Operation Drumbeat

by Michael Gannon

  Hardegen swept his flashlight beam around the control room until he found von Schroeter’s face. “Number One,” he whispered, “prepare to destroy Schliissel-M rotors, cipher books, and all confidential papers. Pass the word in whispers fore and aft to don escape gear. Have all hands move quietly toward the control room. This time I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

  “Yes, Herr Kaleu.”

  The officers spoke sotto voce in the likely case that the American pursuer had hydrophones.

  “And prepare to set the timer on the scuttling charge. And check on injuries.”

  “Yes, Herr Kaleu.”

  When he found Schulz the Old Man walked over the cracked instrument glass and placed his hand on the Li’s shoulder. “What’s our damage so far, Chief?” he asked.

  Schulz whispered back: “All the head valves have burst open, Herr Kaleu. We’re losing air. You can hear it bubbling to the surface. The destroyer’s got a big bubble patch upstairs to home on. I don’t hear any ASDIC pinging. He must not have the equipment. But he has our bubbles. Also the tower hatch cracked open, but we got it closed. I’m waiting for the Maneuvering Room to send someone forward with a report. We could have been hurt bad back there.”

  The Old Man winced and looked up, unseeing, at the menacing swish-swish-swish of the oncoming destroyer’s screws. This was not the place to be for a depth-charging. With only twenty-two meters of water above their heads there was no place to hide. If they survived this next pattern he would order Abandon Ship.

  SWISH-SWÍSH-SWISH. The American was overhead and crossing. Now the deadly canisters would roll from his fantail. Or perhaps he had throwers.

  “Hold on!” the Old Man counseled loudly, not concerned for the moment about silence since on the destroyer’s final approach it had to run at high speed in order to avoid the blasts of its own explosives, and its hydrophones during that period would hear only the destroyer’s high revolution propellers. Every man in the control room reached for a wheel or stanchion. Bound together in a fraternity of commonly shared danger they awaited the mauling that they all would receive equally. Officers and ratings stood side by side where no visible distinctions in insignia existed and where the only man who counted was the man who did his duty. Here no one could jump aside and find cover when the bomb exploded. No wounded could be carried behind the lines.

  Every man stood alone with his thoughts or prayers. Flashlights beamed down in white cones. Someone coughed. Another exhaled air.

  SWISH-SWISH-swish. Hardegen looked up. Swish-swish-swish…. “He’s passed us,” he whispered. “He didn’t drop a thing!” Why? he wondered. The American had them dead on. Did he lose his confidence at the last minute? Did his bomb rails or throwers malfunction? Did he miss his mark? For whatever reason, it was bizarre good luck. But how long could that kind of luck hold? The screw noises receded and took what seemed to be a stationary position a short distance off. The Old Man waited a few minutes to see if the destroyer was making another approach. When the sound continued at the same distance he ordered on the emergency red lamps.

  “All right, Chief,” he said to Schulz quietly, “let’s try our systems and get some damage reports. We have to know our status even if it means making noise. If the destroyer lacks ASDIC he certainly must have some other form of sound detection equipment. So he will hear us no doubt. But he already knows where we are from our bubbles. So this is a risk we must take.”

  Schulz moved quickly through a checklist in his head, ordering on and off the E motors, blowers, and ventilators. He checked the battery charges, fuses, and wiring connections. To the hydroplane operators he gave specific test instructions and, with them, watched for responses on the gauges.

  “Karlchen” from the engine room and Renner from the E motors, both wearing their Dräger Tauchretter, came into the control room and met the Old Man’s eyes. Hardegen motioned them in the direction of Schulz and stood by to listen.

  “Oberleutnant,” Karlchen said, “the port engine is down. We can only blow tanks five and seven with the starboard. We might be able to blow the rest with compressed air, except for one and eight where we have air escaping. The head valves are bent. And I may have busted pipes.”

  “Thank you, Karlchen,” the LI acknowledged. “Renner?”

  “Oberleutnant, most of our batteries are out. We can’t go very far with what we have left. When Pleuser and I clutched our remaining power to the shafts we got a hellish noise from the shafts and screws. I asked Karlchen to come aft and listen with me, and he agrees, we have bent shafts, perhaps screws, too.”

  “All right, Renner, thank you.” Schulz turned to the Old Man. “There are also problems with the hydroplanes, Herr Kaleu. Probably it’s the stuffing boxes. I fear we could not control the boat even if we got her under way, and Renner’s report about the batteries and the shafts is not good.”

  The Old Man looked hard at Schulz, then at Latislaus and Renner, testing the cut of their faces under the harsh red light. He lifted his ear to listen for any change in the destroyer’s position. Swish-swish-SWISH. It seemed to be heading their way again!

  “So,” he said to Schulz, “you’re saying that even if we escaped from this attack we would probably not reach Lorient.”

  “That’s correct, Herr Kaleu,” Schulz said. “If we managed to get to the surface we probably would not get far with deformed shafts. With two burst tanks and questionable electric power I’m not sure we would be able to dive safely. In other words, we would be sitting ducks for whatever distance we could travel.”

