Grey Wolf, Grey Sea

by E. B. Gasaway

  He waited until the bridge watch started down, then followed.

  "Periscope depth, Brinker, and hold her steady."

  Schulz watched at the attack periscope for a moment, then stepped back. "Down scope," he said. "She's headed this way all right, and zig-zagging. So she's a belligerent and fair game for us."

  Brinker stood behind his planesmen, watching the dials and gauges over their heads, giving brief orders now and then. The forward and after ballast tanks had to be alternately flooded and blown, and the angle of the diving planes constantly adjusted to counter the effect of the swells and keep the boat level in the water and exactly at the depth the commander called for. So skilled and precise was their control that the boat could be held almost to the exact inch of the ordered depth.

  Schulz continued to make short observations through the periscope, noting masthead height, inclination, bearing, and zig-zag pattern. This information would be fed into the fire control, which would then calculate the exact torpedo settings.

  A torpedo travels relatively slowly, so it was necessary to lead the target by a considerable angle. And for the same reason, it was almost imperative that the U-boat be ahead of, or at least abreast, the target ship. A torpedo that had to outrun its target was hopelessly handicapped unless she was close.

  The large distances involved would amplify even the slightest miscalculation in the speed of the target or the angle on the bow so greatly as to eliminate all chance of a hit. Irregular zig-zagging and speed changes on the part of a ship also enormously increased the problems of an attacking boat and the chance for the target's escape.

  Below Schulz in the control room, Obersteuermann Hagemann bent over the chart table making a plot from the figures the commander called down to him.

  "Both half speed," Schulz said. "Come to course one-o-degrees. Make ready tubes 1 and 2."

  The outer doors to the torpedo tubes were opened and the tubes flooded. All that remained now was for the mixers to set the torpedoes for speed, course, and depth. They waited for the figures from the commander.

  One more careful look, then Schulz sang out the torpedo settings. He watched the freighter's bow come into the crosshairs of the periscope.

  "Torpedo one . . ." Now the tiny cross lay precisely on her bridge, amidships. "Fire!"

  The vents were opened to flood the trimming tanks in the bow to compensate for the loss of the torpedo's weight. In a few seconds the boat was again trimmed.

  "Torpedo running," from Kesselheim at the hydrophones.

  Schulz waited. If this torpedo missed, he would fire the second one in an instant. He seldom fired spreads, especially for a single-traveling ship like this one. He could carry only a limited number of fish on a patrol, and saw no point in shooting two or three when one would do. One torpedo, properly placed, would usually sink a ship, and if it did not, he could still shoot another one. Three misses did no more damage than one, and he preferred to put his trust in his sharp aim and good shooting eye, rather than fire a spread of three in the hope that one might hit. His shooting score bore out his theory, and it was a lucky ship that got away once "Willem" got his sights on her.

  Hagemann glanced up from the stopwatch he held in his hand. He was timing the torpedo's running time, and from that the commander could check his own estimate of the distance.

  "Up scope," Schulz motioned. Then, "Hit!" he yelled. "She's hit aft!"

  The crew broke into cheers. Throughout the chase, they had followed what was going on by the series of orders for speed and course and orders to the men in the torpedo compartment. But they could only visualize what was going on on the surface.

  Each man had played his part in sending the torpedo crashing through the hull of the merchant ship some 900 meters away, but of them all, only the commander had actually seen their victim.

  "Ship is signaling," Fritz Rafalski called from the wireless shack. "S-s-s for submarine. She's the British Trevisa."

  "Look her up," Schulz told Hardegen. "Keep listening, Rafalski," he called.

  "S-I-N-K-I-N-G . . ." Rafalski spelled out slowly.

  "Trevisa is a British freighter, 1,813 tons," Hardegen reported.

  The U-boat now cleared out to a respectable distance to wait for the ship to sink. Schulz knew her distress signal would alert any destroyers or planes in the vicinity, and he did not want to be too close in case of visitors. In a short while, she rolled over and sank.

  Schulz, watching through the periscope, sighed softly as she went under. He was too much a seaman ever to be able to watch a ship go down without a pang of sadness.

