Hunt and Kill

by Theodore P. Savas

  After undergoing repairs U-505 left Lorient on July 3 in company with U-168, U-183, U-514 and U-533. This time events took an even darker turn. The boat’s Metox unit failed shortly after the standard trial dive. As far as the men were concerned, the failure left them incapable of detecting approaching radar-equipped aircraft. One calamity followed another. The GHG hydrophone array failed, leaving the boat deaf as well as blind. Still Zschech pressed forward. On July 8 the boat was cruising submerged during daylight when Allied aircraft spotted the submarine’s outline and dropped down to attack. Six rapid explosions rocked U-505. The near-misses ripped a small split in an external fuel bunker. Thick oil seeped from the damaged tank and left a spreading oil slick in the boat’s wake. Zschech finally admitted defeat and aborted the patrol, turning U-505 for home.

  The oil leak almost proved fatal when U-505 became the object of an extended hunt by Royal Navy destroyers homing in on its shimmering trail. The warships pounded the sea with depth charges in search of the elusive submarine emitting the telltale fuel slick. Zschech demonstrated considerable skill and slipped free of his hunters by combining high speed surfaced runs at night near the Spanish and French coastlines while running submerged by day. The battered U-505 entered Lorient on July 13 for repair. Once inside the vast Kéroman pens it was discovered that most of the seals on the emergency valves, batteries, air relief valves, and fuel bunkers were corroded to the point of failure. The suspicion arose that battery acid had been poured over them. The realization was a chilling one: sabotage had nearly doomed the boat. The new threat only added to the burden of their failure. It would not be the last time suspected sabotage within the French dockyard would cause U-505 to cut short her patrols.

  After more than two weeks of repairs U-505 put to sea once again on August 1, only to be forced into a premature homecoming by yet more deliberate damage discovered aboard. Loud noises crackled through the pressure hull in the course of the customary test dive. This time Zschech immediately aborted and headed back to Lorient, a decision that left 2nd U-Flotilla staff unfairly skeptical of his judgment. Zschech was exonerated when closer examination revealed several welded seams had been weakened by pushing in strips of oakum and covering them with light soldering to disguise the caulking rope. A deep dive may well have flooded U-505 beyond recovery, for the ruined seams would not have been capable of withstanding much pressure—particularly if depth charged.

  Twelve more days of repairs ensued before U-505 slipped yet again from port, this time with orders to head for the western Atlantic. Unfortunately for Peter Zschech and his men, the patrol was again short-lived and eerily reminiscent of their last effort to leave the French coast behind them. The boat was only hours out of the harbor and undertaking its test dive when strange banging noises shuddered through the hull. By this time everyone knew the drill. U-505 turned around yet again and returned to France, this time with an external air supply duct crushed and flattened. Another attempt at departure on August 21 alongside Werner Henke’s U-515 also ended in failure when the same noises echoed through the boat during an attempt to submerge. Trailing a thick oil slick U-505 returned once more to Lorient. A small hole had been drilled into one of the exterior fuel bunkers. The constant threat of fatal sabotage gnawed away at the crew and indeed every German stationed at Lorient. Guards were doubled aboard every boat and several French workers were arrested as saboteurs.35

  For the sixth time in three months U-505 put to sea on what would be yet another short-lived patrol. Zschech sailed on September 18 in company with 2nd flotilla-mate Gustav-Adolf Janssen and his U-103, Erwin Christophersen’s U-228 of the 6th Flotilla, and Adolf Piening’s U-155 from the 10th Flotilla. Once again during the test dive water gushed from the starboard diesel exhaust. Thereafter the boat’s radio direction finder soon failed, followed by the starboard electric motor, which shorted out. Hoping his technical crew could repair the electric motor, Zschech ran surfaced through high seas as U-505 shipped tons of water through the open conning tower hatch until, on September 23, a permanent failure of the main bilge pump occurred; it was unable to stand up to the strain of handling so much water. Zschech wired the discouraging news to BdU: “Motor of main bilge pump cracked by closed armature circuit and short circuit in newly installed Siemens switch board. Armature burnt out.…Reversed course.”36

