Steel Boat, Iron Hearts

by Hans Goebeler

  At first, Zschech acted very calmly and seemed to have regained some of his old ability to concentrate. Despite his demeanor, we were still worried about him. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he, so full of promise, had transferred to our boat from the famous U-124. But now that boat was gone forever, its heroic crew entombed in their steel coffin at the bottom of the sea. Sometimes it seemed as if the spiritual part of Peter Zschech had died along with his old crew, and that the soulless body that was acting as our skipper was impatiently waiting to join them.

  This may seem strange or cold, but frankly, we young sailors didn’t often brood over our lost comrades. There were already too many of them to remember. If we had dwelled on our fallen friends, our performance would have suffered. Sometimes it even drove men mad. Most of us were fatalistic about our chances: live for today, and if we should die—C’est la Vie! That was the only way we could cope with so many of our mates disappearing for the last time. But as I said, we were young and really didn’t think deeply about such things. What I say here are the thoughts of an old man, not what filled our minds back then.

  For Zschech, though, I think it was different. For all of his outward hardness and cruelty, I think on the inside he must have been very sensitive. Too sensitive, we were soon to realize, to command a U-boat. How opposite he was from our first skipper! Löwe was a natural leader and wise in the ways of human nature. He somehow could sense the inner strengths and weakness of his crew, and like a chess player, used that knowledge to organize a team that could accomplish the mission. He also had an iron will and self-control that set a constant example for us. Löwe was a great asset to our boat, and one that brought out the best in us.

  Zschech, on the other hand, clearly lacked the qualities needed to be a commander. An excellent staff officer, perhaps, but not a commander. His loneliness and self-doubts were causing him to crumble under the stresses of a wartime command. These days, of course, it’s fashionable to feel sorry for the weakling and root for the underdog. But facing the odds that we did as we sailed out to meet the enemy, we could not afford the luxury of a second-rate skipper. All of these thoughts, too, are the musings of an old man, combined with the advantage of hindsight. At the time, we prayed that by doing the best job we could, we could make up for whatever failings Zschech had as our skipper. We clung to a shred of a hope that, just as his former Exec Thilo Bode had matured as an officer and leader of men, so too would Zschech. We just hoped that we lived long enough for that to happen.

  Our first few days out of Lorient passed without much incident. Zschech actually seemed to appreciate our professionalism for once. A few times, he even smiled at the quickness and proficiency with which we performed our duties. Once again, however, he was playing it extremely timidly on this outbound stretch. The old reckless and abusive Zschech we used to know was gone. In his place was a weak, frightened rabbit. We couldn’t decide which was worse.

  We almost never ran surfaced, and when we did, Zschech overcompensated for his earlier over-reliance on the radar warning gear. Don’t get me wrong, we were also worried about the Suicide Stretch. We felt like cats who, even when sleeping keep one ear open to listen for trouble. But Zschech was taking vigilance and caution much too far.

  Our voyage through the Bay of Biscay began to take on a surreal quality. Traveling underwater for so long removed all sensation of being at sea. Instead of the wild surf and pounding diesel noise, we experienced day after day of the monotonous, mechanical hum of the electric motors. The weather was quite cold, too. We shivered in our bunks as ice cold drops of condensed moisture soaked our clothing. The long periods under water also influenced the smell of the boat. We were steeped in the stench of rotting potatoes, the reek of the “shit” bucket in the engine room, and the stench of own bodies as far too many unwashed men tried to sleep in far too few unlaundered bunks. The fetid stink of rot and decay made our boat seem like a cold, clammy coffin in which we were already decomposing.

  On the morning of October 12, we were taking a quick pre-dawn run on the surface to recharge our air and batteries when the whole boat began vibrating in time with the RPMs of the diesels. A great hissing and roar suddenly emanated from the engine room. A moment later, the port diesel engine stopped dead. Our Diesel Chief Otto Fricke appeared in the control room, his brilliant white teeth in stark contrast to his grease and soot-smeared face. He reported that piston #2 on the port diesel had frozen up in its cylinder. Fricke saw me there in the control room and, knowing I had a master’s certificate in diesel repair, asked permission for me to assist him in the repairs.

