Attacked at Sea

by Michael J. Tougias

  A sailor’s rank did not earn him greater privilege or better conditions in the U-boat service. Even Erich Würdemann grew a long beard and had no more privacy than the lowest-ranking sailor beyond a thin curtain separating his bunk from the 24-hour operation of the vessel.

  Still, young German men were proud to serve on U-boats. German newspaper articles glorified the feats that the U-boat crews performed, and special magazines were dedicated to their exploits. There were even baseball card–like photos of U-boat aces that people collected and a popular 1941 German action movie titled U-Boat, Course West! When U-boat crews returned home after a month or two at sea, they were treated like heroes.

  During wartime, a young man’s options were limited. Military service was required in Germany. Hitler sent millions of poorly prepared troops to distant battlefields for more than a year of unrelenting toil, unbearable cold, and terrible bloodshed. At least on a U-boat, a crew member felt important and shared a sense of camaraderie with his commander, a relationship unheard of in other branches of the service. On U-506 and U-507, uniforms were made optional in the heat of the Gulf, so the crew often dressed in shorts and T-shirts. Space was so cramped that even the lowest-ranking crew members often saw and exchanged a word or two with their commanders.

  Four crewmen who had almost daily contact with the commanders were the first watch officer, who was also second-in-command; the engineer; the radio and hydrophone operator; and the navigator. The stations of these last three were located near the heart of the boat.

  During a submerged attack, the U-boat commander also spent considerable time with the combat helmsman, who steered the sub, in the enclosed conning tower that rose above the flat outside deck. Here the commander had access to the attack periscope, which could be raised or lowered. A ladder led from this tiny tower up through a hatch to the outdoor bridge, where a railing encircled an antiaircraft gun. There was no radar aboard, so sailors found enemy ships by using the periscope, watching with binoculars on the bridge, or listening for the sound of ship propellers heard over the hydro-earphones. A voice tube on the bridge allowed communication with the radioman and the control room. In rough seas, men on the bridge wore steel safety belts tethered to the vessel, which just might save their lives if a wave swept over them.

  The Zentrale, or control room, was just below the conning tower, and it was loaded with an array of gauges, valves, and meters and a gyrocompass. The electrical gear to control steering was housed there, as were the chart closet and a second periscope.

  All crewmen on U-507 and U-506 were totally focused on their tasks and felt the weight of the responsibility. They knew it was an honor to be the first two U-boats sent into the Gulf, and they wanted to make Admiral Dönitz proud of his decision to entrust them with such a crucial mission.

  * * *

  Near midnight on May 10, Schacht and U-507 turned toward the mouth of the Mississippi. The night was still: hazy, cloudless, no wind. In the commander’s war diary, a reader can feel his excitement: “Want to be there [the mouth of the river] in the morning [May 11], to operate the entire day off the entrance.” He made good on his plan, prowling near the Mississippi’s outlet into the Gulf. “Mississippi lights as in peacetime,” Schacht noted in his log. “Frequent mist off the Mississippi. Dirty water gives good cover at periscope depth but bad listening conditions [the hydrophone could pick up the sound of propellers only with difficulty]. Boat is difficult to handle because of unaccountable drifts. Patrol by 2 PC-boats. Air patrol along main shipping.” Adding to the risk, U-507 was in shallow water, sometimes with as little as 20 feet between the keel of the sub and the ocean’s bottom.

  Schacht moved in and out of the river delta, noting that even several miles from the Mississippi, the water was murky with silt. The commander spent most of the daytime hours submerged so that the submarine could not be spotted by plane. Toward dusk he’d come up to periscope level. He would look around and if all was safe, he’d bring the vessel completely to the surface and use his diesel engines to both hunt his quarry and recharge the sub’s batteries.

  On May 12 at 2:00 A.M., Schacht “again entered the yellow Mississippi water.” Just before dawn, he steered for the south passage into the river, dodging a small patrol boat. As the sun came up, U-507 submerged but continued a slow prowl at the mouth of the river. A short time later, he sighted a slow-moving minesweeper, and Schacht couldn’t resist taking a shot with one of his precious torpedoes. The aim was off, and the torpedo passed by the minesweeper, exploding into the jetty at the southwest entrance to the river. Incredibly, nobody noticed, and boat traffic continued coming and going through the river channel at the Southwest Pass.

