19. The best and most comprehensive book on the May 1943 tragedy is Michael Gannon, Black May: The Epic Story of the Allies’ Defeat of the German U-Boats in May 1943 (New York: HarperCollins, 1998).
A Community Bound by Fate: The Crew of U-505
by Timothy Mulligan
1. Karl Dönitz, Die U-Bootswaffe (Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1940), 27.
2. Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, Vol. II: The Hunted, 1942-1945 (New York: Random House, 1998), 550.
3. Eric C. Rust, Naval Officers Under Hitler: The Story of Crew 34 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1991), 64, 68, 89.
4. Most information is taken from Axel-Olaf Loewe’s letters to Daniel Gallery, September 29 and October 18, 1955, among Gallery Papers in the Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD (hereafter Gallery Papers); additional data from Konteradmiral a.D. Albert Stoelzel, ed., Ehrenrangliste der Kaiserlich Deutschen Marine, 1914-1918 (Berlin: Marine-Offizier-Verein e.V., 1930), 211, 214.
5. Data taken from Loewe’s letter to Gallery of September 29, 1955; the official publication Rangliste der Deutschen Reichsmarine Nach dem Stande vom 4. November 1932, 9, 56; and Walter Lohmann and Hans H. Hildebrand, Die Deutsche Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945: Gliederung, Einsatz, Stellenbesetzung (3 vols.; Bad Nauheim: Podzun, 1956-64), III, 291/211.
6. Hans Jacob Goebeler with John P. Vanzo, Steel Boats, Iron Hearts: The Wartime Saga of Hans Gobeler and the U-505 (Holder, FL: Wagnerian Publications, 1999), 24, 68.
7. Loewe’s letter to Gallery, October 18, 1955; Goebeler, Steel Boats, 38-39, 56, 65; and Daniel V. Gallery, U-505, rev. pb. edition of Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea (New York: Paperback Library, 1967), 91-92.
8. Kriegstagebuch (hereafter KTB) U-505, August 26, 1941-August 25, 1942, reproduced through November 7, 1943 on National Archives Microfilm Publication T1022, rolls 3065-66, record item PG 30542/1-7 (hereafter cited as T0122/3065-66/PG 30542/1-7); a copy of the KTB for November 8, 1943 - June 4, 1944, is available at the U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven, Germany. See also Loewe’s letters to Gallery, September 29, and October 18, 1955.
9. Data on Förster taken from the Crewbuch 33, p. 35, maintained by the Wehrgeschichtliches Ausbildungszentrum at the Marineschule Mürwik (with thanks to Mr. Eberhard Schmidt); the Navy Ranglisten for 1935-38; and Loewe’s letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955.
10. Rainer Busch and Hans-Joachim Röll, Der U-Boot-Krieg 1939-1945, I: Die Deutschen U-Boot-Kommandanten (Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1996), 171; Frank Binder and Hans H. Schlünz, Schwerer Kreuzer Blücher (Herford: Koehlers, 1990), 137, 183; the pursuit of the tortoises is noted in Loewe’s letter to Gallery, October 18, 1955; Nollau’s relations with Loewe are described in the Museum of Science and Industry’s interview with Aloysius Hasselberg in Chicago, March 2, 1999, as part of the U-505 Oral History Project (hereafter cited as MSI interviews). I am indebted to Mr. Keith Gill, the Museum’s Curator for U-505 and Transportation, for access to these materials.
11. Loewe letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955; Busch and Röll, U-Boot-Kommandanten, 236; Nazi Party membership data originally held at the Berlin Document Center, now reproduced in National Archives Accessioned Microfilm (hereafter NAAM) A3340, series MFOK, roll W053, frame 0357, and series PK, roll M043, frames 0500-02.
12. Examples are (in order): Eric J. Grove, The Price of Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 17; Edwin P. Hoyt, U-Boats: A Pictorial History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), 51-54; and Jordan Vause, U-Boat Ace: The Story of Wolfgang Lüth (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 123-25.
