9. PRO, ADM 1/15124, “Comparison (Nov 1941-Feb 1942) of the German M IV/1 T Carl Zeiss 7 x 50 binoculars and the Barr and Stroud Pattern 1900A7 x 50.”
10. Ibid.
11. The attack on Cyclops is described in detail in BFZ, Schussmeldung V-123, 12 January 1942, No. 4792, pp. 12, 16; alsoin K.TB-723, 12 January 1942. For a technical description of the Type IXB torpedo launching mechanisms seeOA/NHC, “Records of U.S. Naval Technical Mission in Europe 1944-1947,” Box 27, 01045, Technical Report 239-45, “Torpedo Fire Control System for the Type IX German Submarine,” 21 pp.
12. Directorate of History, Department of National Defence, Ottawa, Canada [hereafter DHIST], Statement of J. D. J. Green, R.M., Chatham 22820, 13 January 1942, in “Particulars of Attacks on Merchant Vessels by Enemy Submarines,” Naval Control Service, NS 1062-13-10. The writer is indebted to Michael L. Hadley, Chairman of the Department of Germanic Studies, University of Victoria, for a copy of this report.
13. Ibid., Statement of Senior Radio Officer R. P. Morrison, n.d.
14. Ibid., NSHQ Naval Message, Charleston to Boston to Halifax, 12 January 1942, TOR 0547Z.
15. Ibid., NSHQ Naval Message, O.I.C. via Camperdown, 12 January 1942, TOR 0205Z.
16. PRO, ADM 223/15, 100820, No. O.I.C./S.I./57, U/Boat Situation, Week ending 12.1.42 (12 January 1942).
17. NARA, SRMN-033, (Part I), COMINCH File of Messages on U-Boat Estimates and Situtation Reports, October 1941-September 1942 [declassified in 1987], Naval Message 121716, 12 January 1942. Three weeks before his death Patrick Beesly wrote to the present writer: “I have been thinking about our conversation and it does seem to me that a most important point in your book will be to establish, if possible, that the U.S. did receive advance warning of Paukenschlag”; Lymington, Hampshire, England, 13 July 1986. The above cited message, based on the O.I.C. daily plot, together with the Daily Situation Maps of 12 January and before clearly establish receipt of advance warning.
18. See chapter 6, n. 31.
19. DHIST, “Particulars of Attacks,” Statement of J. D. J. Green.
20. Quoted in Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada, p. 62.
21. Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “The Ballad of the White Horse,” D. B. Wyndham Lewis, ed., G. K. Chesterton: An Anthology (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 205.
8. New York, New York
1. KTB-/23, 14 January.
2. NARA, RG 38, CNO Armed Guard Files, “Norness,” Naval Message, NYNYK to BUSHIPS, et al, 11 December 1941.
3. This quotation and the survivors’ accounts are drawn from the New York Times, 16, 17 January 1942.
4. OA/NHC, Microfilm Reel NR-A 40-3, “Deck Log of USS Ellyson (DD 454), Dec 1941-March 1942,” 14 January 1942.
5. The New York Times, 16 January 1942.
6. Ibid., 15 January 1942.
7. Ibid.
8. Interviews by telephone with Richard H. Braue and Margaret Classe, 17, 18, September 1987.
9. OA/NHC, ESF War Diary, p. 2, January 1942.
10. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Seapower upon History 1660-1783 (1890; reprint, New York: Sagamore Press, 1957), p. 351.
11. Ibid.
12. Jeannette Edwards Rattray, Perils of the Port of New York: Maritime Disasters from Sandy Hook to Execution Rocks (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1973), p. 215.
13. Quoted in Hardegen, Auf Gefechtsstationen.’ p. 177.
14. KTB-723, 15 January.
15. OA/NHC, ESF War Diary, 14 January 1942.
16. Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada, p. 65.
17. Ibid, translated by Hadley.
18. KTB-BdU, 14 January 1942.
19. BFZ, Schussmeldungen U-130, 13 January 1942, Nos. 5122, 5123, pp. 17, 1. See also Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada, pp. 63-64.
20. BFZ, Schussmeldungen U-l30, 13 January 1942, No. 5123, pages, 5, 9, 13. See also Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada, p. 64.
21. NARA, RG 457, Box SRGN 5514-6196, 17 January 1942.
22. BFZ, Schussmeldungen, V-109, 19 January 1942, Nos. 5125, 5129, pp. 16, 20, 3, 7, 9. Rohwer credits Bleichrodt with a sinking, naming the vessel the British motorship Empire Kingfisher, 6,082 GRT; Axis Submarine Successes, p. 74. However, Empire Kingfisher was not sunk by enemy action. The Royal Canadian Navy reported: “S.S. Empire Kingfisher struck a submerged object in clear soundings south of Cape Sable. H.M.C.S. LYNX anchored her near Bantam Rock where she later sank.” DHIST, “Halifax Local Defence Force Monthly Report January 1942,” p. 1.
