Grey Wolf, Grey Sea

by E. B. Gasaway

  A few minutes later, the U-boat's crew could hear a pattern of depth charges exploding in the distance. They looked at each other questioningly. Were they meant for us? Then they smiled. If they were, then the Amis had better improve their aim.

  With the dawn, U-124 pulled out to about the 60-meter line and lay on the bottom, her engines stopped. This was the routine she would follow throughout the cruise, submerged most of the day to conserve fuel and let her crew sleep, and hunting on the surface close inshore by night.

  The following night, U-124 returned to her hunting grounds along the 20-meter line, Mohr still marveling at the brightly lit Lookout Lighthouse and the radio beacons from Lookout and Charleston impartially guiding friend and foe alike.

  A ship came in sight just south of Cape Lookout, and Mohr circled around ahead of her as he made his firing calculations. It was a dark clear night, with winds gentle to moderate. The sea was choppy, but not too rough. He couldn't have asked for better conditions.

  Target speed 11.5 knots," Mohr said. "Course 236 degrees true."

  At 9:30 he fired his first torpedo, which hit aft on the port side.

  The ship was the SS Papoose, a 5,939—gross ton tanker, sailing in ballast from Providence, Rhode Island, bound for Corpus Christi.

  She was thrown into sudden confusion as the torpedo ripped into her port side, penetrating a fuel tank and tearing interior bulkheads. Oil and water poured into the engine room, and within four minutes had risen as high as the tops of the cylinder heads. The ship's engine, disabled by the torpedo, stopped immediately.

  The merchant sailors, unused to war, but long trained in the sea's ways, reacted to sudden danger with speed and certainty.

  Third mate R. M. Wenning was standing bridge watch on the Papoose. When the torpedo hit, stopping her engine, he instantly ordered the wheel put hard starboard in an effort to turn her toward shore. But she had only turned about two degrees off her course when she lost headway completely and lay dead in the water.

  As soon as the torpedo hit, the radio operator, F. K. Russell, had sent out SOS, repeated three times, and the following signal: "SSSS—WNBS—SS Papoose—Position 15 miles SW Cape Lookout." It was promptly acknowledged.

  Papoose was still afloat, but Captain Zalnic realized she would probably not be for long. The U-boat that had fired the first torpedo would no doubt shoot another one. At least he could get his crew off. He ordered them to abandon ship, and the first lifeboat was launched five minutes after the attack.

  Captain Zalnic had been right in expecting a second attack. U-124 had already circled around the bow of the stopped ship to observe.

  "It will take another fish to sink her," Mohr decided. "And be quick about it," he added, turning to the I.WO. "We're on the land side of her, and we'd have more water under us in a bathtub than we've got here."

  "Herr Kaleu!" the radio man called. "Ship is the SS Papoose. She just wirelessed an SOS."

  "Did a shore station acknowledge?" Mohr called back.

  "Yes!"

  "Very well," Mohr said, turning back to Köster. "We'd better sink her quick and get out of here while we still can."

  The tanker's crew was following Captain Zalnic's order to abandon ship, and the men on the first lifeboat were already rowing away from the ship. Suddenly a long dark shape streaked through the water, passing within a foot of the lifeboat.

  The scream, "Torpedo!" electrified the men on the deck of the Papoose, and they watched helplessly as the torpedo track, about 50 feet away on the starboard quarter, came straight at them. It hit aft of amidships, tearing a huge jagged hole in the hull, partly above the water line.

  Within five minutes after the second hit, the second lifeboat was launched. Falling debris had caused the after fall of the lifeboat to foul when the boat was still some 15 feet above the water. Captain Zalnic ordered the bow lowered and he cut the after fall. The lifeboat was then quickly rowed away from the ship.

  U-124, meantime, had wheeled around the ship and was now making for open water. Her crew could all breathe easier with a safe depth under her hull.

  As the boat turned southwestward, the lookouts sighted another tanker, loaded, on a reciprocal course to them. Within 10 minutes, Mohr had put his boat into position for a two-torpedo shot with the bow tubes.

  The first torpedo hit abaft the forecastle, sending shock waves of sound to the U-boat, 800 meters away. The second torpedo missed.

