Steel Boat, Iron Hearts

by Hans Goebeler

  The bad weather kept us busy more or less constantly, but once the weather calmed, we had more leisure time. To relax, I especially liked standing on the bridge at night, enjoying a quiet smoke and watching the star constellations sway back and forth in time with the rocking of the boat. Without a horizon to provide a reference point, it seemed like God was rocking us in a heavenly cradle, infinite in its size and beauty.

  Of course, such moments of carefree whimsy were a rare luxury aboard a U-boat in 1944. It was sobering to remember that my few minutes of leisure were only possible because four other sets of eyes were there on the bridge, busy at work scanning the horizon for danger. Who knows how many young sailors, lost in the beauty of the nighttime ocean sky, let their minds wander away from their duty, and as a result never returned home to their family?

  At any rate, the skipper was very good about letting us have a breath of fresh air whenever possible. He understood how important a few minutes topside can be for a submariner’s health and morale. In comparing Lange to Zschech, it was clear to us that the Old Man’s experience as an ordinary seaman was more valuable in making for a good skipper than all of Zschech’s years in the Naval Academy.

  During those days, I sometimes volunteered to help my buddy Toni finish washing the dishes early so he could enjoy a few minutes topside, too. He would inevitably fall asleep in the warm tropical breeze, exhausted from cooking for a crew far larger than our small galley was designed for. In appreciation for his breaks from the galley, Toni would often save me an extra scoop of dessert. The monotony of submarine food made an occasional cup of pudding with raspberry syrup poured on top, my favorite, seem like the most luxurious dish in the world. At night, Toni would often bring the bridge watch a hot pot of sweet coffee mixed with a little rum. Only someone who has lived and fought aboard one of those old submarines can truly understand the comfort and joy such simple demonstrations of comradeship could provide.

  Remembering the sense of brotherhood we felt for each other in our crowded little steel cave makes me angry to hear thoughtless people refer to us today as “Nazi submariners.” Who were the Nazis aboard our submarine? I never met one. When we were on duty, we followed the course set by our skipper. When we were off duty, we tried to enjoy ourselves, read letters from our loved ones, and dreamed of the day peace would return to our homeland. In this way, we were identical to the sailors from every nation who faced the hazards of war and the sea during those years. Party members or not, we performed our duties with professionalism and honor. America Admiral Chester Nimitz knew this when he put his career on the line to defend the Kriegsmarine’s wartime conduct during the Nuremberg Trials.

  Of course, many lies have been told about the men of Germany’s armed forces during World War II. Some of these storytellers are Germans themselves who surely know better, but who, for their own motives, perpetuate these lies. They create the impression that there were a few “bad” Germans—inhuman Nazi monsters who wanted to conquer the world, and the “good” Germans—gentle little lambs who were against the Nazis and wanted peace, but were forced to fight against their will. Naturally, they always happen to be members of the second group.

  All of this is pure self-serving fantasy! Whether one was a Party member or not didn’t matter a bit. Everyone I knew, without exception, was willing and eager to fight. The reasons were quite simple. First and foremost, our country was literally in a life or death struggle with Soviet communism. Depending upon our success on the battlefield, our nation was “to be or not to be.” Like Admiral Dönitz told us many times, we were fighting to save our country, not for a particular leader or political party. Second, almost everyone had family members who had been killed in the bombings or on the battlefield. We wanted to avenge ourselves against the gangsters who had brought about their deaths. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, a depth charge exploding over your head did not care about your politics or religion. So, doing your duty to the best of one’s ability was the best means of self-preservation.

  These were the reasons we fought on, united as a crew and as a nation against impossible odds. It never entered our minds for a moment whether this one was a Nazi or that one was not. We considered ourselves patriots, pure and simple. Ideology at that point in the war was irrelevant!

  On April 1, we remembered the anniversary of our first crossing of the equator under our old skipper Axel Löwe. It was hard to believe that it had been two years since we celebrated the exotic rituals of Neptune. So much had happened since then. It seemed as if an eternity had passed. How easy and simple those earlier days seemed, when targets were plentiful and attacks from enemy planes were the exception rather than the rule! Lange was a skillful U-boat veteran, and we had high hopes for this patrol.

  As we entered the warm waters off Africa, the waves took on a different character. Gone were the tall, violent breakers of March. Instead, we experienced enormously long swells that alternately pushed our boat forward then pulled her astern. Progress in these seas felt like riding on a child’s swing. The greener members of our crew were not used to these new motions and went through another serious bout of seasickness. For the next several days, they could be seen with their heads in buckets or leaning over the rails, offering their meals to Neptune.

  We received an FT from headquarters in the early hours of April 4. The whole boat buzzed with speculation regarding its content. Lange guessed what all the murmuring was about and broke the news to us: we had been directed to a rendezvous with U-123 at Sea Square DG9179. Lange was a wise old fox to let us know what was going on. The tropical heat was beginning to irritate us and the skipper didn’t need any unfounded rumors making the rounds.