23. BFZ, Schussmeldung V-109, 21 January, 1942, No. 5129, page 15.
24. U.S. Navy torpedoes in the same time period had the exact opposite problem: “Torpedoes that hit their targets squarely generally failed to detonate; only those that hit glancing blows on the hulls of their victims would explode!” Admiral Ignatius J. Galantin USN (Ret.), Take Her Deep! A Submarine Against Japan in World War ¡I (New York: Pocket Books, 1987), p. 42.
25. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood USN (Ret.), Sink ‘Em All: Submarine Warfare in the Pacific (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), p. 78.
26. Ibid., p. 10.
27. PRO, DEFE-3, 16 January 1942.
28. Interview with Kaeding, Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
29. KTB-/2J, 15 January 1942.
30. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, pp. 174-75.
31. Ibid., p. 178.
32. Rattray, Port of New York, p. 210.
33. New York Times, 16, 17 January 1942.
34. Ibid., 17 January 1942.
35. ESF, 15 January 1942.
36. New York Times, 17 January 1942.
37. ESF, 16 January 1942.
38. See chapter 6, n. 91.
39. NHC Library, Rare Books, MS No. 138 dated 1946, Naval Administrative History “Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet,” vol. 1, p. 280; MS No. 139 dated 1946, “Commander Task Force Twenty-Four,” vol. 2, p. 106. The Order from Ingersoll to Sharp (Operation Plan, Serial 003) is in OA/NHC, “CINCLANT, Jan-Mar 1942.”
40. OA/NHC, “Command File World War II, Daily Location of Ships and Aircraft, January 1942,” pp. 13-16, January 1942.
41. WNRC, RG 313, Box 109 “Bolero,” Headquarters Memorandum COMINCH, Rear Admiral Richard S. Edwards, Deputy Chief of Staff, to Ingersoll, 19 May 1942.
42. OA/NHC, “Command File World War II, Daily Location of Ships and Aircraft, January 1942,” p. 15, January 1942.
43. King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, p. 324.
44. LC, King Papers, Container 36, “CINCLANT SERIAL (053) OF JANUARY 21, 1941, Subject: Exercise of Command-Excess of Detail in Orders and Instructions.”
45. LC, King Papers, Container 36, “Annex B to CinClant’s Annual Report for the period 1 July 1940 to 30 June 1941.”
46. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 118.
47. See chapter 3, n. 40.
48. Interview with Patrick Beesly, Lymington, England, 9 July 1986.
9. Where Is the Navy?
1. David Stick, Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), pp. 193-208.
2. BFZ, Schussmeldung U-66, 18 January 1942, No. 4778, p. 8.
3. OA/NHC, “War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942,” pp. 30-33: “The S.S. Allan Jackson, Tanker, First Victim of Submarine Campaign in Fifth Naval District.”
4. Survivors’ reports are in OA/NHC, “Fifth Naval District, District Intelligence Office,” pp. 30-32; New York Times, 20, 21 January 1942; and Captain Arthur R. Moore, A Careless Word… A Needless Sinking (Kings Point, N.Y.: American Merchant Marine Museum, 1983), n.p., ships listed alphabetically. Cf. ESF, December 1941, pp. 21-23.
5. BFZ, Schussmeldung U-66, 19 January 1942, No. 4778, p. 12.
6. Ibid. Lady Hawkins was the second “Lady” ship to be torpedoed. An Italian submarine sank the Lady Somers east of the Azores on 15 July 1941.
7. Survivors’ reports are in the New York Times, 29, 30 January and 6 February 1942; and in OA/NHC, “Fifth Naval District, District Int
elligence Office,” pp. 31-32.
8. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen.’”, p. 170.
9. Hardegen reports on the citv lights and moving vehicle lights in KTB-/23, 17 January 1942.
10. Crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
11. KTB-/23, 17 January 1942.
12. New York Times, 18, 20, 21 January 1942.
13. KTB-123, 17 January 1942.
14. Wreck Information List Compiled by the U.S. Hydrographie Office from All Available Sources, Corrected to March 10, 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1945), pp. 28-36. There may have been a witness to the mystery sinking. A young Navy ensign on shore reported seeing a small freighter sunk at the location (apparent) and on the day and time (apparent) recorded by Hardegen. The ensign furthermore reported that a small Coast Guard rescue vessel put out to the position of the freighter, described as the “San José,” about 1,000 yards from shore. This is according to Hickam, Jr., Torpedo Junction, p. 10 and n. 15.