  The brief radio list of woes indicated U-505 was again unserviceable. The boat trekked across the treacherous Bay of Biscay yet again, arriving in Lorient on the last day of September. This time few were present to greet the boat as it entered port on its electric motors and was ignominiously placed into dry-dock. The new flotilla chief, Fregattenkapitän Ernst Kals, was on hand to receive the distraught and demoralized commander while his crew boarded buses for Lager Lemp, a newly established home for submarine crews. Lorient now rarely hosted the glorious receptions for returning boats that had been typical in years past. Indeed, even departures were looked upon as somber and grim farewells. The chance of returning was slim and growing slimmer each month, and everyone knew it. Lorient was a devastated ruin, bombed into oblivion by RAF and USAAF attempts to interfere with U-boat operations at their source.

  Despite the constant menace of bombing and sabotage within port, and the regular loss of comrades at sea, morale among the U-boat crews proved remarkably resilient. U-505’s repeated aborted patrols, however, coupled with an already fragile state of mind, wrought havoc on Peter Zschech. Rumors of his heavy-handed method of command and doubts about his personal bravery circulated in Lorient. The latter was utterly unfounded, but malicious whispers relentlessly plagued the young commander. Zschech’s friend Thilo Bode was no longer with U-505. He was transferred to commander training school and would eventually take command of U-858. His replacement was Oblt.z.S. Paul Meyer, who had initially come aboard as II.W.O. in Lorient after Stolzenburg had been injured, and was now promoted to Bode’s empty post. Lt.z.S. Kurt Brey, in turn, transferred to U-505 to serve as the boat’s new II.W.O. While in port the crew rarely saw their reclusive and morose commander. As they were soon to discover, even at sea Zschech had become but a shadow of the man he had once been.

  U-505 departed from the wasteland of Lorient on October 9, 1943, creeping submerged through the Bay of Biscay (”the suicide stretch,” was what Decker and his comrades now called it) with the constant rumble of distant depth charges a reminder of omnipresent death. Zschech refused to surface any more than absolutely essential—even when the Bay of Biscay was behind them and U-505 began crossing the Atlantic. The boat’s dank interior dripped with chilled moisture and reeked of rotting food, unwashed bodies, and the stinking contents of toilet buckets stashed away in the diesel compartment. As U-505 crept west at a depth of 100 meters, ambient water pressure made it impossible to use the two water closets. Slop buckets were placed in the engine room for forty-nine men to use.

  On October 24 the faint thunder of depth charges was picked up by the boat’s hydrophones. The muffled explosions moved closer and at 1948 the hydrophone operator reported the ominous sounds of a destroyer in his headphones. Zschech had thus far been virtually absent from the control room through much of the voyage. Brooding behind the green curtain that sealed off his commander’s bunk, he finally emerged and walked silently to the conning tower ladder and ascended to the small compartment above. The men in the control room exchanged puzzled looks. They were too deep to use either periscope, and no orders had been issued to ascend to periscope depth. Paul Meyer hovered below at the foot of the ladder pleading through the open hatch for instructions from his captain as the escort’s propellers swished close enough to be clearly audible to every ear in the boat. The probing fingers of ASDIC began to play over the iron hull and with chilling certainty the crew realized they had been located. It came as a surprise to no one when the hydrophone operator reported the sound of large canisters hitting the water. The depth charges drifted silently downward until their pressure-sensitive triggers activated. Hundreds of pounds of Torpex detonated nea
r the boat, the violent concussion throwing men to their knees when the incompressible layers of water pummeled the U-boat’s hull. Lights blew out, glass splinters flew through the air, and everything loose joined the growing mess on the rattling steel floor plates. “We thought this was the end…we were in total darkness this time,” admitted Decker. “Still, no reports of a ruptured hull came.”

  After this initial barrage ended the men picked themselves up and braced for a further onslaught. An expressionless Zschech climbed slowly down the ladder into the control room. His glassy eyes reflected the ghostly illumination of fluorescent paint daubed on essential equipment within the boat. He stood without making a sound, as if he did not see the chaos around him. As the crew looked on Zschech disappeared inside his small commander’s nook. Another round of charges battered the barely moving target as warships circled above intent on finishing off the trapped U-boat. Amidst this cacophony of explosions and flying debris Zschech reemerged to crouch in the control room hatchway. “All the lights were out, and we had been knocked off our feet by the explosions,” remembered Goebeler years later. “I looked over and noticed the Kapitän and saw him slowly begin to lean over.…When the lights came on, I saw the blood and found out he had shot himself in the head with his pistol during the depth-charge attack. The depth charges were so loud I never noticed the sound of the pistol.”