  "Brinker!" he called. "Surface!"

  The bridge watch stood by the conning tower ladder waiting for the word to go up. Compressed air drove the water out of the ballast tanks and the boat rose swiftly.

  Brinker watched the depth gauges. "Conning tower clear, sir."

  Schulz threw open the hatch and climbed quickly out. He looked all around. It was clear. "Blow out main ballast by diesel! Bridge watch up!"

  The two diesels roared into life, and the boat sprang ahead. The lookouts took their places.

  "Come to course one four o! Both ahead full!" Schulz called.

  Some three hours later, three destroyers came in sight, apparently searching for the sunken ship. U-124 stayed well out of sight as she cautiously watched them.

  Just before nightfall, another destroyer appeared out of a rain squall to pound them with depth charges in payment for the Trevisa. The boat was not damaged and managed to slip away after a short chase.

  They continued to sight the fast, zig-zagging single ships at intervals. A lot of skill and patience and work went into a chase between the time a mast tip was sighted on the horizon and a torpedo was launched. And some luck was necessary too. A fast ship could outrun a U-boat, and if darkness fell before the boat could circle around to get into a forward position to shoot her torpedoes, it was hopeless. But U-Schulz had her share of luck and the Allied merchantmen continued to fall before her torpedo tubes and her commander's deadly aim.

  Inevitably, too, the destroyers appeared. Sometimes too suddenly for the boat to get away without being detected, and then there would be a duel of wits between Schulz and the destroyer captain.

  The U-boat would creep silently along keeping either her bow or stern toward the destroyer so as not to give a broadside target to the searching asdic beams.

  The asdic impulses, sent out from a dome on the bottom of the destroyer, would bounce off the U-boat's hull. The frequency and strength of these echoes would betray the boat's position, depth, and distance to a skilled operator, and depth charges would be set and dropped accordingly.

  And always, when the depth charges got closer, a U-boat would seek shelter in greater depth. As the commanders drove their boats down past their test depths to escape the exploding Wabos (Wasserbomben—depth charges), the pressure hulls would creak and moan, and the crews would make grim jokes about how soon they would reach "paper depth" (the depth at which the water pressure would crush the hull and so flatten the cigar-shaped boat into the shape of a newspaper).

  At first the U-boats would go below the maximum depth charge settings, but then the British caught on and remedied this oversight. Later, boats were sometimes damaged by the powerful "killer" depth charges at depths up to 650 feet.

  Von Tiesenhausen, thanks to a faulty manometer (depth gauge), once took his U-331 to a depth of 266 meters, roughly 730 feet, for an unofficial and hair-raising record dive. This was later topped by 20 feet by Bauer in U-126 when his boat withstood a pressure of 336 pounds per square inch in the deepest dive recorded by a IX C boat.

  On October 20, U-124 made contact with the outgoing Convoy OB 229. By dark she had reached a position for a surfaced attack, and sank the Norwegian freighter Cubano and the Britisher Sulaco.

  Schulz was bringing his boat back into the convoy on the port side when a lookout behind him yelled, "Destroyer on the starboard quarter!"

  One glance was all Schulz n
eeded. "Alarm!" he shouted.

  This escort had spotted them and was charging up at full speed.

  "2A plus 60,1 Brinker!" Schulz called out, tumbling down the ladder into the control room. Water rushed into the diving tanks as Brinker pushed her down at full speed, but the confused noise of diving was suddenly drowned out by the destroyer close above them. Her throbbing and whirling screws filled the boat with an insane din, then the first pattern of depth charges exploded around the boat, dangerously close. Men already hanging on to balance themselves against the steep down angle were knocked off their feet as the boat pitched and plunged in the wrenching shock of the exploding Wabos. The commander was thrown to his knees and he grabbed frantically at a leg of the chart table as Hardegen slammed into him.

  The boat steadied herself after the explosions and held her nose down to reach a safer depth. The men picked themselves up and scrambled back to their posts. They could already hear the destroyer returning.

