by Gary Moore
In August of 1941, at the age of seventeen, Heinrich was accepted for service in the Kriegsmarine. He received his training in occupied Belgium, where he had to learn to fight like an infantryman before he could learn the ways of the sea. When the training ended, Heinrich was invited to attend submarine school. Fewer than one in ten qualified for this elite branch of the navy. As he would soon discover, his short stature (5 feet six inches, with a heavily muscled chest and arms) would come in handy inside the cramped confines of a submarine. Grueling training followed in Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea and in Neustadt, on the scenic Baltic coast.
The top-ranked graduates, Heinrich among them, were assigned to frontline U-boats. His sleeve insignia designated him as a Maschinengefreiter (Machinist Second Class). His new home was in Lorient, France, with the Second U-boat Flotilla. It was there Heinrich first set his eyes on his new boat assignment: U-105. He was initially assigned there with another new U-boat sailor named Hans Goebeler. The pair barely had time to stow their gear and shake a few hands before being yanked from that boat and transferred to U-505, a new submarine recently arrived from Germany. Fate smiled on both men, for U-105was later lost in a depth charge attack. There were no survivors.
That same afternoon, Heinrich watched as U-505 was being berthed. Her light gray paint was fresh, not a bead of rust was visible, and a stunning insignia featuring a lion wielding an axe graced the conning tower. To him, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. June 4, 1944
“Alarm! Aircraft spotted!”
Dozens of men coursed through the narrow U-boat, swinging through the hatches, spinning knobs, twisting dials, pulling levers, and yelling out commands. Heinrich sat on his seat in the control room, gripping the diving plane controls that helped drop the bow beneath the waves. The past few days had been filled with one emergency dive after another, fraying nerves, testing tempers, and wearing each of the fifty-nine officers and crewmen to the point of exhaustion.
U-505 had spent weeks patrolling off the coast of Africa with nothing to show for it. The long stretches of boredom and constant fear of attack from the sky were taking their toll. The Allied air cover in the region bewildered Harald Lange, who could not figure out where all the planes were coming from. As soon as they popped up to recharge his batteries, planes were spotted and they were forced under again.
“Take us down to 80 meters, Chief,” Lange ordered Josef Hauser, the boat’s engineer. Heinrich listened as Lange and his first officer, Paul Meyer, discussed the unfolding situation.
“I am beginning to suspect we have captured someone’s attention, Meyer,” offered the skipper. “I think an aircraft carrier group is hunting us.”
Heinrich’s blood ran cold at the thought. From what he had heard while ashore, once a submarine is located, the aircraft and surface destroyers hunt it to exhaustion. There was no way to escape.
“If we are suspected of being here,” continued Lange, “the enemy group is probably west of our position—here,” he said, leaning over the map table and pointing on the chart.
Meyer nodded in agreement. “Then we should turn east toward the coast,” he suggested.
“Yes, I think that is the best course of action,” concluded the skipper.
In fact, Lange’s decision was the worst course he could have plotted. Instead of moving away from the carrier group, he was moving directly toward Captain Dan Gallery’s American Task Force 22.3 and the USS Guadalcanal.
Dan Gallery was a seasoned hunter of German U-boats. His previous mission had sent two veteran boats to the bottom. One of them, U-515, had been temporarily captured with her skipper and Knight’s Cross holder Werner Henke. Although the Americans had done their best, they could not prevent the heavily damaged U-515 from sinking. Gallery, a native of Chicago and graduate of the Naval Academy, determined that if the opportunity ever arose again, he would send out a party of “stout hearted characters” to board the enemy boat and capture it.
Gallery’s Task Force 22.3 was built around the Casablanca-class escort carrier Guadalcanal and its invaluable combat aircraft of Composite Squadron Eight. The group also included five destroyers of Escort Division Four: Pilsbury, Chatelain, Flaherty, Pope, and Jenks. Gallery put his command to sea on May 13, 1944, heading for his operational areas south of the Cape Verde Islands. His express purpose was to locate and sink or capture U-505. The Americans knew this boat was operating there because the German code, Enigma, had been cracked and was being read.