  The tanker, the E. H. Hutton, was slowly settling in the water, and she radioed a distress signal on the 600-meter band. Eight minutes later, Mohr shot a third torpedo, which hit under the bridge. The bow dipped under the water, and flames suddenly covered the tanker's bridge as the U-boat turned and headed south. For three-quarters of an hour the U-boat's bridge watch could see the bright glow from the burning ship. Then suddenly it vanished. The ship had sunk.

  Cape Hatteras was living up to their expectations, and U-124's success climbed with each night. Merchant ships were traveling as close inshore as they dared, apparently hoping that U-boats would not venture into such shallow waters. At least some of them were unaware that these night attacks were generally delivered on the surface, so the lack of depth became a real danger to U-boats only if they were themselves attacked. This was a risk their commanders were willing to assume, so they required no more depth than the merchantmen.

  Just past midnight on March 21, U-124 headed southward toward Frying Pan Buoy. The wind was light, but heavy rain showers pelted the men on the bridge and all but blinded them. Even when the rain stopped at intervals, visibility was nil, but the boat plodded along on course, for Mohr had chosen this point south to Charleston as his hunting ground for the night.

  "Light on the starboard bow, Herr Kaleu," the lookout reported,

  Mohr studied it for a moment. "Frying Pan Buoy," he confirmed, then added, "You'd think they'd know Germans can use it as well as Americans."

  "Do you suppose they don't know about the war?" Köster asked innocently.

  "I'll put you ashore in Charleston and you can tell them," Mohr told him, grinning. "Anyway, I think it's nice of them to leave their navigation lights on for tourists."

  "Shadow in sight," Klein cut in, "330 degrees."

  Mohr turned to search out the barely visible form.

  "Hard port!" he called, not taking his eyes off the ship some 5,000 meters away. "And full speed!"

  As Mohr put his boat on a northwesterly course to intercept, he could see that the tanker was not only loaded, but fast.

  She was the SS Esso Nashville, bound for New Haven, Connecticut, with a cargo of 78,000 barrels of black fuel oil from Port Arthur, Texas.

  It took nearly an hour running full speed for the U-boat to reach a position to fire a double shot. The first torpedo was a dud, hitting the bow about five feet from the stern on the starboard side, but it did not explode.

  The second torpedo hit amidships, exploding with a thundering shock that broke the ship's back.

  Reacting instantly, the watch officer on the tanker sounded the general alarm and rang up full speed astern on the engine room telegraph. The radio operator tried to signal a distress call, but the radio shack was filled with suffocating fumes, and he was forced to leave.

  All her crew's efforts were futile, and the ship broke in two, the fore part sinking at once. Fifteen minutes after the attack, the ship was abandoned, and attacker and survivors alike left the scene, all assuming the ship was as good as sunk.

  Such was not the case, however. Although the fore part of the ship did, indeed, sink, the stern remained afloat and was towed in next day, to be eventually used in the building of a new ship.

  Soon after leaving the Esso Nashville, U-124 made contact with another northbound tanker. She was the MS Atlantic Sun, a 11,355—gross ton vessel, en route from Beaumont, Texas, to Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, with a cargo of crude oil.

  Mohr took up the chase, trying in vain to get close enough to attack. But the big tanker was making 16 knots, and Mohr wa
s finding it impossible to get around ahead of her.

  "L.I.!" he yelled down the open hatch.

  "L.I. here," Subklew answered, below him.

  "Twice full speed, Subklew—rev up those diesels! I want that ship!"

  "Will do, Herr Kaleu!" Subklew shouted back at him.

  The U-boat shuddered as she picked up speed, circling to get ahead of the tanker. But after an hour's running, she was still unable to get in position to attack, and Mohr knew the tanker had too much speed for him. He would soon lose her altogether.

  "Make ready tubes 3 and 4," he ordered finally. "It'll be daylight soon and we're not going to get any closer."

  Firing data was passed back to the mixers: "Speed 16 knots; position 116 degrees; distance . . . 3,500 meters . . ."

  "Sir?" a voice came back over the speaking tube.

  "You heard it," Mohr snapped. "Distance 3,500 meters!"

  The torpedoes were fired and sped on their way while the men on the U-boat waited and counted the seconds, then minutes of running time.

  After 3 minutes and 21 seconds, one torpedo hit amidships with a bright explosion, and the ship then turned away. U-124 lost contact with her.

