Operation Drumbeat

by Michael Gannon

  11. The sinking of Augvald took place at 2212 CET on 2 March 1941, at 150 nautical miles northwest of Loch Ewe; ibid., p. 45.

  12. The boats that accompanied Hessler to the African coast were V-38, 69, 103, 105, 106, and 124. The first boat to have worked the West African sea lanes was Hardegen’s old Edelweissboot, V-124, under Schulz, in March 1941. Prior to that date Africa was the assigned area of Italian submarines.

  13. The victim was Ganda, 4,333 GRT, sunk at 2019 CET on 10 June 1941, at 34-10N, 11-40W.

  14. KTB V-123, 25 June 1941. Spain was officially neutral but aided German warships in much the same way that the U.S. aided the Royal Navy. Other U-boats that refueled from the supply tanker Corrientes in the Canaries during the same period were V-124 (4 March 1941), U-105 (5 March 1941), V-106 (6 March 1941) and U-69 (30 June 1941). See Timothy Mulligan, ed., Records Relating to U-Boat Warfare, 1939-1945: Guides to the Microfilmed Records of the German Navy, 1850-1945: No. 2 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985), pp. 39, 46-47, 50. The refueling and victualing operation in the Canaries was stopped by British diplomatic action in July 1941; see Captain Stephen W. Roskill, DSC’ RN, The War at Sea, 1939-1945, two vols. (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1954, 1956), vol. 2, p. 479.

  15. Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, p. 58.

  16. ASDIC was an acronym standing for Antisubmarine Detection Investigation Committee, which had initiated the British detection system in 1917. Overconfidence in the operational efficiency of ASDIC had caused the Admiralty to cut funds for convoy escorts in the 1930s. Dónitz in great part frustrated the system by fighting on the surface at night. ASDIC did have its successes when U-boats were trapped underwater and could not escape the “Pingers,” as the Antisubmarine Branch of the Royal Navy were called.

  17. Crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, West Germany, 8-9 November 1985.

  18. “Loaded merchant cruiser Río Azul sunk. Continuing pursuit.” K.TB-123, 29 June 1941. On his return to port Hardegen would fly a red pennant from the periscopes signifying that he had sunk a warship. He was mistaken, however, in calling Rio Azul a Hilfskreuzer—an armed merchant cruiser. With an armed guard and deck guns, a common British merchant defense, Río Azul was a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS). See Rohwer, Submarine Successes, p. 58. Two other ships from SL 76 were sunk the same day, 29 June, by Fregattenkapitän Richard Zapp (U-66), who later would accompany Hardegen to the U.S. East Coast in Operation Paukenschlag.

  19. “Jedesmal wenn ich diese Flagge sah, hoffte ich deshalb, dass auch wir noch einmal den Tag erleben würden, wo wir es den Yankees heimzahlen konnten”; Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 125.

  20. KTB-BdU, 25 August 1941.

  21. KTB-/2J, 18-24 June 1941, pp. 7-10; Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte [hereafter BFZ], Schussmeldung für Überwasserstreitkräfte und U-Boote [hereafter Schussmeldung], V-123, 20 June 1941, No. 4292, page 18; No. 4293, page 2; No. 4293, page 6.

  22. Padfield, Dónitz, p. 505.

  23. “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 152.

  24. BFZ, Schussmeldung V-123, 21 October 1941, No. 4295, p. 2.

  25. Public Records Office [hereafter PRO], Kew, England, Admiralty [hereafter ADM] 1/11903, “Torpedoing of H.M.S. AURANIA, 21/10/41.”

  26. Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, p. 70.

  27. Hardegen’s record of the prisoner interrogation is in an appendix to the KTB-/23. Date and time of the torpedoing were 21 October, 0420 CET. Hardegen quoted Shaw as the crewman who gave the order to abandon ship.

  28. On 3 November east of Belle Isle Strait U-202 (Kptlt. Hans-Heinz Linder) sank two ships and hit two others from convoy SC-52. V-203 (Mützelburg) sank two and U-569 (Kptlt. Hans-Peter Hinsch) sank one from the same convoy. The three boats belonged to a newly formed pack code—named Gruppe Raubritter.

  29. Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, 1942-43 and 1945-46 (London: Society’s Printing House, 1942, 1945).

  30. “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 165.

  3. “We Are at War”

  1. “Hatte ich persönlich doch eine Mordswut gerade auf die Amerikaner …,” Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 165. Hardegen’s experiences with American ships are described on p. 125.