  Schacht was excited to see potential targets all around, but the mighty Mississippi was difficult to maneuver in. The current, the shallow areas, and the ships’ frequent turning were frustrating. Steering the U-boat was incredibly difficult because he was in the grip of the Mississippi’s current, and Schacht was in a deadly game of cat and mouse with patrol boats and aircraft. “I have to run the periscope up and down,” he recorded, knowing that keeping the periscope up for too long increased his risk of being spotted.

  Later that evening, Schacht finally found what he was looking for. A large ship lay unmoving just outside the river mouth. It was a 10,000-ton turbine tanker named Virginia, carrying gasoline, with 41 crew members on board, floating unarmed and unescorted, apparently waiting for dawn to move up the river. It was the sitting duck Schacht had been seeking. He wasted no time maneuvering U-507 into firing position and launched a torpedo that sliced through the steel hull of Virginia’s port side. Members of the crew ran to their emergency stations in a state of disbelief that their ship had been hit by a U-boat.

  Schacht, watching through the periscope, was also in a state of disbelief. The ship did not explode but barely shuddered, lying motionless on the surface. He fired another torpedo. This time he got his intended result: a direct hit to the engine room that caused the Virginia to burst into flames. Schacht noted that the tanker flew apart and burned in two sections, with the sea ablaze in a widening circle.

  Surviving crew members later told the Times-Picayune newspaper of New Orleans that there was no time to launch lifeboats. Flaming oil spread around the stricken ship, and the men hurled themselves into the water. Those who were not burned to death on the ship or in the ocean tried to swim away from the inferno. Survivor Michael Kuzma showed real bravery when, despite burns to his face and arms, and without a life jacket, he supported two injured shipmates and helped them to a buoy. They hung on for two hours before being rescued. Twenty-seven of Kuzma’s crewmates were not as lucky. They died horrible deaths by burning or drowning or both.

  Schacht tempted fate by watching the Virginia burn, even though he could also see two patrol boats through his periscope. He lay in a precarious position in shallow water. Finally, he slipped away to a place where he could fully surface and recharge his batteries in the dark.

  7

  MOVING EVER CLOSER

  Schacht had the prime pickings of target ships because he was the first U-boat in the Gulf and then outside New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi. Erich Würdemann, following behind, was likely growing frustrated. The submarine was dogged by a particularly persistent aircraft. The plane made visual contact with Würdemann’s sub on the surface as the ship raced toward the Mississippi and New Orleans. The young commander ordered the usual crash dive, waited almost an hour, and then slowly resurfaced—only to find that the plane was still in sight, circling above. The pilot must have spotted the sub again, because Würdemann reported that the “aircraft again turns toward the boat,” prompting the commander to dive once more. These cat-and-mouse games were helping educate the young commander. He was learning to balance the need to sink ships with the welfare of his crew.

  Würdemann was prudent, but he certainly wasn’t alarmed. While the Americans were getting better at locating subs, their navy and air force had a long way to go before be
coming skilled at sinking them. From January, when Operation Drumbeat started, through the end of April, the United States had sunk a grand total of one U-boat (U-85), whereas the U-boats had sunk 173 ships off the U.S. coast and in the Caribbean. Almost every U-boat commander who operated near the United States was astonished by how easily they located defenseless ships to sink.

  Part of the reason for the Germans’ success was that their navy had been at war for many months, whereas the United States had entered the conflict just five months earlier. The Germans had experience sinking ships, while the U.S. Navy did not have recent wartime experience hunting subs. Another reason was that most of America’s naval resources went to the Pacific, where Japan occupied more and more islands that were strategic for both countries. In fact, Japan began its invasion of the Philippines, where U.S. troops were stationed, immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

  * * *

  Erich Würdemann—knowing he had a golden opportunity with so many ships steaming unescorted—undoubtedly wanted to start sinking a ship a day to catch up to Schacht. On May 10, he glided undetected into the prime hunting ground of the shipping lanes off the mouth of the Mississippi. Here would be enough tankers and freighters for both commanders to take their pick.

