Night Sky

by Clare Francis

  Fischer already wore the decoration of the Iron Cross of the Knight’s Cross, First Class. Doenitz would present him with the Oak Leaves this afternoon. In the U-boat Arm they did not wait for boards of senior officers to approve awards; decorations were given immediately, on the dockside, when emotions were running at their highest and the men could share the recipient’s moment of glory.

  The car was travelling along the edge of a wide estuary. The occasional farmhouse had given way to a string of small villas: they were coming into Brest.

  Doenitz considered the rest of the day’s programme: the planning session with the Todt Organisation man should be straightforward. It was a matter of discussing the construction of the necessary dockyard modifications. Work was already in progress. They were using Polish labour apparently, and Poles always worked hard.

  The staff meeting would be the usual mixture of optimism and resignation. The staff did not bother – or maybe, Doenitz wondered, they did not dare – to ask for the one thing they knew he could not provide: more boats.

  Only six new U-boats were being launched this month; in August it was a disastrous two. It had been the same in May, June, and July … Not enough even to replace losses!

  The High Command always told him it was a matter of resources – what they really meant was that everything was going into Goering’s precious Luftwaffe.

  They were descending into the dockyard area. The car swept in through some large stone gates and approached an ugly grey stone building over which flew the flag of the Third Reich and the ensign of the Kriegsmarine. Waiting on the steps of the building were the commander of the 1st U-boat Flotilla and his staff. An ordinary seaman was keeping a tight rein on the flotilla’s mascot, a goat draped with the flotilla’s insignia. Doenitz was pleased. Back in 1935 this flotilla had been the one and only U-boat flotilla, and Doenitz himself had been its commander. Doenitz remembered with pride that the men themselves had thought them up, the insignia and the mascot.

  Immediately the greetings were over they went to the restaurant. The lunch was indifferent. Doenitz considered French food to be very overrated. The wine, however, was excellent, though he drank very little.

  He cut the lunch short and they started the tour of the dockyard early. Brest was a well-developed port, as one would expect of one of France’s major naval bases, and considerable repair facilities already existed. It was a question of making modifications, Dorsch explained. The larger drydocks needed to be adapted to take two U-boats at a time; also more engineering shops and welding facilities would have to be created.

  ‘How long will the work take?’ Doenitz asked.

  ‘Eight weeks at the most.’

  ‘Good.’ Once the work was done another flotilla could be moved to Brest from Kiel. Doenitz wanted as many boats as possible here, where they would be most effective.

  As the party walked slowly back towards the cars the distant drone of a plane sounded high in the sky. Everyone looked up.

  ‘One of ours.’

  Doenitz nodded. So it should be. Goering had promised air supremacy: he’d better deliver it otherwise here in port the U-boats would be totally vulnerable to air attack. Rumour had it that the air battle with Britain was not going so well.

  He turned to the architect. ‘Herr Dorsch, how long would it take to create sail-in bunkers for my boats? Ones that would be invulnerable to air attack?’

  Dorsch was taken by surprise. ‘Oh? Er, I would think – allowing for the fact that the roof would have to be massively thick – my goodness, yes, very thick indeed … er, I would say, at least six months. All the concrete … all the labour. How many boats would need to be protected at once?’

  ‘Ten, twelve, more if it was possible.’

  ‘It would be … a massive project.’

  ‘But possible?’

  ‘Oh yes! Most certainly!’

  Doenitz was pleased. If the air battle was lost then at least his boats would be safe in port.

  That left one really vulnerable point: the run across the Bay of Biscay. It was here, in the approaches to his new French bases – Brest, Lorient, La Palice and St Nazaire – that his boats were most exposed to enemy air patrols. Rather than search the open Atlantic, it was easier for the British to wait for departing or returning boats in the Bay.

  He made a mental note to ask at the staff meeting about the current state of enemy air activity. What the U-boats really needed was proper air cover. But they never got it, Goering saw to that.

  Back at headquarters the flotilla commander, Korvetten-kapitan Scheer, was waiting and the meeting began promptly.

