The accusation was absurd, of course, but Henke believed Gallery’s assertion that he would be hanged once he was turned over to the British authorities. Nevertheless, the Kapitänleutnant steadfastly refused to reveal any secrets in order to save his skin. When he arrived in the United States, Henke was notified he would indeed be handed over to the British (the American authorities didn’t want to make a liar out of Gallery). Still convinced he would be put on trial, the day before his transfer to England this winner of the Knight’s Cross purposely drew the fire of a prison camp guard, preferring a soldier’s death to the dishonor of unjustly hanging for war crimes.
Gallery knew all along the accusations against Henke were without basis, but still allowed him to believe he would be hung. I met Dan Gallery after the war, and he seemed like an ethical man. But I find it difficult to forgive him for what he allowed to happen to Werner Henke.
The reason I mention all of this is because I ended up personally involved in some of Gallery’s psychological shenanigans with U-505’s crew. Naturally, we were all repeatedly questioned regarding technical details of our sub, but we refused to give the Americans any information. Every one of us, regardless of rank, said our only duty aboard the boat was emptying the diesel room shit bucket. I could understand much of what our interrogators were saying to each other, and they were getting pretty frustrated at their inability to get any of us to crack.
The Americans found out that one of the boys in our crew, Ewald Felix, was half-Polish. They tried to use that fact to get him to talk. One of the members of the American boarding party that had captured our sub struck up a conversation with Ewald in Polish. Once they confirmed his mother was indeed from Poland, Captain Gallery had Ewald separated from us and interrogated him personally.
Gallery promised Ewald that if he told them what they wanted to know, he could spend his captivity unsupervised in a luxury hotel in America. After the war, Gallery said, he would have an easy, well-paying job assigned to him. Ewald had only made two war patrols with us, but he was still a good, trustworthy lad. He didn’t fall for the bait and only gave the Americans a few useless or inconsequential details about U-505. Gallery wasn’t about to stop there, so to add a bit of psychological pressure to us, he kept Ewald sequestered incommunicado from the rest of us.
Because I was the best English-speaking crewman from U-505, I was called to Gallery’s wardroom to convey some information back to the rest of the crew. Gallery told me that we should hold a Catholic funeral ceremony in honor of a certain Ewald Felix because he had just died of tuberculosis. Well, I knew damned well Ewald was healthy as an ox, so I told Gallery that if he really was dead, someone would be held accountable after the war.
Gallery sent me back to report the news to my comrades nonetheless. To this day, I don’t know if Gallery was merely trying to scare us, or if he was deliberately using such an implausible cover story to create the impression that Ewald had collaborated and was being kept separate from us for his own protection. In any event, we never saw Ewald Felix again.
After the war, some German magazines reported that Felix had indeed provided the Americans with valuable information. They said he went into hiding after VE-Day and was now living in Poland. I never believed those stories, and tried for several years to track old Ewald down. I eventually found him living a quiet life in West Germany, just south of Hannover. In lengthy interviews with him, he swore he never told our captors a thing. Later, at a U-505 reunion in Chicago, I talked to an American Ensign who had been an electronics expert in Gallery’s task force. He confirmed they never learned anything of value from Ewald. I hope this book helps set the record straight about this unjustly maligned man.
After a couple of days, another ship took over the towing of U-505. It was a very bittersweet moment as our beloved boat disappeared over the horizon toward an unknown fate. We never saw her again, at least not until she was placed on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry long after the war.
As far as we were concerned, the next three weeks were a hot, depressing hell as we slowly cruised westward. The heat coming from the Guadalcanal’s engines was unrelenting. We pressed against the bars of the windward side of the cage in a desperate attempt to stave off heat exhaustion.
One day, I found a little stub of a pencil no bigger than a thumbnail next to the bars of our cage. A little later, a piece of paper blew against the bars of our cage and I grabbed it. I finally had the materials I needed, at least mentally, to escape from my prison. I started to while away the hours by drawing tiny sketches of my home and of U-505. An American sailor I knew only as “George” saw the sketch of our boat and asked me to draw another one for him as a souvenir. The next day he brought me more paper and pencils, and I started a secret little cottage industry, trading sketches for cigarettes and extra bits of food. This barter system reached its zenith when we got to our prison camp in Louisiana, when almost every one of us spent our free time making little handicraft souvenirs for trade with the guards.