  “Great,” I muttered to myself, “there goes my sleep time!” I wasn’t eager to get assigned to the engine room, no matter how temporarily. I enjoyed my work in the control room. It was complex, demanding work, and I was good at it. Besides, it was clean work, and when your watch time was over, you could usually get some uninterrupted rest.

  Those poor guys in the engine room, on the other hand, looked like chimney sweeps caught in a rain shower. The deafening noise, the heat, the oily soot, the constant exposure to diesel fumes and monoxide gas, combined to make it the most unpleasant place to work on a sub. The piece d’ resistance was that the shit bucket we used while submerged was kept in the narrow aisle between the diesels. To relieve oneself, you had to squat over the bucket in full view of the engine room crew. Not that they were interested in watching you. Usually they were too busy toiling over some stubborn piece of machinery, shouting every oath in the lexicon of sailors’ curses. But its sight and smell did add a bit of insult to injury.

  No, I wasn’t happy to be working in the diesel room. To make matters worse, changing a piston in one of those big diesel engines was the single most arduous task a submarine mechanic can undertake. We had to detach the connecting rod, lift the monstrous piston out of the cylinder, replace the rings, and gently lower it back into its place. All of this had to be done by hand, without assistance from pulleys or crowbars.

  At one point, Zschech poked his head into the engine room and asked Fricke how long it would be. The Chief’s face turned red, obviously straining not to lose his temper.

  “We will be completely done in one-half hour, Sir. I will report when it is!” Zschech backed out of the Chief’s domain without another word.

  True to his word, the port diesel was reassembled and ready for a test a half-hour later. To everyone’s immense relief, the engine cranked-up just fine. We ran it at slow RPMs for ten minutes to break-in the rings before testing it at high speed. The job had taken us a total of almost eight hours to finish, but the engine was back to its normal, thundering self. Zschech gave us four hours of off-duty time as reward for our efforts.

  It took us an inordinately long time to travel across the Bay of Biscay. On the one hand, traveling underwater gave us less exposure to prowling Allied aircraft. But on the other hand, our slower speed increased the chances we would be detected by one of the many enemy destroyers lurking in the Bay. The greater expenditure of our provisions also meant we would have less patrol time at our destination. We understood Zschech’s reluctance to be caught on the surface by an aircraft again, but we were eager to get at the enemy. Frustrations mounted because of the slow progress we were making.

  I spent a lot of time during this period reading my English books, and I took plenty of teasing from my crewmates because of it.

  “What the hell do Shakespeare and Robert Lewis Stevenson have to say about U-boats?” they would ask.

  I ignored them and kept my nose poked between the pages. To be honest, the books meant more to me than just English practice. They offered a dream world where I could go to escape the freezing, stinking reality of the boat. But then the alarm would ring, the books would drop, and I would be back in the war.

  As we neared the outer edge of the Bay, the weather calmed down a bit. After a long underwater run, Zschech took quick peeks with the Spargel (“asparagus,” our nickname for the periscope) and then, like some great whale rising t
o take a breath of fresh air, we would break through to the surface. The green waves were long and tall, and the cold, stiff breeze kicked up a spray that stung the faces of the men on watch. Crisp, fragrant air rushed through our boat, acting like a tonic on us oxygen-deprived crewmen. An hour or so later (sooner if we had a radar alarm), the hatches slammed shut and we would descend once again into the nether world of the deep.

  The replacement of the inner Bay of Biscay map with the Atlantic map on the chart table stirred a great deal of excitement among the crew. Even though we were still thousands of miles from the Caribbean, a sort of hunter’s blood fever took hold of us.

  Zschech, though, looked more tired and nervous than ever. Despite the fact that we had passed the area of maximum danger in the Bay, he still insisted on cruising almost exclusively underwater. Even when the ocean whipped up into Sea State 6, far too rough for any aircraft or ship to attack us, he kept us in the basement, crawling across the Atlantic at a couple of knots. It was whispered that our skipper was beginning to lose his nerve to perform even the most routine operations.