  Once, when surfacing at dawn, a lazy lookout on U-506 almost caused a catastrophe. Würdemann wrote that the lookout recognized an approaching aircraft too late because the plane “came out of the sun.” Afterward the commander became more alert than ever, even at night.

  Two days after a close call with a U.S. Navy aircraft that might have bombed his U-boat, Würdemann was back in business, finding easy targets. His war diary entry noted “multiple freighters and tankers with east or west courses in sight.” Over the next few days, the young commander sank a tanker almost every day. On May 13, he sank the Gulfpenn while Schacht, just five miles away, torpedoed its sister ship the Gulfprince but was unable to sink it.

  May 13 was also the day most newspapers were allowed to acknowledge that the Germans had arrived in the Gulf. On page 3 of the Times-Picayune, an article proclaimed AXIS SUBMARINES INVADE GULF AND INFEST THE ATLANTIC. The story said U-boats, which were described as “raiders,” had “violated waters impregnable in the last World War.” The newspapers reported only two ships sunk in the Gulf (although there had been many more), but they broke the silence regarding the terrible toll the Germans were inflicting. The delay and lack of detailed information was not the fault of the newspapers, but rather part of the U.S. Navy’s strategy to use censorship to cloud the government’s incompetence in fighting the U-boats.

  * * *

  Schacht and his crew on U-507 were running low on fuel and torpedoes, but they managed one last daring victory. Their victim was the Amapala, which had left New Orleans with mixed cargo and a complement of 57 sailors. At 4:30 P.M., the ship’s lookouts spotted U-507 catching up with them on the surface. Captain Christiansen immediately radioed an SSS signal (the code for submarine attack) while he ordered the engines full steam ahead at 16 knots. The distress signal was heard by the radioman on U-507, and he in turn warned commander Schacht that airplanes would soon be on the scene with their bombs. Yet Schacht kept his submarine on the surface and raced after his prize, using both submarine engines to go as fast as possible. The chase was on, with the Amapala’s captain sending updates to the U.S. Coast Guard and repeating that “a U-boat is pursuing us.”

  Knifing ahead at its maximum surface speed, U-507 closed the distance to the Amapala. When Schacht felt he was near enough, he had his gunner open fire with the smaller deck gun.

  Captain Christiansen’s pleas for help grew desperate: “Airplane, hurry up, I’m being shot at.”

  Schacht had his gunners move the light machine gun to the forward bridge. The commander recorded that U-507 “headed directly for the steamer,” adding that the Amapala “received numerous hits on the bridge.” Schacht was staying on the surface much too long; he knew that U.S. Navy aircraft would be closing in on him. But he gambled that in the “gloomy, rainy weather there is the hope that the aircraft will not find us.” He was pushing his luck, almost the opposite of the way Würdemann used caution.

  The sub continued to blast away with its machine gun.

  Finally, with the ship’s bridge full of bullet holes, Captain Christiansen stopped the engines so that he and his men could scramble into lifeboats.

  Schacht wrote in his war diary that he ceased firing to allow the ship’s crew to leave, and then he “maneuvered his boat abeam for a coup de grâce.” He ordered his last torpedo fired, but it malfunctioned! The Amapala would apparently stay afloat and live to sail again.

  Schacht, undaunted by the threat of U.S. aircraft arriving any minute, approached one of the lifeboats. After he demanded and received information about the ship from crewmen, the U-boat commander said he planned to send his sailors to open the hull valves on the still-floating ship so it would finally sink. Then he surprised Amapala’s crew in the life rafts by throwing them cigarette packs.

  Schacht positioned the U-boat closer to the Amapala. He then ordered two of his men to swim to the ship and sink it by opening the sea cocks. The two submariners stripped down to their shorts, dived into the water, and climbed aboard the Amapala, going below to scuttle the ship. Minutes later, a U.S. bomber arrived on the scene. U-507 had to crash-dive, leaving the two German sailors stranded on the sinking ship!

