Saboteurs
There were still some small windows into the movements of U-boats, however. One was a network of radio direction finders built by the Americans and the British, which detected the emission of radio signals from submarines. By triangulating the data from several direction finders, Allied intelligence officers were able to plot the location of a U-boat with considerable accuracy, particularly along the coast. The system was not much help in predicting where the U-boats would move next, or where they were when they maintained radio silence, but at least it gave the Allies a sense of the maritime battlefield. A second window was provided by messages from support ships, not all of which had made the transition from three-rotor to four-rotor Enigma machines.
By decrypting messages from the commander of the seventh German naval flotilla to U-boat escort ships, Bletchley Park was able to track the departure of U-584 and U-202 from Lorient at the end of May.10 The information was immediately transmitted to the Submarine Tracking Room in the British Admiralty in London, where it was plotted on a giant wall map. Messages were sent to the Royal Air Force to watch out for German U-boats in the Bay of Biscay.
But the mission of the two U-boats remained a closely guarded secret from Allied intelligence, as did the presence on board of eight Nazi saboteurs.
A DAY after U-584 left Lorient with Kerling’s party, a lookout spotted a dot on the horizon, soon after the submarine came to the surface. “Alarm!” he yelled into the intercom connecting the bridge to the control room below. “Enemy plane!”
From down below came the command “Flood!” There was a loud gurgling sound, as water rushed into the buoyancy tanks, expelling the air that kept the boat afloat. Within seconds, the watch officer and three lookouts had scrambled down the ladder that connected the bridge to the control room through the conning tower.
The plane had seen them as well, and was heading in their direction. “All hands forward!” yelled the captain, sending crew members slipping and sliding toward the forward torpedo room. As the bow of the boat tipped forward, dirty pots and plates scattered around the galley, and crates of vegetables slithered into the gangway. The U-boat was already several hundred feet down by the time depth charges began to explode in the water above.11
With the exception of the V-men, everybody on board had a specific job. One crew member turned a valve to flood the ballast tanks, and send the boat plummeting downward. A second was responsible for closing the hatches. A third ensured that the ship was properly balanced. And all the time, the captain and chief engineer were relaying information and barking out commands over the loudspeakers.
“Eighty meters.”
“Sounding.”
“Twenty-two hundred in compartment one.”
“One hundred meters.”
“Eighteen hundred in two.”
The saboteurs sat huddled in their bunks, seasick and frightened, wondering how much longer they had to live. They counted the depth charges exploding around them, battering the boat as if it were a tin can.
Three.
Four.
Another huge explosion.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
The last explosion was followed by a prolonged silence. Some of the crewmen broke out in grins: the worst was evidently over. They were out of range of the depth charges. The plane had given them a fright but had failed to score a direct hit, and their ship was undamaged.
The saboteurs on U-202 were spared such drama, but they quickly understood that the sea around them was alive with danger. Linder instituted daily diving drills, practicing every conceivable kind of dive: fast, slow, deep, shallow. At the end of each practice session, the captain would announce, “Alert over, dive for exercise only.”12 Until the dive was over, Dasch and the others never knew whether an alert was for real or for practice.
At the end of a dive, the whole submarine was “as quiet as a church,” Dasch noted.13 Nobody said a word. The slightest sound might give them away.
BY THE fourth day out of Lorient, the saboteurs had settled into the routine of life aboard U-202. Even as it traveled westward, through several time zones, the ship stuck religiously to Berlin time, as did the entire U-BOAT fleet.14 Wake-up time was at 6 a.m., followed by breakfast at 6:30 and ship cleaning at 7. The main meal was at 12 noon, and there was a light supper at 5:15 p.m. The day was divided into six four-hour watches; the watch officers and lookouts were each responsible for two watches over a twenty-four-hour period.
