Steel Boat, Iron Hearts

by Hans Goebeler

  At the beginning, there were plenty of fights between Army soldiers and U-boat sailors, but over time we became very friendly toward each other. We knew the soldiers had a tough life, with none of the special comforts the Kriegsmarine provided to us. They, in turn, respected us because of the high casualties we were suffering. Eventually, we began to invite the soldiers to come eat and drink with us in the U-bootsheim. The recreation center was like a heaven on earth for those poor soldiers. Most of them had never enjoyed luxury like that, even in civilian life. It was certainly unequaled in all of the German armed forces. We spent many an enjoyable evening there eating gourmet food, drinking fine wines and liqueurs, watching movies, listening to concerts, and dancing with the local girls.

  As for the exotic entertainment of Lorient, if Mohammed would not go to the mountain, then the mountain would come to Mohammed! Before long, the area outside Lager Lemp was filled with French vendors from Lorient hawking colorful scarves, silk stockings, champagne, Hennessee liqueur, and the naughty little booklets that featured pictures of young Mademoiselles in shameless poses. Of course, why buy pictures of women when you can have the real thing? Soon the gates to Lager Lemp were swarming with attractive French women, all eager to help a German sailor spend his time and money.

  “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” as the French were fond of saying.

  Chapter 9

  Furlough at Last

  Our first night in Lager Lemp was not an enjoyable one. All of our woolen blankets had burned in the bombing attack on our barracks, so we shivered all night long. In the morning we returned to our boat for emergency drills, mostly practicing to slide down ladders using only the handrails. We didn’t mind this because we knew that saving just a few seconds in getting to one’s battle station could mean the difference between life and death on a submarine.

  When we returned to Lager Lemp for lunch, we found the entire place had been draped in camouflage. They even went so far as to completely hide a nearby pond from aerial view in order to deny the enemy its use as a navigational aid. These measures didn’t inspire much confidence in us because we knew it was only a matter of time before the French Resistance provided our location to Bomber Command. Worse yet, we had no underground bomb shelters. Our sole protection against bombs were a few shallow slit trenches. We began to wonder what was more dangerous: facing combat at sea or “relaxing” here at base.

  The trenches did, however, provide us with an unexpected advantage besides protection. While standing in the trenches, we noticed a clump of small trees and bushes growing next to one part of the perimeter fence. Obscured from view by the greenery, we secretly dug a short tunnel under the fence that would allow us to slip in and out at night unnoticed. From then on, we were free to make unauthorized forays into town whenever we wished.

  Some of our crew mates, for some strange reason, never liked to leave the barracks. While we were out on one of our late night expeditions, they would arrange our bed sheets to create the impression we were asleep in our bunks. The payment demanded for such consideration? Make a complete report to them of all our experiences, including the tiniest, most sordid detail. I could never understand why they didn’t just go out and experience these things firsthand for themselves.

  Being housed in Lager Lemp with our comrades from the Tenth U-boat Flotilla had other advantages, too. They told us of a nearby French farmer who distilled a rather potent and fairly tolerable tasting Calvados, a local version of apple schnapps. Sure enough, we found him outside his farmhouse with a large basket filled to overflowing with bottles of the stuff. We were in luck because the old man was happy to accept Renten Marks (our German occupation money) on the condition that we not allow his wife to find out about his little side business. We were happy to comply.

  Forty years after the war, during a visit to the area with my wife Erika, I visited the same old farmer. He and his wife graciously asked us into his house for coffee and to chat about the old days. After a while, my wife asked me (in German, so they would not understand) if the old farmer had a nerve affliction that made him keep winking at us. I knew what the winking meant: he wanted to tell me something that he didn’t want his wife to hear. I told Erika to start a conversation with the farmer’s wife so he could have a chance to talk with me in private. He asked if I would show him my Mercedes-Benz, and I replied, “Of course.”

  Once out of sight, he told me to wait. He disappeared around a corner and returned a minute later with something clenched tightly to his belly. We hurried to my car, where he produced two large bottles of Calvados from under his sweater. After forty years, not only was the old man still trying to keep his moonshining activities secret from his wife, but he still preferred to be paid in Deutsch Marks! We left on the friendliest of terms, the ancient farmer still proclaiming in broken French-German his admiration for the U-boat men who were once his neighbors.

  As the year 1942 came to a close, our boat began undergoing major repairs. Once the shipyard workers removed all the damaged sections of the hull and conning tower, our poor U-505 began to look like one of those cut-away display models used for training. Nevertheless, we crewmen were pleased. The repairs and modifications would make our boat better than ever, not to mention giving us a few extra weeks of furlough and light duty before our next war patrol.

  Those days and nights in port passed very quickly for us. I was free on many days to wander about the harbor area. A favorite pastime of mine was to scrounge for small pieces of scrap aluminum that my mates and I could use for handcrafting souvenirs during our next voyage. We used to call this sort of scavenging activity “organizing.” Thanks to my skill at organizing scrap metal, our crew always had plenty of little U-505 ax symbols to attach to our caps or give away as mementos to family and friends. (NOTE: Almost all of our uniform insignia and medals were made of aluminum or brass because they would not rust at sea and were poor conductors of electricity. It wouldn’t do to cause an electrical short with one’s cap insignia!)