  2. See ibid., p. 146, where Hardegen speaks bitterly about the Strait location: “Ich selber hatte eine nach meiner Ansicht völlig aussichtslose Position zu besetzen und schimpfte innerlich sehr, dass ich keinen besseren Platz erwischt hatte.” Cf. Michael L. Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), pp. 25-26.

  3. Telephone interview with Hans Meckel, 20 October 1987.

  4. Holger H. Herwig, Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889-1941 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976), pp. 42-63.

  5. Ibid., p. 223. See Jochen Thies, Architekt der Weltherrschaft: Die “Endziele” Hitlers (Düsseldorf: Drost, 1976), pp. 136-48.

  6. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, p. 214.

  7. Ibid., pp. 214-15. In 1941 the U.S. Navy developed its own contingency plan for occupation of the Azores; OA/NHC, “CINCLANT; Jun.-Sep. 1941.” U.S. Navy Intelligence anticipated a possible Luftwaffe strike at Key West, Hampton Roads, or New York Harbor, possibly from a base on Vichy-controlled Martinique, but did not explain how German bombers would be transported to that island or to any other nearby base; Jeffrey M. Dorwart, Conflict of Duty: The U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Dilemma, 1919-1945 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983), pp. 184-85.

  8. KTB-1/Skl, 22 March 1941, cited in Gerhard L. Weinberg, World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War 11 (Hanover, N.H., and London: University Press of New England, 1981), p. 85 and n. 17. The writer is indebted to Dr. Weinberg for additional insight into the meaning of this plan, by personal communication.

  9. Quoted in Padfield, Dónitz, p. 91.

  10. Ibid., pp. 91-92.

  11. Quoted in John Costello and Terry Hughes, The Battle of the Atlantic (London: Collins, 1977), p. 62.

  12. OA/NHC, Box 1045, “Hyman-Idaho, 1945,” re: sinking of U-352 by USS Icarus on 9 May 1942, Lieut Comdr. J. T. Hardin to Commanding Officer ASW Unit, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, n.d. but 1942. For Admiral Nimitz’s testimony at Nürnberg see Document Donitz-100, “Interrogation of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, U.S. Navy, 11 May 1946, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946 (Nuremberg: Allied Control Authority for Germany, vol. 40, 1949), pp. 108-11.

  13. Padfield, Dónitz, pp. 76-191, passim, 538. The brief sketch of Do-nitz’s early career given here relies primarily on Padfield.

  14. This list of forces is taken from Costello and Hughes, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 35. Different versions of the list are given in Jak P. Mailmann Showell, The German Navy in World War Two (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1979), pp. 23-24; and in Edward P. Von der Porten, Pictorial History of the German Navy in World War II, Revised Edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), pp. 29-37; and elsewhere. “Z” stood for Ziel— “target.” The target date was sometimes rendered 1946.

  15. This did not mean that by December 1941 Hitler had given up on surface fleet construction. He simply postponed its final completion until a date following the conquest of Russia, and possibly that of England also, when he could strike across the Atlantic at the U.S. with a huge fleet that included eight aircraft carriers and battleships larger than the USS North Carolina. See KTB-1/Skl, 31 July 1941, cited in Weinberg, World in the Balance, pp. 89-90.

  16. Wolfgang Frank, The Sea Wolves: The Story of U-Boats at War, translated by Lieutenant Commander B.O.B. Long, R.N.V.R. (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1955), p. 121. After the war Dönitz told Allied interrogators: “The war was in one sense lost before it began. Germany was never prepared for a naval war against England. … A realistic policy would have given Germany a thousand U-boats at the beginning”; quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, History of the United Stat
es Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 1, The Battle of the Atlantic: September 1939-May 1943 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964), p. 4. Winston Churchill would state at war’s end: “The U-boat attack was our worst evil. It would have been wise for the Germans to stake all upon it”; The Hinge of Fate, p. 125.

  17. KTB-BdU, 30-31 December 1941.

  18. This enumeration is based principally on KTB-BdU, 1 January 1942. Cf. Dönitz, Memoirs, p. 197, who adds: “Thus at the beginning of 1942, after two and a half years of war there were never more than ten or twelve boats actively and simultaneously engaged in our most important task, the war on shipping, or something like a mere 12 per cent of our total U-boat strength.” Naval Staff counted 98 boats at operational status on 27 December; KTB-1/Skl, 27 December 1941, as against Dönitz’s count of 91 in the same month.

