Smoke and Mirrors

by Deborah Lake

  It is too easy to forget that such transgressions regularly happened on the Western Front. A British private, tossing a Mills bomb into the middle of capitulating prisoners with the kindly instruction that they share it among themselves; a German machine-gunner, stitching bullets across a group of Tommies without weapons, running back to their own lines; a pilot shooting down an enemy with a jammed gun. Not every act observed the strict limits of the Geneva Convention.

  Warfare is a brutal and degrading business. Those who fight the wars, who slaughter with bombs, with bayonets, with torpedoes, with bullets, make compromises. Only those who have faced the situation can sit in judgement.

  The story of U 27 crackled through the closed world of the U-boat crews. In the officers’ clubs and seamen’s bars, a new word passed from mouth to mouth. The ‘beefs’ used decoys. Trapships. The word was muttered, considered, repeated. U-Boot-Falle. One must be careful. Shoot first, if need be. Ask questions afterwards.

  Herbert left Baralong to take command of the new British submarine E22. Gordon Steele went with him as the first lieutenant. Baralong acquired a new skipper and a new identity. Lieutenant Commander Arthur Wilmot-Smith, a regular officer, took command. Baralong’s name was obliterated. A new name would be decided later. In the meantime, she would sail with no indication of her previous identity. Wilmot-Smith promptly dropped the Admiralty and Foreign Office into a new squabble.

  On 23 September 1915, Kapitänleutnant Claus Hansen and U 41 despatched three freighters within twelve hours. At 0945, after checking the manifest and ordering the crew to their lifeboats, Hansen torpedoed the Sligo Steam Navigation Company’s 4,792-ton SS Anglo Columbian with its cargo of 800 horses. The boyish-faced commander used an expensive torpedo rather than an economical deck gun, for he wanted the animals to die quickly.

  At noon, the SS Chancellor, 4,586 tons, with a mixed cargo, met her end. She was one of twenty-seven ships of the Harrison Line to be lost during the war. A few hours later, as the light faded from the sky, the 3,363 tons of SS Hesione, owned by the Houston Line, crammed with motor vehicles, became the third victim. Frantic wireless messages from the three ships reached Falmouth. Baralong, now anonymous, left harbour for the scene.

  An ochre-yellow sky hung over U 41 at 0800hr the next morning. In the distance, dark blue-grey clouds raced towards the boat. Oberleutnant zur See Iwan Crompton, the U-boat’s first watch officer, the ‘Heinrich’, handed over his duties and thought of breakfast. A buzz of well-being had run through the boat as she lay on the surface the previous evening to recharge the batteries. U 41 had destroyed 12,000 tons of enemy shipping during a single day. The boat was on course for a record-breaking commission. Not that anybody in Germany knew of her successes. U 41’s wireless couldn’t transmit that far. Nor receive. Claus Hansen and his men were blissfully unaware of Berlin’s instructions to suspend all offensive operations in British waters.

  Hailstones, the size of pigeons’ eggs, battered U 41 when the black clouds arrived. They bounced off the conning tower and steel hull. In the conning tower, the rattling sounded like the efforts of a demented drummer.

  The hail went as quickly as it arrived. The wind freshened. The bridge sounded the alert. Another steamship, the Wilson Line’s SS Urbino, bound for England with a mixed cargo. Once her crew were in their lifeboats, U 41 shelled 6,651 tons of merchantman to send her under the waves. Satisfied that she was doomed, Hansen gave the order to submerge. Urbino’s shipwrecked sailors would attract the next passing steamer. If she was an enemy, she would increase their tally.

  ‘Auf Tauchstationen! Tauchtanken ausblasen. Auf zwanzig meter gehen.’ The U-boat slid under the surface.

  Urbino, listing badly and close to sinking, duly enticed another steamer. She came up at about 10 knots, the Stars and Stripes at her stern. A line of washing fluttered in the breeze. A typical 4,000-ton tramp, a mercantile workhorse.

  ‘Auftauchen!’

  U 41 surfaced. Hansen, Crompton, the chief engineer, Oberleutnant zur See Julius Schneider, and the helmsman, Steuermann Franz Godeau, climbed the steel-runged ladder, through the deck hatch, into the tower and on to the bridge. Crewmen doubled to their positions at the 88mm forward gun.

  Hansen turned to Crompton. ‘Notice anything special about her?’