Although the group left with high spirits, the hunt turned up nothing but empty seas. Nearly out of fuel, Gallery ordered Task Force 22.3 on May 31 to head for Casablanca, Morocco. Even in retreat he saturated the skies 24-hours a day in the hope of spotting the elusive U-boat he was confident was lurking in the vicinity. Several radar contacts made by planes on the night of June 2-3 convinced Gallery to “stretch our fuel enough to spend one more night searching that area.” The commander turned back and swept the area once more on the night of June 3-4. That decision, together with Lange’s change of course in U-505, put the Hunter-Killer group on a collision course with the German submarine.
Heinrich was on duty in the control room when faint traces of a propeller were picked up by the boat’s hydrophone operator, who spent his time in a small space tucked off the control room listening while submerged for other ships and submarines operating in close proximity.
“Perhaps an Allied convoy?” asked Meyer hopefully as he leaned in for a listen himself.
“No, I only have one ship—I think,” he added, tapping the headphones. “Something is not working correctly.”
Lange stood a few feet away, stroking his chin as he considered his first officer’s optimistic wish. Maybe the patrol would not be a complete waste of time after all.
“Periscope depth, Chief!” Lange ordered, turning to watch as Hauser gave the command that would lift the boat close to the surface from their current depth of 80 meters. Heinrich felt his heart pound as he turned the wheel in front of him as ordered. The sound of air being blown into the ballast tanks, forcing out the heavy water, echoed throughout the boat. Slowly, U-505’s bow began easing its way upward.
“Periscope depth, Captain,” Hauser announced a few minutes later. Lange had climbed up the ladder into the conning tower to take a seat at the attack periscope. An odd metallic pinging sound filled the control room—as if someone was throwing small rocks at the side of the boat.
“What’s going on?” Meyer asked Hauser, who shook his head and began moving through the control room, checking dials and asking questions. Heinrich shot a puzzled glance of concern at Meyer, who refused to return his gaze. “I think it is a moored mine chain scraping across our hull,” hissed the sound man, tapping his headphones.
The sound stopped as abruptly as it began, only to be replaced by a chilling word spat forth by the hydrophone operator: “Destroyer!”
Lange had just raised the periscope and was looking around when he caught sight of the light gray bow of a warship slicing through the water directly toward U-505. He let out a strangled cry of warning before spinning around 360 degrees and slamming the scope into its well.
“Crash dive, Chief! Down as fast as you can, 140 meters! Hard to port! Rig for silent running and prepare for depth charges!”
The strange metallic clinking sound was not a dragging chain but machine gun bullets from two carrier-based aircraft that had spotted the outline of the U-boat gliding beneath the surface. They were firing into the water to mark the boat’s position for the approaching destroyers, which were steaming at flank speed to reach the submarine.
Heinrich took note of Lange’s ashen face when the captain slid down the ladder into the control room. As men rushed through the room toward the bow of the boat, the skipper pulled Meyer and Hauser to the side and explained what he had seen. Given the cramped conditions, privacy was nonexistent. “There are at least two fighter planes, three destroyers closing fast, and in the distance, maybe 3,000 to 4,000 meters, an aircraft carrier.”
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Heinrich’s heart fell into his shoes. They had been discovered by a Hunter-Killer Group.
Gallery’s Task Group 22.3 was on its course to Algeria when USS Chatelain reported a sound contact three miles from the carrier’s position. The contact was only 800 yards from Chatelain. The destroyer’s captain changed course slightly and reduced his speed to ten knots. “What do we have?” he asked.
“Coming in loud and clear, sir, off our starboard bow,” replied the sonar man. “I think it’s a U-boat—but shallow.”
The range to the target was now only 600 yards and closing rapidly. Two planes skimmed the surface, stitching it with 50 caliber machine gun fire to alert the destroyer where the U-boat was. When the contact was confirmed as a submarine, general quarters bells rang throughout the ship, which steamed over the diving U-boat and dropped depth charges in an effort to rip her apart or blow her to the surface.
Captain Gallery had found U-505.
