Steel Boat, Iron Hearts

by Hans Goebeler

  The last lines were cast-off and we got underway. We bade a bittersweet farewell to Lorient and our well-wishers, then got down to business. Once we were clear of the pier, we increased speed to one-half and headed for the mouth of the harbor. Our transit through the harbor out to the Bay of Biscay illustrated the increasing hazards facing us. In an ironic imitation of the enemy’s own convoy tactics, we traveled out to sea in the company of four other boats: U-168, U-183, U-514, and U-533. By traveling in one group and combining our anti-aircraft defenses, it was believed our chances of being sunk by intruding bombers would be lessened. A surprisingly large force of seven minesweepers formed our escort, making a last minute check for mines and providing an additional anti-aircraft umbrella. Only six of us remained in the boat to handle controls as we left the anchorage. The rest of the crew was kneeling on the upper deck in case we struck a mine.

  A curtain of thick drizzly fog greeted us as we departed the harbor. The moonlit mist gave a gray, ghostly appearance to the other ships as we made our way towards deep water. As for the sea itself, the water was as smooth as a dance floor. The overall effect as we left Lorient was quite unearthly.

  Around midnight, our diesels began to stutter and cough, finally sputtering to a stop. The rest of our little flotilla rumbled on, leaving us behind in the darkness. One minesweeper stayed behind to give us air cover while we effected repairs. After an hour and a half of feverish work, the diesels roared back to life. We all breathed a sigh of relief; being immobilized in daylight would have meant certain death for us.

  Several hours later we arrived at our departure point, code-named Punkt Kern. The escorts had already scurried back to harbor to avoid any early morning air attacks, leaving us alone for our deep diving test. This was the moment of truth for our newly-repaired pressure hull. Because the hull was untested, we dove to a depth of only 40 meters. Everything went well with the dive at first, but within thirty minutes our starboard propeller shaft developed a leak. Concerned by the faulty shaft seal, 40 meters became our new maximum depth. Some skippers might have decided to turn back toward port at this point, but we continued on with the mission, hoping against hope that we could somehow fix the leak. Our streak of bad luck continued when a few minutes later, the reflector on our new FuMB Metox search radar detection device short-circuited. Less than half a day out of port, and we had already developed severe mechanical and electrical problems!

  We were not alone in our mechanical difficulties. Around noon the next day, we received a FT from U-533 reporting that one of her exhaust valves was not functioning. Their problem could not be repaired at sea, so that evening U-533 was recalled to Lorient. We immediately suspected sabotage from the dock workers. In an effort to reduce the chances of sabotage, virtually all of the men working on U-boats were Volksdeutsch, ethnically-German residents of Poland and other Eastern European countries. It was disconcerting to imagine that, if it was sabotage, our own ethnic brethren were the ones plotting our demise.

  We made the transit across the Bay of Biscay primarily underwater in order to avoid detection by the ever-increasing numbers of Allied ships and aircraft. Overhead, a virtually constant flow of RAF bombers shuttled back and forth between England and Gibraltar, creating a cordon of death between our U-boat sally ports and the Atlantic we called the “Suicide Stretch.” If a boat was spotted but escaped destruction from the air, groups of destroyers were dispatched to the spot. Once the destroyers arrived, the cat and mouse game began. And it literally was like a cat and mouse game. A cat toys with a mouse, waiting until its prey is exhausted before delivering the final blow. In much the same way, the destroyers chased U-boats until their air or electrical power was exhausted. Once forced to surface, a submarine was easy prey for the waiting warships. As the mouse, our only chance was to spot the cats before they spotted us. The officers didn’t need to remind us how crucial it was to keep our eyes open and alert when on bridge watch!

  On the morning of July 7, we passed a cluster of Portuguese fishing vessels. The Portuguese were neutrals, but it was widely assumed there were some British spies with radios among them. We gave the boats a wide berth to avoid detection.

