17. KTB-1/Skl, 19,26,28 January 1942. Point Sperber was also known as Erpel and Willi.
18. NARA, RG 457, Box SRGN 5514-6196, 27 January 1942.
19. Ibid., 28 January 1942.
20. KTB-/2J, 31 January 1942.
21. NARA, RG 457, Box SRGN 5514-6196, 31 January 1942.
22. Ibid., 31 January 1942. An account of the Spreewald sinking, with his explanation how the error occurred, is given by Cremer in his U-Boat Commander, pp. 43-47.
23. KTB-1/Skl, 31 January 1942.
24. Cremer, U-Boat Commander, p. 45.
25. Ibid., p. 47.
26. Ibid., pp. 46-47.
27. Up to 9 February the Ziethen boats sank twenty ships, 87,398 GRT, either in Newfoundland and Canadian waters or in transiting to and from those stations.
28. NHC Library, Rare Books, MS No. 138 dated 1946, Naval Administrative History, “Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet,” vol. 1, pp. 273-74; Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada, pp. 71-72; New York Times, 31 January 1942.
29. KTB-BdU entry, quoted in Doenitz, Memoirs, p. 203.
30. Beesly, Special Intelligence, pp. 110-11.
31. PRO, ADM 223/15, 100820, “U-Boat Situation,” 26 January and 2 February 1942.
32. Quoted in Farago, Tenth Fleet, pp. 58-59.
33. Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt, vol. 1, p. 348.
34. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 197.
11. Last Patrol
1. ESF, October 1943, chapter 2.
2. See E. Keble Chatterton, Q-Ships and Their Story (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1972).
3. ESF, October 1943, chapter 3.
4. Andrews to King, New York City, 29 January 1942; OA/NHC, Microfilm Roll No. 478, “Q-Ships. Documents on WW II Actions [hereafter cited “Q-Ships”].”
5. Ibid., Captain Glenn W. Legwen USN to Admiral Hörne USN, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15 June 1946.
6. Ibid., Commandant, Navy Yard Portsmouth NH to OpNav (Rear Admiral W. S. Farber, USN), Portsmouth, 6 March 1942; ESF, October 1943, chapter 3.
7. Ibid., October 1943, chapter 3.
8. OA/NHC, “Q-Ships,” Captain Legwen USN, to Admiral Home USN, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15 June 1946.
9. OA/NHC, “Q-Ships,” Captain Thomas J. Ryan, Jr., USN, to Vice Admiral W. S. Farber, USN, Annapolis, Maryland, 12 February 1946.
10. ESF, October 1943, chapter 3.
11. F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence, vol. 2, p. 179. The blow was doubly hard in retrospect since February was the same month in which the German B-Dienst completed the reconstruction of the British North Atlantic convoy code (Naval Cypher No. 3).
12. Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, pp. 77-82. The numbers do not include additional sinkings during the same period by boats operating in Canadian and Newfoundland waters or by boats transiting in mid-Atlantic.
13. PRO, DEFE-3, Kals to BdU, 13 January 1942; Hadley, U-Boats Against Canada, p. 68.
14. Ibid., pp. 70-71.
15. ESF, chapter 7, February 1942.
16. KTB-1/Skl, 22, 24 January 1942. Doenitz, Memoirs, pp. 206 ff.
17. Roskill, War at Sea, vol. 2, pp. 101, 104.
18. Crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
19. Wolfgang Lüth, “Command of Men in a U-Boat,” Harald Busch, U-Boats at War (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), pp. 160-72.
20. Crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, November 1985.
21. KTB-/2J, 22 March 1942; BFZ, Schussmeldung, U-123, 22 March 1942, No. 5557, page 4.
22. Although the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Maritime Commission were soon aware of the loss of Muskogee, no effort was made to notify the next of kin. Forty-five years later Mr. George H. Betts, of Milo, Maine, sought the facts surrounding the death of his father, William Wright Betts, who was master of the vessel, and communicated his findings to the brother and sister of the radio operator and to five other family survivors whom he could discover. On 9 October 1987, Mr. Betts met with Reinhard Hardegen and his wife Barbara on a cruise ship visiting Quebec, Canada, and later, from photographs in Har-degen’s possession, was able to identify two and possibly a third survivor on one of the rafts that got away. Betts pronounced Hardegen to be “a decent former foe of this nation”; letter to the present writer, Milo, Maine, 7 March 1988.
23. KTB-/23, 22 March 1942.
24. The attack on Empire Steel is reconstructed from ibid., 23-24 March 1942; BFZ, Schussmeldungen U-123, 24 March 1942, No. 5557, pp. 9, 12; Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!” pp. 199-201; the Hardegen and crew interviews.