  The airplane dropped depth charges, shaking the sub but causing no serious damage. The Germans on the Amapala—who had found dry clothing and put it on—came running out on the deck to see what was happening. Somehow the pilots of the aircraft knew the enemy had boarded the ship, and they strafed the ship’s deck with machine-gun fire. The outlook for those two German sailors was bleak. It appeared that their U-boat had fled, leaving them aboard an enemy vessel with no safe exit. Still, they followed their orders, opened the sea cocks, and abandoned ship in a life raft. Imagine their surprise when Schacht and U-507 surfaced nearby and hauled them inside!

  Schacht recorded in detail how he brought his “commandos” back inside the sub. The two crewmen presented him with the papers of the steamer, among them the zigzag plan. The 4,148-ton steamer was owned by the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company, proceeding under the Honduras flag. Captain Christensen of the Amapala hollered to Schacht from his life raft that he did not know Germany was at war with Honduras or why his ship had been sunk. Schacht responded that the captain had ordered U.S. aircraft to bomb him. And on that exchange, Schacht finally decided he had pushed his luck far enough. The German commander set his sights on Lorient, writing, “A further stay at this location seemed unwise to me.”

  * * *

  Erich Würdemann wasn’t as reckless as Schacht (nor was he as colorful or detailed a writer in his war diary), but he was smart enough to stay in the vicinity of the Mississippi, knowing that without Schacht around he’d have prime pickings. He took full advantage of this situation and sank or severely damaged three tankers from May 14 to 17.

  Since entering the Gulf, Würdemann had sunk or damaged seven ships, honed his hunting skills, and increased the body count. The first ship he attacked, the Sama, did not suffer any deaths, and the second, the Aurora, only one. But his last four attacks averaged 14 sailors killed per ship. So far on this mission, Würdemann’s torpedoes had cost 70 sailors their lives—and, unlike Schacht, the young commander still had multiple torpedoes left.

  With the section of ocean off the Mississippi buzzing with aircraft searching for the elusive subs, Würdemann could have moved to the less “hot” area off Texas or Alabama. But Dönitz had specifically wanted the young Kapitänleutnant to focus on the New Orleans area, and Würdemann decided he would stay for at least one more ship.

  8

  CLOSER TO HOME

  Every day on the Heredia was a novel adventure for Sonny. The cook surprised him with new snacks, and he learned some of the crew’s first names. Many of the sailors took time to explain the functio
ns of various equipment. He and Lucille raced on the long, empty decks, even though Lucille always won. Sonny fared little better when he and Lucille played shuffleboard, and occasionally their dad joined in the competition. But the absence of other children on the boat meant that games with Lucille wore thin after a few days.

  On his fourth day at sea, Sonny led the family to their lifeboat station for the daily drill. He and Lucille put on their own life jackets, but Ray insisted on tying the knot and pulling hard on it to make sure it held.

  “I can do it myself, Dad,” Sonny protested.

  “I know you can, but my job is to make sure it’s done right. In a real emergency, we only get one chance to tie it, and it has to stay put,” his father said.

  Sonny often found his father and mother talking in hushed tones on deck chairs, their books set aside. They spent long periods looking out at the horizon and didn’t want to play checkers much. Sonny heard Ina say more than once that she wished the ship could go a lot faster. She looked uncomfortable and nervous, even when sitting outside under a blue sky.

  Now the crewmen were polite but less interested in talking to Sonny and Lucille. There was a definite air of business and efficiency about them, much more so than in the early days of the voyage. Sonny tried to talk to the sailors who were looking out to sea with binoculars. He knew they were looking for subs. Sometimes he tried to help, but he found it boring after a moment or two.

  Captain Colburn walked by and exchanged pleasantries with Ray, Ina, Lucille, and Sonny. He paused long enough to answer Sonny’s questions, including why they had not seen more than one or two other ships. “Well, Sonny,” said the captain, “it won’t be long before we approach the shipping lanes outside New Orleans. There I expect you’ll see your fair share of ships.”