ABSTRACT
Deeper insight into Operation Teardrop must begin with the U-boat Command's actual intentions in launching its last major venture in the North Atlantic, which proved the effective trigger for the Allied operation. OperationTeardrop, formulated at CinCLant headquarters in New York early in January 1945, had its genesis in a mounting accumulation of Allied intelligence reports which indicated that U-boats had been observed at German naval bases mounting what appeared to be rocket launchers. In completing their reports on OperationTeardrop, American task force and escort group commanders opened an illuminating critique on that unprecedented venture. Successful as it proved in decimating "Gruppe Seewolf," the operation had been a marked disappointment for the escort carriers' airmen. The events of the Newfoundland Banks, Argentia, Fort Hunt, Portsmouth, and Boston, as yet imperfectly understood, have weighed on the memory of many participants of OperationTeardrop, most particularly the survivors of theFrederick C. Davis, U 546, and their dauntless rescuers.