  That evening, our GHG underwater listening device went out of commission. This left our boat virtually deaf, robbing us of one of our most crucial survival tools. Our string of bad luck, especially at such an early stage of the mission, was too much for even the skeptics among us to dismiss as mere coincidence. Grumbling that we were the victims of a well-coordinated program of sabotage began to dominate our off-duty conversations. Our skipper seemed to be especially troubled by our situation. With each malfunction, Zschech’s behavior became more erratic, alternating between morose introversion and sadistic outbursts of aggression.

  Despite the mechanical difficulties that hobbled us, we stubbornly continued our patrol. The newcomers to our crew soon got accustomed to the rhythm of this leg of our voyage. There were long stretches of underwater travel, with nothing but the monotonous hum of the electric motors to remind us we were moving. Then, interrupting the tedium, short exhilarating sprints on the surface with the diesels hammering away as we replenished our air and recharged the batteries. The sea was getting rough, so our time spent on the surface was a real roller coaster ride compared to the quiet calm of underwater travel.

  Bridge watch duty was especially tension-filled because we were absolutely determined not to get surprised by an airplane again. Meanwhile, the new sailors in the crew were still gaining their sea legs and had to be taught a hard lesson: getting seasick is not an excuse for failing to perform one’s bridge watch duties.

  “You hold the binoculars to the eyes, not to the mouth,” they were told. “If you turn green, just spit-up on the deck; the sea will clean it up with the next wave.” We could only smile in knowing sympathy as the newcomers slowly became accustomed to the motions of the boat.

  The next morning, we lost contact with Auffermann’s U-514, our partner for the voyage across the Atlantic. We had been traveling with her along the 200-meter line when we discovered our radio was out of commission. As a consequence, we missed our scheduled transmission time, and in the heavy seas, could not establish visual contact with her. Around noon, we found we were unable to deploy our radio direction finder antenna from its stowed, diving position. That simple, circular device was one of the most necessary pieces of equipment on board. Later, we managed to repair the radio and our FuMB Metox device. Two steps forward, two steps back!

  As we cruised underwater near Cape Finisterre on the Spanish coast, we were unexpectedly shaken by a rapid series of six explosions, very loud and very close. An airplane had somehow spotted us, despite our 40-meter depth. We had dived from 18 meters to the lower depth just a few minutes before, and that small additional bit of depth probably saved our lives. A little while later, four large depth charges exploded even closer, severely rattling our boat. We hoped the plane was out of depth charges, but just to be on the safe side, we released a Bold, a canister of chemicals designed to create a large mass of bubbles. We hoped our attackers would deduce we had been sunk. The ruse apparently worked because there were no further attacks.

  With an inoperative direction finder and GHG, not to mention an inability to dive deep, our boat was clearly in no condition to fight. We also suspected we had a fuel leak that was allowing the enemy to detect our position underwater by means of a trailing oil slick. In light of our nearly crippled condition, Zschech decided to return to Lorient for repairs. We all concurred with his decision. At 2000 hours, we dove back down to 40 meters and headed back for base.

  Just a few minutes after we turned for home, however, we heard the sound that all submariners fear: the whir of high-speed propellers, the unmistakable signature of approaching destroyers. The aircraft had obviously radioed our position so the warships could finish the job they had started. We secured all of the hatches with clamps and braced ourselves for the inevitable.

  The destroyers homed right in on us. In the de
athly quiet inside our sub, we could clearly hear the splash of nine depth charges being dropped directly over our heads. Seconds later, our world dissolved into a thundering nightmare of flying objects and breaking glass. Anything and anyone who was not tied down was tossed to the deck by the blasts.

  Men were shouting, but no one lost their nerve. Despite the horrendous battering we took, there were only a few small leaks. In the momentary calm before the next storm, everyone grabbed something to hold on to, unconsciously gazing upward at the unseen enemy. (NOTE: For some reason, men in submarines always look up during a depth charge attack, despite the well-known fact that the most dangerous ones explode underneath the hull. I could never understand this phenomenon, nor explain why I, too, would stare upward during the attacks.)

