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Two U-boats were in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time as the Heredia. U-507, commanded by Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht, snuck into the Gulf via the Florida Straits on May 1, and U-506, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Erich Würdemann, followed on May 3. Their mission was simple: continue to sink as many American ships as possible. Their orders were to proceed toward the mouth of the Mississippi, where they might be able to send enough ships to the bottom to block river traffic. Schacht and Würdemann had plenty of leeway on where to operate, depending on the defenses they encountered and the opportunities they might find. But it was important to use their torpedoes wisely.
Like teammates, the two men had a friendly competition going to see who could sink the most large ships. Their success would be calculated in tonnage, the estimated weights of the vessels. The Germans knew that lives were lost in most of the attacks, but it was wartime, and this was their duty: to stop ships from delivering fuel, building materials, and even food.
The mastermind behind their movements was 4,500 miles away at the German navy’s headquarters in Lorient, France, an area occupied by the Nazis. Admiral Karl Dönitz, age 50, was a tall, thin, tight-lipped, and serious man who worked tirelessly to extract maximum efficiency from his U-boats. He called his U-boats and crew “Gray Wolves” because the submarines were painted gray and the men often dressed in gray leather. Both the U-boats and their crews were always on the prowl. Sometimes several submarines worked together like a pack of wolves to find the enemy and make the kill.
Lorient was just one of several U-boat bases among the French Atlantic ports on the Bay of Biscay, bordering Spain. The location made perfect sense; by leaving from France instead of from the German ports farther north, submarines could save fuel and travel time. Leaving from France also added 10 days of patrol in the Atlantic. To keep the U-boats safe from British airplanes while in port, an elaborate system of strong U-boat pens, like garages, was constructed. They looked like caves, with the tops and sides of the pens made of thick concrete and the doors three-foot-thick steel. Here, the U-boats were resupplied and repaired. Many of the pens had dry-dock facilities with slips for lifting a U-boat out of the water to inspect the hull. The Allies were well aware of the location of these pens and dropped tons of bombs on them, but little damage was done until the last year of the war.
The location of the pens enabled the German navy to keep constant pressure on the United States by sending fresh U-boats across the ocean as soon as tired crews returned home. The tactic was simple yet highly successful. From January to mid-April 1942, German torpedoes sank more than 170 ships but lost only one U-boat in American waters. And some of the easiest hunting was within five miles of the U.S. coast. Despite the U.S. government’s efforts to limit news about the carnage, people who lived along the coast could guess what was happening. All sorts of debris washed ashore, including oil, broken lifeboats, life vests, and bundled supplies.
Americans who knew of the ships’ sinkings wanted to stop the carnage, but they didn’t want to be inconvenienced by the solution. When cities were told to follow blackout rules by turning off outdoor lighting (including signs and streetlights) at night, some people complained that it would be bad for local business. As a result, shore lights often burned brightly, even though it was well known that U-boats could use the illumination to their advantage to find ships that cruised near shore.
Finally, toward the end of April, improved defenses like patrol boats and submarine-spotting blimps began to make things more difficult for the U-boats off the eastern coast of the U.S. That prompted Dönitz to send a few U-boats to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, knowing that tanker ships full of oil traveled from refineries there. Without adequate fuel, neither the United States nor Great Britain could wage war effectively.
U-506 and U-507 were the perfect vessels to send into the Gulf because they were large, long-range submarines: 249 feet long, 22 feet wide, and equipped with 22 torpedoes, which could be loaded in six tubes (four at the bow and two at the stern). Three powerful guns were mounted on the deck and conning tower to repel aircraft and sometimes to sink boats when torpedoes were not available.
These submarines could dive to a maximum depth of 755 feet, protected by an outer steel hull and an inner pressure hull. Two nine-cylinder diesel engines powered the U-boat when it was traveling on the surface, recharging the enormous batteries for the electrical systems that ran the lights, radio, and electric motors. The batteries allowed the submarines to stay submerged for brief periods. While submerged, the vessel moved more slowly. It had to return to the surface periodically to both recharge the batteries (by running the diesel engines) and replenish its supply of fresh air. There were typically 52 crewmen aboard.