  19. “The Commanding Admiral, U-Boats, requests immediate release of the large U-boats [Type IX] now at sea and of those which will be able to leave port in the next few days, in all twelve U-boats. Plan: Operation Paukenschlag off the American coast. Medium U-boats [Type VIIC] can fulfill operational requirements in the Gibraltar area. Naval Staff is releasing six large U-boats which are to be taken from those now leaving their bases. Release of the large U-boats already in the operational area west of Gibraltar is out of the question.” KTB-1/Skl 10 December 1941.

  20. KTB-BdU, 10 December 1941. Hitler would learn of Paukenschlag two days later from Raeder; “Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs,” Rear Admiral H. H. Thursfield, ed., Brassey’s Naval Annual, 1947 (New York: Mac-millan Co., 1947), p. 245.

  21. V-I28 was assigned to Paukenschlag while still at sea west of Ireland. BdU ordered her to “proceed at maximum cruising speed” to Lorient which she entered on 25 December. Needed repairs delayed her departure and made her participation in Paukenschlag impossible. She would sortie finally on 8 January 1942. See KTB-BdU, 19 December 1941. Dönitz continued to push for additional boats, naming V-107, 108, and 67 as boats he wanted Naval Staff to assign to the American operation; KTB-BdU 19 December 1941. Naval Staff obliged on 20 December, adding, “All other large [Type IX] U-boats will also be used in this area as they become available”; KTB-1/Skl 20 December 1941. One problem faced by Naval Staff and Dönitz alike was a marked disparity between the number of U-boats of all types in service (235) and the number on operational status (91). Staff gave as reasons for this “unusually unfavorable balance” that seemingly was not helped by the commissioning of twenty-plus new boats in both November and December the following four: (1) the great shortage of torpedo recovery vessels for training new boats and crews; (2) the repeated failure of practice warheads on torpedoes used in training; (3) delays in final fitting operations; and (4) delays in training caused by direction of resources to the Russian campaign; KTB-1/Skl 9 December 1941. The Paukenschlag strategy was described by Dönitz in KTB-BdU, 10 December 1941, where he added: “It is only regrettable that there are not sufficient boats available to strike a truly ‘spectacular blow.’”

  22. The writer’s reconstruction of the events and dialogue at Kernével are based on the interviews with Hardegen; and Dönitz’s KTB and Memoirs. While not claiming to be historically exact the reconstructed conversations and discourses do, the writer believes, accurately represent the men, their histories, and the events surrounding the start of Paukenschlag. One surviving member of Dönitz’s staff remembers Hardegen at the time; see n. 23.

  23. This was the general impression of Hardegen at Kernével; telephone interview with Hans Meckel, 20 October 1987.

  24. NARA, RG 457 (National Security Agency), “German Navy/U-Boat Messages Translations and Summaries”; Box No. 7, SRGN 4774-5513; BdU to all boats, “Offizier,” 26 December 1941.

  25. KTB-1/Skl, 25 December 1941. Naval Staff erred in its enumeration of boat numbers.

  26. Dönitz makes this statement in KTB-BdU, 2 January 1942. In the previous September he had had as many as twenty boats on Atlantic station.

  27. Hardegen is insistent that only U-/23, 109, 130, 66, and 125 constituted Paukenschlag. Other boats designated to follow them to the North American coast, such as U-/07, 108, and 67 (see KTB-BdU 19 December 1941 and KTB-1/Skl, 20 December 1941), as well as those that actuallv did follow in January 1942 (V-552, 203, 86, 103, 106, 107, and 108 and [finally] 128) did not constitute Paukenschlag, either “first” or “second waves” so-called. The designation of those boats as being part of Paukenschlag either as original force or as subsequent waves is in error. Hardegen is confirmed in this by Jürgen Rohwer, interview, Stuttgart, Germany, 16 December 1986. He is also confirmed by the Naval Staff which spoke of “the sudden appearance of German U-boats in the American safety zone (operation ‘Paukenschlag’)” [author’s emphasis]; KTB-1/Sk125 December 1941. Dönitz clearly meant by Paukenschlag a sudden, first-time blow.

  28. Gerhard Wagner, ed., Lagevorträge des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine vor Hitler 1939-1945 (Frankfurt am Main: Bernard und Graefe, 1972), p. 263.

  29. Ibid., p. 286.

  30. Quoted in Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, Hitler and Roosevelt: The Undeclared Naval War (New York: Free Press, 1979), p. 41. Also useful for the U.S. “belligerent neutrality” period are Patrick Abbazia, Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy: The Private War of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, 1939-1942 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1975); William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940-1941 (New York: Published for the Council on Foreign Relations bv Harper & Row, 1953); and Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, chaps. 2-5.

  31. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, Their Finest Hour (1949), p. 404.