  I also began visiting a nearby town called Hennebont. It was a beautiful little place that had all the charms of Lorient, but without so many sailors. I remember a castle there with very high spires that particularly impressed me. One had to be careful, however, since the French Resistance would sometimes ambush our boys walking on the road between Lager Lemp and Hennebont. In order to avoid these attacks, we were eventually forced to travel cross country over the fields instead of on the roads. A few times, groups of our sailors hiking through the fields surprised would-be ambushers from behind. Those Resistance fighters learned the hard way that it was very costly to incur the wrath of U-boat men.

  One noteworthy day around Christmas, our boat was visited by two of the greatest German military heroes of the war: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel and Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland. Popularly known as “the Desert Fox,” Rommel was the deeply beloved commander of our Afrika Korps. Galland was famous for his exploits as an ace fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain and was the leader of our nation’s fighter defenses. They, along with a large delegation of other officers, were making an inspection tour of our Atlantic fortifications. The inspection group included representatives from virtually every branch of our armed forces: Fallschirmjägers (paratroopers), Panzers (tanks), and even the Waffen SS (military SS). Almost all of them wore the coveted Knights Cross medal about their necks. I could not hear exactly what Rommel was saying, but several times I saw him shake his head in disbelief at the damage our U-505 had suffered. He wished us more luck next time, then led the delegation away. We were all honored that such a famous national hero would pay us a personal visit.

  After the inspection was over, the real work on U-505 began. Big compressors cranked up, making a deafening racket that echoed throughout the entire submarine pen complex. Rivets were extracted from the hull and huge pieces of the pressure hull were lifted out by cranes. Our boat began looking like a giant whale undergoing major surgery. No one had ever seen such exten
sive repairs being performed on a sub, and the operations attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. Always eager to obtain souvenirs, I retrieved a small piece of U-505’s hull that had been torn by Sillcock’s depth charges. I still have it to this day.

  A few days after our visit by Rommel, I had a memorable experience while on guard duty. Late one night, I was standing watch on the upper deck when I heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the pier. It was a lone Kriegsmarine officer, wearing the uniform of a Kapitänleutnant. He entered the gangway and nonchalantly attempted to board the boat. I knew that he wasn’t one of our boat’s officers, nor was he the Officer of the Guard for that night, so I followed standard procedure and shouted, “Halt! What is the password?”

  He ignored my challenge, and with a haughty look of mild annoyance, attempted to walk past me. I had no alternative other than to unlock the safety of my Schmeisser MP-40 machine pistol and aim the barrel directly at his chest. “Remain where you are or I will shoot! Hands up!”

  He evidently believed I would carry out my threat, because the intruder immediately stopped in his tracks and raised his hands. Although he didn’t dare move a muscle, he was absolutely furious at me. “Are you crazy? Can’t you see I’m an officer?”

  I ignored his tantrum and called the Petty Officer in charge of the watch. The Petty Officer arrived and requested to see the officer’s identity papers. When the man refused, we immediately arrested him. Twenty minutes later, the Officer of the Guard himself came to investigate the situation. A quick search of the so-called Kapitänleutnant revealed a miniature camera hidden in his uniform. The spy was led away to what, I presume, was a very unpleasant fate.

  The next day, during our noontime formation, I was singled out for a commendation by our Exec. Unfortunately, that was not to be my last encounter with spies and saboteurs in Lorient.

  Allied bombing raids on Lorient steadily increased, both in terms of frequency and intensity, during this period. By January 1943, most of the civilian inhabitants had packed their possessions and left the city. That, of course, was the major objective of these “terror raids.” Since the enemy knew they couldn’t knock out our submarine bunkers, they tried to do the next best thing by either driving away our civilian work force or killing those who chose to remain.

  As far as our base was concerned, virtually everything not hidden in the concrete submarine bunkers was dispersed to the surrounding countryside. Lager Lemp was even more heavily camouflaged. This effort was aided by our Luftwaffe, which flew photo reconnaissance missions over the base to discover any weakness.

  The British bombers were paying us a visit almost every night. Our slit trenches became ringside seats as we watched the nightly dramas taking place over our heads. And exciting dramas they were, with our searchlights crisscrossing the sky like giant fingers feeling for targets in the darkness. Quite a few times we witnessed them spot one of the big bombers in their light. The beams from several lamps would then converge on the helpless target, capturing it in an inescapable spider web of light. Then, it would be just a matter of time before one of the heavy anti-aircraft cannons scored a hit, sending the plane into a flaming plunge toward the earth. Sometimes we were even able to see the yellow-orange fireball when plane hit the ground.