Newly promoted Lieutenant Buck Nelson gripped the starboard railing of the USS Pilsbury as he watched Chatelain lean slightly to starboard as she increased her speed to reach the spot where the planes were tearing up the ocean. Fresh from the North African desert, and no longer coaching baseball, Buck still felt uncomfortable in his role as damage control officer. His months in training had taught him well and he enjoyed his posting, but nothing had been as exhilarating as routinely beating the Army team under a hot Tunisian sun. Until now.
Buck watched as the Chatelain’s “K Guns” fired 300-pound Torpex depth charges off the port and starboard sides of the ship. Massive 600pound charges were rolled from the back of the ship. Buck watched with a slow smile spreading on his face when giant geysers of white and gray erupted 100 feet into the air. It took a few seconds for the sound of the explosions to reach his ears.
“Bastards,” he muttered to no one in particular. “That’s for Ron Callais.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a couple seconds to try and erase the memory of the boy’s corpse and bloody glove from his mind.
A seaman standing by his side turned and asked, “Did you say something, sir?”
Buck let out a long sigh and returned his thoughts to the present. “Just thinking of an old friend.”
Aboard U-505, sentiments were a bit different.
The boat was angling steeply by the bow and passing the 60 meter mark when the soundman announced, “Wasser bombs!”
Heinrich gritted his teeth with the rest of his comrades as they waited for the depth charges to explode.
“Brace yourselves,” advised Lange, who stood calmly with one hand gripped around a ceiling pipe.
A few moments later a faint but distinct click was heard outside the hull, followed by a strong series of explosions that vibrated the boat without damaging it. The next series of detonations were closer. The last pair, however, were ear-splitting eruptions that shook U-505 vigorously from side to side. The blasts knocked men off their feet and seats, popped light bulbs, and opened a narrow but strong gush of water into the control room. Everything loose inside the submarine was sent flying against bulkheads. Blackness replaced the light as more explosions rocked the creaking hull.
Heinrich remained at his station, as he was trained to do, while others shouted out orders. The first round of charges was over, but the boat had been damaged—how badly remained to be seen. It took nearly a minute before the emergency lights were turned on. None of the electric equipment was working. Try as he might, Heinrich could not stop the fear rising within. It was easy to imagine the seawater filling up beneath the deck plates, adding tons of weight that would soon make it impossible to bring the boat to the surface. The ocean floor was a mile below them.
Additional bad news followed when flooding of a more serious variety was discovered in the aft torpedo room. The news that sealed the boat’s fate also arrived quickly: the main rudder was jammed. The U-boat was running in a tight circle, out of control.
A quick conference of the officers confirmed the news and convinced Lange that there was only one choice available to him. “Blow all ballast!” he yelled. “Prepare to surface and abandon ship!”
Heinrich turned to his friend Felix Kals, whose stoic calm was always a welcome sight. “Well, Kals, the war will be over for us in a few minutes—one way or the other.”
By this time, both the Pilsbury and Chatelain were steaming in wide circles around the spot where the pattern of well-placed charges had been dropped. “There she is!” yelled someone. “There’s the sub!” Buck turned to see the bridge of a U-boat rise from a mass of churning water. Widening circles of thick bluish-black diesel oil bubbled to the surface around the U-boat. The powerful Torpex had done its job.
The Pilsbury’s 50-caliber guns opened fire on the crippled submarine as soon as its guns could be brought to bear. Heavier weaponry was also thrown against it. The bullets and shells ripped ragged holes in the superstructure from aft to bow. Thirty seconds after the submarine surfaced a lone figure appeared on the bridge, doubled over, and fell out of sight. Another man popped up, staggered toward the rear of the bridge, and disappeared. Another minute passed, and then several men, one after another, appeared topside. Unable to find sufficient shelter, they began jumping into the sea, more afraid of the bullets than of drowning.
Although he did not know it, the first man Buck had seen was Harald Lange. As was the tradition aboard German U-boats, the captain was always the first man out. Lange had pushed aside the watch crew to climb out into either certain death or a crippling wound. The brave commander had scurried up the ladder to the main hatch, spun the handle, and pulled himself out of U-505 for the last time. Machine gun fire struck him in the leg and cut him down. First Officer Paul Meyer followed his skipper onto the bridge before he, too, was cut down.