  ‘No.’

  She was an obvious neutral. The flag of the United States adorned boards on each side of her grubby, black hull. On deck, a handful of sailors, in the usual shabby seamen’s attire, lounged around.

  Hansen hoisted a peremptory signal. The black and yellow flag of the International Code rattled up the halyards.

  ‘Stop your vessel immediately.’

  The new arrival lost speed.

  ‘Bring your papers on board.’

  The merchantman replied. ‘I see your signal but do not yet understand its meaning.’

  U 41 motored forward slowly. The steamer hastily swung to give a lee to the men who clumsily started to lower a boat. A menacing U-boat with a manned deck gun allowed no ambiguity. Especially at a range of 300m.

  The men on the bridge watched the bumbling efforts with wry amusement. Yankee sailors were no seamen.

  Without warning, the ship changed appearance. Men emerged from hiding. Men with rifles. Guns menaced U 41. Big guns. Which fired. Baralong was back in business.

  The first shell smashed into the flimsy panelling of the forward dive tanks. Hansen screamed orders. ‘Vorderes Geschütz Schnellfeuer! Beide Maschinen äusserste voraus!’

  The deck gun barked. Below, the 850hp Germaniawerft diesel engines fought to drive U 41 forward at full throttle.

  An explosion near the forward gun. Godeau yelled at the crew to keep firing as Obermatrose Dieckmann toppled into the water. The helmsman jumped from the bridge to help the gun crew.

  Baralong smacked another shot into the forward deck.

  ‘Schnelltauchen!’ The alarm bell shrilled throughout the hull. Only a crash-dive could save U 41. Compressed air bubbled out of ballast tanks. Godeau heard the clanging, shouted the order to the gunners. ‘Alles auf Tauchstation! Schnelltauchen!’ They ran, under fire, to the conning tower. The sooner they got below, the sooner their boat was out of peril.

  All three guns on Baralong fired as fast as they could. A shell thumped into the conning tower. Crompton felt searing pain. Shards of metal and glass splinters from the periscope ripped into his head. He fell, barely conscious, down the ladder, through the hatch, slammed on to the deck of the conning tower well. He grabbed the periscope casing, clung on desperately as darkness overwhelmed him.

  U 41 went down into the water, seeking safety in the depths. Oberleutnant Schneider clattered into the control room to his diving station. Godeau, the last man down the ladder, slammed shut the watertight hatch as the waves closed over U 41’s nose. Oberleutnant Crompton’s body, huddled by the wrecked periscope, needed no second glance. If not already dead, it was merely a matter of time.

  Five, ten, fifteen metres deep. The bows dropped, dropped fast, dropped more than the diving planes could counter.

  Hansen called for damage reports. They were grim listening. The living quarters in the front section were taking in water. The auxiliary pumps struggled to keep the level from rising. The watertight doors prevented its spread but the weight dragged U 41 steadily downward. The forward batteries, essential for underwater movement, were out of action. If the sea slopped over them, a new horror would stalk the boat. Chlorine. Poison gas.

  Hansen blew the ballast tanks. It did not matter if he used all of the compressed air she had as long as the descent stopped. U 41 continued to plunge towards the bottom. Her bow was down at a 30-degree angle. The depth-gauge needle quivered as it moved across the white clock face. Thirty metres. Forty.

  Extreme dangers call for extreme measures. When Death’s pinched fingers reach out to grasp a prize, it is better to try anything rather than simply submit.

  Hansen gambled.

  He left the control room, slithered down into the
bilges where iron trim weights kept the boat on an even keel. A desperate solution to stave off disaster.

  ‘Klar bei Sicherheitsgewichten!’ Every man available would take as much ballast trim weight as he could carry.

  ‘Alle Mann nach achtern!’ Everyone aft. Weight the stern, bring up the bow. With luck.

  ‘Pressluft auf Tank 6 und 7!’

  The last of the compressed air hissed into the forward tanks. Anything to bring up the bow. Anything to stop the inexorable descent. Otherwise, U 41 was their coffin.

  Godeau, tight-voiced, called out the depth as U 41 floundered.

  ‘Funfzig Meter!’ Fifty metres down. Her design depth. The hull creaked, a warning that Death was impatient. The needle moved on.

  ‘Sechzig Meter!’ Sixty metres.

  ‘Siebzig Meter!’

  ‘Achtzig Meter!’

