Steel Boat, Iron Hearts

by Hans Goebeler

  We raced on the surface like that for nearly an hour until we heard the command to take our battle stations. Another suspense-filled hour passed before we heard the orders to ready the torpedo tubes.

  “Target position ninety degrees, speed 11 knots. Distance 1,500 meters. Torpedoes ready to fire…. Torpedoes in tubes one and two…Ready…FIRE!”

  The stopwatch ticked off the seconds as we all held our breaths. After an adequate number of seconds had passed, I moved over to where I could see Zschech through the hatch to the conning tower. His face had turned red and he was hissing something under his breath. I couldn’t understand exactly what he had said, but I knew what it meant: the torpedoes had missed. We found out later that he had misjudged the speed of the target by a wide margin.

  Zschech barked a command to the engine room and once again our boat was filled with the roar of the diesels. The target had increased the distance between us; our last chance to score a hit would literally be a long shot…2,000 meters.

  At exactly 0400 Hours, tubes three and four unleashed their long black eels. The sound man reported torpedoes running hot and true. The 2,000 meter range of the shots made the countdown until expected impact seem to last forever. First one minute, then two minutes ticked by. Two minutes 33 seconds…34…35…36…37…then, a metallic clang followed immediately by a loud explosion. Four seconds later, another rumbling detonation. The first torpedo had struck the ship directly amidships, sending a geyser of water shooting up as high as the mast. The second torpedo hit between the bridge and the funnel: a perfect spread.

  Despite the darkness of the night, we saw no flash of explosions or fires. From lights on the deck of the ship, however, we saw lifeboats being lowered. The bow of the ship settled quickly, causing the stern to rise high into the air. After a moment’s hesitation, she slipped forward underneath the waves. Within two minutes, the entire drama was over.

  Although we did not detect any radio broadcasts emanating from the stricken ship, Zschech ordered us away from the site without checking on the condition of the survivors. That unsettled me. We all knew how, in the past, enemy propaganda had tarnished the reputation of the German U-boat service. Under Kapitänleutnant Löwe, we had done all we could to adhere to the rules of war and common decency. Now, however, under Kapitänleutnant Zschech, I felt that we were acting like the heartless hunters the enemy propagandists portrayed us to be. Those were human beings floating in that water, no matter what flag they sailed under. As long as it didn’t endanger our own survival, why not render aid to them out of sheer humanity?

  Others in our crew disagreed with me. They pointed out that the British had routinely allowed German sailors to drown after sinking our ships in the North Atlantic. The many hundreds of our boys who were purposely left to freeze in the water after the Bismark sank was a perfect example of this. Even plainly marked hospital ships and sea rescue craft were fair game to the RAF and Royal Navy. Some of our crew argued forcefully that it would only be fair if we did the same to them. But I wanted to believe that we were fighting this war with more honor than the Brits, and I knew many other men in our crew believed the same way I did. However, no one dared make his opinion known to Kapitänleutnant Zschech. We all knew how he reacted whenever someone compared him to our old skipper.

  Many years after the war, I found out that the ship we had sent to the bottom was the 7,173-ton Ocean Justice. To this day I don’t know if it would have mattered if we had rendered aid to the survivors, but I still wish we had.

  The memory of the Ocean Justice incident came back to me stronger than ever when, just a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to scuba- dive down to the shipwreck of a vessel sunk by another U-boat just off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. When I saw the big hole in her hull where the torpedo hit, it gave me a very bad feeling. The unknown fate of those poor men on the Ocean Justice leapt back into my mind.1

  In the end, however, Zschech’s indifference to life caught up with him, and he faced his own self-imposed form of “ocean justice.”

  1. Ocean Justice was a British steam freighter built in 1942. When she was torpedoed, she was running from Karachi & Durban for Trinidad & New York. There were 56 men aboard, and all were saved. See www.ubootwaffe.net for more details.