  Ten minutes later, we heard the propellers rev up for another pass. Nine more gigantic blasts rocked our boat, then…nothing. Gradually, the propeller noises faded into the distance. We stared at each other for a moment, not fully comprehending that we were still alive.

  Afterward, everyone chattered about the attack. We imagined the enemy sailors up there petting the sides of the depth charges and praying for the worst to happen to us, expecting any moment to see the boiling swell of air, oil, and bodies that signal the death of a U-boat. Then, in soft, furtive whispers, men who had watched Zschech during the depth charge attack told the others what they had seen: how his facial expressions had absolutely convinced them our skipper’s wishes were no different than those of the enemy sailors above us. A strong suspicion spread through our crew, repeated only in the most hushed of tones, that Zschech had a death wish. Several of his close friends from the naval academy had recently been killed, and we surmised he had an unconscious desire to join them.

  I was lying in my bunk trying to conserve oxygen and relax from the previous attack when we heard the humming propellers of destroyers returning. As Heaven is my witness, they sounded for all the world like a chorus of funeral chants. Again came the salvo of nine barrels of death. Our boat became a giant kettledrum resonating with the beat of the devil’s own tattoo. This time the explosions straddled us; it was a miracle we were not blasted in two by the hammer-like blows from both sides.

  We released two more canisters of Bold and tried to sneak out of the area through slow, silent running. After an hour of relative silence, Zschech took U-505 up to periscope depth and ventured to take a peek at our assailants. Sure enough, laying 3,000 meters off to port were three destroyers. One was unusually large and resembled a cruiser of the Birmingham class. Believing an attack against the destroyers would be futile because of the mirror-smooth sea, Zschech ordered us to leave the area as quickly as our electric motors could propel us.

  The damage control parties started reporting back with their inventories of needed repairs. We discovered our underwater telegraph device was now also out of commission. We clearly had no alternative but to return to base as quickly and directly as possible.

  Running silently underwater, we arrived off the coast of La Coruna late that evening. We surfaced and used our diesels for a high-speed dash. To provide some protection against radar detection, we hugged the Spanish coastline, cruising about three nautical miles off shore. It was quite thrilling to sail at full speed through the shallow waters. Bonfires lining the beaches as fishing boat beacons bathed our boat in an eerie yellow light.

  We submerged just before dawn. After a couple of hours, Zschech brought us up to periscope depth to take a look around. We all heard him shout from the conning tower attack room, “Verdammte Scheiße!” (Dammed Shit!). He told us that a huge wedge of shimmering, rainbow colored diesel oil was trailing our boat as far as the eye could see. Our suspicions about a fuel leak were correct. Zschech stormed back to his cabin without saying a word.

  For the next few days we repeated our tactics: high speed runs close to shore at night, slow speed underwater runs during the day. We sometimes stopped and rested on the bottom very close to shore in the hope the beach waves would conceal our oil trail. We would sit there for hours, gently rocking in time with the waves, until we reckoned the oil had marked our position. Then we would rise off the bottom and make a short run out of the vicinity.

  For our transit across the Bay of Biscay, we often risked surface travel. Rough weather made us less worried about being spotted by airborne radar. We also found we left less of an oil slick when traveling on the surface. The final leg to Lorient, however, was completed almost entirely underwater due to the threat of air attack.

  On the afternoon of the 11th, we received an underwater telegraph message which we suspected was for us, but which we could not decipher because of our defective equipment. While cruising on the surface that night, we received a FT from Western U-boat Command advising us of our rendezvous time and location. We had 24 hours to get back to Punkt Kern to meet our escort.

  By the grace of God, we arrived at our rendezvous point on time. Just as our two escort ships came into view, however, the eagle eyes on the bridge spotted a couple of enemy aircraft approaching fast and low from the east, altitude 300 meters. Our brand new Metox gave us absolutely no warning of their approach, despite the fact that they must have been using radar to find us. A prompt crash dive allowed us to elude attack, but as the sounds of explosions echoed through the boat, we wondered whether our escorts would still be there when we surfaced. We rose to periscope depth 20 minutes later. Sure enough, there were our escorts; the tiny mine sweepers had stood firm in the face of the Allied bombers. We sailed back toward Lorient harbor flanked by our gallant little escort.