Once the ship was out in the ocean and the risk of being spotted by enemy planes had receded, it traveled mainly on the surface. “Submersible” might be a better term than “submarine” for a Type VII-C German U-boat such as U-202, which was only capable of traveling relatively short distances underwater. It needed to come to the surface frequently in order to recharge its electric batteries and make more rapid progress. At the average underwater speed of two knots, it would have taken nearly two months to cross the Atlantic.
Although surface travel was faster, it was also much more uncomfortable. The ship was tossed about on the ocean, and battered by the winds and the waves. The crew was accustomed to these conditions, and reported calm weather throughout the trip. But the four saboteurs felt wretched and spent most of their time in their bunks, trapped in a seemingly endless roller-coaster ride. With the exception of Heinck, who had worked as a seaman as a young man, the saboteurs got violently seasick.15
The most seasick of all was Dasch, a poor seaman, whose most fervent wish was “to get this thing over.” He kept asking Linder and the other officers if they could make the ship go a “little faster,” only to be told that ten knots was the optimum speed for fuel consumption. In theory, the 750-ton ship could make up to eighteen knots, but that was reserved for an emergency.
Type VII-C boats like U-202 were considered the “workhorses” of the German submarine fleet.16 Dönitz favored them because they were extremely maneuverable and had quick diving times and a low silhouette, meaning they were difficult for the enemy to spot. They could be refueled at sea from larger submarines, enabling them to make return trips across the Atlantic, and were small enough to be mass-produced. Of the U-boats commissioned during the war, nearly half were VII-Cs, a slightly more sophisticated variant of the original Type VII.
Although Linder gave the V-men freedom to move around his ship, with the exception of the radio room and its top-secret Enigma machine, Burger found it “impossible to walk around very much because of the fact that the boat was fully manned.”17 The gangways were crammed with food supplies, including hard-crusted black bread, cheese, potatoes, various kinds of sausage, noodles, and large cans of coffee. On long voyages, the crewmen would first eat their way through the fresh food and then open the cans. When someone needed to move about the ship, he would have to alert the rest of the crew to maintain a proper trim, particularly underwater. Phrases like “man going aft” or “man going forward” were constantly echoing through the ship.18
By the third or fourth day out, the entire boat, plus the ship’s company, had started to stink. The smell was a mixture of burning diesel oil, human sweat, cooked food, and the cheap perfume that the men used to disguise the other unpleasant odors. There was barely enough fresh water to drink, let alone to wash. The entire company shared two toilets: one for officers and senior petty officers, and another for other members of the crew. As guests, the saboteurs were permitted to use the officers’ toilet.
Soon, Linder and his crewmen were sporting mustaches and full beards. They wore the same clothes every day, in Linder’s case a slate-blue leather coat and pants that became ever more grimy and stained as the trip progressed. As captain, Linder wore a white cap, to distinguish himself from the rest of the crew, who wore blue caps.
Despite the difficulties of moving around, Dasch eventually explored the entire ship, beginning in the forward torpedo room, where a total of ten torpedoes were stored: four in the tubes, ready to fire, and another six among the bunks and hammocks and in the bilg
es. This area was so jam-packed with men and gear that some submariners called it “the cave.” 19 The missiles aboard U-202 were a mixture of air-propelled torpedoes and electric torpedoes powered by battery, the latest in German marine technology. The crew used an ingenious pulley system to lift the torpedoes from the bilges and ram them into place. “Just take a look at how wonderfully the torpedoes are stored away,” the torpedo officer boasted to Dasch. “Our enemies often wonder how a little submarine can carry this many torpedoes.” 20
The next compartment aft was the chief petty officers’ quarters, where Dasch and Burger had two upper bunks. This compartment also contained the captain’s quarters, screened by a curtain to give him some privacy, and the radio room, where the Enigma codebooks were kept under lock and key in steel drawers. The control room occupied the center of the ship, underneath the conning tower, and was packed with “a million gadgets” that indicated speed, depth, balance, and revolutions per minute of the engine. There were numerous other dials and valves, most of which were meaningless to the V-men but had a vital role to play in the operation of the ship. When the boat was a few feet below the surface, the captain could also use the periscope in the control room to scan the horizon for the enemy and order torpedo attacks.