  The routine reports of successes, losses, and mechanical breakdowns were read out. The U-boat quotient – the average tonnage sunk per U-boat per day – was going up monthly. Everyone was pleased.

  ‘But soon it will go up very much more,’ Doenitz said. He explained that, as soon as another flotilla could be based on the French coast, they would have enough boats to reintroduce properly organised wolf pack tactics. The wolf pack would increase kills dramatically. Doenitz also promised first-class intelligence to help locate convoys.

  Then they looked at the problems. Scheer, the flotilla commander, was most concerned about air attacks. The RAF had taken to carrying – and dropping – depth charges. And as Doenitz had foreseen, many of the attacks were being made in the Bay of Biscay.

  ‘But the boats manage to dive in time?’ Doenitz asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Scheer agreed, ‘but sometimes it’s closer than we’d like. In bad visibility the enemy never find us, of course. But in thin cloud they often see us first and, attacking from down-wind as they do, well … Our men neither hear them nor see them until it’s almost too late. And with these depth charges …’

  ‘But a good lookout solves the problem?’

  ‘Well – yes,’ admitted Scheer.

  ‘That’s the answer, then, isn’t it?’ Doenitz said a little impatiently. ‘And as many boats as possible should sail at dusk to benefit from the cover of darkness. Any other suggestions?’

  There was a short silence, then someone said, ‘Any chance of getting the magic eye?’

  A few U-boats had been fitted with a large and cumbersome radar device just before the war, but the results had been so poor the idea of having radar in U-boats had been dropped and the sets removed. Since then all research into small sets had ceased.

  Doenitz replied, ‘No. There will be no radar. Tests prove that sets small enough to fit into our boats would be impossible to develop.’ He remembered the Chief Scientist’s report: it had been quite definite.

  There was a knock at the door and a junior officer came in and saluted. ‘Sir, U-319 has entered port. Estimated arrival time is 1610.’ Doenitz looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes. He smiled. ‘Good! Let’s get down there.’ He got to his feet and led the way out of the room. He always loved meeting the boats and he tried to do so as often as possible. In the old days, when his HQ was attached to the U-boat base at Kiel, he could meet every boat at the end of every patrol. Now – well, it was impossible. His HQ was in Paris and his bases scattered around the coast of the European continent.

  As he walked briskly towards the dock Doenitz called to Schneider, ‘You have everything?’

  The staff officer replied, ‘Yes, Admiral.’

  The small party arrived at the dockside. They still had ten minutes to wait. Doenitz sat on a bollard and gazed in silence across the wide expanse of Brest Harbour. He looked round only once, when the braying of the mascot interrupted his thoughts. He saw that, in addition to the band and the official guard of honour, at least a hundred officers and men had gathered. It was always the same: everyone always made the effort to come out and welcome a boat home. It was part of the remarkable loyalty and camaraderie that united his men. He never felt less than immensely proud of them …

  Though there were some he couldn’t help feeling especially proud of: his two sons, one already in the service, the other in S-boats.

&nb
sp; Someone shouted and everyone looked up. The nose of U-319 appeared from behind a jetty. There was loud cheering from the assembled crowd. The band struck up the Kretschmermarch. Doenitz felt a lump in his throat. This occasion, this moment of emotion and relief and pride, never failed to move him. His men were the best in Germany, the best in the world. They deserved to return like this, in triumph, for they were the bravest of them all …

  The crew lining U-319’s deck cheered back, waving and shouting to the crowd on the dock. They were in high spirits: obviously everything had gone well. As the submarine manoeuvred alongside there was some cheerful banter between the crew and the crowd. Doenitz smiled; he encouraged informality at moments like this. He reflected that, because of his presence, the comments were probably quite subdued. He could see Fischer in the conning tower, his face lit by a wide grin. The goat brayed loudly and everyone laughed.

  When the boat was secure and the gangway rigged, the chatter of voices died away, the band stopped playing and there was a hushed silence. Everyone had guessed what was to happen. The crew stood in line along the decks. Fischer appeared through a hatchway still in his U-boat uniform of plain blue overalls and soft white cap, took a last look at his boat, and walked down the gangway. Doenitz stood waiting at the end and, as Fischer stepped on to the dock, the two men faced each other, saluted and shook hands.