  Around 0130 hours, a mine-laying bomber suddenly swept out of the darkness and began strafing us with heavy machine guns. The bullets kicked up long lines of florescent splashes all around us. We replied with our 20mm cannons, spraying the sky with streams of brightly colored tracers. The welcome we provided for our visitor was apparently a little too hot for his taste and he quickly flew away. Once again, Metox had given us no warning of the plane which, in the darkness of the night, absolutely must have been using radar to find us.

  A German blockade-runner ship that was hiding in the nearby darkness was attracted by all the fireworks and joined us for an escort back into the harbor. The sweepers took the lead in case the Brits had laid mines in our path. We proceeded unmolested the rest of the way into port.

  Just before dawn, we rumbled into the armored Skorff Bunker in the Lorient submarine pens. There were no bands or fanfare this time, just a few skeptical-looking officials standing on the pier. We got the distinct impression they were displeased to see us back in port so soon. Once they learned the extent of our equipment failures, however, their attitude became more apologetic.

  The morning after our arrival, the Flotilla Engineer and a large contingent of high-ranking shipyard officials conducted a careful inspection of our boat. They found that nearly all the seals for our air relief valves, emergency valves, diving tanks, battery cells, and fuel bunkers were totally corroded. This explained the fuel leak that nearly cost us our lives. At first, the shipyard staff insisted that the materials sent to them by the manufacturers were defective, but they were later forced to admit this was not true. Their final, reluctant conclusion was that someone had poured battery acid on the seals.

  Several other boats had complained about mysterious failures of equipment, too. Some of them, undoubtedly, were just cases of bad luck. But there were many irrefutable instances of sabotage. One boat found sugar in the lube oils. Another found a dead dog poisoning its drinking water tank. Many of the boats had cans of foodstuffs explode from botulism or improperly sealed lids. Of course, these were mere annoyances compared to some of the more serious instances of sabotage, such as magnetic bombs attached to hulls. As scattered rumors of sabotage segued into ironclad certainty, stern security measures began to be taken.

  For the next two weeks, our boat underwent repairs. They also replaced our huge four-barreled 20mm anti-aircraft gun with a newly designed single-barreled Oerlikon 37mm
automatic cannon. The trim little flak weapon worked flawlessly for us until the very end. Meanwhile, a few of the crew were sent to special technical courses, but the majority of us stayed on board and assisted with the repairs. Needless to say, we kept a very close eye on all work being done by the shipyard workers.

  As I mentioned before, one author came to the conclusion, and others have repeated the story, that the Sillcock bombing incident had crushed our morale during this period. He implied that our fighting spirit had been shattered by the experience and that the technical failures we experienced were a flimsy excuse to return to Lorient and avoid combat. I can tell you categorically that is total nonsense!

  No submarine would have continued on a patrol with the equipment failures we experienced. Furthermore, our morale was excellent. We U-boat men were handpicked and specially trained for this profession. We were proud, even eager, to do our duty, despite the mounting odds against us. When our boat was hit by Sillcock’s bombing attack, we never stopped fighting to keep her afloat. U-505’s record as having been the most heavily damaged U-boat to get back to port is eloquent testimony to our determination not to give up. We were equally determined to get back into the fight as soon as possible. Given what later happened to Zschech, I can understand how some authors got a mistaken impression about our boat, but the rest of the crew’s morale never faltered.

  During the course of the war, I came to know many of the 32,000 U-boat comrades who did not return from a patrol and are forever resting in their “iron coffins” at the bottom of the sea. I also know many of them who survive today. To a man, they were, and still are, a tough breed. The U-boat arm of the German Navy in World War II suffered a higher percentage of casualties than any combat arm in history. And yet, despite those horrible losses, we continued to sail forth against the enemy until the very last day of the war. Although history has judged harshly Germany’s political leadership during the war, no one can deny the valor and devotion to duty demonstrated by the U-boat service.