  Hardegen weighed the options carefully, although his ability to concentrate was limited by the approaching tormentor upstairs. In a few moments the American would be on top of them again—

  Swish-Swish-Swish

  SWISH-SWISH-SWISH

  Swish-swish-swish….

  But again, no Wabos. The destroyer passed directly over their position. And did nothing! What is he up to? Hardegen wondered, and then, as his heartbeat settled, he returned to the options at hand. The more he considered them the more clearly he concluded that, since it was unlikely that they would make it home, either because of the boat’s mechanical failure or because they could not defend themselves successfully against enemy attacks—and the hunter upstairs without question was calling in every available nearby ship and plane to make certain this trapped prey was killed—the best course to take for the welfare of his men was to order their immediate escape to the surface, here, where the depth was shallow, where St. Augustine and the beaches were nearby, and a ship was on the scene to pick them up. As he put it in writing a year later: “So this was the end. Now we would get to know Mr. Roosevelt’s hospitality after all.”88

  Hardegen ordered in a loud voice: “Prepare to abandon ship!”

  He stepped past the crewmen who were crowding the passageway forward to his cubbyhole, where he took the photographs of his wife and children from their frames, placed them in his shirt, and donned the escape apparatus, with its mouthpiece and noseclip, oxygen cylinder, breathing pipe, and life vest, that had been stowed under his bunk. Then he returned to the control room and placed his right foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. On a U-boat, unlike a surface ship, the first man to abandon ship was the commander. If there was any hazard on top he would be the first to face it.

  To von Schroeter he said, “As soon as I begin flooding, set the timer on the scuttling charge. Place the confidential papers where they will dissolve. Stick the rotors in your pockets so that you can dump them randomly. Be sure the men are out of their shoes and any heavy clothing. Now turn off all electrical power and circuits! Alle Männer aus dem Boot!”

  As he mounted the ladder the Old Man caught the eye of Fritz Rafalski, who had been through all this before, except that this time the Puster had his gear on. Rafalski wore a look that said that this was exactly what he had expected.

  When Hardegen reached the tower hatch he braced himself with one arm around the ladder so that the onrushing water wo
uld not carry him down, and positioned the mouthpiece and nose clip. He knew that the men below, who had been through many escape drills, were similarly beginning to draw their air from the bottles. Now he reached up and slowly began turning the hatch cover wheel to the open position. The spindles disengaged. He wanted only to crack the hatch so that water would fill the interior gradually. When water completely filled the boat and the pressures inside and out were equalized, then the men, Hardegen in the lead, could make their individual exits, relying on the buoyancy of their bodies to carry them to the surface. (Water temperature at surface was sixty-six degrees F.)

  With the wheel now in the full open position Hardegen pressed against the sea pressure that bore down upon the hatch cover. Water immediately poured down his neck, frightening him. He immediately reclosed the cover. A few moments later, overcoming his fear (he thought), he cracked open the cover again, this time wider. A burst of water hit him full in the face and he winced again, pulling the cover closed. Now he heard the swish of the destroyer once more closing the U-boat position. The swish became SWISH. “Suppose,” Hardegen thought, “I successfully get out of here and that destroyer drops Wabos. Their concussions will kill me. And my men, too, if any of them are in the water with me.”

  The SWISH diminished in intensity as again, unaccountably, the destroyer passed overhead without dropping charges. Hardegen now realized that he was paralyzed by fright. It had never happened to him before. He had no way of knowing at the time that, ironically, his fear would save his boat, and for the moment he was humiliated by what he thought was unmanly dread. (In later years he would say, as he did to this writer, “Only because I was too scared was I not captured.”89)

  Without stating his fear to the others, much less trying to defend it, he wheeled the cover tight, pounded down the ladder, and announced: “I have decided that we are going to save this boat! Power on! Emergency lights on! Belay scuttling charge! Stow escape gear! Every man to his station! Chief, get to work!”

  For the next hour, while the destroyer’s screw noises faded and Barth, with power restored to his hydrophone, reported, “HE bearing Red three four zero and receding,” Schulz and his repair crews worked prodigiously to secure the integrity of the diving tanks that were still serviceable, to restore battery power, and to free up the movements of the hydroplanes. Driven by a newfound hope of saving their boat as well as themselves, the men made enough gains for Schulz to report to the Old Man:

  “I have half the batteries back, Herr Kaleu, but not enough to run the E motors any distance. And much of the power will be expended running the compressors to blow tanks. If we can surface I can recharge—that is, if the starboard engine works. The electricians will continue to hunt for possible broken connections. The battery crew are under the floor plates. As far as the planes are concerned, we have them functioning well enough for emergency use. Even without tanks one and eight we should be able to lift off the seabed without any trouble. If we can start the engine after getting on top I maybe able to give you enough propulsion to creep away from here at dead slow. But the drive shafts worry me. I don’t know how far we would get.”

  “I understand, Chief,” the Old Man said. Then he smiled. “Heinz, you may prove both of us wrong about this boat. I hope so. Let’s prepare to surface.”