The range of the subs was an incredible 13,400 nautical miles when the vessel cruised on the surface at 10 knots. Its maximum surface speed was 18.3 knots, while the maximum submerged speed was 7.3 knots.
Another type of German submarine, which sailors called Milchkühe (milk cows), provided fuel and food like a floating dock, doubling the time the U-boats could stay at sea. The massive 1,700-ton milk cows met with U-boats at a secret spot in the ocean. A long hose carried the diesel fuel from the big resupply sub to the smaller attack sub as both sat on the ocean’s surface about 150 feet apart. The milk cow also supplied fresh bread (from an onboard bakery), medications, and mail from Germany. These could be delivered to a submarine in a dinghy or on a raft. Sometimes the milk cow brought additional torpedoes. The big sub also removed sick or wounded crewmen. There were no torpedo tubes on the milk cows, and they were not designed to attack ships—their only weapons were antiaircraft guns.
The U.S. Navy didn’t know about the milk cow submarines. Officials suspected that the Germans were receiving supplies from supporters in the United States and possibly from foreign ships. Rumors and speculation were rampant. Americans who lived along the coast believed that Nazi spies were in their midst. People were encouraged to watch for and report unusual behavior—like strangers visiting the beach without bathing suits and towels—that might indicate enemy submarines were getting instructions or support. Wild rumors circulated about German spies or U-boat crews coming ashore to gain important information about shipping. How else to account for so many American ships going up in flames?
* * *
In the first few months of 1942, most U-boats returned to Lorient unscathed and victorious after surprise hits on Allied vessels. During Operation Drumbeat, the U-boats were sinking ships faster than the Americans could build them. Oil shortages quickly became a problem for President Roosevelt and his war advisers. Civilian gasoline use was strictly limited so there would be enough fuel for the war effort in the Pacific, Europe, and Africa. Dönitz’s plan was working.
President Roosevelt pressed U.S. Navy Fleet Admiral Ernest King to put protective convoys together faster. That was difficult for the admiral because the country was fighting in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and warships were stretched thin. In the years leading up to World War II, King had asked for more ships and aircraft, but his requests were ignored. Then in 1940 the United States gave the British 50 older navy ships in a trade deal that helped the British prepare for war but left the U.S. Navy shorthanded. Protecting ships off the East Coast with armed convoys was virtually impossible without the proper escort vessels. The situation was so serious that American leaders built a giant 1,200-mile pipeline to get heating oil from refineries in the South to homes and businesses in the Northeast.
* * *
Part of the success of the Gray Wolves can be attributed to the intense training all U-boat men and commanders were required to undergo, which emphasized that the entire crew had to operate perfectly. One person’s mistake could be deadly for all. Dönitz wrote that “every man’s well-being was in the hands of all and … every single man was … indispensable.”
In fact, the fighting spirit of sailors aboard U-boats was so strong that they willingly gave up w
hat few comforts they had to increase their patrol time off the U.S. coastline. They filled some of the drinking and washing-water tanks with fuel and sacrificed parts of their tiny living quarters to make room for more supplies.
When sailors aboard U-506 and U-507 headed to the mouth of the Mississippi River, they were going farther than any others had, with no knowledge of what they might encounter.
5
HARRO SCHACHT AND U-507
Commander Harro Schacht (pronounced “Shot”), age 34, and his crew aboard U-507 were on high alert as they passed between Cuba and Florida on April 30. They had just crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean in 26 days and would soon be the first U-boat ever to enter the Gulf of Mexico. Spirits were high, and the men looked forward to engaging the enemy. They knew that by being the first of the German subs to enter the Gulf, they would have plenty of opportunities to sink American ships. The crew of U-507 liked their chances of being recognized by Dönitz as one of the best U-boats, with Schacht as their ace.