In late June, we finally made port in Royal Bay, Bermuda. Getting out of that cage and setting foot on dry land was a moment of unbridled joy for us. We were officially processed as prisoners of war, then moved into a detention camp. My new dog tag read “LANT 13 GNA.” Over the next several days, cool breezes and good food restored much of our health that had been lost in that hellish cage on the Guadalcanal.
In the U-boat service, no news was always bad news, so our main concern at that point was contacting the International Red Cross in order to notify our families that we were safe. It soon became clear however, that the U.S. Navy had no intention of allowing word of our boat’s capture to find its way back to Germany by notifying the Red Cross, even if it meant ignoring the Geneva Conventions. Our morale sank to a very low level.
Once our entire crew was reunited in the prison camp, questions began to be raised regarding whose fault it was that our boat had been captured. I initially came in for some criticism because I had not tossed the sea strainer cover down into the bilge where it could not be retrieved. That conclusion was quickly dismissed, however, since what I did was on my own initiative without orders from anyone. Besides, such an improvised action would have never been necessary if our Chief Engineering Officer had done his duty in the first place. After some discussion, I ended up being commended for my independent action.
The questioning quickly turned to our Chief Engineering Officer, Josef Hauser. In his defense, the Raccoon protested that he thought the boat was sinking, and therefore considered the setting of demolition charges superfluous. In the end, it was agreed that although it was unforeseeable that the Americans would attempt to board our boat, the Chief Engineering Officer was still negligent in his duty to scuttle the boat, as per our skipper’s order. There was never any intention to punish the Raccoon on our own, though a formal military proceeding once we were released was held out as a possibility.
Unwarranted as it was, the Raccoon was beginning to fear for his safety and complained to the Allied authorities about it. He was eventually transferred out of the camp, an occasion that aroused little disappointment on my behalf.
In time, we were moved from Bermuda to Texas, and then to a large prison camp in Ruston, Louisiana. In every respect it was a normal prisoner of war camp, but we U-505 crewmen were kept in a separate compound apart from all the other prisoners. The American government maintained the cover story that it was a special sort of detention area for prisoners that were anti-Nazis. By labeling it a camp for political detainees rather than prisoners of war, it was exempt from obligatory inspections by the International Red Cross. Once again, no word of our capture would reach Germany. Our hearts sank at the anguish we imagined our families going through, assuming we had been lost.
Being incarcerated in a so-called camp for anti-Nazis was a funny joke for us because we had lost none of our patriotic ardor for a German victory. For instance, one night, we mixed some cleaning chemicals together to produce hydrogen gas. We t
hen filled some cellophane bags with the gas to make little lighter-than-air balloons. These balloons floated over the perimeter fences and showered the neighborhood with our paper Iron Crosses proudly proclaiming, “U-505 lives!” Another time, we snuck through the perimeter fences and hung a German war flag from the top of the American’s water tower. That really made the guards angry!
Hans Goebeler’s prisoner of war personnel record.
Author’s Collection
Inside the camp, we maintained strict military discipline and allegiance to our country. The guards considered us “hardcore Nazis,” but what we were really demonstrating was professionalism and patriotic pride. Even after we realized the war would be lost, we resolved never to lose our dignity as military men.
After a while, we were put to work clearing forests and picking cotton for local farmers there in Ruston. The farmers were very happy to have us, proclaiming that we Germans worked much harder and meticulously than the people they usually hired. But as far as I was concerned, the backbreaking labor cured me of all my Jack London inspired fantasies about the romantic life of lumbermen. The strange creatures of the Louisiana woods were a special terror to me. Big wasps we nicknamed “Stukas” stung us as we worked, and snakes often dropped down onto our heads when we chopped at trees. Picking cotton was even more odious. The cotton flowers tore at one’s fingers like knives, and the constant stooping and bending was agonizing.
At one point, we helped the residents of Ruston repair some nearby dikes during a hurricane. They said we had made the difference in saving the area from being flooded. In May of 1984, the mayor of Ruston presented me, on behalf of the entire U-505 crew, the keys to the city in appreciation for our efforts during that storm.
I spent most of my time clearing trees and brush for a local farmer, William Simington. Mr. Simington was a fine old gentleman and we became quite good friends. In fact, he told me that if I returned to Ruston after the war, he would adopt me as his son! He didn’t have anyone to leave his farm to, and he said I would make a fine farmer and would be a credit to the community. I was deeply touched by his offer, but I told him I had a family back in Germany and that they would need my help to get through the tough times ahead.