  Chapter 6

  Sillcock

  We spent the following night reloading the forward torpedo tubes. This operation was always a difficult one due to the cramped space in the torpedo rooms. The massive 21-inch diameter weapons had to be hoisted up from their tie-down racks and slid forward into the launching tubes. The procedure is easier when the bow is pointed downwards, at least for the forward tubes, so we trimmed the boat to allow gravity to accommodate the process. None of the off-duty crew slept much that night because they had to constantly hold on to their bunks, lest they slide off and land on the floor. The guys who slept in the forward torpedo room couldn’t even lay down because their bunks had to be folded up out of the way to allow the torpedoes to be moved forward.

  The next afternoon, our bridge watch spotted a smoke plume to the east. We immediately gave chase, but frequent air alarms greatly hindered our pursuit. The enemy must have known we were in the area because the furiously zig-zagging freighter was circled overhead by a continuous air patrol. Finally, after sundown, the buzzards were compelled to return to base. It was now or never. We fired a double salvo of torpedoes, but a fortuitous “zag” taken by the ship at the exact wrong moment caused both to miss. Our prey, speeding along at more than twelve knots, disappeared into the darkness.

  We spent another couple of hours during the night once again reloading the empty torpedo tubes. There was also a dangerous leak in the port ballast tank valve that needed to be repaired. And if that wasn’t enough, we were repeatedly forced to dive because of air alerts. It was obvious the enemy’s airborne radar was now effective enough to deny us our traditional cover of night. The swarm of enemy planes over our heads was so heavy that when running on the surface, we ourselves were forced to steer a zig-zag course in order to lessen the chance of a surprise bomb hit from the air. It was embarrassing to have to zig-zag like a scared little freighter, but better safe than sorry.

  Looking back with the advantage of hindsight, it is clear that the Allies were aware of our every move. We didn’t fully realize it at the time, but the entire tide of the war in the Atlantic had turned decisively against our U-boats. First of all, the build-up of enemy air forces had made our previous tactics totally ineffective. Gone were the days when we could maneuver primarily on the surface and dive only when conducting an attack or escaping. The Metox device still warned us in time to avoid most air attacks, but once we were forced underwater, our speed was insufficient to catch all but the slowest of ships. By forcing us to remain submerged, the Allies had turned our U-boats into little more than slow-moving minefields; dangerous to their ships only if they happened to blunder across our path. Given the enemy’s elaborate radio direction finding efforts, it was easy for the Allies to re-route their convoys around us. Once the convoys were safe, the bombers and destroyers would descend upon us like packs of jackals.

  As important as the technological race was, however, it wasn’t the only factor. Once the Allies cracked our top secret Enigma cipher system, they were able to read almost every communication between our boats and headquarters. Another important factor, which we didn’t learn about until after long the war, was the treachery of Admiral Canaris, the head of our nation’s military intelligence service. Canaris, one of the greatest traitors of WWII, was responsible for sending many of our comrades to their deaths. Today, I harbor no animosity for our former enemies (the British and Americans), but I can never forgive Canaris for his bloody handed betrayal of his fellow countrymen.

  With knowledge of our operational orders, combined with their burgeoning numbers, the enemy gradually moved from the strategic defense to the strategic offense in the Battle of the Atlantic. Our massed wolfpack attacks against enemy convoys, which should hav
e reaped us tremendous harvests of tonnage, became instead opportunities for the enemy to overwhelm and sink our boats. Of course, we had no way of knowing any of this at the time, but one thing was crystal clear: the “Happy Time” for Germany’s U-boats was over.

  Our experience in U-505 was mirroring the wider strategic picture. Because of the intense air activity over our heads, Kapitänleutnant Zschech decided to flee from the area as quickly as feasible. As soon as repairs on our ballast tank were complete, we attempted to make a run for it. We didn’t get far. Virtually every time we surfaced to use our diesels, the Metox device would sound the alarm that a radar-equipped enemy plane was stalking us. All day long we played the old roller coaster game of surfacing to run the diesels and recharge batteries, only to find that we must once again dive to escape air attack. In this regard, the Metox was proving to be a mixed blessing. True, it protected us from surprise, but because the mechanism was unable to measure the distance of enemy signals, we could not distinguish between attacking aircraft from those merely passing by at long range. As a result, every enemy radar contact forced us to emergency dive. The constant alarms jangled our nerves, exhausted our bodies, and prevented our boat from fully replenishing our air supply and recharging our battery power.