The most effective weapons fired by U-507 (and all U-boats) were torpedoes. The 21.5-foot-long cylinders included propulsion and guidance systems, a depth device, and a pistol that detonated the warhead. Perfect for daytime attacks, these torpedoes did not leave a trail of bubbles, so they could not be seen. Once fired from submarines, they could travel 5,470 yards at 30 knots per hour, but commanders preferred to be much closer to their targets to ensure a hit. Like American torpedoes, these had their share of technical problems, sometimes malfunctioning and missing their targets, failing to explode, or exploding too early.
In the Gulf of Mexico, U-507 found the sinking ships to be easy. Its targets were often slow merchant ships, alone in the water without navy airplanes protecting them. Incredibly, getting torpedoed was almost expected by sailors during that time. The crew of one ship that Schacht hunted down and sank in the Gulf of Mexico included sailors who just months before had spent 11 days adrift on a raft after the ship they had served on was sunk.
Another time, Schacht heard a ship’s captain calling the navy on the radio to report an explosion he had seen, giving the location so navy planes could find U-507. Schacht immediately searched for the source of the radio report and found the tanker not far away on a zigzag course, trying to get away. That ship was quickly sunk, too. Then Schacht slowly headed toward New Orleans and the Mississippi River Delta, where there would be more hunting.
* * *
Erich Würdemann and his crew on U-506 would provide Schacht with competition in sinking the most Allied ships in the Gulf. Würdemann was less experienced, having graduated from submarine school less than a year earlier, in September 1941. But the 28-year-old Kapitänleutnant was a quick learner.
Photographs of Erich Würdemann always showed him with an intense look: thick black eyebrows shadowing penetrating eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was a good-looking young man with black hair slicked straight back. The photos gave a sense that he was confident and hungry for success. Strangely enough, his searing stare, thick dark hair, and serious demeanor were eerily similar to the photos taken of Ray Downs, Sonny’s dad.
When passing through the Florida Straits, Würdemann’s U-boat was running against the strong eastward current. It cruised more slowly than its maximum surface speed of 18 knots and was in a vulnerable position, close to land-based aircraft. Nervous about being exposed so near to onshore defenses, Würdemann stationed four lookouts with binoculars on U-506’s conning-tower bridge. Each would scan an assigned 90 degrees of ocean and sky, searching for both ships to shoot at and aircraft that would try to stop them.
Twice a lookout spotted a plane and shouted for a crash dive. Everything moved quickly. The lookouts on the bridge leaped through the conning tower’s open hatch and slid down the ladder, landing seven feet below, inside the sub. Behind them, a crewman slammed the hatch closed and secured it against the ocean water. Then engineers shut off the diesel engines and turned on electric motors. Vents were opened to let the air out of the ballast tanks so the vessel would descend deeper in the ocean. To quicken the sub’s descent, all available crew dashed to the narrow bow of the vessel, adding their weight to assist its nosedive away from the surface. The crash dive was a race against time to submerge the U-boat before airplane pilots could see it and start dropping bombs. If just one crew member on the sub was slow to perform his task, it might mean the end for all of them.
In the second crash dive that day, the U-boat must have been located by the American aircraft, because Würdemann later wrote, “2 aircraft bombs at depth of 60 meters. No damage.” So while American defenses in the Gulf were sorely lacking, Würdemann knew he and his crew could never let their guard down while on the surface.
For most of his voyage into the Gulf, Würdemann simply played it safe, spending daylight hours underwater while using the cover of darkness to proceed on the surface. At night, the low silhouette of U-506 made it virtually impossible for spotters on a ship or a plane to see it with the naked eye. Würdemann knew that in the darkness he could easily find ships that either kept their lights on or were silhouetted by lights from shore. Once a ship was located, the commander could get surprisingly close to the enemy.
Würdemann on the U-506 had a lot of catching up to do to match the seven ships sunk in the Gulf of Mexico by Schacht and U-507. For Dönitz and Hitler, Schacht’s success was a series of incredible victories, but for the Americans it was an absolute disaster. It is not known whether the news of this carnage reached Captain Colburn on the Heredia, but if it did, he elected not to worry the Downs family with it.