15. NARA, RG 457, Box SRGN 5514-6196, 17-18 January 1942.
16. Ibid, and KTB-BdU, 17 Januarv 1942.
17. KTB-BdU, 17 January 1942.
18. KTB-/23, 18 Januarv 1942.
19. KTB-/23, 19 January 1942.
20. BFZ Schussmeldung V-123, 19 January 1942, No. 4794, pp. 12, 16.
21. Das Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, Freiburg, West Germany, “Wege-karte U-/23,” the DR overlay on the 1870G chart.
22. Wreck Information List, p. 38; “Corrections and Additions as of 30 September 1946 to H.O. Wreck Information List of 10 March 1945,” p. 2.
23. Survivors’ reports are in OA/NHC, “War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942,”pp. 36-38: “S/S City of Atlanta Torpedoed Off Wimble Shoals”; “Fifth Naval District Intelligence Office,” pp. 32-34; New York Times, 22 January 1942. Eleven bodies of the dead were eventually recovered and taken to Norfolk.
24. This simile is drawn from Karig, Battle Report, p. 93.
25. Crew interviews. Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
26. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen.’”, p. 181.
27. Hardegen later wrote: “[e]rschrak ich doch”—“l was frightened”; ibid., p. 182.
28. Ibid., p. 182.
29. KTB-/23, 19 January 1942; BFZ, Schussmeldung V-123, 19 January 1942, No. 4794, p. 20.
30. KTB-/23, 19 January 1942. Hardegen was calculating his total on the basis of claimed tonnage, which, counting the Aurania, Ganda, and the two “mystery” ships that he claimed at 4,000 GRT each, amounted to 102,502 GRT. The total also included Augvald, sunk on his first command, V-147, 2 March 1941. The actual tonnage sunk, Augvald through Ciltvaira, giving him two “mystery” ships at 3,214 GRT each and excluding only Aurania, was 71,215 CRT. This degree of discrepancy between claimed and actual tonnage was not unusual in the Ubootwaffe and as a rule Admiral Dönitz accepted the inflated figures uncritically: for example, BdU accepted 325,000 GRT as the “colossal success” figure for the “Night of the Long Knives” (17-19 October 1940) when the actual tonnage was 152,000 GRT. The same degree of discrepancy between claimed and actual tonnage was found in the U.S. Navy’s submarine force, where skippers’ total claims of 4,000 ships and 10 million tons were revised downward after the war to 1,314 ships and 5.3 million tons; Blair, Jr., Silent Victory, pp. 877-78.
31. Ciltvaira survivors’ reports are in OA/NHC, “SS Ciltvaira 19 Jan 42,” in “Fifth Naval District Intelligence Office,” p. 36; “S/S Ciltvaira” in “War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942,” pp. 42-43; New York Times, 22, 23 January 1942.
32. BFZ, Schussmeldung V-123, 19 January 1942, No. 4795, p. 4.
33. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 184.
34. Survivors’ reports are in OA/NHC, “War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942,” pp. 39-41: “The S/S Malay is Shelled and Torpedoed”; New York Times, 20, 21 January 1942. An account of Malay’s successful run to port under her own power is also given in Moore, Needless Sinking, “SS Malay,” n.p.
35. Ibid., 20 January 1942.
36. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 127-28.
37. New York Times, 21 January 1942.
38. Abbazia, Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy, p. 370.
39. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 119.
40. ESF, March 1942, pp. 238-40.
41. New York Times, 21 January 1942.
42. Ibid.
43. NHC Library, Rare Books, MS No. 138 dated 1946, Naval Administrative History, “Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet,” vol. 1, p. 274.
44. New York Times, 22 January 1942.
45. Ibid.
46. NHC Library, Rare Books, MS No. 138 dated 1946, Naval Administrative History, “Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet,” vol. 1, p. 261.
47. Ibid.’
48. Ibid., p. 274; New York Times, 24 Januarv 1942.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 30 January 1942.
51. OA/NHC, Action Report, Commander Destroyer Squadron Seven, Serial 004, 31 January 1942.
52. Ibid.
53. BFZ, Schussmeldung V-130, 21 January 1942, No. 5124, p. 5.
54. BFZ, SchussmeldungU-66, 22 January, No. 4778, p. 16; Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, p. 75.
55. Ibid., p. 75.
56. BFZ Schussmeldung U-66, 24 Januarv 1942, No. 4778, p. 20.
57. BFZSchussmeidungenV-66, 24January 1942, No. 4791, pp.8, 12, 16.
58. OA/NHC, “War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942,” pp. 44-49, “M/V Empire Gem” and “S/S Venore Torpedoed.”