25. A kindness that would be remembered for a lifetime by the crewman, who moved to the United States after the war. In 1985 while en route to a U-123 crew reunion he, his wife, and his daughter-in-law were killed in an automobile accident in Flensburg, West Germany. Hardegen: “Two years ago we really laughed together about this incident. It’s really quite sad.” Crew interviews, Bad König/Odenwald, West Germany, November 1985.
26. OA/NHC, “Q-Ships,” Communications Third Naval District, 27 March 1942.
27. The Carolyn sinking is reconstructed from KTB-/23, 26-27 March 1942; “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, pp. 201-4; BFZ Schussmeldungen U-123, 27 March 1942, No. 5556, pp. 3, 7; the Hardegen and crew interviews. As in the cases of Muskogee and Empire Steel there were no survivors from whom to learn the other side of this fateful encounter.
28. KTB-72J, 30 March 1942; BFZ Schussmeldung U-123, 30 March 1942, No. 5556, p. 11.
29. OA/NHC, “Q-Ships,” Communications Third Naval District, 27 March 1942.
30. ESF, chapter 2, October 1943, p. 8.
31. OA/NHC, “Q-Ships,” Lt. Comdr. Glenn W. Legwen to Admiral Andrews, New York, N.Y., 3 May 1942, “Narrative of First Cruise of USS AS-TERION (SS EVELYN).”
32. Ibid., Captain Glenn W. Legwen USN, to Admiral Frederick J. Home, USN, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15 June 1946.
33. The broadcast was recorded by the Associated Press and appeared in the New York Times on 10 April 1942.
34. OA/NHC, “Q-Ships,” Captain Legwen to Admiral Hörne, San Juan, 15 June 1946; Admiral Home, Memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy, 18 March 1946.
35. Ibid.
36. One parent in particular, Mrs. Paul H. (Eunice) Leonard, of Columbia, South Carolina, took exception to the Navy’s handling of the status of her son, Ensign Edwin Madison Leonard, one of Atik’s officers. She was particularly angered that it was only through the Post article in 1946, nearly four years after the disappearance of the crew, that she learned that her son had been sent to sea “on an old ship unable to defend itself.” Her pungent questions about the entire project, together with supporting letters of inquiry from both her state senators, as well as the various Navy responses drafted to her heartfelt protestations are found in OA/NHC, “Q-Ships.” Among the documents is a memorandum from Admiral Home to Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal, dated 18 March 1946, in which Home hypothesized: “It is quite possible that the submarine then surfaced and liquidated all survivors to assuage the curious German sense of justice.”
37. ESF, chapter 2, October 1943, p. 13, where further structural details are given.
38. Ibid., October 1943, p. 34.
39. Roskill, War at Sea, vol. 2, p. 98.
40. This could have been U-105, 160, or 754, allof which were patrolling in the area.
41. NARA, RG 38, Chief of Naval Operations [hereafter cited CNO], Armed Guard Files, “Liebre.”
42. ESF, Enemy Action Diary, I April 1942, 0141 hours; OA/NHC, War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942, pp. 157-59, “Shelling of the S/S Liebre Suggests Surface Raider, April 2, 1942.”
43. The attack on Liebre is reconstructed from ibid.; KTBU-/23, 2 April 1942; BFZ, Schussmeldung V-123, 2 April 1942, No. 5556, page 18; Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, pp. 204-5; NARA, RG 38, CNO, Armed Guard Files, “Liebre”; and Moore, Needless Sinking, “SS Liebre.”
44. OA/NHC, War Record of the Fifth Naval District, 1942, pp. 157-59; NARA, RG 58, CNO, Armed Guard Fil
es, “Liebre.” At the date of this attack Liebre was not armed; subsequently she would be.
45. KTB-/23, 8 April 1942. The attacks on Oklahoma and Esso Baton Rouge from the U.S. perspective are described in NARA, RG 80, CNO, Armed Guard Files, “Oklahoma” and “Esso Baton Rouge”; and Moore, Needless Sinking, “SS Oklahoma,” “Esso Baton Rouge.” Neither ship was armed at the time.
46. KTB-/23, 8 April 1942.
47. U-202 herself was reported sunk by HMS Starling on 1 June 1943 with eighteen killed and thirty captured. V-532 survived the war and was sunk after German capitulation in the British disposal program, “Operation Deadlight.”
48. For the sinking of Esparta see KTB-/23, 9 April 1942; BFZ, Schussmeldung V-123, 9 April 1942, No. 5658, p. 8; NARA, RG 38, CNO, Armed Guard Files, “Esparta.” Esparta was not armed.
49. NARA, RG 242, Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1941, Handbuch der Ostküste der Vereinigten Staaten, 2. Teil (1941), p. 206. The con tents had been abstracted from U.S. and British publications.