  Funkobergefreiter Erich Wilhelm Kalbitz, the boat’s chief radio operator, lifted his commander onto his cot. Small pieces of Zschech’s brain were discovered in the blood flowing from the wound. A second shock gripped the men when they discovered their captain was still alive. Even death did not come easily to Peter Zschech, whose botched suicide attempt had left him contorted and issuing grotesque noises from deep within his throat. They were the sounds of a slowly dying man. While more depth charges fell about them, the men gathered around their unpopular commander in a macabre final act of a drama no one could have foreseen. To hasten the inevitable and end his suffering, four strong hands reached out and pushed a thin pillow over his face, holding it firmly in place until the groaning and writhing ceased. Peter Zschech, a man tormented by his own inner demons, was dead.

  Meyer immediately assumed command of U-505. An announcement crackled over the intercom: “First Officer speaking. The captain is dead. We are going to 150 meters. Silent running.” Decker and his comrades were stunned. “Zschech dead? We hardly had time to think about it, because as we started down a new attack commenced and continued without let up for the next two hours.” Bold capsules were fired from the Pillenwerfer as the boat began a series of evasive maneuvers. The sonar decoy’s chemical bubble cloud hampered the enemy’s ability to track the boat. With their small window of opportunity fractionally opened, Meyer pushed through and U-505 somehow stole away to safety. At 2129, when the din of the British depth charges was nothing more than a distant murmur, a brief two-word entry into the boat’s War Diary was made—a tragic epitaph for a troubled man: “Kommandant tot.” (Commander dead).

  Meyer eventually surfaced briefly at 0400 to bury Zschech at sea without ceremony or remorse. As far as the majority of the crew was concerned, Zschech had abandoned them when they needed his firm command the most. No one mourned aboard U-505. “It was not much of a service for the man who had held such great hopes for us and our boat—and we for him,” wrote Decker. Meyer radioed their situation to Lorient on October 30 and headed home once more.37

  Although the consequences of Zschech’s suicide could have been disastrous to the morale of the crew, their confidence did not break in the face of their former commander’s bizarre action. Once they arrived in Lorient they received a brief visit and morale-boosting speech from Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, who was accompanied by FdU West Fregattenkapitän Hans-Rudolf Rösing. A majority of the crew received home leave to Germany while the remainder enjoyed the relative peace of the Breton countryside and village of Caudan near Lager Lemp. For those who had returned to the Fatherland, Germany’s battering at the hands of the Allied air forces left a deep impression. For many it stiffened their resolve to take the war to the enemy once more.

  In Lorient, meanwhile, U-505’s complement awaited the arrival of a new commander. He was not long in coming and officially assumed charge of the boat that November. Oblt.z.S. der Reserve Harald Lange was an experienced sailor, graduating in 1925 at age twenty-one from the Mürwik Naval Academy. After his military service in the Reichsmarine Lange became a member of the naval reserve and joined the peacetime Handelsmarine (merchant navy), plying the Far Eastern trade routes aboard various freighters. At the outbreak of war Lange found himself once more in naval uniform serving aboard Sperrbrecher (minedetonators) and Vorpostenboote (patrol boats) until his transfer to the U-boat service in 1941. His pre-war experience in the Far East soon put him in good stead when he was assigned as I.W.O. and later commander of U-180, a Type IXD1 he took into the Indian Ocean in early 1943. The arrival of a new commander changed U-505’s exterior once more: Zschech’s Olympic Rings and Loewe’s axe were removed and replaced with a freshly painted shield bearing a large scallop shell on either flank of the conning tower. Whether Lange would have any better luck with U-505 remained to be seen.