In early May 1945, we learned the war had finally ended. Though not entirely unexpected, we were still shocked and thrown into depression when the terms of the surrender reached us. Once again, the penalty for Germany losing a war would be the dismemberment of our country. We were particularly horrified with the prospect of millions of our women and children falling into the bloody hands of the communists. The one bright spot was that, with the war now over, the Americans finally allowed us to mail letters to our families and tell them of our survival.
Each hour of our captivity now lasted an eternity as we waited to rejoin our loved ones at home. In December, we were transferred back to Europe, but we still could not go home. We had been sold to the British for forced labor in Scotland. My departure from the good Mr. Simington’s household was a sad occasion for both of us.
The work in Scotland was hard, but our living conditions were comfortable. In many ways, we were better off than the civilians in Germany. My immediate family had survived intact, but just like the aftermath of the First World War, hunger and misery abounded. For two long years we toiled in Scotland. Finally, in December of 1947, we were released to return to our homeland.
I was torn by conflicting emotions as I traveled back home. I was naturally ecstatic to be rejoining my family, but the thought of going through the required “de-Nazification” program upon reentering Germany deeply disturbed me. When I took my solemn oath of allegiance upon enlistment into the German Navy, it was for life. I was revolted by the idea of being forced to swear another oath to an enemy imposed regime.
During the ferry passage across the English Channel, I made my decision. Like my father before me, no matter what the cost imposed by our conquerors, I would refuse to renounce my beliefs.
When the ship arrived, I was put on a train filled with hundreds of other former prisoners of war. Just before the train reached the German border at Duisburg, I jumped off. Sympathetic smugglers helped me cross the border and I made my way back to my hometown. The occupation authorities never did manage to “re-educate” me.
Life was very hard in my devastated homeland during those first few years after the war. German military losses had numbered more than three million dead. Our civilian losses during the war were even higher, due mainly to the carpet bombing raids on our cities. Most tragically of all, more than three million more of my countrymen died in the years immediately after the war from disease and the starvation rations imposed upon us by the victors. Not many remember, much less mourn, the innocent victims of this genocide.
Although my hometown of Bottendorf escaped damage from the bombings, we were flooded with refugees from the east, all desperate to escape extermination at the hands of the Soviets. These pitiful victims of “ethnic cleansing” put a terrible strain on our land as we tried to feed and find work for the exiles. Eventually, I found employment as a welder and started a family. The healing began, for both my homeland and me.
The journey to Chicago. U-505 is being towed in 1954 on her way to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, where she can be seen and toured. Author’s Collection
In 1954, I heard the thrilling news that U-505 was being installed as a permanent exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. As the years passed, I found my thoughts returning more and more to those days I spent aboard her. With encouragement from my wife, we moved to Chicago after my retirement in order to be near my old boat. Once in America, I began to organize U-505 reunions for the German and American crews involved in the capture. I also began writing this book as a record of our experiences.
Author Hans Goebeler played a key role in bringing together former enemies. Here, members of the USS Guadalcanal Task Group and U-505 reunite in 1982. German crewmen are seated in front. Hans (with cane) is on the far left. Earl Trosino, Guadalcanal’s engineer who led the salvage team, can be seen over Goebeler’s right shoulder. For the Germans, this was the first formal visit to U-505 since her capture in June 1944. Author’s Collection.
Hans Goebeler standing on the deck of his beloved U-505 once again—this time in the 1990s in Chicago outside the Museum of Science and Industry. Author’s Collection
My story has thus come full circle. Like many of the Hessian soldiers from my province who decided to stay and raise families in America after the Revolutionary War, I too have adopted this wonderful land of freedom and opportunity as my own country. Health permitting, I visit that lucky old boat, U-505, every chance I get.
In talking with my former crewmates about our experiences, I have come to realize that people can witness the same event and come away with very different impressions of what actually happened. I do not insist that this book is the full story of what happened aboard U-505. It is only what I can personally attest to having witnessed and experienced. The final judgment must be left to historians who can combine all the various impressions, like the pieces of a puzzle, into something approaching the complete truth.
Setting the historical record straight about World War II is a very important goal. After all, as George Santayana once said, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” But what good is studying history if all one reads are one-sided fairy tales written by the victors? It seems clear to me that only if we know the whole truth about the past, can we determine the right solutions for the future. This is crucial for everyone, not just for those whom history has cast into the role of villain.
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Steel Boat, Iron Hearts Page 29