  Three days later, U-123 came into view. She was the former boat of Reinhard Hardegen, now skippered by his Executive Officer Horst von Schröter. The anti-aircraft crews on both our boats were on full alert during the brief meeting. Our Exec, Paul Meyer, paddled over to the other boat to pass some secret codes over to them. One-half hour later, we waved goodbye and departed.

  Later that afternoon, we heard two dozen depth charges exploding in the distance. We hoped the noise was not signaling the demise of U-123. That was one big difference between U-boats and the surface ships we fought: a ship almost always had time to radio an S-O-S to rescuers before sinking. On the other hand, U-boats often sank without being able to broadcast their fate to headquarters or any potential rescuers. After several days of anxious waiting, we were usually left to assume the worst after a boat failed to radio-in as scheduled.

  As it turned-out, U-123 wasn’t sunk in the depth charge attack we heard. Indeed, like our own boat, she was one of the very few German submarines to survive the war. When the Allies overran France later that year, Admiral Dönitz ordered all operational boats stationed on France’s Atlantic coast to sail immediately for German-controlled ports on the Baltic or North Seas. U-123, however, was left stranded in Lorient’s dry docks, unable to sail because of a lack of batteries for her electric motors. After the war, the French Navy found the boat, repaired her, and re-christened her Blaison. She stayed on active service until 1953 when, regrettably, she was scrapped. It is a shame that this valiant and historic boat was destroyed for a few hundred dollars of scrap metal.

  It was around this part of the war patrol that we had a memorable incident aboard the old U-505. Looking back, the entire affair was rather disgusting, but at the time it passed for high entertainment. It all started when we noticed that Gerd, one of the diesel mates, was spending much of the day holding and gingerly rubbing the front of his pants. Well, this didn’t surprise any of us because this particular fellow was notorious for his lack of discrimination in choosing his bed mates. Every single time we had set sail on a patrol, he was found to have contracted some sort of disease from the ladies in port.

  Because of our critical shortage of manpower, contracting one of these diseases during wartime was considered a serious offense in the German military. For instance, sailors who got gonorrhea w
ere sent to a special hospital near Paris called the Ritterburg. Once the agonizing treatments for the disease were completed (these were the days before the advent of penicillin), the sailors were promptly court-martialed and thrown in prison for three or four months. Gerd had obviously caught one of these diseases while we were in Brest. According to regulations, he should have been immediately transferred to a homebound U-boat and arrested upon his return.

  Well, no one wanted Gerd to be court-martialed, so with the skipper’s permission, we decided to treat him onboard U-505 ourselves. After a cursory examination, our quack doctor decided that an immediate operation was required. My friend Otto Dietz acted as a medic and made all the preparations. The mess table in the petty officers’ quarters was transformed into an operating platform. After the doctor gave Gerd an injection to relax, Otto cut a hole in a blanket for the poor guy’s penis to protrude through during the operation. Otto, ever the clown, wanted to make sure the hole was the right size, so he stuck his own joystick through the blanket and began parading it around for the benefit of us crewmen in the front torpedo room quarters. His crazy antics made everyone curious about what was going on, and soon the whole crew was jammed against the hatches to “the operating room,” straining to get a glance of the procedure.

  But when the doctor tried to poke Gerd’s penis through the blanket, he found that the hole wasn’t nearly big enough. Our eyes almost popped out of our heads when we saw why. The poor guy’s member was a dark blue, almost black color, and had swollen to the size of a horse’s penis. Otto had to cut the hole quite a bit larger to make it fit. Then, using a special pair of pliers, he pulled the swollen organ through the blanket.

  At this point, Gerd was screaming at the top of his lungs in pain and fear. The white blanket with that huge black monster sticking out of it looked for all the world like a chimney in the snow. Then came the moment of truth. The doctor made a single slice with a scalpel and, to our immense amusement, a great spurt of hellish fluids flew from Gerd’s member.

  The organ was wrapped tightly with a bandage and then taped upright against Gerd’s belly. Needless to say, this particular arrangement gave rise to countless more jokes. Some of the crew even gave it a squeeze when the poor guy walked past. Gerd’s loud, anguished yells confirmed that his member was still quite tender several days after the operation. Eventually, the thing returned to normal size, though the jokes continued for quite some time afterward.

  Predictably, as the weather heated-up, so did the tempers of the crew. Submerging did not bring us relief because the cooler deep water caused the moisture in the air to condense, subjecting us to a sort of Chinese water torture. Soon, we began to see an increase in arguments and scuffles. We knew this was another onset of the well-known Blechkoller, the mild sort of madness that gripped submarine crews when boredom and overcrowding became unbearable. By now we were used to this sort of thing, so minor disturbances were usually handled informally by us “bilge rats” without resort to higher rank. We were often able to nip trouble in the bud. For instance, as soon as someone started to get out of hand, everyone around him would shout, “Shut up!” right into their ears. That usually sufficed.

  We looked out for each other in other ways, too. Around the 13th of April, I was performing some maintenance on the diving valves when I was suddenly struck with an intense migraine headache. The pain was absolutely unbearable. These sorts of headaches were a common symptom of CO poisoning, but it was the first time I had ever experienced anything like it.