  I was lying in my bunk during the pre-dawn hours of October 23, when I realized I was breathing fresh air. The gentle rocking of the boat, followed moments later by the throaty throb of the diesels, confirmed we were indeed on the surface. The air was cold and I was reluctant to leave my bunk. But I had duty to perform, so leave it I did. It surely made no difference to the bunk, for another man would be lying in it before the sheets cooled.

  A few minutes later, I was dressed and at my station in the control room. Zschech seemed more agitated than usual, climbing up and down between the bridge and the control room like a nervous cat.

  I didn’t pay much attention to him. My concern was with the ship’s doctor who, as usual, was trying to steal my breakfast bowl of Kujamble Eis. This mixture of crushed ice and raspberry syrup was much treasured by us crewmen. It was also strictly rationed by Toni, our cook. Toni was of the opinion the doctor was too fat and therefore never gave him anything beyond the normal ration of food.

  “That man eats too much. He is putting more in the diesel room pail than any two of us!” Toni was fond of saying.

  Naturally, this made the doctor all the more obsessed with obtaining some of the frozen confection. Several times a day he would peek his head into the control room to see if there was an unattended bowl of the stuff. I’m proud to say he never got any of mine.

  The day passed quietly, as if we were on a vacation cruise. We dived as soon as the batteries were recharged and didn’t resurface until well after dark. I was back on duty that evening when, a little after midnight, we began hearing faint, distant rumbles. Over the course of several hours, the rumbling became louder and more distinct. They were clearly the explosions of depth charges. A long, steady series of them would go off, followed by a few minutes of silence, then another long series. The drum roll of the depth charges seemed to affect Zschech very deeply.

  Around noon on the 24th, we once again heard the steady rumble of depth charges exploding in the distance. We had often heard this noise before, but never for such a prolonged period. We knew that, somewhere, a U-boat was catching hell.

  Over the next several hours, the noise gradually grew louder. It would stop for a short while, then resume, closer than before. I’m not being melodramatic when I tell you it began to sound like the slow, steady drumbeat of a military funeral procession, inching ever closer to our position.

  After six full hours of this morbid tattoo, Zschech retreated to his cabin, closing the curtain behind him. Occasionally, he would call the radioman and sound man into his cabin for an update, but otherwise nothing was heard from him. Meanwhile, we continued on course through Sea Square CF5424. After sunset, the detonations started getting quite loud. We in the control room began asking ourselves what the hell Zschech was doing lying in his cabin as the kettledrum beat of depth charges got closer and closer.

  At exactly 1948 hours, the sound man ran to Zschech’s cabin and reported engine noises. At long last, Zschech pushed aside the curtains of his cabin and emerged. As he walked by me, I could see that his face was ashen gray. Instead of issuing orders, however, Zschech climbed the ladder to the vacant conning tower.

  We control room mates looked at each other in total puzzlement, silently asking each other what he was doing up there. On German subs, the only time the conning tower was used was when the skipper wanted to look through the periscope. But we were cruising at a depth of 100 meters, far too deep to use the periscope.

  Two minutes later, the radioman shouted a report up to Zschech through the conning tower hatch, informing him of what we all could hear with our bare ears: we were being scanned by Asdic. The pause between each Asdic “ping” was rapidly getting shorter. They had obviously located us and were headed right toward us.

  Soon the enemy ships were almost directly above us. And yet, still no orders, still no skipper. Where the hell was Zschech?

  Before we had time to ask, BOOM! We were thrown off our feet by a giant depth charge explosion. The whole boat was rocking crazily as the control room air filled with broken glass and flying objects.

  I grabbed for any hold I could grasp because they never dropped just one. BLANG! The lights went out and the pressure hull rang like a church bell with the concussion from the second charge.