59. BFZ Schussmeldung V-I30, 25 January 1942, No. 5124, p. 9; New York Times, 26 January 1942.
60. BFZ Schussmeldung U-125, 26 January 1942, No. 5126, p. 7.
61. Cremer, U-Boat Commander, p. 221.
62. BFZ Schussmeldung V-130, 27 January 1942, No. 5124, p. 13.
63. OA/NHC, “Fifth Naval District, District Intelligence Office,” pp. 41-43; New York Times, 28, 29 January 1942.
64. BFZ Schussmeldung V-109, 23 January 1942, No. 5129, p. 16.
65. The exchange of fuel took place on the night of 6-7 February (CET). Nineteen cbm were transferred in seventy minutes’ time while both boats faced the wind at 50 degrees with E motors on dead slow. KTB-/30 and K.TB-/09, 6-7 February 1942. Decrypts of wireless messages from BdU to the two boats are in NARA, RG 242, PG 30105/4 and PG 30120/2, 27 January 1942 ff.
66. BFZ, Schussmeldungen V-109, 1 February 1942, No. 5130, p. 3; 5 February 1942, No. 5130, p. 8.
67. Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, p. 76.
68. Nicholas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), pp. 329-33.
69. New York Times, 24 January 1942. When one “blond giant” survivor of the Norwegian Norness was asked would he ship out to sea again, he said, “Sure, I go!” Ibid., 17 January 1942.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid., 23 January 1942.
10. Course Home!
1. KTB-723, 19 January 1942. A fragment of a shell fired by V-123 at Malay is on exhibit at the Maritime Museum in Islesboro, Maine, birthplace of Master Dodge.
2. U-/23 crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
3. Dialogue in the Kosmos II incident has been reconstructed by the writer on the basis of KTB-/2J, 19 January 1942; Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!” pp. 185-86; V-123 crew interviews; and New York Times, 7 February 1942.
4. KTB-/23, 19 January 1942. To this entry Hardegen added a sentence recounting a news report that he had just heard on U.S. radio: “For example, all private telegram traffic of Jews at sea stopped altogether.” It is not believed that a significant number of Jews served in the U.S. or foreign merchant fleets. At the date of this writing Hardegen cannot recall why a cessation of Jewish messages occurred or why he thought it was important. He made no mention of the fact in his “Auf Gefechtsstationen.’”
5. “AN DEN PAUKENSCHLÄGER HARDEGEN. BRAVO! SEHR GUT GEPAUKT.” KTB-/2J, 20 January 1942.
6. Literally, “Man, Don’t Shoot Yourself,” a board ga
me like Parker Brothers’ Trouble.
7. U-/23 crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
8. KTB-/23, 22 January 1942.
9. NARA, RG 457, Box SRGN 5514-6196, 23 January 1942.
10. Hardegen was also mentioned by name, as he quoted the broadcast later in “Auf Gefechtsstationen!” p. 188: “As already stated in a special bulletin, German U-boats inflicted heavy losses on enemy supply shipping with their first appearance in North American and Canadian waters. Directly off the enemy coast they sank 18 merchant ships totalling 125,000 GRT. An additional ship and navy vessel were torpedoed. One U-boat in particular, that of Commander Hardegen, distinguished itself by sinking eight ships, including three tankers, over 53,000 CRT off the New York coastline.” Hardegen added: “This way our boat, which many had seen in the movie Uboote westwärts, became very well known. And, really, we could not go much farther westward.”
11. NARA, RG 457, Box SRGN 5514-6196, 24 January 1942.
12. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 192.
13. KTB-/2J, 25 January 1942. This incident, with the dialogue, is reconstructed from the KTB, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!” and from the interviews with Hardegen.
14. Interview with Wilfred Larsen by Ariid Mikkelsen, Familiebladet Hjemmet [Oslo, Norway], 28 December 1981, pp. 66-67, 73-75; 5 January 1982, p. 28.
15. Ibid., 28 December 1981, p. 73.
16. KTB-/23, 27 January 1942. Just three days before, and not far distant in BC 4700, a similar humanitarian act occurred. Kptlt. Peter Erich Cremer (U-33J) sank the Norwegian motorship Ringstad, then assisted the crew with directions to land. Of Cremerone of the survivors said thirty-seven years later: “The man was very humane…. He was a seaman, one of the type that we [Norwegians] produce. He behaved according to the code of seamen who take no oath on it but know: help one another when in trouble at sea!” Cremer, U-Boat Commander, pp. 42-43. Helmut Schmoeckel has described humanitarian actions by 121 U-boats during the war in Menschlichkeit im Seekrieg? (Herford, West Germany: Verlag E.S. Mittler & Sohn GmbH, 1987).
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