On the morning of December 6, 1944, in cold water off Strathy Point on the north coast of Scotland, a German torpedo struck the midships of HMS *Bullen*. The escort frigate was part of the 19th Escort Group, hunting U-boats in waters where the Atlantic convoys still moved despite the war's late hour. Seventy-one men died. Ninety-seven survived. The ship had been at sea barely a year. She had been built three thousand miles away in Hingham, Massachusetts, by American shipyard workers who would never meet her crew - a small floating sample of the wartime alliance that ended on the seabed off Sutherland.
BDE-78 was laid down at Bethlehem Steel's Hingham Yard on May 17, 1943, and launched three months later on August 17. Built as a Buckley-class destroyer escort for the US Navy, she was diverted to Britain under Lend-Lease and commissioned in the Royal Navy on October 25, 1943, as HMS *Bullen* - one of dozens of American-built escort vessels that crossed the Atlantic to fight under the White Ensign. The Buckley class was 306 feet long, 37 feet in the beam, displacing 1,430 tons standard. A turbo-electric powertrain drove two electric motors and propeller shafts at up to 24 knots, with enough fuel oil for 6,000 nautical miles at cruising speed. Two hundred and twenty officers and ratings made up her crew.
Captain-class frigates - the British name for Buckley-class ships in Royal Navy service - existed to do one thing: kill U-boats. *Bullen*'s armament reflected that. Three 3-inch dual-purpose guns provided medium-caliber defense. Twin 40 mm Bofors and eight 20 mm Oerlikon autocannon handled aircraft. A Mark 10 Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar - 24 contact-fused projectiles fired forward of the bow - was mounted just behind the forward gun. Two depth charge rails at the stern and four K-gun throwers along the sides completed the kit. The whole vessel was a hunting platform designed for the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous campaign of the Second World War.
December 1944 found *Bullen* with the 19th Escort Group, working the approaches to the Pentland Firth and the western edges of the North Sea. The Atlantic convoys were no longer the dire affair they had been in 1942, but the U-boats had not gone away. A new generation of German submarines, the Type XXIII and the long-range Type IX boats, was still active. On December 6, U-775 - a Type VIIC commanded by Erich Taschenmacher - put a torpedo into *Bullen*'s midships northwest of Strathy Point. The ship sank. The water was near freezing; a December morning on the north coast of Sutherland is a hard place to abandon ship. Of the crew, 71 men were killed. Ninety-seven were rescued. Seventy-one. Each was someone's son, husband, brother, friend - men who had survived the Atlantic, the convoys, the long blackout nights, and died within sight of Scotland in the last winter of the war.
The wrecksite of HMS *Bullen* is designated a 'protected place' under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. The designation means the seabed where she lies is a war grave; divers may visit but must not enter or disturb the wreck. U-775, the U-boat that sank her, survived the war. She surrendered on 9 May 1945 in Trondheim, Norway, and was later sunk by gunfire on 8 December 1945 as part of Operation Deadlight. The men of HMS *Bullen* rest beneath the northern sea; the submarine that killed them was scuttled the following year in the same deliberate clearing of the Kriegsmarine's remaining fleet.
HMS Bullen's wrecksite lies at approximately 58.72°N, 4.85°W, northwest of Strathy Point on the north coast of Sutherland. The waters here are deep and cold, with the Pentland Firth's currents running strong to the east. Best viewed at 2,000-3,500 ft AGL on a clear day for the coastline of Sutherland; the wreck itself is invisible from above. Nearest ICAO airports: Wick (EGPC) about 40 nm east-southeast, Inverness (EGPE) approximately 70 nm south. The site is a protected war grave - approaches by sea or air should be respectful.