6
THE GRAY WOLVES AND THE MISSISSIPPI
Sonny and Lucille were in the galley eating ham-and-cheese sandwiches made especially for them. A senior crew member sat at their table, chatting with the two children. Sonny blurted out that he would probably become bored on the voyage.
“Why’s that?” asked the sailor.
Lucille answered before Sonny could. “Because we’ve seen the entire ship, even where the captain does the steering.”
“Well, have you seen the engine room?”
“No! Can we?” shouted Sonny.
“First get permission from your parents. And if they say yes, meet me back here in two minutes.”
The children raced through passageways, down a mahogany staircase that was one of the few ornate features left from the ship’s earlier days as a passenger ship, and then onward to their parents’ cabin. The tiny room had a bunk bed, a table, a chair, and a closet. A door led into a bathroom that the parents shared with their children, who had an identical cabin on the other side of the bathroom.
Finding their mother reading on the lower bunk, they told her about their invitation to see the engine room of the ship. Ina thought for a minute and then said, “If you stay right next to the officer who is taking you there, you may go.” The kids raced away, shouting, “Thanks, Mom!”
Ina smiled and shook her head: Sonny and Lucille were so happy, so healthy. She couldn’t wait to get home.
Once in the engine room, both children covered their ears from the deafening roar of the giant pistons hammering up and down. The room smelled of oil and grease. Sonny thought the sight of the enormous moving parts was like entering a cave where giants might live. When Lucille tapped him on the shoulder and shouted that it was time to leave, Sonny took one last look around so that he could tell his brother, Terry, exactly what he’d seen.
Sonny reluctantly climbed the steps up from the engine room and into the fresh air. Once on the deck, he raced off to find his father to explain how the ship was able to power through the seas. He located his dad lounging on a deck chair, enjoying the warm May sunshine. After Sonny described his adventure in the engine room, his dad said, “Well, I’ve got news for you. We just entered the Gulf of Mexico, and we’re about halfway home. Won’t be long before you get to see your brother and Boy.”
Sonny had missed the dog as much as he had his brother. “Can’t wait!” said Sonny. “
And, Dad, do you think we can sleep on the deck again tonight?”
The prior day and night had been warm and the family had found their cabins stuffy, so the whole family had slept on reclining chairs topside. Sonny loved looking at the stars, which were so clear that they appeared closer than he’d ever seen them. A gentle breeze had kept him cool, and the periodic passing of the Navy Armed Guard on watch made him feel safe.
“I don’t see why not,” answered Ray. “It’s another warm day.”
“All right!” shouted Sonny. He skipped away, heading down to the galley for a soda. His mind raced ahead to another night under the stars when he could secretly pretend he was a pirate sailing to distant adventure.
* * *
The crewmen on U-506 and U-507 could merely dream of escaping the heat and humidity inside their iron capsules. Their only relief came at night, when it was safe to surface and open the vessel’s hatch. Those lucky enough to have conning-tower duty enjoyed deep breaths of the salt air, giving a sigh of pleasure whenever a breeze cooled their perspiring bodies.
The crew inside the U-boat longed for relief from the heat and terrible smells after weeks at sea. The engines generated heat, and the ventilation system could never provide enough fresh air. The warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, together with the engine warmth, often sent temperatures in the sub above 110 degrees.
Even if there hadn’t been high temperatures or engine fumes, the air inside a U-boat would have been foul. Consider that 50 men had to share the narrow, confined space for months with no baths and only one toilet. (The second toilet space was used for storage.) The smell of unwashed bodies could make a person gag. The crew also had to contend with high humidity that kept their dirty clothes and bedding damp. Fresh food was consumed in the first weeks at sea, leaving the men canned items or moldy bread to eat. Sickness spread quickly in these conditions, making the stink even worse.
Attacked at Sea Page 3