  During this period, on the night of November 9thto be specific, I was on duty in the control room of U-505, bemoaning the fact that the air alerts had once again robbed me of my chance to eat supper. At exactly midnight, our Chief Navigator Alfred Reinig crawled through the control room hatch and walked over to my station. He stopped in front of me, grabbed my hand, and began shaking it vigorously.

  “Congratulations, Hans! Today you are nineteen, right?”

  I had forgotten it was my birthday! “Jawohl, Herr Obersteuermann,” I stammered.

  “Come on, Hans, stop calling me Chief! Especially since we’ve been working so well together for the past year. Besides, who knows where we will be in another year.”

  With a broad smile and a pat on my back, Reinig retreated back through the hatch to his bunk. I wished he had never reminded me about my birthday. Homesickness washed over me like a big green ocean wave. The calendar might say that I was a year older, but I felt more childlike and lonely at that moment than at any time in my life.

  Another Metox alarm shook me from my reverie. I wanted to scream, laugh, and cry, all at the same time. Eventually, anger won out. I sat at my station, sullenly going through the diving operations, blaming the British for robbing us of our chance to enjoy a normal life.

  To my great annoyance, word soon spread throughout the boat that it was my birthday. More backslaps and handshakes. My birthday present from the officers on this special day was permission to stand watch on the bridge for an hour to get some fresh air. My friend Toni found a bottle of Beck ‘s beer, which had “mistakenly” been loaded with the ship’s galley stores. We shared it together. I was grateful for such good friends, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what the navigator had said: “Who knows where we will be in another year.”

  The uninterrupted cycle of surfacing to recharge batteries, only to immediately dive again to escape an attack from the air, continued throughout the next day. In desperation, Zschech resorted to a full-speed underwater run in an attempt to shake loose from our airborne tormentors.

  Around noon we finally got a break from the buzzards and were able to surface without molestation. To the west was the coast of Trinidad, so close we could smell the sweet, spicy fragrance of tropical flowers in bloom. Above us, a thick layer of clouds obscured the sun, bathing us in cool shadows. The gorgeous turquoise water gently lapped against our hull. It was the quiet before the storm.

  Second Watch Officer Stolzenburg, standing watch on the bridge with the skipper, was worried. It was suspicious enough that the swarm of enemy airplanes, which had been so numerous the previous day, had mysteriously disappeared. What made it worse was the blanket of dark gray clouds, so low they seemed to be scraping the top of his cap. Conditions like these were what Kapitänleutnant Löwe used to call “perfect air attack weather.” Zschech had been even grouchier than usual these past few days, but Stolzenburg could not restrain himself any longer. Something in the back of his head told him we were in danger.

  “Sir, may I suggest that we double the bridge watch in order to guard against surprise air attack?”

  Zschech turned to the Watch Officer and gave him a disdainful smirk. “No need to get nervous, Stolzenburg, the Metox will give us ample warning of any planes.”

  Despite the icy sarcasm in Zschech’s voice, Stolzenburg wasn’t ready to give up. “Sir, don’t you think we should at least trim down the boat so we can make an alarm dive quicker? Kapitänleutnant Löwe used to say…”

  At the mere mention of our previous skipper’s name, Zschech exploded into one of his famous rages, reminding the stunned Watch Officer at the top of his voice (as if any of us needed reminding) that HE was the skipper now, not Löwe. Satisfied he had reasserted his authority over his inferior, Zschech swaggered off the bridge and returned to his cabin. Within minutes, gossip regarding Zschech’s latest temper tantrum was making its rounds throughout the boat. I was on duty in the control room and I spent the next couple of hours trying not to draw attention from any of the officers. They had picked up on the Kapitänleutnant ‘s mood and were trying to imitate it in order to stay out of trouble themselves.