Heinrich was now standing with his other control room mates, the hydrophone and sonar operators, and a few men from the forward torpedo room. About a dozen other men had crowded into the control room, yelling and pushing to get up the ladder. Panic was setting in and no one was around to instill order and regain control of the situation.
“Where is Brey?” Felix yelled out to Heinrich above the din. Second Watch Officer Kurt Brey was nowhere to be found—just at the moment when leadership was most needed.
“We have to scuttle the boat!” Heinrich shouted back, looking around the control room for the Chief. “Has the Chief set the scuttling charges?”
“I don’t know!” exclaimed Felix. “I think I saw him climb up the ladder! How do we set the charges?” His usually calm voice had assumed a slightly hysterical pitch. At that moment the stern of the boat began to sink several degrees. The submarine seemed poised to slip beneath the waves. If she did, everyone still aboard would ride her all the way to the bottom.
“Go, get out!” ordered Hans Goebeler, another control room mate and one of the most experienced men aboard. Hans had made every combat patrol aboard U-505. He was a natural leader, and the men liked him. “I’ll pull the plug on the sea strainer … that should sink her if the Chief did not set the charges! Get out while you still can!”
The mad rush of frightened submariners, already underway, now became a stampede for survival through a single hatch in the conning tower.
Felix grabbed Heinrich by the arm. “Come on Heinrich, let’s move before it’s too late!” Heinrich hesitated, looking back at Hans as he worked on the sea strainer.
Hans saw his reluctance and screamed, “Go Heinrich! I have this!” Hans removed the top of the strainer, held it up for his comrades to see, and threw it in the corner, confident his action had sealed the fate of U-505. “Let’s get out of here!”
Heinrich nodded and pushed his way forward with Felix and then up the ladder. To their surprise, the conning tower was jammed full of men who refused to climb the last few rungs to the bridge—and for good reason. Screaming artillery rounds and thousands of bullets were slicing through the air and striking every foot of the U-boat bobbing above the waterline. Who wanted to trade the relat
ive safety of the tower for the killing zone above or the cold sea below? Heinrich pushed his way up the ladder, believing that if he remained behind, the boat would take them all down. “Come on, Felix! This is our only chance!”
To Heinrich’s surprise, he discovered Lange still alive on the bridge, but his leg was badly injured and bleeding profusely. Someone had tried to fashion a tourniquet out of a torn shirt. Several other wounded men were also there, but most had leaped into the water. Heinrich and Felix followed suit, holding onto the side of the U-boat to save their energy for what promised to be their final swim.
And then the firing stopped.
“I think she’s sinking!” shouted a sailor on the Pilsbury.
Buck watched in rapt fascination with hundreds of others from several warships as the stern of U-505 edged its way beneath the water. Soon, only the conning tower and most of the bow were still above water, and then only barely. “Yeah, she’s done for,” he replied. “Good. I hope she takes all those devils down with her. Save us the trouble of having to waste bullets to kill them, or for food to feed them.”
That sentiment brought cheers from those standing nearby. To Buck’s surprise, an order circulated to cease firing. It took a minute or so before every ship got the word, but the firing tapered fitfully to a close. Several whaleboats had been launched and were rowing toward the stricken submarine. In them were heavily armed sailors determined to capture U-505. “I’ll be damned,” he exclaimed. “Captain Gallery wasn’t kidding.”
Ten minutes later one of the boats was tied up to the submarine, and several of the sailors, small arms locked and loaded, scurried onto the bridge and inside the wounded machine. One was Machinist’s Mate Zenon Benedict Lukosius. After stumbling below, expecting any moment to hit a booby trap or have the boat drop out from beneath him, Lukosius found the cover of the sea strainer Goebeler had removed and thrown to one side. Lukosius replaced it on the opening of the pipe and ratcheted it shut. One source of water flooding into U-505 was sealed. To Lukosius’ amazement, most of U-505was dry.