13. On the role of the SA and Party in the merchant marine, see Rust, Naval Officers, 54. On Prien, see his autobiography Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1940), 96, and his Party membership application in NAAM A3340, series NSDAP-A, roll 82. The significance of Party membership for reserve officers is explored in the sources noted in footnote 41, below.
14. Kommando der Marineschule Mürwik an Kommando U 505, “Personalpapiere für Offizieranwärter,” September 26, 1941, among U-505 administrative records, copies in the custody of the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), Chicago; Doedens letter to Keith Gill, MSI, November 21, 2001; MSI interview with Heinrich Klappich in Cuxhaven, Germany, April 1999; and data on Jacobi’s fate from Horst Schwenk, U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven, April 25, 2002.
15. Loewe letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955.
16. Data from V. E. Tarrant, The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 103, 116.
17. Zschech data taken from Lohmann and Hildebrand, Deutsche Kriegsmarine, III, 292/220; Stoelzel, Ehrenrangliste, 1334; and the official Navy Ranglisten for 1937 (p. 145) and 1938 (p. 36); Crew 36 data in Rust, Naval Officers, 16-17.
18. MSI interview with Mathias Brünig in Chicago, March 3, 1999.
19. The chronology and successes of U-124 are furnished in Kenneth Wynn, U-Boat Operations of the Second World War, Vol. 1: Career Histories, U1-U510 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 100-01; for a general history of the boat see E. B. Gasaway, Grey Wolf, Grey Sea (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), which however errs in assignment dates for U-124’s officers. On U-124’s status as the third most successful U-boat, see Bodo Herzog, “Der Torpedoverbrauch von U-48, dem Erfolgreichsten Unterseeboot des Zweiten Weltkrieges, in der Zeit von September 1939 bis Juni 1941,” Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, 1981/4, 124.
20. Goebeler, Steel Boats, 68-69. The Knight’s Cross (Ritterkreuz) of the Iron Cross was worn at the base of the throat, hence the association.
21. KTB U-505, August 25-December 12, 1942, T1022/3065-66/PG 30542/4. The observation as to “the most severely damaged U-boat to return” is attributed to the flotilla engineer of the 2nd U-boat Flotilla at Lorient Hans Joachim Decker, “404 Days! The War Patrol Life of the German U-505,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, (March 1960), 42). Details of the damage can be found in the 1944 summary report prepared for the U-Boat Command, “Wasserbombenschäden an U-Booten Type IX,” passim (copy in the U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven, subject folder “Untersuchungen über Wabo- und Fliebo-Schäden”).
22. KTB U-505, December 13, 1942–September 30, 1943, T1022/3066/PG 30525/5; Goebeler, Steel Boats, 68ff.
23. The verse is quoted by Heinrich Klappich in his interview with MSI representatives at the U-Boot-Archiv in Cuxhaven, Germany, April 1999; remaining information from the raw interrogation report of U-172 crewmen (statements by Mechanikerobergefreiter Günther Meissner, January 14, 1944), in interrogation materials for survivors of U-172, records of the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Special Activities Branch (Op-16-Z), Record Group 38, National Archives at College Park, Md (hereafter cited in the format RG 38, NA-CP).
24. List of 2nd U-Flottille U-boats for March 5, 1943 reproduced on T1022/2152/PG 36678; data on losses in Tarrant, U-Boat Offensive, 118-19, 123-24; comparison of Crew origin and fates of U-boats lost in Busch and Röll, U-Boot-Kommandanten, passim, and the same authors’ Deutsche U-Boot-Verluste von September 1939 bis Mai 1945 (Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1999), 86-146.
25. Goebeler, Steel Boats, 70-80, 104-05, 170; MSI interviews with Wolfgang Schiller and Karl Springer in Chicago, March 1-2, 1999.
26. See MSI interviews with Thilo Bode in Munich, Germany, April 18, 1999; Goebeler, Steel Boats, 73ff., 155; Bode’s comments copied from U-505’s guest book and located in folder “U-505,” Box 38, Gallery Papers; and Hans Herlin, Verdammter Atlantik. Schicksale deutscher U-Boot-Fahrer (Düsseldorf / Vienna: Econ Verlag, 1982), 102.
27. KTB U-505, October 24-25, 1943, T1022/3066/PG 30542/6; Herlin, Verdammter Atlantik, 107-112. The captain of U-604, Kaptlt. Horst Höltring, reportedly shot himself following the loss of his boat and the U-boat that temporarily rescued him (Paul Kemp, U-Boats Destroyed. German Submarine Losses in the World Wars [Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997], 142-43).
28. KTB U-505, October 24-25, 1943; letters of Paul Meyer and Willy Englebarth to Daniel G
allery, August 31, 1955 and December 19, 1954, respectively, Gallery Papers; Decker, “404 Days!”, 43; and Goebeler, Steel Boats, 175-78.
29. Review of listings of actions in “Chronological 1 Sep 43 - 31 Oct 53” and “Attacks on U-Boats - British Assessment No. 4” (October 1943), both in Tenth Fleet ASW Analysis and Statistical Section, Series VIII: Assessments of Probable Damage Inflicted in Specific ASW Incidents 1941-45, Tenth Fleet records in RG 38, NA-CP.
30. Loewe letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955, Gallery Papers.
31. Herlin, Verdammter Atlantik, 96-98 (quoting an interview with Meyer); Busch and Röll, U-Boot-Kommandanten, 161; Goebeler, Steel Boats, 139, 155-56, 167, 176ff.; and Paul Meyer’s letter to Gallery, August 31, 1955, Gallery Papers.
32. Data compiled from the KTB of U-505, crew list information at the U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven, and crew information contained in folder “U-505,” Box 38, Gallery Papers; data on naval surgeons from Hartmut Nöldeke and Volker Hartmann, Der Sanitätsdienst in der deutschen U-Boot-Waffe (Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1996), 150-51, 156-57, 241.
33. KTB U-505, October 22, 1942, T1022/3065/PG 30542/4; Goebeler, Steel Boats, 69-70, 77; crew information in folder “U-505,” Box 38, Gallery Papers; and MSI interview with Bode, April 18, 1999 (pp. 46-49), Munich, Germany.
34. KTB U-505 November 21, 1942, T1022/3066/PG 30562/4; crew list of U-377 in U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven.
35. See Gallery’s praise for Meyer in U-505, 193.
36. Background data from “German U-Boat Captain Here, Tells of Sub’s Capture,” The Indianapolis Star, June 7, 1964 (copy in U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven); interview with Hans and Hannelore Schultz, October 19, 2001, Hamburg, Germany.
37. The data in Busch and Röll, U-Boot-Kommandanten, 139, is only partly correct as Lange only commanded (successively) V-909 and V-906 in the Ninth Patrol Boat Flotilla (see the KTB of 9. Vorpostenboot-Flottille, 1 Mai 1940 - September 30, 1941, T1022/3724-25/PG 82692); Schultz interview (Hans Schultz was II. W.O. aboard U-180); Wynn, U-Boat Operations, 135.
38. MSI interviews with Wolfgang Schiller, Chicago, March 1, 1999, and Karl Springer, Chicago, March 2, 1999; Goebeler, Steel Boats, 192-93.
39. Dönitz acknowledged this openly in his radio message of November 13, 1943, the significance of which is discussed in the author’s Neither Sharks Nor Wolves: The Men of Nazi Germany’s U-Boat Arm, 1939-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999), 83-85, 188.
40. NSDAP membership data in NAAM A3340, series MFOK, roll M078, fr. 0384 (Lange), roll C029, fr. 1364 (Brey), and roll H023, fr. 2065 (Hauser).
41. See the preliminary discussions of this in Manfred Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat: Zeit der Indoktrination (Hamburg: R.v. Decker’s, 1969), 86-87, 226-27, and Bernhard R. Kroener, “Auf dem Weg zu einer “nationalsozialistischen Volksarmee’ - Die soziale Öffnung des Heeresoffizierkorps im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Martin Broszat, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, and Hans Woller, eds., Von Stalingrad zur Währungsreform: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Umbruchs in Deutschland (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1990), 651ff.
42. This subject is addressed generally in Charles S. Thomas, The German Navy in the Nazi Era (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990), and more specifically in Rust, Naval Officers, 57-59, 70-72, 117-18; Messerschmidt, Wehrmacht, esp. 94, 429-30, 437-38, and 475-77; and Mulligan, Neither Sharks, 215ff. Lange’s NSDAP membership surprised Hans Schultz (interview with latter at Bad Brückenau, May 28, 2002).
43. Interrogation of Thilo Bode, June 14, 1945, among the German POW 201 files, G-2 (Intelligence) Division MIS-Y Branch interrogations and reports, Records of War Department General and Special Staffs, RG 165, NA-CP.
44. Volkmar Kühn, Torpedoboote und Zerstörer im Einsatz 1939-1945 (Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1997), 238-39, 273. The German Navy’s debacle in the Bay of Biscay on December 27-28, 1943 is detailed in Der Marineoffizier im Gefecht, compiled by the Deutsches Marine Institut (Herford: E.S. Mittler, 1984), 51-103.
45. The KTB for U-505 from December 25, 1943 to June 4, 1944 was not filmed on Microfilm Publication T1022, but is available on microfilm from the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter LC); the original is now located with the complete U-505 KTB in the Bundesarchiv-Abt. Militärarchiv, Freiburg/Br., with a photocopy at the U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven.
46. The official record of U-505’s capture, including a statement by Lange, is found in the Action Report of Task Group 22.3, June 19, 1944, among World War II Action Reports, RG 38, NA-CP; Gallery’s memoir account is found in U-505, 247-79; the treatment of Lange’s wounds is detailed in a medical report among the raw interrogation reports for U-505 among the records of the Special Activities Branch, RG 38, NA-CP; and Karla Lange’s letters are noted in the MSI interview of Werner Reh in Chicago, March 2, 1999.
47. On casualty data for the U-boat force, see Mulligan, Neither Sharks, 251-56; information on individuals from folder “U-515,” Box 38, Gallery Papers, Busch and Röll, U-Boot-Kommandanten, 31, 171, 236, and author’s telephone interview with Thilo Bode, February 15, 2002. On U-534, see Kenneth Wynn, U-Boat Operations of the Second World War, Vol. 2: Career Histories, U511-UIT25 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 19, and the website for the boat, http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gaz/u-534.xhtml.
48. Indianapolis Star news story, June 7, 1964; Hans Schultz interview, May 28, 2002; Lange letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955, Gallery Papers.
49. This particular figure comes from Goebeler, Steel Boats, 169. All other data derive from the sources noted in footnote 50, below.
50. Figures are based on the author’s review of the following crew data: crew list for December 1941 (ranks and last names only) attached to Loewe’s letter to Gallery, October 18, 1955; crew lists for March 1943 and August 1943 (ranks, full names, birthdates and/or next of kin) and U-505 veterans’ list, ca. 1982, in the custody of the U-Boot-Archiv, Cuxhaven; and crew list of U-505 prisoners of war (names, ranks, ages) from the logbook of USS Guadalcanal, Record Group 24, Records of the Bureau of Navigation and Personnel, NA-CP (hereafter collectively cited as “crew data”). The U-505 administrative records at MSI (folder “AI” Heft 1, Offene Bootsakte) include the earliest statistical breakdown of the crew’s composition (but without names) as of October 1941 (4. U-Flottille an “U505,” “Sollvermehrung lt. Abänderungsvorschlag,” October 9, 1941). Excluded are nine crewmen identified among the last-named records who only served aboard U-505 during her training period.
51. See Dönitz’s memorandum and accompanying enclosure to the Kommando der Marinestation der Ostsee, “Personalbedarf der U-Boote auf Grund des Schiffbauneubauplanes,” November 13, 1939, T1022/2066/PG 33541.