12. The Navy Stirs
1. Quoted in Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 287.
2. Churchill, Hinge of Fate, p. 111.
3. Quoted in Costello and Hughes, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 196.
4. Ibid., p. 196.
5. Quoted in Roskill, War at Sea, vol. 2, p. 99.
6. Quoted in Lewin, American Magic, p. 234.
7. Roskill, War at Sea, vol. 2, p. 99.
8. Interview with Patrick Beeslv, Lvmington, England, 9 Julv 1986.
9. Churchill, Hinge of Fate, p. 119.
10. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, p. 424.
11. Beeslv, Special Intelligence, pp. 113-14. And interview with Beesly.
12. Ibid., p. 114.
13. Ibid., p. 115.
14. Telephone interview with Captain Kenneth A. Knowles(USN, Ret.), 7 July 1986.
15. Rear Admiral Alan R. McCann, quoted in Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 298.
16. ESF, March 1942, chapter 1, p. 1; April 1942, p. 302.
17. Ibid., April 1942, chapter 7, pp. 3-4.
18. Ibid., March 1942, pp. 232, 258-60.
19. Ibid., March 1942, chapter 1, p. 230; August 1943, p. 33. When theoil industry suggested that it be permitted to fly land-based aircraft along the tanker routes it was turned down “because of technical and practical considerations.”
20. Ibid., November 1943, p. 36.
21. Ibid., March 1942, p. 231.
22. Ibid., November 1943, pp. 31-32.
23. Ibid., November 1943, p. 31.
24. Ibid., p. 32.
25. Ibid., p. 37.
26. Ibid., p. 37.
27. Ibid., p. 38.
28. Miami Herald, 8 July 1942.
29. ESF, March 1942, pp. 238-40.
30. Ibid., February 1942, p. 168.
31. Ibid., March 1942, pp. 234-36.
32. Ibid., April 1942, p. 306.
33. Ibid., April 1942, p. 307.
34. Ibid., March 1942, p. 255.
35. King, quoted in Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 287.
36. ESF, February 1942, p. 130.
37. OA/NHC, United States Naval Administrative Histories of World War II; No. 114: “Commandant Seventh Naval District, ‘Administrative History of the Seventh Naval District, 1 February 1942—14 August 1945′”; Gulf Sea Frontier War Diary [hereafter GSF], July-October 1942 (microfilm); Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 135-44.
38. Ibid., pp. 135-44; Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes, pp. 92-99. Depending how one defines the boundaries of the Gulf of Mexico the first ship sunk in the Gulf could have been the American tanker Federal, 2,881 GRT, lost to U-boat 507 five days earlier on 30 April south of the westernmost tip of Cuba. The writer is indebted to Allen Cronenberg, Department of History, Auburn University, for the use of his paper, “U-Boats in the Gulf: The Undersea War in 1942”; and to Carl Vought, of Huntsville, Alabama, who has created a map displaying Gulf sinkings.
39. ESF, June 1942, “Enemy Submarine Campaign,” p. 3.
40. Ibid., April 1942, pp. 304-5.
41. This is the certain conviction of Kapitän Hans Meckel, who as director of all U-boat communications in the period was in position to know if there was any such rendezvous. Meckel’s recollections were communicated to the present writer by Hardegen, interviews, May 1985, December 1986.
42. Doenitz, Memoirs, p. 219; Beesly, Special Intelligence, p. 120. Of the seven hundred tons of fuel a tanker would have to reserve about one hundred for her own operations.
43. Quoted in Cremer, U-Boat Commander, p. 82.
44. ESF, April 1943, p. 9.
45. Ibid., January 1942, chapter 3, p. 68; April 1943, chapter 2, p. 6.
46. Ibid., April 1943, chapter 2, p. 7.
47. Ibid., March 1942, p. 255; April 1943, chapter 2, p. 6.
48. Ibid., April 1943, chapter 2, p. 6.
49. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 135.
50. OA/NHC, GSF, “Composition of Forces,” 1 July 1942. For earlier air strength levels in the GSF see ibid., 30 April 1942.
51. NARA, RG 38, Box 245 (Records of the CNO), Headquarters COM-INCH 1942, Memorandum, King to Stark, 7 March 1942.
52. ESF, March 1942, p. 254.
53. NARA, RG 38, Box 35 (Records of the CNO), Headquarters COM-INCH 1942, Memorandum, King to the President via the Secretary of the Navy, 22 December 1942; Box 111, Rear Admiral Russell R. Waesche, Commandant, United States Coast Guard, to COMINCH, 25 June 1942. 566 Coastal Picket patrol vessels were operational during 1942.