  ‘Dreiundachtzig Meter!’ Eighty-three metres down.

  U 41 steadied, stopped. Hung in the water.

  ‘Noch Achtzig Meter!’ Back to eighty metres. A faint note of hope in Godeau’s voice.

  Sluggishly, U 41 rose. Slowly. The bow came up. Twenty degrees. Ten degrees. Horizontal. Closer to the surface. Forty metres, thirty, twenty. The problem, the big question was where the enemy were. They could be close. They could be in the distance. They might have left the scene altogether, confident that the U-boat was finished.

  Ten metres. The air vents for the diesel engines would soon clear the surface. Once started, they could drive the main pumps, clear the remaining water from the dive tanks. With power, the boat could be controlled. Without it, the boat was helpless. Not even the periscope could be raised. Not that it any longer served a purpose. It was twisted metal and smashed glass.

  Hansen needed a pair of eyes. A sharp order. Godeau climbed the ladder past Crompton’s still body. Blood splayed across the floor. The helmsman opened the hatch, climbed on to the deck, peered out through the thick glass of the conning tower. Baralong was 3,000m distant, heading away from U 41. Even better, the diving tanks were just clear of the water. The diesels would work.

  ‘Ausblasen mit Gebläse!’ Hansen was now convinced that he could control the boat, at least on the surface. And with a working gun on the after deck, the trapship would discover that U 41 still had a bite.

  She broke into the fresh air and sunlight. Level. As Hansen uttered the command to start the engines, a wave broke over the bow. Directly over the living quarters. Enough water to bring disaster, to upset the trim, to destroy the hard-won buoyancy in a fraction of a second. The hungry sea rushed to claim its prize. The stern climbed high, its two screws, clear of the water, turned uselessly. The ocean stampeded in, through the damaged tanks. U 41 plunged towards the seabed. Water drove the boat’s air before it, compressing it just as it had in Brandtaucher years before. With the same result. The only way out was through the conning tower hatch. Like glugging bubbles from a bottle tossed into a pond, the air rushed to the surface, taking Oberleutnant zur See Iwan Crompton with it.

  The cold water dragged him back to consciousness. Spluttering, coughing, bruised, battered, blind in his left eye, his wound a searing pain through his brain, instinct saved him. He swam towards the only ship he could see. The U-Boot-Falle, according to Crompton, turned away. For the first time, he claimed, he saw the White Ensign at her stern. Throughout the action, he later maintained, the decoy flew the Stars and Stripes.

  Crompton’s accounts of his experiences are those of an embittered young man. Both of his published works, in 1917 and 1941, bear the aroma of propaganda. Even so, much of his account is reinforced by others.

  Supported by his lifejacket, Crompton floated in the water. The Q-ship returned. He raised his arms in a desperate signal for help. She swept past at speed. The crew jeered and cat-called, he claimed, although the identical allegation was made about the behaviour of the U 41’s crew by Captain Allanson Hicks when he and his men rowed away from the sinking Urbino.

  Crompton had decided he was done for until his single eye saw a lifeboat. Empty, rolling gently in the swell. From the Urbino, left to drift by the rescued occupants. With a final effort, he struggled aboard. A cry for help drifted across the water: Franz Godeau. He, too, went through the conning tower hatch. He, too, was the target of jeers, whistles and cat-calls from the men of the Baralong. They had thrown anything to hand at him as they passed. Godeau believed the ship had tried to run him down.

  Crompton held out his arms. Godeau grabbed them. With pushing, pulling, panting, the helmsman managed to get into the boat. Godeau, exhausted, sprawled at the bow end. Crompton crumpled in the stern.

  Baralong returned. The two Germans managed to stand. They waved their arms. They must, they thought, have been mistaken earlier. It was impossible that the ship’s captain would deliberately run them down. As they beckoned, the ship changed direction to head directly towards their boat. They saw a man in the bows who seemed to direct a sailor at the helm. She appeared to gather speed.

  ‘Der will uns rammen!’

  Godeau and Crompton tumbled over the side into the water. Crompton yelled to Godeau to make for the bow wave which would take them clear of Baralong’s screw. Both men went under, surfaced, spluttered, forced tired muscles to swim back to the lifeboat that bobbed furiously in the wash from the speeding vessel. They grasped its wooden sides, too weary to get back on board. Crompton could think only that it was a miracle the sea was so calm that he was able to cling on. Godeau finally hoisted himself back into the boat. Slowly, painfully, he summoned up the strength to help Crompton to climb in.