  32. Jost Metzler, Sehrohr südwärts! Ritterkreuzträger Kapitänleutnant Jost Metzler erzählt; niedergeschrieben von Otto Mielke (Berlin: W. Limpert, 1943), pp. 138-48. Cf.KTBU-69, NARA, RG 242, PG/30066/1-16, 27 May 1941.

  33. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 73.

  34. Doenitz, Memoirs, p. 189. Cf. KTB U-203, NARA, RG 242, PG 30191/1-11. 19-20 June 1941.

  35. KTB-BdU, 20 June 1941.

  36. Ibid., 21 June 1941.

  37. Doenitz, Memoirs, p. 190. Also, Hitler told Admiral Raeder on 25 July 1941, “He will never call a submarine commander to account if he torpedoes an American ship by mistake. After the Eastern Campaign he reserves the right to take severe action against the U.S.A. as well”; “Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs,” Thursfield, ed., Brassev’s Naval Annual, 1947, p. 222.

  38. Doenitz, Memoirs, p. 190.

  39. See, most recently, Waldo Heinrich, Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt & American Entry into World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 167; and William K. Klingaman, 1941: Our Lives in a Worldon the Edge (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988), pp. 370-71.

  40. NHC Library, Rare Books, Operation Plans Nos. 4-41 and 5-41 (1 July and 18 July, 1941, respectively), in MS dated 1946 CINCLANT, Administrative History No. 139, “Commander Task Force Twenty-Four,” pp. 61-62. Confirming copies of the same orders are found in OA/NHC Box CINCLANT (June-Sept. 1941), Operation Plan 5-41, Serial 00120, 15 July 1941; NARA RG 80, Records of the CNO Headquarters COMINCH 1942, Box 11, cited in Task Force Fifteen, USS Idaho, Flagship, Secret Serial A4-3/(005), 29 August 1941; and Washington National Records Center Suitland, Maryland [hereafter WNRC], RG 313, Box 108, CINCLANT, cited in Task Force Three, USS Memphis, Flagship, n.d. but presumed July 1941. Thus Roosevelt and King went to war six months before a formal declaration of war in the same way that Dönitz would go to war against the United States two days (9 December) before his countrv’s declaration.

  41. WNRC, RG313, Box 108, Bristol to CINCLANT, USS Prairie, Flagship, 3 November 1941. The term Support Force was abolished on 12 March 1942. At the same time the other title of Task Force Four was changed to Task Force Twenty-Four.

  42. Operation Orders Nos. 6-41 and 7-41 are in OA/NHC, Box “CINCLANT, Jun.-Sep. 1941.”

  43. Interview with Jürgen Rohwer, Stuttgart, Germany, 16 December 1986. Dr. Rohwer described the Admiral Scheer incident in Jür
gen Rohwer, “Die USA und die Schlacht im Atlantik 1941,” Jürgen Rohwer and Eberhard Jäckel, eds., Kriegswende Dezember 1941 (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1984), pp. 81-103. At the time it was unclear to British Naval intelligence if it was the Scheer or the battleship Tirpitz that intended to break out. Postwar access to German records has revealed it was the Scheer, which had sunk nineteen merchant ships on a foray into the Atlantic in autumn 1940. To Roosevelt’s “shoot on sight” order Adolf Hitler responded on 8 November: “I have commanded German ships, whenever they see Americans, not to shoot thereupon but to defend themselves as soon as they are attacked … and our torpedoes will strike”; New York Times, 9 November 1941.

  44. KTB-BdU, 30 October 1941.

  45. Stark to Admiral Thomas C. Hart, 1 November 1941, Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Congress of the United States, Seventy-Ninth Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), part 16, p. 2121.

  46. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 382.

  47. New York Times, 1 November 1941.

  48. Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, pp. 71-73.

  49. KTB-BdU, 29 December 1941. This is a recurrent theme in Dönitz’s log beginning in November: “Further dispersal of U-boats for secondary duties should be avoided. These tasks are certainly excellent in themselves but compared with the gaps they create in the Atlantic battle they are most injurious to our cause”; 9 November 1941. He was particularly nettled by the assignment by Naval Staff of four boats to weather reporting and eight to escort the battleship Tirpitz on an intended sortie. Of the newly commissioned Tirpitz he said, acidly, “It can hardly be hoped that this detrimental effect will be offset by comparatively large successes being scored by this ship”; 10 November 1941. In his official history of the Royal Navy in World War II, Captain Roskill states that the small number of U-boats available to Dönitz at this general period, “combined with diversions to unprofitable purposes, now seems to have been a decisive factor in the Atlantic battle.” War at Sea, vol. 2, p. 104.