  During the rare daytime raids, our comrades in the Luftwaffe sometimes managed to send a few fighter aircraft against the bombers and we would be treated to the spectacle of a dogfight. Despite our pilots’ best attempts, however, the enemy bombers always managed to get through to drop their deadly loads on us. Of course, our boats were still perfectly safe from air attack under cover of the armored submarine bunkers, so the enemy shifted their tactics and began to try to kill us crewmen instead. In order to give us a measure of protection, some of our air defense units started generating gigantic smoke screens on the ground in order to hide the buses driving us between the barracks and the submarine bunkers.

  Air attacks also got heavier on our U-boats entering and leaving the harbor. Our escorts, which at the beginning of the campaign were composed of one or two small minesweepers, now included a sizable number of larger, more heavily armed ships. How different things had become from just six months ago! In the end, however, our will to fight never flagged in the face of these determined attacks against us. Indeed, the heavy air assault against us seemed to be proof of the threat our U-boats posed to the survival of the Allied war effort. My crew mates and I were more determined than ever to make the enemy pay for the pain and destruction they were raining down upon us.

  With the return of the first half of our crew from furlough, it now became my turn to take three weeks leave. I felt proud as a peacock to be wearing the smart-looking Navy dress uniform in public. The dark blue color of the uniform instantly set me apart from the oceans of gray-attired Army boys, and the glittering golden submarine badge on my left breast caught the admiring glances of many young ladies.

  The train trip back home was uneventful, though I noticed severe bomb damage in some of the cities along the route. I spent the first two weeks with my parents in Bottendorf. Needless to say, they were very happy to see me. I was especially gratified to see the look of pride on my father’s face as he gazed misty-eyed at me in my uniform. Father never was one for saying much, but his eyes were barometers to his emotions.

  Several neighbors came to visit me. They brought all manner of sausages, smoked meats, and even some baked goods for me to enjoy or take back to share with my crew mates. These foodstuffs were precious commodities, even in a farming community. Only someone who has lived through wartime food rationing can appreciate how much of a sacrifice these modest-sounding gifts really were.

  It was wonderful to be back home again, but after a few days I began to itch for a little more adventure. Instead of staying home every night, I began to frequent the taverns in the nearby town of Frankenburg. My mother, a very religious woman, was concerned about the long hours I spent drinking with my old and new friends. But my father intervened on my behalf. As a combat veteran, he knew what it was like to be a young soldier on leave.

  One night, I ran into a young lady I had met a couple of years previously. She was the daughter of a farmer who lived not far from my parent’s house. She was an attractive young woman, with light blonde hair and a figure that had blossomed enchantingly in the two years since I had seen her last.

  We found that we had much in common. I ended up spending the third and final week of my furlough sightseeing in Vienna with her. We had a lovely time in the beautiful old city.

  Back in Frankenburg, we had a long talk about the future. I liked her very much, but given the dismal chances of survival for us U-boat crewmen, I didn’t feel it was fair for me to promise anything permanent. In the end, we parted as friends.

  Far too soon, it seemed, it was time to return to Lorient. I spent my last two days of freedom with my parents, trying to soak in every detail of the warm little cocoon that was my childhood home. The thought that this might be the last time we would be together weighed heavily on our hearts. As usual, my mother was very emotional, while my father kept a pose of quiet stoicism. Our farewells said, I headed to the train station.

  I had foolishly waited until the last minute to make my departure from Frankenburg station, only to discover the train to Frankfurt had been unexpectedly canceled. This meant I would miss my connection to Paris. The Kriegsmarine did not take kindly to men returning late to their units in time of war; indeed, the penalty for being even one minute late was three days in the brig. I became desperate.

  My father, luckily for me, was still a railway official. By pulling some strings he arranged for me to ride an old steam engine to Marburg. There, a train waited three minutes beyond its scheduled departure time for me to arrive. I had to run and jump on the moving train to make my connection to Frankfurt. I made it safely to Lorient, but right after I left the train station for my barracks, a heavy bombing attack devastated the railroad yards. I quite literally made it through the gate
s at the last minute. The train ride back to my barracks had turned out to be one of the most exciting parts of my leave!

  On the 7th of February, our entire crew traveled by train to Bad Wiessee, a ski resort area south of Munich. There, we were set to spend ten days at Hotel Wolf, a U-boot-Sportheim recreational facility renowned for its luxurious accommodations. Unfortunately, six men and I were traveling separate from the rest of the crew. We had been detailed to transport our baggage and four large trunks filled with administrative paperwork.

  Because of delays, we ended up missing our connecting train in Paris. The only other train going in our direction was a special train reserved for staff personnel and couriers. I felt confident about my ability to “improvise” rail travel, so we decided to board the special train. We waited until two minutes before its departure, then two of us barged onto the train. We opened some windows and the others passed the baggage to us. A few of the compartments had only a couple of occupants, so we kicked them out and loaded the baggage inside.

  There was quite a bit of shouting as some of the little desk monkeys complained about being moved. One of them returned with the train’s Railroad Police detachment: a captain and three unarmed soldiers. Chief Navigator Reinig, who was in charge of our detachment, tried to explain to them that we were carrying secret documents that had to arrive in 36 hours at our destination. The grim-faced captain, however, would not listen. He ordered us to leave the train at the next stop.