  The crowd waited expectantly as Doenitz said a few words. Schneider then stepped forward, a small box in his hand, and opened it. Doenitz took out the simple iron cross with oak leaf on a long ribbon, and placed it round Fischer’s neck. The two men saluted again, the band struck up a tune, and a great roar went up from the crowd. Scheer presented Fischer with a bouquet of flowers and the young U-boat commander, his face a picture of pride and joy, led Doenitz and Scheer aboard his boat to present his crew to their senior officers. To complete the formalities Fischer then inspected and saluted the guard of honour.

  Scheer was at Doenitz’s elbow. ‘Sir, would you like to attend the debriefing? Or would a copy of Fischer’s report be sufficient?’

  ‘I will attend if I may.’

  ‘Of course, Admiral!’

  The formal question had been asked. The reply given. But, Doenitz thought, if they hadn’t asked me I would have invited myself anyway.

  Fischer sat near the window, his yellow hair lit gold by the late afternoon sun. From time to time he glanced at the written log on his knee to remind himself of precise times or sequences of events. But for the most part he spoke from memory, his pale blue eyes fixed at a point high on the opposite wall, his mind back in the North Atlantic. He told first how, on their way to their designated patrol area, they had come across a small convoy, probably from the Mediterranean. They had sunk two of the ships before being chased off by a destroyer. They then continued to their patrol area.

  Fischer went on, ‘In company with U-253 and U-90 we arrived at the grid reference point at 0700 on the fifteenth. We fanned out and zigzagged in twenty mile legs, covering a corridor fifty miles wide across the expected path of the convoy. U-90 spotted them at 1900 hours, dead ahead. She reported the sighting to us by radio. I passed on the report to Command Headquarters. I then ordered U-253 to make her approach from the south and U-90 from the north. We ourselves would lie in wait dead ahead. At this stage it was impossible to gauge the speed of the convoy, or the pattern of its zigzag, but I ordered that there be no further communication between our boats until the action was completed, to lessen the risk of detection.’

  Doenitz watched Fischer’s abstracted face and was nostalgic for the time in 1915 when he himself had seen active service. Then he too had made reports like this: dispassionate, objective, but loaded with a multitude of things unsaid – fear, exhilaration, uncertainty. Would the convoy alter course at the last moment? Was it going faster than they had estimated? Which ship should they go for?

  Fischer went on, ‘We dived to periscope depth and manoeuvred to a position in front of the convoy and dead ahead of it. The convoy consisted of at least thirty ships, but it appeared to have a very small escort: we spotted only one frigate and three armed trawlers. Suddenly, as we waited, we saw the frigate detach herself from the convoy and steam away to the south. I thought she must have spotted U-253, but later I discovered that this was not in fact the case. We never found out why she dashed off in this way. We waited, keeping an eye on both the convoy and the frigate. At 2030 we spotted the frigate coming in to make a pass across the front of the convoy. Unfortunately, this pass would bring her very near to our position. I had a feeling the convoy was about to alter course and, though I had been planning to take us a bit further to the north, I had no choice but to dive. We stayed submerged for twelve minutes. We listened to the frigate pass then, using minimum speed, came to periscope depth again.’

  Fischer paused, a look of exhilaration in his eyes. ‘We could hardly believe it, but when we took a look around we discovered we had come up in the middle of the convoy!’

  A ghost of a smile passed Doenitz’s lips. It was indeed a remarkable stroke of luck! He could imagine the amazement and the excitement in the U-boat.

  ‘There was a large tanker coming straight into the perfect target position. All we had to do was wait! However, since it was a very dark night and the convoy was well spread out, I decided to surface. There was a good chance of remaining unseen, and I wanted a more stable firing platform. We fired two torpedoes at the tanker. She went up straight away. We retreated so as not to be illuminated by the burning ship. Another ship came into target position. We got her with a single torpedo. Then we saw other ships on fire: U-253 and U-90 were obviously busy too. At this point the frigate came sniffing around so we went down to periscope depth, but she never found us. We continued to find targets in the centre of the convoy.’