The petty officers’ quarters, where Quirin and Heinck were bunked, was the next compartment aft. This compartment was alongside the galley, where a young round-faced Swabian boy from southern Germany named Otto Wagner prepared meals for the entire crew on three small electric plates and a tiny oven, in a space that measured 59 inches by 27.5 inches. As cook, Wagner was known as Smutje, a special nickname that reflected his vital contribution to shipboard morale. He served up meals on collapsible wooden tables in the aisle, which had to be dismantled whenever someone was moving through. Despite the lack of culinary resources, the saboteurs agreed that the food on board U-202 was “exceptionally good,” much better than regular army meals.21
The last two compartments aft were the domain of the chief engineer, the second-most-important man on the ship after the captain, and housed the diesel and electric engines, as well as most of the electrical equipment. The chief engineer was responsible for the smooth technical functioning of the submarine, leaving the captain free to concentrate on waging war. There was always something that needed fixing; during the first few days of the voyage, the ship was plagued by rudder problems.22 While the main rudder was out of operation, the chief engineer rigged up a hand rudder. The stern of the ship also contained another torpedo tube, plus a spare torpedo, but these were rarely used.
The saboteurs were occasionally allowed to join the officer of the watch on the bridge for fresh air and a cigarette. During one of these smoking breaks, Dasch noticed a three-foot-long metal plate shaped like a porcupine hanging from the conning tower, alongside the ship’s official name, the Innsbruck. He was told that the porcupine was the ship’s unofficial emblem, tolerated by the navy as a way of promoting a fighting spirit among the crew.
Dasch was so taken by the emblem that he asked the chief engineer to stamp out eight miniature porcupines, similar to those worn by crew members on their caps as good luck charms.23 The other saboteurs had been showing signs of frustration with his leadership, and he wanted to make things up to them. He distributed two of the little porcupines to each saboteur, saying they would come in handy as a secret communication system in America. If one member of the team wanted to send a message to a comrade, he would give the intermediary a porcupine to identify himself, and the recipient would know that “the man is all right.”
FOR THE V-men on board U-202, this was easily the most uncomfortable of several trips across the Atlantic. All four had arrived in America for the first time in the twenties as refugees from the street violence, mass unemployment, and hyperinflation afflicting the Weimar Republic. For these new arrivals, America represented a beacon of peace and prosperity, a chance to make a new life far away from European conflicts.
Dasch’s story was typical. After dropping out of the Catholic convent of the Sacred Heart in Düsseldorf in 1920 at the age of seventeen, he was desperate to find a means to support himself. He earned some money as a housepainter and working in the mines, but was unable to get a regular job and was constantly broke. In 1922, he went to the north German port of Hamburg hoping to stow himself away on a ship bound for America. The harbor was guarded, but he got into the docks by mingling with a large group of workers.
He looked for a ship with an American flag and attracted the attention of a cook, who was throwing scraps overboard. “I’m hungry and need work,” Dasch shouted, gesturing to his stomach and hands.24 The cook took pity on him and helped him board the ship by acting drunk. Once on board, he washed dishes for the cook in return for his first American-style meal of corned beef and cabbage.
One of the crew members on the Kerr Line’s SS Schohary was a German-American from Philadelphia who entertained Dasch with tales of life in America, strengthening his determination to get there. During his free time, he looked for a place to hide when the boat sailed. He settled on a storeroom on the second deck, amidships, where he could come and go as he pleased. Just before the ship sailed, he bid farewell to his new friends but, instead of going ashore, went to his hiding place. The only document in his possession was his birth certificate.