  It was one thing to get their boat on the surface and running again. It was another to have to face a formidable foe in their wounded state. Though it was still dark on top, and destroyer’s swish had not been heard for some time, there could be planes, with flares. Add to that the damnable marine phosphorescence and a U-boat surfacing should stand out like a full moon. It was a chance he had to take. There were no other options. His fear had brought them this far. Now he would have to exchange one fear for another.

  “AufGefechtsstationen!— “Battle stations! Gun crews prepare to man guns! Number One, flood Tube Number 4! Chief—surface!”

  The Li’s pipe-and-valve team spun their wheels and pumped their levers. The roar of the compressors expelling water from the tanks filled the boat with hope. Prayers, exhortations, good luck charms, tightly closed eyes—every device known to desperate men was called upon by the crewmen not involved in the attempted ascent. After two minutes cheers erupted in the compartments when the hull lifted briefly, screeched and groaned, bounced on the bottom, then lifted again and became buoyant. Sausages and binoculars swung back and forth. On the Tiefenmesser (depth gauge) Schulz confirmed the steady rise: “Twenty meters … eighteen … sixteen … periscope depth … tower hatch clear!”

  Hardegen and the bridge watch scrambled up the ladder followed by the gun crews. He flung open the hatch cover with an abandon uncharacteristic of his earlier behavior and stepped out onto the dark bridge, sweeping his 7 x 50s in a full circle as he did so. There was no sign of the destroyer. To starboard four to five miles distant two aircraft were dropping flares. The magnesium was too far away to present a threat. Just as the forward gun crew took their positions the starboard engine ignited with thunderous detonations, and Hardegen called to the helmsman:

  “Hard right rudder! Come to one five zero! Starboard ahead dead slow!” From astern he heard what Renner had described: a hard metallic grinding of shaft and screw. “Stand down, forward gun! Antiaircraft stay alert!”

  He would creep toward deeper water while Schulz and the electricians tried to build up battery strength. They might have to stop propulsion at some point, lie to, and let the engine do nothing but charge. Until that point Hardegen wanted to place as much distance as possible between himself and his pursuers. He was elated to see that no naval vessels were advancing after him. With a quarter moon, phosphorescence, and twelve miles visibility the destroyer certainly would have seen him had it stayed in place. But 123′s amazing luck prevailed again. Later in the day he wrote the following as part of a lengthy KTB entry about this night:

  I’m surprised that the enemy was not tougher, using depth charges in these shoal waters when he had us. He had only to drop a series of patterns on the same spot that was marked by air bubbles and we definitely would have had to abandon the boat. We were about to destroy all our secret documents. That the enemy didn’t wait for the Commander’s cap as proof of their kill was totally incomprehensible. During the day they could have held us. It shows how inexperienced the defense is. They probably thought we were finished when they saw the air bubbles and didn’t hear anything from us…. When considering the behavior of the destroyer I can only say, selbst schuld!— “it’s your own fault.”90

  Hardegen went on to discuss the “riddle” of how the destroyer could have made such a precise first depth-charge run on his submerged position. He decided that just as he had been able to track his G7es (ETOs) in this shoal water filled with phosphorescence, so the aircraft had been able to track 123′s course underwater from the air and to vector the destroyer onto the exact target area. “The precise approach can hardly be explained otherwise,” he wrote. The Dahlgren log, however, does not reveal if her officers were that confident about the target location. Noting that she “made sound contact” and that she “made attack,” the log goes on to state: “No evidence that an underwater depth charge contact had been made.”91 Thus, the Schulz-Hardegen theory of an air-bubble patch giving evidence of injury to the boat was not confirmed by Dahlgren. Rafalski, for his part, stated the German thinking on board 123: “The crew were very surprised when the destroyer moved off. A British destroyer would have worked over the area repeatedly for a regulation thirty-six hours.”92 Dahlgren called in no help, either surface or air. At 0358 (EWT) she secured from general quarters and steamed off northeast at eighteen knots.

  During the daylight hours of 11 April, while the boat proceeded on a base course toward Cape Canaveral, diving and surfacing as needed by the repair crews, Schulz managed to restore full power from the battery array and to complete repairs on the planes. Now the boat could make an alarm dive if emergency required it. On the surface in calm seas the boat maneuvered well on
tanks five and seven. The starboard shaft continued to rasp and whine, which worried Schulz, but it performed efficiently enough to move the boat south while Karlchen and his crew welded and repaired damaged structures on the port engine. Fortunately for the boat only one aircraft was sighted and that after it was too late to dive, but it passed by without incident. At 1225 CET (0625 EWT) on the next day, off New Smyrna, Hardegen placed the boat on the bottom for the daylight hours and gave his exhausted, though immensely relieved, crewmen a chance to rest. Men looked at photographs of their sweethearts with new appreciation now that they had good reason to think they would see them again. Most slept the sleep of the redeemed. Others read or talked quietly. Hannes prepared treats that he had been saving for the return voyage. Hardegen went through his records on the attacks he had made since first assuming command of the “canoe” U-147. Altogether he counted forty-nine torpedoes that he had launched as a commander. That meant that the eel in Tube Number 4, his last on board, would be the fiftieth if he could find a target. A tanker would make a fitting last prize, he thought.