  Things remained quiet until about 1514 hours, when suddenly the siren for manning the anti-aircraft guns began to blare. Almost simultaneously, the shrill alarm signaling an emergency dive sounded. We all looked at each other in puzzlement because the orders were contradictory: how could we man the deck guns while at the same time submerge?

  Just a few heartbeats later, before we had sorted-out the situation, we heard the unmistakable roar of aircraft engines resonating through the hull of our boat. I unconsciously ducked my head at the sound, instinctively aware of how close the aircraft must be for us to hear its engines above the hammering of our own diesels. Suddenly, a deafening blast, a thousand times louder than a thunderclap, knocked us off our feet. It felt as if a giant fist had slammed the boat down into the water.

  A split-second later three more explosions ripped through the air—even louder than the first. Our boat’s steel hull rang like a cathedral bell from the concussions. This time the shock waves pushed our boat upward, sending anyone still standing after the first blast sailing through the air.

  One of the men who was standing watch on the bridge, a Petty Officer, was blown by the force of the first blast through the top hatch and down into the conning tower. The second set of blasts rolled his bloody, unconscious body down through the control room hatch, where he fell and landed on his head on the steel deck in front of me.

  Inside the boat there was pure pandemonium. The lights had gone out and the air was suddenly filled with thick acrid smoke. When the emergency lights finally came on, it unveiled a scene straight from Dante’s Inferno, complete with screams and burning noxious fumes. Shouts from the aft end of the boat told us that there was a large breach in the hull. A thick jet of seawater was pouring into the boat, filling the diesel bilge and flooding the engine room. Someone reported that the depth meter indicated that water was weighing the boat down. Translation: we were sinking!

  I cannot possibly begin to describe what it was like inside the boat at that moment. Nor can I describe my emotional state. Never in my life had I felt such an irresistible urge to escape—to climb, crawl, and if need be, claw my way up the conning tower ladder to the sun and fresh air of the surface. Something, however, held me back, and I refused to succumb to the animalistic desire within to run. Perhaps it was my training or professional pride. Or perhaps it was just a childish fear of being called a coward. Whatever it was, I somehow overcame the primal desire to escape. Despite our desperate situation, a steely determination to do our duty and fight to save our boat quickly spread unspoken from crewman to crewman. None of us deserted our post.

&
nbsp; Not everyone, however, was so determined to stay on board. Kapitänleutnant Zschech came running through the control room and clamored up the ladders to the bridge. What he saw must have really scared him because after just a moment topside, he shouted down to the control room the order to abandon ship. We all froze at our posts, unable or unwilling to obey the order.

  But when the command to abandon ship reached the next compartment, our Diesel Chief Petty Officer Otto Fricke stormed like a mad bull into the control room. With anger and defiance in his voice, he shouted up to Zschech, “Well, you can do what you want, but the technical crew is staying on board to keep her afloat!”

  With a scowl of disgust, Fricke turned around and ran back to the engine room to take command of the damage control effort. The expression on Zschech’s face gradually turned from fear to confusion, and then to embarrassment. “All right then, do what you can,” he murmured, long after the Chief had left the compartment.

  This photo (and the one that follows on the next page) shows the nearly fatal damage suffered by U-505 when a Hudson aircraft from Trinidad’s RAF 53 Squadron descended from the clouds and dropped a depth charge directly on the boat’s aft deck on November 10, 1942. The explosion brought down the low-flying plane, killed its crew, and nearly sank U-505. NA

  Within a few minutes, the engineering crew had plugged the hole in the hull with a rubber sheet, shored against the water pressure with a long piece of timber. Luckily, the main pump was still working, so despite numerous leaks all along the length of the port diesel engine, the water gradually stopped rising in the engine room. By switching the air supply for the starboard diesel to the interior of the boat, Fricke was able to suck the suffocating smoke out of the boat. We all thanked heaven for our clever Chief and his brave boys in the engineering crew.