  Baralong came back again. Her engines thudded less loudly. She slowed. A rope snaked down. The Germans were pulled to safety.

  Wilmot-Smith, triumphant at his success so soon after taking command, ordered Corporal Collins to confine the prisoners in the sheep pen on the upper deck. This was sometimes used by crew members who couldn’t sleep in the hot, confined messdecks below. With no doctor on board, no first aid was offered.

  Collins, rightly or wrongly, believed the captain did not care if the prisoners died. The corporal had no great love for the enemy but there was a world of difference between hunting down the men who climbed on board Nicosian, men he believed were baby-killers, slaughterers of women, murderers, and two helpless prisoners.

  The corporal did his best to make them comfortable. He offered cigarettes, fetched hot Bovril from the galley, made bandages from some clean shirts. He bathed Crompton’s fearsome head wound, spread Vaseline on it and bound it up. As a final gesture, he curled up alongside the German officer to protect him from the chilly night.

  At 2300, the first lieutenant woke Collins with a message from the captain.

  ‘Is that German dead yet?’

  ‘No, but he soon will be if he doesn’t have any treatment.’

  ‘Well, the skipper isn’t going to take him into port. If he’s not dead by midnight, you’ve got to shoot them both.’

  Collins bridled. ‘I can’t do it, sir,’ he answered firmly. He paused. ‘What’s more, I shan’t give the order to any of my men.’ Collins knew Royal Marines always listened to their own corporal before they took notice of a naval officer.

  The lieutenant left. At midnight, he returned. ‘It’s been decided to take them into Falmouth.’

  Marine Haywood noted:

  2 am anchored outside Falmouth in Thick fog. 2 trawlers arrived with 40 cots for Wounded men and Seemed quite Disgusted that we only had one.

  8 am Fleet Surgeon arrived and patched up the Germans.

  12 noon all the shipwrecked crew disembarked and gave us a good cheer. 1240 entered Falmouth Harbour.

  4 pm Cptn Filmore [sic] RN Cpt Trench RM and Lieut Com Brandon came on board and questioned prisoners.

  Captain Valentine Egerton Bagot Phillimore, of Naval Intelligence, informed Wilmot-Smith that Baralong was henceforth Wyandra. Commander Vivian Brandon and Captain Bernard Trench would interrogate the prisoners. The captain’s cabin was the most suitable place for
the business.

  Collins first escorted Steuermann Franz Godeau down below. ‘Godeau’, the corporal remembered, ‘thought he was going to be shot because a marine was standing guard outside the cabin with a rifle and fixed bayonet.’ With that prospect in front of him, the helmsman willingly answered every question put to him. Every detail. Every crew member.

  Crompton was a different matter. Collins first asked the captain if he could borrow the captain’s bath to wash off the caked blood, the caked salt, from Crompton’s body. He received a short answer.

  ‘That bloody German’s not going to use my bath.’

  A determined Collins proceeded to wheedle permission from the chief engineer to use his bath. A clean Crompton steadfastly refused to give any details other than his name and rank. Oberleutnants zur See, officers of the Kaiserliche Marine, did not cooperate with those who sent francs-tireurs to trap honourable warriors.

  Crompton’s ongoing story is a claim of primitive medical treatment, unsympathetic guards and all-round misery. He wrote to the US Embassy in London to protest about the misuse, as he believed, of the American flag. No reply came for, he alleged, the Embassy apparently did not receive his letters.

  The matter was known in the Admiralty, however. Another Baralong incident. Fortunately, it could be kept under wraps. Until, that is, Crompton was repatriated as unfit. He arrived in Switzerland on 4 November 1916 and lost no time in telling his story.

  Another German note. More outraged German papers. More ill feeling. And the specific charge from Berlin that the Royal Navy had orders not to rescue the crews of sunken U-boats.

  The Admiralty flatly denied it. The war of words continued. Wilmot-Smith, decorated with the DSO for the destruction of U 41, submitted a report which skipped lightly over most allegations: ‘Unfortunately . . . not knowing if they were to be trusted we had to pick them up; they could not have been left . . . in case they were picked up by a neutral ship.’ And on the charge that Baralong deliberately tried to swamp the lifeboat, he wrote: