Admiral Dönitz needed more boats on American patrol to take advantage of these incredible opportunities. The American “shooting season” could not be expected to last very much longer. Eventually the Yankees would start listening to the British and the season would end. Convoying was the logical next step. It was bound to happen. What advantage the U-boats still possessed must be seized on at once. And yet, maddeningly, Adolf Hitler was frustrating the U-boat fleet’s last great chance to exploit this undefended frontier by his insistence that no fewer than twenty boats be placed on permanent station off the coast of Norway to prevent an Allied invasion of that country. Dönitz thought it very wrong minded of the Führer to expect an attack on Norway, although there had been minor British raids during 1941, and in April 1942 Churchill would seriously consider a landing in strength, from which he was dissuaded by his chiefs of staff. Actually Dönitz was fortunate that Hitler took away only twenty of his boats. On 22 January the Führer expected “unconditional compliance” with his orders that “all U-boats be transferred to Norway.” But the next day he relented, “in view of the successful operations of our U-boats along the American coast,” and limited the Norwegian detail to eight.16 During February, when the American hunt club was most inviting and Dönitz was forced to the expedient of using overstressed VIICs, Hitler upped the Norwegian ante to twenty boats. Dönitz protested that the tonnage war on shipping, which was the only offensive means Germany had left to defeat British arms, was gravely compromised by the diversion of U-boats to static duty. British naval historian Roskill agrees: “Inevitably the weight of the offensive off the American coast declined just at the time when it had proved highly profitable…. The small total [of boats] available early in the year, combined with diversions to unprofitable purposes, now seems to have been a decisive factor in the Atlantic battle.”17 Another of Hitler’s “intuitions” led to a mighty blunder affecting the sea battle on which the entire course of the European war depended.
Lorient, France, Second Flotilla, 2 March. U-123′s departure from Isére on her second American patrol was much like that on her first, with a large crowd of well-wishers present from the base and a spirited brass band playing the usual send-off music. There were certain differences, too. For one, the mooring lines fell away under floodlights at a dark 1930 in the evening. For another, instead of Christmas trees women base workers presented bouquets of flowers to the officers. And there were several new men on board: IIWO Wolf-Harald Schüler who took over the functions of von Schroeter, who moved up to Number One replacing Hoffmann, who was reassigned; an LI in training named Mertens to assist Schulz; a young midshipman named Rudolf Hölzer whose assignment was to get a first taste of war; a seaman second class named Walter “Laura” Lorenz; and a new propaganda photographer named Rudolf Meisinger, whom the crew quickly dubbed “Schöner Rudi” (Handsome Rudi). He replaced Tolle, who had recovered well from surgery and had returned in good health to his home in Germany. There was one other difference: This time both the crew and the crowd knew full well the boat’s destination. The Lion was hurling every boat that was not tied down off Norway against North America and the Caribbean. There was no secret about it at all. So the cheers of bystanders carried a certain specificity as they counseled 123 on how to deal with Roosevelt.
When the freshly scrubbed boat stood out to sea the bridge watch threw the flowers overboard—an old sailors’ custom—and peered ahead into a rapidly descending fog. Reinhard Hardegen, holding the conn, groped cautiously along the buoys. With the fog deepening he soon could not make out his own bow, much less the Räumboot escort that was waiting outside the harbor. A strong low-tide current made it doubly difficult to hold course in the narrow channel. Then—a crunch forward! They had run aground! “Both back emergency full!” Quickly the boat disengaged from the bottom. The Old Man thought it was a rock. Then the stern ran up a sandbank! Were they trapped? Again the engines worked them free. The Old Man now cut the engines, ordered out the anchor, and rowed ashore in the boat’s dinghy. This was embarrassing. To be stranded directly in front of the harbor entrance—and he an experienced traveler to the States—it was not the proud moment that he had envisioned. At Flotilla a surprised duty officer gave Hardegen permission to continue his advance if the fog lifted, which it did shortly after he reboarded at 2210. With good visibility under a full moon 123 worked herself free, came alongside the appointed escort, and proceeded safely through the channel and mine field. In the early hours after midnight the Old Man and the bridge observed that rarest of nighttime phenomena, a full eclipse of the moon. They took it as a good omen after the humiliating adventure just past.
At 0855, with her escort and 129 nautical miles behind her, 123 made her first trim dive with Mertens carefully studying the practiced technique of Schulz. The Old Man took a turn through the boat to check on the readiness of all stations. When the boat was submerged no one as a rule was allowed to go forward or aft, since to do so disturbed the trim. Anyone who was required by duties to move positions had to advise the LI, as the Old Man did now, tapping with his knuckles the belowdecks Kreiselgeräte (gyrocompass) as he stooped to pass through the forward hatch. At the outset of every Feindfahrt it was difficult moving through the passageway, with food cans and boxes squirreled away in every deck-level cranny and bulging hammocks filled with sausages, bread, potatoes, and other perishables hanging low from the warren of overhead pipes and valves. To both sides and above the Old Man looked to be certain that everything was lashed and secured for the hard Atlantic they were about to enter. Someone else’s word, no matter how well proved, was not enough. He had to see for himself. He also looked into the eyes of every man at his station to reassure himself that every Jonah was fully alert in this steel-ribbed whale, and every man responded with a respectful smile and a nod. They were still fresh faced and shaved, these companions of the deep. Soon enough they would have that familiar U-boat pallor and, all but those too young to grow one, beards as fearsome as any pirate’s. The still-clean U-boat interior sparkled, and the delicious aroma of Hannes’s hot rolls wafted through the compartments. Even in the engine room (where the hot-roll essence was unlikely ever to penetrate) “Karlchen’s” hot engine blocks wore a bright blue-gray exterior. The Maneuvering Room, as usual, was spotless. Satisfied that everything was in order, and that the men were ready and eager to fight this boat again, the Old Man retired to his half compartment and pulled shut its green curtain. He did not catch Fritz Rafalski’s worried look across the gangway as he did so. Like everyone else on board, Rafalski thought that the American shore offered easy successes. But he followed wireless chatter and base gossip closely enough to know that most of the U-boats that had been lost to date were either on their first patrols or were led by bold, aggressive, tenacious commanders. And the man behind that curtain was no slacker.
Hardegen sat at his small tip-up desk and reviewed his Operation Order. This time he did not have to wait until crossing 20 degrees west to know his destination and mission. Both Dönitz and Flotilla had already told him plainly what he had on the paper before him: “Take a direct course to the United States East Coast. Make your descent through naval quadrant CB opposite Norfolk and steer for Hatteras in QU.CA. On or about 22 March BdU will instruct you by F.T. on further maneuvers. During transit sink any enemy vessels of appropriate tonnage.” To assist him in working off the United States this time BdU and Flotilla had supplied him not only with a full set of coastal charts but also with sailing directions—Handbuch der Ostküste der Vereinigten Staaten (Handbook of the East Coast of the United States)—that had been abstracted from U.S. and British publications and printed in German between seafoam green covers. With his dividers he estimated 3,600-plus nautical miles to Hatteras Light, or twenty-five days of unobstructed steaming. He would have to check the numbers with Kaeding. The Atlantic could be a boring passage-day by day grinding away the degrees while some staff officer back at Kernével slowly advanced a blue flag across the green baize table. He would try to ke
ep the crew razor sharp with emergency dives, practice approaches, and qualification tests. Sometimes the Atlantic had its own way of keeping a crew alert.
13 March, 1200 hours (CET), position BC 9827, boat on the surface, total miles traveled 1,660, skies overcast, gale force winds at 8 from the north-northwest, sea state 7, visibility 18. The implacable Atlantic had them again in its challenging envelope, testing the limits of their capacity to endure. It was a test for humans only. The boat itself was a real sea keeper; there was no need to worry about their craft. Eins Zwei Drei sliced through the mountainous crests in a workmanlike way, sea-sledded with a rising stern as though it was her preferred way of march, plunged casually into the steel blue pits, and took the full force of the foaming torrents that she divided. There was never any worry about the boat—only that now and then power should be reduced to prevent undercutting and the waste of energy against the crashing seas. It was the human cargo that needed attention. Could flesh withstand what high-tensile steel threw aside with a laugh? Walter Kaeding:
On the bridge, the bathtub, you stood in a meter of water. I used to cut drainage holes in my boots. Standing there in gale seas was horrible. It was like being tied fast to a delivery truck. And that truck drives across potholes half a meter deep at thirty to forty kilometers per hour. And let’s say every thirty seconds someone throws a bucket of freezing cold water in your face, another person takes a hose and squirts you, yet another throws ice at you. Then the truck occasionally tips toward one side, maybe thirty degrees, and then careens thirty degrees toward the other side, and sometimes the driver goes straight through a river and you’re standing on the bridge, lashed to it by a safety belt, and these mountains of water roll over you, fifteen meters high, and one breaks right on top of you. And there you stand gulping for air. Not even the old Vikings experienced such things.18
On the seventeenth the Atlantic relented. The boat passed on to a nearly pacific surface with winds and seas no greater than force 1. The crew, stinking in damp clothes and numbed by the fatigue caused by bracing themselves against the elements, stretched their limbs and necks. Those coming off duty slept deeply. The mixers who had fallen behind on their torpedo checks now put their gleaming, oily arms to the work of extracting the G7s onto rattling tracks and chains. Rafalski listened to Goodwill Service messages from Kiel to other boats: “Seaman Second Class Buchholz. Brother Matthias fell 10 March Eastern Front. Otherwise all well. Family wishing you all the best…. Petty Officer Heinz Müller. On 15 March wife Frieda delivered small sailor with periscope. Frieda, Irmgard, Kurt, and family send greetings….” In the galley Hannes expressed his relief at finally being able to hold down his pots by preparing a favorite stew and pastries. With his broad cheeks, short chin, and shock of black hair Hannes was by consensus the most likable man on board. Nothing seemed to affect his cheery disposition, not even the complaints from some when violent seas caused outbreaks of testiness that he was serving up “dead dog” or “chopped missionary.” Of no one on board was more inventiveness and flexibility required. If he was in the middie of frying pork cutlets and the dive alarm rang, Hannes had to pull the meat from the fire lest smoke drift through the compartments causing red eyes and coughing. In such moments he would reach under the reserve “eels” for sausages that only needed warming up or he would open cans of sardines in oil. Later, when the boat was back on the surface, he would reheat the cutlets and give them a little moisture by mixing them with sauerkraut. For the Old Man, whose bleeding stomach required bland foods, Hannes varied the flavors of the oatmeals and gruels that the steward delivered to the commander’s place at table. And when everything else on a Feindfahrt had been eaten and all that was left was macaroni—what the crew called “Mussolini asparagus”—Hannes invented different sauces to make it palatable. Everyone knew him affectionately as Unser Hannes— “our Hannes.” No one could know that one year later on another boat, less lucky than 123, Hannes would go down to a watery grave.
Much of the off-duty crew time in the days ahead would be spent reading and telling stories. A small library in a locker next to the Old Man’s cubbyhole contained both serious and light reading, but most of the ratings preferred the magazines and detective or adventure novels they had brought on board themselves, which they passed, dog-eared and oily, from bunk to bunk. The Old Man’s only concern was that this literature not be pornographic or salacious. Hardegen subscribed to the Lüth school in these matters. Korvettenkapitän Wolfgang Liith, who had won the Knight’s Cross in October 1940, held that during the monotonous days of a long sea passage it was important for the maintenance of morale that “iron will power” be exercised where sexual appetites were concerned. “To be sure,” he would write, “I have not permitted the men to hang pictures of nude girls on the bulkheads and over their bunks. If you are hungry, you shouldn’t paint bread on the wall.”19 Though the Old Man also had the petty officers monitor the men’s conversations for lewd content, it was unreasonable to expect young, unmarried seamen’s banter to be entirely devoid of sexual allusions, and much of the laughter on board came in response to quips in that area.