  I reported my condition to the ship’s doctor, but the quack refused to give me any medication for it. He was obviously still angry that I had not been adequately punished for disobeying his crazy diving order several months ago. Hearing what had happened, my friend Otto and Chief Navigator Reinig conspired to “organize” some medicine for me without permission from the doctor. Within minutes, a few bitter-tasting drops of medicine had me feeling fine. The doctor kept smiling at me, sure that he was leaving me in misery. I just smiled back at him, reveling in his ignorance of my complete recovery. I was thankful that, once again, we men of the crew were willing to take care of each other, despite the risk. It was this kind of bond between us that allowed us to work as a team, even in the worst situations.

  Throughout April we ran on the surface as often as we dared. Lange clearly wanted to reach our patrol area as quickly as possible. Luckily, the skies were strangely empty of enemy aircraft, so we were able to make relatively good time. Toward the end of the month, however, we entered the shipping lanes west of the Cape Verde Islands and began to spend more time submerged. Occasionally we would stop altogether, lurking silently underwater, listening for the telltale sounds of a ship’s propellers. Unfortunately, all our efforts were in vain. The shipping lanes were totally barren of traffic.

  Lange decided we should move closer to the coast. He thought it was possible the Allies were aware of our presence and were redirecting their ships closer to the shoreline. Of course, the Old Man was very familiar with these waters because of his experience in the merchant fleet before the war. Armed with his knowledge, we would sometimes cruise within a stone’s throw of the shoreline, the water so shallow our depth finder registered zero clearance under our hull. To our frustration and dismay, we didn’t encounter any enemy ships close to the coast, either.

  I remember we were cruising slowly along the shoreline one night at periscope depth when I heard the skipper call me into the conning tower. He pointed to the periscope and told me to have a look at something funny. At first, all I could see were some small bubbles around the spray shield.

  “Turn the scope slowly, then you’ll be able to see those lazy fellows,” he told me.

  I had no idea what he was talking about, until suddenly I saw them: two young sharks were hitching a ride on our sub, using their mouths to hang on to the bridge railing!

  “Those boys have been with us for two days. I suppose they’re hanging around in order to have a free lunch whenever we throw our garbage overboard. In the meantime, they just hold on with their teeth until we begin to surface. Let’s hope they never find something better to eat…like you or me!”

  I laughed at the skipper’s dark humor and returned to my post.

  An entire month passed without us sighting a single enemy vessel. For weeks we zig-zagged back and forth across the sea lanes off Freetown, searching in vain for targets. Several times we heard depth charges exploding in the distance, but failed to spot any enemy escorts or aircraft. Only once did we encounter a ship, but after a lengthy chase it turned out to be a 9,000-ton Portuguese passenger liner. Even though Portugal was neutral, Lange prudently decided to stay out of sight. We did, however, take the opportunity to surface about 35 miles behind the ship in order to test our new FuMO radar device. We raised the large radar antenna we called “the mattress” out of its protective housing and turned the device on. To our distress we found that, even in this perfect weather, the damned thing could not pick up this large target.

  As we entered the last week of April, the Old Man decided to move our patrol area southeast of Cape Palmas, the bottom of Africa’s “elbow.” Surely there, we thought, we would run across some traffic coming up toward Britain from the Horn of Africa. Lange usually ordered the engines turned off so we could slowly and silently drift along with the current, listening intently for propeller noises. Every hour or so we would surface to take a peek with the periscope. Meanwhile, we were ordered to quietly lay in our bunks whenever off duty in order to minimize noise and to conserve oxygen.

  It was about this time we experienced another mechanical difficulty, and this one was extremely dangerous. The rear torpedo room reported that the outer hatch for Torpedo Tube #2 would not close completely. As a result, we were incapable of diving deeper than 20 meters. In those clear waters, that meant we were almost sure to be spotted by a prowling enemy aircraft, even when submerged. To make matters worse, the flooded tube was loaded with one of the temperamental T-5 acoustic-homing
torpedoes. As noted earlier, these complicated beasts had to be dried and serviced on a daily basis or else, the torpedo mechanics warned us, the moisture could detonate their complicated electrical firing fuses. Nothing we tried freed the stuck outer hatch, so we just said our prayers and continued with the mission, stranded near the surface like a sitting duck with a time bomb stuck up our rear.

  On the afternoon of the 27th, we drifted past the Liberian capital of Monrovia. We were only two nautical miles offshore and every detail of the city’s port was clearly visible to us. The harbor was filled with about twenty small, single-masted fishing boats, but nothing of military significance was anchored there. Our echo sounder often indicated only a few meters of water depth under our hull, but Lange knew these waters like his own face in a mirror and we did not run aground. The shallow water almost didn’t matter anyway, since we were still unable to dive more than a couple dozen meters deep because of the stuck torpedo hatch.

  That night, after the lights of Monrovia had sunk into the distance, the Old Man finally ordered the diesels cranked up. By long flat zig-zags, we followed the general course of the 100-meter depth line southward along the coast toward Cape Palmas. Still there were no targets! A few weeks previously, U-66 had sunk a couple of ships in this exact area. As a result, the place now looked as if it had been swept clean by a broom. We reckoned that, while U-66 got the credit, we would end up reaping the consequences.