  The first effort to leave Lorient did not bode well for the new commander. U-505 departed on December 20, 1943, only to be forced back into port when water poured through a leaking flange around the hydrophone cables because of deliberately faulty welding. Five frustrating days of repair followed before the boat sailed once more, this time slipping from the harbor on Christmas Day—two days after Lange celebrated his 41st birthday. Tall, calm, and able to relate easily with all ranks, Lange insisted on shooting the stars with a sextant himself. He was every inch a professional seaman and swiftly earned the unconditional respect of his new crew. He was the direct opposite of Peter Zschech in many respects, and his refreshed subordinates appreciated his courtesies.

  The Lorient U-505 left behind was quiet and desolate. A single seaman played the boat on its way with his accordion, the 2nd U-Flotilla staff completing the small but enthusiastic dockside farewell party. Around them was nothing but ruin. Lorient in 1943 was the most heavily bombed French Atlantic U-boat base. The installation was the recipient of 6,102 tons of Allied ordnance that flattened everything around the U-boat pens and dockyards, which had somehow remained largely intact. Evacuated by most of its French population, Lorient on Christmas 1943 was a city of ghosts.

  After three days at sea U-505 was still ploughing through the Bay of Biscay’s cold wind-whipped water, with thick, low-hanging cumulus layers threatening rain. Through the boat’s steel walls and above the roar of the twin “jumbos,” Lange’s crew could hear the distant resonance of gunfire. Tension within the boat rose. At 1900 on December 28 an urgent message from BdU directed U-505 and three other outbound boats to form group “Hela” and head at all speed for grid square BE6938. Shortly afterward Fregattenkapitän Kals radioed again from Lorient: the German destroyer Z27 was dead in the water while other German surface ships were attempting to fight their way to the French coast and coastal artillery support. The details provided by Kals were not encouraging:

  1. Enemy cruisers, destroyers and aircraft took part in engagement at 1500 hrs, otherwise no information as to enemy dispositions;

  2. Own destroyers and torpedo boats are attempting to return in groups and singly;

  3. According to weather and direction of wind start from Z27’s battle area in BE6938 and search for survivors.

  A chilling four-word postscript arrived a few minutes later: “Beware of enemy aircraft.”

  By the time U-505 reached the coordinates provided by BdU in the early morning darkness of December 29, the sea was rising, icy winds were throwing spray over the bridge crew, and visibility extended a scant handful of meters beyond the bow of the boat. Blankets were accumulated within the central control room and coffee boiled on the stove within the cramped galley while binoculars scanned the tumbling sea. Of Z27 there was no sign
. More ominously, the first shipwrecked Germans the boat discovered were from the torpedo boat T25. Lange was still on the bridge, lashed by spray and stubbornly attempting to chain-smoke one damp cigarette after another, when the first of several red distress flares sputtered into view. The submarine turned in their direction and soon came across a scattering of rafts holding a miserable collection of freezing sailors. Lange eased his boat alongside to provide some shelter from the high wind and seas while the survivors, who were barely able to hold the ropes thrown to them, were lifted aboard. The last man saved was Korvettenkapitän Wirich von Gartzen, T25’s commander. Von Gartzen was devastated about the loss of so many of his men. He refused treatment for his own injuries until the search was reluctantly abandoned when the weather further deteriorated and all reasonable hope of finding additional survivors passed. Several distant red distress lights faded into oblivion as their owners slipped below the icy water to their graves.

  When he had done all he could Lange submerged. He had pulled thirty-four men from the sea. None of the half-frozen sailors were used to the violent yaw of a U-boat, and most spent their first several hours aboard vomiting into the bilges the diesel oil and seawater they had swallowed. The initial downward tilt of the boat caused several delirious casualties to become hysterical with panic. Some had to be tied to bunks to prevent their interference with the boat’s crew. Order was gradually restored within the overcrowded U-boat as U-505 began its return journey to France, diverted to the 5th T-Flotilla’s homeport of Brest instead of Lorient.

  Lange ran submerged as much as possible. An emergency crash dive would be virtually impossible with the overladen boat because men were crouching, standing, and lying everywhere, blocking the wheels and levers vital for a fast dive. However, without ventilation the odor generated by so many extra men rose to hideous proportions. The swallowing of seawater and diesel oil from their sunken ship caused many of the rescued men to suffer from stomach cramps and diarrhea. There was no way of ridding the boat of human waste while travelling at depth, so the fecal matter and urine accumulated in the odiously familiar overflowing waste buckets.