The younger men were as yet too inexperienced in life to have many stories to tell, so the crew turned to men who had had numerous previous adventures, such as Rafalski, and particularly thirty-year-old “Karlchen,” when he could be coaxed forward from his engines. Everyone except the new crewmembers had heard “Karlchen’s” stories before, but they pressed him to tell them as though hearing them for the first time. “I met Adolf Hitler personally once,” he would say. “I was on the Panzerschiff Deutschland for two years. In 1935 the Führer came on board with much fanfare. General Werner von Blomberg was with him and we could observe them every day. You can’t imagine the deference paid him. The general walked with Hitler on the after deck. Up and down they went, and when Hitler turned to walk the other way the general jumped to his left side. And when they went belowdecks the general said, ‘Bitte schön, bitte schön,’ and Hitler walked first through the hatch, his head erect. I sat directly across from him once when we had afternoon coffee, and we were permitted to ask him questions. I asked him what was going to happen in the Kriegsmarine. He asked me back, ‘How many Panzerschiffe do we have?’ I told him, ‘Three—Scheer, Deutschland, and Graf Spee.’ ‘What?’ he said. ‘Only three? We must have twenty. The English must be made to quiver.’”
“When was that, did you say?” asked Barth.
“Maybe it was thirty-four. Yes, Hindenburg was still living then. I can tell you it was awful being on the Deutschland. Even when Hitler was not on board they had fanfares all day long—da-da, da-da! All day long. We had more freedom on a little ship, like the torpedo boat I’d been transferred from. And then one day the Ubootwaffe started up and I applied. The number of men rejected was very large. I was lucky to be sent to school where I was taught everything there was to know about U-boat mechanics, and then I went to sea in a training boat. Our first crew had wonderful camaraderie on board and a great commander. He’s died in the meantime. In port we went bowling on Fridays. And on Saturdays we fooled around a lot….”
“Tell us about Saturdays,” one of the seamen would ask—at just about the time a petty officer showed up to listen in.20
22 March, 1047 hours (CET), position CB 8342, course 270. “Commander to the bridge!” The steady, questing eyes topside had found a faint, black smoke column on the port beam. Hardegen decided it was worth a look. “Hard left rudder, come to one eight zero.” After a short while mast tops and then a stack materialized. Hardegen estimated the ship’s course at 345 degrees. It was coming to them. “Our Sunday dinner,” he said to von Schroeter standing alongside. “It seems to happen that we get a morsel every Sunday.” When the bow wake finally came into view, Hardegen guessed a ship’s speed of seven knots. The target seemed to be on a zigzag course, but Hardegen thought that that might be due to yawing, since the sea was rising and von Schroe-terhad readings of 4-5. The sun was also up, so this attack would have to be
made underwater. Alarm!
After dogging the hatch Hardegen took his position on the saddle of the Standzielsehrohr in the upper tower and waited for the lens to come hissing from its well. At 13.5 meters Schulz called up the ladder: “Periscope depth!” Hardegen placed his right eye in the lens cup and checked the visibility. “Bring her up to thirteen, LI!” he ordered Schulz. “I have a lot of wave action up here.” With better clearance of the surface Hardegen put pressure on the left foot pedal to train the lens around toward the target. Now he had it in the cross hairs. He could set up the solution. “Speed greater than I thought,” he said to Schüler, manning the Vorhaltrechner. “Crank in eight-point-five knots. Range one thousand. Angle on the bow nineteen. Let’s set up for a sixty-degree track. Helmsman, come thirty degrees to port so our eel runs lateral to the waves. Number Two, flood Stern Tube five. Let’s get rid of that G7a. Set depth at three meters. I’m having a lot of trouble holding position here. When I’m not under I can see only the two mast tops.” Although the hydroplane operators below were doing their best to anticipate the rise and fall of the boat as registered in the Papenberg column and make the necessary adjustments to keep the exterior periscope lens at a steady height above the surface, the IXB boat, with its wide flat upper deck, simply did not hold periscope depth as well as ttie VIIC in rough weather. Hardegen therefore was not blaming the control room for the lift and dip or for the fact that his lens was underwater as often as it was out. And the worsening seas were another factor: Not only did they throw blinding waves at the periscope, they also placed the target in troughs so deep that much of the time all that Hardegen could see were the masts. He ordered a slight change in course to acquire the stability of a beam sea.
Operation Drumbeat Page 41