He slept during the day and came out of his hiding place at night to scrounge for leftover food from the mess hall. The Atlantic crossing took seventeen days, and the ship reached Philadelphia on Columbus Day, 1922. At Government Pier, he walked down the gangplank with a group of workers and sailors, evading immigration officials, and went into the city looking for work. A German baker offered him a job as a dishwasher, paying him five dollars for a week’s work and allowing him to sleep in his cellar. That was enough to bum his way to New York.
A succession of restaurant jobs followed, such as caterer’s assistant, fry cook, and soda fountain clerk. By the end of his first year in America, Dasch had saved eight hundred dollars and was anxious to rectify his status as an illegal immigrant. At that time, immigration authorities took a relatively benign view of hungry European seamen jumping ship in American ports. After determining that he had saved up some money and had “the makings of a good American citizen,” they instructed him to pay $8.16 in head tax and issued him an alien seaman identification card bearing the stamp “Legally admitted to the United States.”25
Heinrich Heinck and Richard Quirin left Germany for similar reasons, because they were penniless and needed work. Heinck got a job as a seaman on the Hamburg-American Line and jumped ship on his third trip to New York. Quirin received a quota immigrant visa in Germany with the help of an affidavit from an uncle living in Schenectady, New York, who promised to support him once he got to America.
Peter Burger’s motives for fleeing Germany for America were slightly different. As an early supporter of Hitler, he felt threatened by the political backlash that followed the failure of the Munich beer hall putsch in 1923. There seemed “very little future for remaining in Germany,” and he was constantly in “fear of terrorist acts” by Communists and other left-wingers hunting down the remnants of the Nazi Party.26 An aunt living in Milwaukee sent him an affidavit for a quota immigrant visa, and Burger sailed to New York aboard a German steamer in February 1927. At the time he left Germany, the prospect of Hitler coming to power appeared remote.
Of the second group of saboteurs, on U-584, only Kerling was an early Nazi Party member. Like Burger, he was discouraged by the political setbacks experienced by the Nazis in the twenties, and immigrated legally to the United States as a quota immigrant in March 1929. His first job was smoking hams in Brooklyn. Both Werner Thiel and Hermann Neubauer left Germany for economic reasons, Thiel arriving in America in 1927 as a quota immigrant and Neubauer jumping ship in 1931 after working his way across the Atlantic as a cook. Herbie Haupt arrived in the United States at the age of five in 1925 with his mother, following in the footsteps of his father, an unemployed
World War I veteran.
By the late thirties, the political and economic dynamic that had caused this wave of German immigration to the United States was at least partially reversed. The effects of the Depression were still lingering and it was difficult for new immigrants to find good jobs. America had lost some of its allure: all of a sudden, it was Hitler’s Germany that seemed to represent the wave of the future. The tired and huddled masses yearned for a sense of direction, and the Fatherland beckoned them home.
LINDER PLOTTED the course of U-202 every day on charts attached to the table in the control room, marking out the distance traveled the previous day. He followed the route established by the German government as a safe zone for neutral shipping, from Lorient southwest to a point just north of the Azores, and then a sharp turn to the northeast toward Labrador. 27 Here, in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, they enjoyed a few days of the “most marvelous weather.”28 Linder took advantage of the calm weather to send the crew out on deck to grease the ship’s 88 mm and 20 mm guns and practice inflating the rubber dinghy to be used for landing the saboteurs on Long Island. The weather turned much colder when they reached the vicinity of Newfoundland.
Even though their primary mission was to transport the V-men across the Atlantic, the crew of U-202 were hunters by profession. They greeted each other in the morning with talk like “I hope we are going to shoot something today” and boasted about becoming the first to spot a steamer when they went on watch duty.29 Near the Azores, they spotted a steamship and a three-masted Portuguese schooner sailing close to the wind. Linder let the schooner pass as a neutral, and decided he did not have enough time to chase the steamer, which was headed in the wrong direction. “I have no time for a long hunt, as I have only ten more days to take care of my special assignment,” he noted in his log for June 2.30