  Finally, Zschech came down the ladder from the conning tower. His expressionless face, illuminated by the florescent paint on the air ducts, was ghostly white. We all stared at him, anticipating some orders for maneuvers, but still he said nothing. Instead, he walked zombie-like through the forward hatch into the radio room. As he passed me, I could see his wide-open, unblinking eyes shine in the half-light.

  Two more charges exploded in quick succession. They were a bit farther off than the others and we dared to hope that the worst was over. Then, W-H-O-O-O-M! The biggest explosion I had ever heard. It nearly turned the boat over. Men were sent sprawling to the deck in heaps.

  Amongst all the clamor, I thought I had heard a little bang coming from inside the boat, but didn’t think anything of it at the moment. Then I glanced around and spotted Zschech slowly leaning over. I figured he had just bruised his head against a bulkhead, so I turned my attention back to my controls.

  Then, BOOOM! An explosion even closer than the last deafened our ears, turning our world into a shattering, nightmarish blur of tumbling men and flying debris. Sprawled on the deck, I listened as well I could with my ringing ears for the telltale sound of in-rushing water that would signal our doom. Instead, there followed a few minutes of utter silence. The destroyers were evidently reloading their depth charge mechanisms as they circled for another run.

  During that brief respite, our emergency lighting system came on. Our control room looked as if a hurricane had hit it, but we were still alive. Then, I heard some commotion coming through the open forward control room hatch. From my position I could see a body laying face down, motionless on the deck. A shiny pool of dark blood was quickly spreading around the man’s legs.

  A moment later, I saw the Radio Petty Officer kneeling down and examining the bleeding man. With some effort, he managed to turn the man over onto his back. After another minute, the lifeless legs were dragged into the Olymp, our nickname for the area around the skipper’s cabin. It was then we realized something was very, very wrong. A few of us crept quietly up to the skipper’s cabin to see what had happened.

  There was Zschech, lying in his bed. He had shot himself in the head with his pistol during the depth charge attack!

  It seemed like a million years had passed since Peter Zschech first occupied the commander’s cabin. Now there he was, lying on his bunk, blood streaming out in little gushes from a small hole in the side of his head.

  But even in this last act, Zschech had failed to fully accomplish his purpose. He was still alive, though he was making the loud, unmistakable sounds of a dying man.

  The doctor came running to the cabin. “What can we do?�
�� the doctor asked. “What can we do!?” The good doctor was clearly panicked and unable to think clearly.

  “Shut up!” someone snarled in a stage whisper, “The destroyers are listening for any sound.”

  For several minutes Zschech lingered in this vegetative state, making loud death rattles. Finally, one of us placed Zschech’s pillow over his face to muffle the noise and, out of mercy, hasten the inevitable. The doctor tried desperately to pull the pillow away, but four strong hands kept it in place. We knew that all of us—poor Zschech included—would be better off if he died as quickly and quietly as possible.

  The doctor began shouting hysterically to remove the pillow. Our Exec, Paul Meyer, was now the acting commander. He calmly but sternly ordered the doctor to be quiet. “There’s nothing you can do for him now,” Meyer explained. “Those ships up there are still trying to send us to hell. Sound travels better through water, and any noise we make down here can be heard up there. So, please, doctor, be quiet.”

  Now completely in command of the situation, Meyer ordered two Bold capsules ejected to decoy the enemy Asdic. Once the chemicals had released their cloud of bubbles and metal particles, we crept away at our most silent speed. The next spread of depth charges landed directly on the Bold bubbles, close enough to shake us severely, but not enough to cause us damage.

  A few minutes later, however, another spread nearly finished us off. We suffered substantial damage, but luck was with us and that was the last close shave. An hour later, we were safely out of range of the destroyers. We busied ourselves with repairing the most serious leaks and broken equipment while the enemy continued to plaster our previous location.

  At exactly 2129 hours on October 24, 1943, a terse entry was made in U-505’s logbook: “Kommandant tot” (Commanding Officer dead). No other explanation was made. At this point, most of the crew still didn’t know Zschech was no longer among the living, much less how he died. There would be time enough for that later. Meanwhile, those of us who did know believed we were better off with our new skipper.