54. ESF, May 1942, chapter 3, p. 7.
55. Ibid., July 1942, Coastal Picket Operation Plan No. 11-42, 14 July 1942, p. 145.
56. Ibid., July 1942, chapter 10, pp. 6-7, King to Commanders ESF and GSF, 17 June 1942.
57. Ibid., July 1942, chapter 10, pp. 1-10.
58. LC, King Papers, Container 34, Wilford G. Bartenfeld, Cleveland, Ohio, to King, 26 June 1942. For the swordfish fleet and Cruising Club of America initiatives see OA/NHC, ESF, March 1942, pp. 266-78; July 1942, pp. 82 ff.; and Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 268-76.
59. LC, King Papers, Container 34, Memorandum, Assistant Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee, Jr. to King, 29 June 1942.
60. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 269 ff.
61. Philip Wylie and Laurence Schwab, “The Battle of Florida,” Saturday Evening Post (March 11, 1944), pp. 14 ff.
62. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 275-76.
63. LC, King Papers, Container 34, Miller to King, 17 February 1942; Lee to Miller, 27 February 1942.
64. NARA, RG 38, Box 245 (Records of the CNO), Headquarters COMINCH 1942, Memorandum, Andrews to King, 12 March 1942.
65. NARA, RG 38, Box 245 (Records of the CNO), Headquarters COMINCH 1942, Memorandum, Edwards to King, 15 March 1942.
66. ESF, August 1943, p. 33.
67. OA/NHC, GSF, July-October 1942 (microfilm), “Composition of Forces,” 1 July 1942. Interview with former CAP pilot George Newell, who later in 1942 flew patrols out of Sarasota, Florida.
68. ESF, August 1943, p. 40.
69. The present writer, having hosted that particular late afternoon radio program while a high school student in the city, remembers the theme music and opening lines.
70. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen.’”, p. 209.
71. BFZ, Schussmeldung U-/23, 11 April 1942, No. 5653, p. 20; also the KTB-/23 under the same date. Both record that only one torpedo was launched, despite reports of certain tanker survivors. Details of this as of all other attacks are given in narrative form in the Schussmeldung and KTB, on which the writer relied for this reconstruction of the attack on Gulfamerica.
72. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, p. 211.
73. Ibid., p. 124.
74. Interview with Edward Mussallem, 14 May 1989. An Eastern Air Lines plane sighted the flames and “flares 400-500 feet high”; ESF, Enemy Action Diary, 10 April 1942.
75. OA/NHC, “History of U.S. Naval Auxiliary Air Station Mayp
ort, Florida, 1 December 1944,” pp. 22-23.
76. Interview with George W. Jackson, Saint Augustine, 17 May 1989.
77. Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), 15 April 1942. It bears repeating that the shooting of survivors in lifeboats was not a common German practice and that it never happened under Hardegen’s command. Suggestions that inhumanity of this kind occurred off the U.S. mainland appeared first in Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 130 and n., and most recently in John Terraine, U-Boat Wars 1916-1945 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989), p. 498; but in the absence of documented evidence it is hard to credit these statements.
78. St. Augustine Record, 14 April 1942.
79. NARA, RG 38, CNO Armed Guard Files, “Gulf America.”
80. New York Times, 15 April 1942.
81. Florida Times-Union, 15 April 1942.
82. St. Augustine Record, 12 April 1942.
83. ESF, April 1942, chapter 7, p. 5.
84. OA/NHC, GSF, 10 April 1942.
85. Ibid., 11 April 1942.
86. KTB-/23, 11 April 1942. Evelyn’s report of the sighting is recorded in both the GSF for 11 April and in skipper Lt. Comdr. Legwen’s “Narrative of the First Cruise of USS ASTERION (SS EVELYN),” 3 May 1942, in OA/NHC, “Q-Ships.”
87. KTB-/23, 11 April 1942. Fritz Rafalski confirmed to the writer that the screw noises were definitely those of a Zerstörer (destroyer); interview, Bonn, 21 December 1986. Hardegen’s statement that the crewmen flew about the boat—Leute fliegen durch die Gegend—appears in conflict with the recollections of crewman Lorenz; see chapter 2.
88. Hardegen, “Auf Gefechtsstationen.’”, p. 212.
89. Interviews with Hardegen, December 1986. The attack of Dahlgren on V-123 is reconstructed from the interviews; KTB-/23, 11 April 1942; “Auf Gefechtsstationen!”, pp. 212-13; NARA, RG 80, General Recordsof the Department of the Navy, Log of USS “Dahlgren,” 11 April 1942; and OA/NHC, GSF, 11 April 1942. There are discrepancies between the Dahlgren log and the KTB-/23 with respect to times and positions.
90. KTB-/23, 11 April 1942.
91. NARA, RG 80, Log of USS “Dahlgren,” 11 April 1942.
92. Interview with Rafalski, n. 87.
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