United States aircraft carrier Ranger in the North Atlantic!"

On April 25, 1943, U-boat commander Otto Von Bulow reported sinking the USS Ranger. The problem, for Von Bulow and Germany, was that the USS Ranger was neither attacked nor sunk by Von Bulow.

Following this broadcast, German news releases reported that Commander Otto Von Bulow of the U-Boat U-404, personally decorated by Adolf Hitler with Oak Leaves to the Knights Cross, had "in addition to torpedoing four steamers, caught and sank the American aircraft carrier Ranger."

The US Navy, concerned about the impact of the German announcement on families of Ranger crewmen, issued a denial of the German claim. No corrections were made in the German press. Torpedo 4 pilot John Palmer (flying a plane from the Ranger), taken prisoner after being shot down during a mission, stated after the war: "As a POW I was taken to Stalag Luft Three. I was the only Navy guy in this camp, and the other prisoners thought I was a German plant because they had seen the German news account of the sinking of the Ranger. Of course, I told them that I was off the Ranger, and they didn't believe me. They believed the newspaper."

German records later indicated U-Boat 404, commanded by Otto Von Bulow, attacked the British carrier HMS Bitter and not the USS Ranger. The U-Boat fired two FAT and two G7e torpedoes at the British carrier. All torpedoes detonated some distance away from the British warship.



U-boat 404 was sunk three months later (July 28, 1943) by depth charges from US and British forces. All 50 crewman were killed. Von Bulow, who was reassigned after the Ranger ‘sinking’, survived the war. Captain Gordon Rowe, Skipper of the Ranger, was interviewed about the German report of the sinking of the Ranger along the Norwegian coast. In the radio broadcast dated February 15, 1944, Captain Rowe stated: "The story that we were sunk was a cowards trick--spreading anxiety and fear among the innocent.... The next day we issued a denial and ... on October 4 we spread panic and chaos in the Norwegian shipping lanes. Only one thing we regret. We kept looking for the Tirpitz but either she would not or could not come out.... Meanwhile the Ranger, still very much afloat, is doing her job."

Captain Gordon Rowe, (Photo shown below) Commander of the USS Ranger, holds up a photo of Lt Otto Von Bulow after he was decorated by Hitler for sinking the Ranger.

Information compiled from various sources. For more information & COMPLETE HISTORY on the USS RANGER, past and present check out these sights. (It's interesting to note that the first US warship Ranger was captained by John Paul Jones who is remembered historically for shouting to his mates as the British were unceremoniously tearing him up in a sea battle "Don't give up the ship!" )

THE SINKING OF THE USS RANGER

USS RANGER HISTORY

USS RANGER MUSEUM

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