  This time she was moving at a slower and more deliberate pace, and the pinging of her asdic lashed the U-boat's steel hull with a maddening rhythm.

  "2A plus 60, Herr Kaleu," Brinker reported as they reached the depth Schulz had ordered.

  "Good," the commander said. "Port easy."

  "Port easy," Willi Klein answered, turning the wheel steadily.

  Now the destroyer was overhead. The men waited with sweat streaming down their faces, involuntarily looking up, following in their minds the death-dealing canisters as they rolled off the destroyer's fantail to fall through the water above their heads.

  The first explosion was even closer than those in the first pattern had been. The lights flickered and went out as glass cracked and shattered in the control room. The sudden darkness magnified the terrifying feeling of utter chaos. A sharp cry of pain was lost in the second explosion and the boat rocked violently. Each depth charge seemed closer than the one before it, pounding men and boat with such ferocity that it seemed impossible for the pressure hull to hold.

  Then the destroyer was past again, and red lights flickered on in the control room. Broken glass and shredded cork lay everywhere as men, dazed and hurt, staggered to their feet.

  Brinker checked the instruments that were still working and gave quick instructions to his men as they brought the quivering boat back under control.

  One of his men sagged weakly against the control board and Brinker pulled him around. He was holding his cut hand tight against him as blood dripped down his shirt and onto the deck.

  "Goder!" roared Brinker. "Hey, Doctor!"

  "I'm coming!" called Goder.

  He reached them just as the next pattern of Wabos went off, and he and Brinker clung to each other and to the injured man. The boat tumbled crazily in the swirling water, finally righting herself as the explosions stopped.

  "Brinker, take her down another five meters, silent running," the commander said. Then turning to Kesselheim at the sound gear, "Give me the destroyer's bearing and range."

  For the next five hours, Schulz maneuvered the boat carefully in a desperate effort to lose the hunter above him. But she seemed almost to anticipate every evasive move he made, returning after each run with her nerve-shredding asdic and the mauling explosions that tore at the boat with savage force.

  "Five meters deeper, Brinker," he said.

  "Herr Kaleu, we're eight meters below test depth now," Brinker told him.

  "I know it," Schulz replied. "But she can't take much more of this. These goddamned Wabos are beating her to death. Take her down another five."

  "Aye," replied Brinker.

  Looking across the control room, Schulz caught the frightened glance of a young seaman who was on his first patrol. Fear had made him look even younger than he was.

  The commander suddenly smiled. "Don't worry," he said. His voice was surprisingly warm and gentle and carried clearly to all of them in the compartment. "I'll bring you home again." His confident grin included all of them. "What would your mothers say if I didn't bring you home again?" For a moment the destroyer did not seem quite so close.

  The air was thick, foul, and stifling inside the boat, and Schulz issued potassium cartridges. The men put them in their mouths, and as they breathed through them, the potash helped to remove the carbon dioxide from the air.

  And still the pinging asdic pulsed through the steel hull and set their raw nerves to screaming. They knew that when the steadily rising sound reached a peak, it was soon followed by the mauling concussion of the Wabos.

  Schulz ordered the boat deeper and deeper, until she crept through depths never dreamed of by her builders, her tough pressure hull holding out the tons of water that threatened to crush her like an egg shell. Water spewed in through seams and pipe Joints as tons of pressure sought out every weak spot.

  At last he dared not take her a meter lower. Those of the crew not actually doing anything were sent to their bunks to lie down and so conserve the oxygen in the boat. And despite the danger, one by one, they dropped off to sleep.

  The men in the control room looked to the officers for reassurance. Schulz and Brinker talked quietly, their faces and voices unexcited, betraying none of the cold fear that clutched at them both. They gave the impression of normalcy and security to the men around them, for the commander and L.I. would surely not stand there gabbing away about God-knew-what if they were about to be blasted to atoms.

  Actually, the conversation made no sense at all since Schulz and Brinker were talking about different subjects, but this did not matter since neither was listening to either himself or the other.