  Atlantic Sun sent out an SOS, which was picked up and acknowledged by Radio Charleston. Both signals were also picked up by the U-boat, which began a search of the area. Visibility had decreased to less than 1,000 meters, and a few bits of wreckage were the only trace she found of the tanker.

  Some two and a half hours later, U-124 listened while Charleston tried in vain to raise the ship. Taking this as a distinct possibility that she had sunk, U-124 now pulled out to the 60-meter line. It was daylight now and time to hide at the bottom of the sea.

  Atlantic Sun, however, was far from sunk, despite the futile efforts of both Radio Charleston and U-124 to renew contact with her.

  Her master, Captain R. L. Montague, had, after his initial signal announcing that he had been torpedoed, quietly taken his ship in and anchored off Beaufort Sea Buoy. Later he moved her to Lookout Bight and was able to make temporary repairs before proceeding on to Marcus Hook, arriving a few days late, but with his ship and crew intact.

  Prowling the shallow shipping lanes off Hatteras, U-124 was finding the "Golden West" a U-boat paradise that more than lived up to the claims. Here freighters, and best of all—tankers—moved along regular shipping lanes in such numbers that it was not only possible, but necessary, to exercise discrimination in his choice of targets. If only he could have brought a double supply of torpedoes, Mohr thought!

  At times, the anti-submarine traffic seemed almost as plentiful as the merchant, but Mohr and his crew felt arrogantly superior to them in experience and skill, and carried out attacks with brazen disregard for the patrolling ships and planes.

  For the most part, the destroyers were little trouble to evade, and they almost never followed a U-boat that turned away. Mohr had to keep reminding himself that there was always a chance of beginner's luck, and he must be careful not to overplay his hand. Diving was, of course, impossible in waters scarcely deep enough to navigate on the surface, and he must not allow himself to be trapped.

  The patrol planes appeared too suddenly to allow time to reach water deep enough to dive, but so far their bombing had been mercifully inaccurate. Mohr hoped to God it did not improve.

  U-124 was patrolling between Cape Lookout and Cape Fear on the night of March 23. The sky was clear and a bright moon lighted sky and sea. The moon went down early, but visibility remained good.

  "Shadow at 10 degrees!" a lookout reported.

  Mohr turned to watch the ship about two sea miles away. He ordered a change of course to set up an attack, and could soon make out that she was a freighter of four to five thousand tons, in ballast. She was on a southwest course, and he estimated her speed at about 12 knots.

  After about an hour and a quarter of steady running, the boat had closed a considerable part of the distance between them.

  "Shadow zero degrees!" a forward lookout called out.

  This ship was dead ahead and closing fast. Mohr turned his boat aside and took a close look at the oncoming ship. She was a tanker, and he broke off the attack on the empty freighter for this more valuable prize.

  "Full speed on both diesels! Hard port!" Mohr called.

  The U-boat turned sharply to come in for a bow shot. Köster called out the firing data. "Distance 900 meters . . . angle 80 degrees . . . speed 11.5 knots . . ." He waited until the crosshairs lay directly amidships. Torpedo . . . los!"

  Exactly 16 minutes after first sighting the tanker, the boat fired a torpedo. It missed.

  "Distance 700 meters . . ." Köster's impersonal voice gave the readings from the night sight. "Angle 90 degrees . . . speed 11.5 knots . . . los!"

  The second torpedo left the tube one minute after the first. It hit under the after mast and set off a blast flame which enveloped the ship. She buckled in the middle and broke apart while both the fore and after parts of the ship sent fountains of flames 100 meters in the air.

  The men on the U-boat's bridge watched silently, the glare from the fire reflecting a bloody glow across their tense faces.

  There was no catastrophe at sea to compare with a burning tanker, and no more horrible and inescapable death for a seaman.

  By sheer will power, Mohr compelled himself to concentrate on her silhouette in an effort to classify her. The unbearable heat kept the boat from approaching closer.

  "Gulfbelle type," he finally said, his tone harsh with contradictory emotions. "About 7,000 tons . . ."

  "And loaded," Köster added, trying to keep his voice normal and forcing himself to see the holocaust before them only in terms of fuel the Allies could not use against German forces.

