seas during another patrol and was put into port for repairs, during which Topp was promoted and replaced by a more cautious commander, Klaus Popp. Sinking of the David H. Atwater The destruction of the , in the Atlantic Ocean off Chincoteague, Virginia, was one of the more controversial actions of the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War, primarily due to the manner of the sinking. On the night of 2 April 1942, at the height of the U-boat offensive against US shipping known as the "Second Happy Time", the unarmed coastal steamer David H. Atwater was en route from Norfolk, Virginia, to Fall River, Massachusetts, with a full load of 4,000 tons of coal. Around 21:00, between Cape Charles and Cape Henlopen, the ship was ambushed by U-552, which had followed her submerged. The submarine surfaced about from the freighter and opened fire with her 88 mm deck gun and machine guns without warning, one of her first shells destroying the bridge and killing all of the officers. In all, 93 rounds were fired from the deck gun, with 50 hits being recorded on the small freighter, which rapidly began to sink. As it did so, Topp directed his crewmen to continue firing, striking the Atwaters crewmen as they tried to man the lifeboats. When Captain Webster was hit, the crew abandoned attempts to launch the lifeboats and leapt into the sea. The first ship to arrive on the scene was the small Coast Guard Patrol Boat USS CG-218, which found a lifeboat holding three survivors and three bodies; the survivors reported that they had dived overboard and swum to the boat. Next on the scene was the Coast Guard cutter , which had heard the gunfire and arrived just 15 minutes later. The Legare found a second lifeboat with a body aboard; the boat was discovered to have been riddled by gunfire, and lent strength to the widespread belief at the time that U-boats were deliberately murdering the survivors of ships they had sunk. The Legare landed the three survivors and four bodies at Chincoteague Island Coastguard Station, then returned to sea to search further. The destroyers and were directed to the scene at 21:22 and arrived at 24:00, but U-552 had by then escaped the scene, going on to sink other vessels. Whether the attack on the liferafts was deliberate, or an unfortunate and unintended consequence of