  The cold-blooded courage that would later make Hardegen a great U-boat commander was already obvious as he roamed through the boat, checking the damage and supervising repairs. His blue eyes were calm and unafraid, and men who might have panicked were strengthened by the young officer who controlled his own fear so completely, talking and joking with the men as they worked.

  The attack went on relentlessly through the night and into the next day, and still Schulz could not shake off the destroyer. The situation in the U-boat was becoming critical. The air in the boat was almost suffocating with the ever-increasing carbon dioxide and ever-decreasing oxygen. The batteries were dangerously low, although all non-essential machinery had been shut down hours ago and the screws turned only enough to allow control of the boat. The men off duty lay limp, more unconscious than asleep, and those on watch were almost too weak to stand.

  Schulz knew he had to bring the boat up soon or not at all. The destroyer appeared to have lost her sure contact on the boat, but she still hunted, dropping depth charges at random. At last he told Brinker to release some fuel oil. They would try to trick the destroyer into thinking she had made a kill.

  Brinker added a couple of gloves and a shoe to the oil which floated to the surface, hoping to give authenticity to the charade, and the destroyer once more passed slowly overhead as she inspected the decoy. Then, having lost the boat on asdic and apparently accepting the evidence of a mortal wound, the destroyer turned, her screws whirling to high speed as she left

  Schulz waited a little longer, then cautiously brought his exhausted boat and crew to the surface. They were alone.

  "Did you notice anything strange about that depth charging?" Kesselheim asked Fritz Rafalski later that evening.

  "Yes," answered Rafalski shortly. "We're still alive." "I mean besides that. Remember what we had for dessert yesterday?"

  "What are you talking about, Sherry?" Rafalski asked, puzzled and more than a little exasperated. "We had chocolate pudding for dinner . . . and Wabos for supper!"

  "That's what I mean! Chocolate pudding and Wabos. And day before yesterday . . . chocolate pudding and Wabos." Kesselheim was dead serious. "And remember that destroyer that came up out of the fog last week? I still had a mouth full of chocolate pudding when the Old Man pulled the plug."

  Rafalski sat thoughtful and silent for a moment. Then he said slowly, "You know, Sherry, I believe you're right."


  The case was clinched three days later when chocolate pudding was again on the menu. Right on schedule, a destroyer arrived out of nowhere to plaster them with depth charges.

  "That did it!" announced Rafalski as soon as it was over, and marched straight to his commander. "Herr Kaleu'nt," he said, "I must talk to you."

  Schulz turned around, surprised by the urgent tone. "Of course, Rafalski. Come on in my cabin."

  He turned and led the way. "Now sit down and tell me what's on your mind."

  He listened soberly to Rafalski's story and saw nothing ridiculous or hysterical in it.

  U-124 would be depth charged many more times in her life, but chocolate pudding was never again served on board.

  Sailors are traditionally a superstitious lot, and the edelweiss boat was not the only one to court Lady Luck. The U-48, under the command of Vaddi Schultze, steered only courses divisible by 7 when in open waters.

  When Lt. Bleichrodt later succeeded Schultze as commander, it puzzled him to give a steering order, only to have an entirely different number of degrees repeated to him by an unconcerned helmsman. He repeated his order, and received the same reply. Once again, he repeated his order, this time his voice crackling with anger, only to hear the agreeable voice of the helmsman give back his same original reply.

  The unnerved and infuriated Bleichrodt was about to give his crazy new crew a thundering lesson in German Naval discipline when someone explained to him about the U-48's peculiar steering habits. The course he had given was not divisible by 7, so the helmsman had merely chosen the nearest number to it that was, and this was the course he called back to his now nearly apoplectic new commander.

  It is worth noting that Bleichrodt conformed to the boat, and not vice versa. Other boats clung just as tenaciously to their own magic formulas and witches' brews as they tried to charm the Fates and beat the odds against them.

  On October 31, U-124 met a single-traveling freighter, the British Rutland. Attacking on the surface after dark, Schulz fired one torpedo, which hit forward. The ship went down in about 30 seconds, followed by a great explosion, presumably her boilers bursting.