52. Loewe letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955; Kommando Schlachtschiff “Scharnhorst” an 4. U.-Flottille, February 2, 1942; Loewe’s memorandum on “Abkommandierung Maschinenmaat S.,” September 28, 1941, and the accompanying responses by 4. U.-Flottille, September 28, 1941 and Admiral der Ostseestation, November 5, 1941, all in folder “AI” Heft 1, Offene Bootsakte, U-505 administrative records at MSI. The notes on U-505’s cautious passage patrol comes from her KTB of January 25-26, 1942, T1022/3065/PG 30542/1.
53. Goebeler, Steel Boats, 71, 213-14, and the postwar “Besatzungsliste ‘U 505’” prepared by the U-boat’s veterans (copy in the U-boot-Archiv); MSI interview with Aloysius Hasselburg, March 2, 1999, Chicago; and interrogation of Willi Jung among the rough interrogations of U-858 crewmen, records of the Special Activities Branch (Op-16-Z), RG 38, NA-CP.
54. See Mulligan, Neither Sharks, 82-83, 166-68.
55. Loewe letter to Gallery, September 29, 1955, Gallery Papers.
56. E.g., Lothar-Günther Buchheim, Zu Tode Gesiegt: Der Untergang der U-Boote (Stuttgart: C. Bertelsmann, 1988), 56; Michael Salewski, Von der Wirklichkeit des Krieges: Analysen und Kontroversen zu Buchheims “Boot” (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1976), 29; and Erich Topp, “Manning and Training the U-boat Fleet,” in Stephen Howarth and Derek Law, eds., The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1945: The Fif
tieth Anniversary International Naval Conference (London and Annapolis: Greenhill and Naval Institute Press, 1994), 216.
57. Mulligan, Neither Sharks, 169-70.
58. Report B-578, “The Age-Structures of the U-boat Arm and the G.A.F. (British source, January 10, 1944),” February 3, 1944, among intelligence reports, interrogations and materials of the G-2 Division (MIS-Y Branch), Records of War Department General and Special Staffs, RG 165, NA-CP.
59 See the author’s “German U-boat Crews in World War II: Sociology of an Elite,” Journal of Military History, 56, 2 (April 1993): 261-81, and Neither Sharks, 114-19.
60. Raw interrogations of U-505 crewmen among records of the Special Activities Branch (Op-16-Z), RG 38, NA-CP; for information on the socioeconomic classification of occupations in Germany at this time, see Detlef Mühlberger, Hitler’s Followers: Studies in the Sociology of the Nazi Movement (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 14-25.
61. The sample of U-boat veterans is described in Mulligan, Neither Sharks, 247-50 (two of the 947 crewmen who prepared questionnaires were in fact U-505 veterans). Where the questionnaires directly solicited places of birth, the U-505 crew list provides only the residences of next-of-kin, but these overwhelmingly represent their parents. The postwar U-505 veterans’ association name list provides addresses for a larger number of men who served on the U-boat, but as these reflect residences in the 1980s they were not used.
62. Loewe letter to Gallery, December 30, 1955, Gallery Papers.
63. Goebeler, Steel Boats, 16-17; MSI interviews with Aloysius Hasselberg and Werner Reh, Chicago, March 2, 1999.
64. Letter of Willy Englebarth to Dan Gallery, December 19, 1954, Gallery Papers.
65. MSI interviews with Karl Springer, Chicago, March 2, 1999, and Heinrich Klappich, Cuxhaven, Germany, April 1999.
66. MSI interview with Wolfgang Schiller, Chicago, March 1, 1999.
67. Interrogation notes for Willi Kneisel, Anton Kern, Hans Rasch, Erich Kalbitz, and Wolfgang Schubert among the raw interrogation reports for U-505, Special Activities Branch (Op-16-Z), RG 38, NA-CP; information for Ewald Felix in C. Herbert Gilliland and Robert Shenk, Admiral Dan Gallery: The Life and Wit of a Navy Original (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999), 127.
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