  Long minutes passed in silence as the U-boat's bridge watch struggled to keep their thoughts away from the tanker's crew, whose blazing pyre held their gaze like a magnet. But try as they might, all they could think of was sailors like themselves, burning and dying in those flames.

  "Just like that first tanker," Köster murmured.

  "Yes," Mohr answered, turning away.

  She was the SS Naeco.

  The freighter that Mohr had passed up for the tanker signaled on the 600-meter band, reporting the burning tanker's position.

  The Naeco had taken the boat's last torpedo, and brought her score to 7 ships sunk and 3 damaged in the 9-day operation off Cape Hatteras.

  That night Mohr signaled a report to Dönitz that his torpedoes were expended and reported unqualified success for the patrol. He described the heavy traffic, a large part of which was tankers, which passed Cape Hatteras in the morning and evening. During the night ships would go from Hatteras to Cape Fear; there was no night traffic between Cape Fear and Charleston. Ships steered from one buoy to the next without going into any of the bays, and light and radio beacons were in operation as though it were peacetime. Destroyers and Coast Guard cutters patrolled around Hatteras and on the shipping lanes, and planes appeared in the evenings. There were no mines.

  He listed the ships he had sunk, adding that they had not actually seen the tanker Atlantic Sun sink.

  Weeks later, Erich Topp, ace commander of U-552, would report these waters still covered with a film of oil, silent witness to Mohr's deadly raid.

  At 12:32 on March 23, Mohr sent the following signal to Dönitz: "Weidmannsdank fϋr freie Jagd. In der Gewitterneumondnacht / war bei Lookout die Tankerschlacht. / Der arme Roosevelt verlor / Fϋn-fzigtausend Tonnen. Mohr." (Hunter's thanks for a free hunt. In the stormy new moon night / was by Lookout the tanker fight. / The poor Roosevelt lost / fifty thousand tons. Mohr.)

  Several hours later, he received the following signal from Dönitz: "An Mohr / Gut gemacht.—Befehtsha-ber." (Well done.)

  The success off Cape Hatteras had boosted Mohr's tonnage score past the 100,000-ton mark, and the crew knew the Knight's Cross would be waiting for him when he got home. So they had, as they had once done for Schulz, secretly made a Knight's
Cross themselves. When the expected announcement came, their Mohr would wear his new decoration at once, without having to wait for Dönitz. So the black cross, trimmed with silver, and hung on a black and white ribbon, was carefully made by Mechanikermaat Loba and hidden away.

  When the signal arrived announcing Mohr's decoration, the officer on watch quietly tucked it in his pocket, and everyone on board became engaged in the conspiracy. There was suddenly much subdued activity and excitement, and Mohr was the only one who was unaware of it.

  To the everlasting delight of the crew, U-124 sported a wondrously skilled pastry chef, and he brought his full talents into play as he baked a magnificent cake for the commander. It was elaborately decorated with a Knight's Cross in icing in the center, and around the edge were the words, "Der Mohr hat seiner Schuldigkeit getan," quoted from Dönitz's famous signal to Mohr at the end of his first patrol as commander. Mohr had indeed done his duty!

  Hours later, when this masterpiece was ready, it was carried to the bridge, along with the wireless signal and the home-made Knight's Cross. An added festive touch was another signal from Headquarters which announced that U-124's chief engineering officer had been promoted to Kapitänleutnant and the II watch officer to Oberleutnant.

  While the elaborate preparations were being carried out, Mohr lay worn out and sound asleep in his bunk, oblivious to it all.

  "Commander to the bridge!"

  The loud shout rang through the boat, jarring the exhausted Mohr back to consciousness. His feet were on the deck before he was more than half awake. Ship in sight? Plane attacking? He rounded the corner at a run, bumping his head and swearing angrily.

  He popped up on the bridge sleepy, bewildered, and bad-tempered, rubbing his head and muttering to himself. He was greeted with laughter and congratulations from the group on the bridge, and ceremoniously presented with his cake, the wireless message from Dönitz, and the Knight's Cross, which was fastened around his neck.

  Mohr's bad humor vanished at once and he grinned in boyish delight at the surprises. The black and silver medal shone brightly against his grimy undershirt, and from that day he would wear it all the time, whether he had on a fresh white dress shirt or none at all. When they arrived at base, he would receive the decoration and congratulations from Dönitz, but the Knight's Cross he always wore was the one his men had made.