  Fischer looked down. ‘We know to our certain knowledge that we sank four ships that night. We used only eight torpedoes.’ There was a moment’s silence. No-one liked the thought of ships being destroyed because men died, drowned or burnt alive.

  ‘Finally, when the convoy had passed, we surfaced. Eventually we made radio contact with U-90 and U-253. They had scored four and six hits respectively. Thus we sunk approximately half the convoy.’

  The senior officers exchanged glances of satisfaction. Doenitz nodded slowly. ‘And so you were not detected by the enemy at any stage?’ he asked.

  ‘No, sir!’ Fischer smiled. ‘I don’t think they had any idea of where we were. I believe that, when we’re submerged, their Asdic can’t distinguish the noise of our engines from those of the ships in the convoy. As long as we’re sufficiently close to the ships, the Asdic won’t pick us up.’

  ‘I agree,’ Doenitz said. ‘Again, Kapitanleutnant Fischer, my congratulations on your fine achievement. At this rate, our tiny band of boats will win the war!’

  They think I am just saying that, thought Doenitz, but it is absolutely true.

  The debriefing was over. Doenitz poised himself to get out of his chair.

  ‘Sir, perhaps I did not answer quite accurately just now.’ It was Fischer.

  Doenitz looked up sharply. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We did have an engagement with the enemy, but it was much later. Just sixty miles from Brest, visibility one mile, the lookout thought he heard an aircraft engine. Fortunately he was a man with exceptionally sharp ears. I must admit I did not hear it, though I was in the conning tower. I took no chances and ordered a crash dive. We were just in time. The last man down saw a Sunderland appear to the south. It was banking sharply towards us. When we were down we heard one bomb explode, but it was some way off. After that, nothing.’ Fischer shrugged, ‘It was a fluke. But it was lucky we had such an excellent lookout.’

  ‘Yes. It was lucky.’ Doenitz stood up. ‘And it banked only when it saw you, this plane?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘A fluke then.’ Doenitz put out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Fischer. And I look forward to hearing about your future patrols. May all of them be equa
lly successful!’ He leant forward and said in an undertone that no-one else could hear. ‘It is a long time since the early days at Kiel, isn’t it?’

  Fischer grinned. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘A long time …’ Doenitz turned away and strode out of the room.

  Chapter 12

  THE APARTMENT WAS in a narrow street near the Porte d’Auteuil in the seizième. It was small, plainly furnished, and in every way unremarkable. It was just what Vasson wanted. It was high time to move. He’d been in the other place six months, ever since the previous December when he’d started working for Kloffer. It had been too long. He moved in at noon and carefully unpacked the contents of two of his three suitcases. In the bedroom there was a single narrow wardrobe with just enough room for his suits. His shirts, casual trousers, pullovers and best underwear he folded carefully and placed in the drawers of a large chest in the corner. He put two mothballs in each of the drawers and another four in the wardrobe. He didn’t want to get back and find all his best clothes peppered with holes.

  He opened the third suitcase and checked the contents. One inexpensive badly-cut suit, three cotton shirts, three pairs of cheap casual trousers, socks, shoes, underwear – his working clothes.

  He took out his wallet. Papers in the name of Lebrun, a hundred francs, and the special travel permit which he would destroy once he was over the border in Belgium. He looked again at the money: would it be enough? He couldn’t think of anything he could possibly spend it on between now and the border. He had already paid six months’ rent in advance and given the concierge a float to cover the electricity and any other bills that might turn up. No, he wouldn’t need any more cash; anyway the less French money he had on him the better.

  He looked at his watch. Three-thirty. Just time to go to Sèvres, then Clichy, and back by seven.

  He shut the suitcase, placed it ready by the front door and left the apartment. He shouted a word to the concierge and went into the street. His car, a six-year-old Citroën, was three minutes’ walk away. It was a habit, now, to leave his car at least two streets away from wherever he was living. Possessing a car was not so unusual, but having enough petrol to use it every day certainly was.