10:35 (Paris Time)
Monday, March 2, 1942
U-Boote headquarters, Lorient
Coast of Brittany, France
‘’Aah, my good Kretschmer! So, how did the sea trials of your new radar go?’’
‘’Well, Herr Admiral: your technicians finally managed to find the faulty connections that marred the first tests. My U-800 is now fully certified to return at sea.’’
‘’Excellent!’’ Exclaimed Karl Dönitz before pointing a chair near his desk. ‘’But please sit down: I have new orders for you and your boat.’’
Otto took place in the chair and waited patiently as Dönitz sifted through the paperwork on his desk, to finally grab a thin file and present it to Otto, who took it.
‘’As you may have heard, our submarines operating along the American East Coast and in the Caribbean are doing a fine job and have sunk to date an impressive number of ships. However, they are rather thin on the ground and, as a result, had to concentrate on the coastal areas from New York and down to the South, leaving the areas of Halifax and of the New England states uncovered. I believe that your U-800 will be able to fill that hole just nicely. As well, thanks to the British Navy code book you captured, we know that some important naval operation involving American warships is in preparation and may involve a transit towards Great Britain sometime this month. While hitting the commercial sea traffic along the New England coast, your job will also be to keep an eye for such an operation. If you detect such a force in transit, then you will hit it, hard! Those warships must not be allowed to go reinforce the Royal Navy, so they will be priority targets for you. Expend as many torpedoes as you need on them, but hurt them bad.’’
Otto nodded his head once, satisfied by this: while sinking enemy merchant ships was well within the laws of war and was actually the main goal of Germany’s submarine warfare, he felt much better at attacking warships that could defend themselves rather than near defenseless merchant ships. Also, almost any green young submarine commander could sink a tanker or a cargo ship, but it took a pro to sink warships.
‘’I will make their life Hell, Herr Admiral.’’
‘’I know you will, my dear Otto. When will you be able to leave for the American coast?’’
‘’I will just need today and tomorrow to complete the resupplying of my boat, Herr Admiral. I will thus be able to depart Lorient at night tomorrow, at around seven in the evening, with your permission.’’
‘’You have it! I will come to watch your departure tomorrow.’’
‘’That will be a great honor, Herr Admiral. Thank you!’’
‘’Pah, that’s nothing! I wish I could sail with you, but unfortunately I am now chained to a desk and snowed in under paperwork. You are now dismissed! Good luck during your next war patrol.’’
‘’Thank you again, Herr Admiral.’’ Said Otto, getting up from his chair and saluting Dönitz, who saluted back. Pivoting on his heels, Otto then walked out of the Admiral’s office, the mission orders file under one arm. From what he had learned during his own leave period about how the war was going, the future contribution of his U-800 was going to be more important than ever if final victory was to be achieved.
19:12 (Paris Time)
Tuesday, March 3, 1942
Keroman I submarine pen complex
Lorient
Otto, standing rigidly at attention on the open bridge of his U-800, saluted as the military band on the quay of the submarine pen started playing ‘Deutschland Uber Alles’, the German national anthem. His officers, lined up on the aft deck in front of the men of the crew, with all wearing clean going out Winter uniforms, also saluted. Karl Dönitz, standing on the quay with a dozen senior officers, proudly returned their salutes as the dark blue-green hull of the U-800 slid slowly out of its protective pen. He watched it disappear into the night, then looked at his assembled staff officers.
‘’Gentlemen, the U-800 is back at sea: the Americans and British better brace themselves now.’’
11:40 (New York Time)
Saturday, March 14, 1942
Control room of the U-800
Off Portland Harbor, Maine, U.S.A.
Otto, looking through the watch periscope, grinned with satisfaction and spoke out loud.
‘’We have a thick fog all around us, men. Just what we need to nail on the ground all those pesky American and British patrol aircraft. Radar, power your antenna and give me a ten second sweep, then shut off your set and report.’’
Less than half a minute later, Max Roehm, the senior radar operator, spoke up from his station in one corner of the control room.
‘’I have the outline of the coast at the edge of my scope, Herr Kapitän, with the closest piece of land twelve kilometers away. I have half a dozen small boats on my scope, plus two full-sized ships within ten kilometers. The smaller boats are probably small fishing trawlers.’’
‘’Maine does have a reputation for catching good lobsters.’’ Recognized Otto. ‘’We will do our best to avoid their nets: we wouldn’t want our U-800 to end on a fish market table in Nantucket, right men?’’
As the men in the control room laughed at his joke, Leutnant Hermann Spielberger added to it cheerfully.
‘’Wasn’t Captain Ahab{12} and his whaling ship based in Nantucket, Herr Kapitän?’’
‘’True, but he would probably find our hide a bit too tough for his harpoon. Alright, let’s recharge our batteries while this fog holds. EXTEND THE SCHNORCHEL TO FULL! SWITCH TO DIESELS! START RECHARGING THE BATTERIES! PURGE OUR SEPTIC TANKS AND FILL OUR AIR TANKS!’’
Lowering the optical head of his periscope under the waves, Otto then grabbed his local marine chart and went to see his senior radar operator.
‘’Thinking about it, Roehm, could you power up again your radar, but leave it on this time: I want to see if I could make a reliable position fix by comparing my chart with your radar image.’’
‘’From experience, I would say that you should be able to do that easily, Herr Kapitän. My radar set has enough resolution to be used for navigation in coastal waters, even in thick fog.’’
‘’With the same fog making coastal observers and ship lookouts blind in comparison. It does…’’
Not hearing his captain finish his sentence, Roehm looked up from his radar scope, to see that Otto had what appeared to be a sudden air of revelation, as if he had just been visited by the Holy Spirit.
‘’Are you okay, Herr Kapitän?’’
‘’Uh, yes! I think that I just had either my best idea ever, or a total brain fart. Let’s see what your radar is showing.’’
While intrigued, Roehm obeyed and lit up his radar set. With Otto spreading his chart beside the screen, both men compared the two for a few seconds before Roehm, more accustomed to reading radar images, pointed first at a few large dots slightly detached from the main coastline, then at a series of small islands featured on Otto’s chart.
‘’These are the islands separating Portland Harbor and Casco Bay, in Maine, from the open sea, Herr Kapitän. That small dot nearest to us must be Ram Island, with the bigger one behind it being Cushing Island.’’
‘’You’re right, Roehm! Mein Gott, we could really navigate with enough precision despite this thick fog! Himmel, I must try this! LEUTNANT SPIELBERGER, GET ME THAT PRE-WAR AMERICAN YACHTING GUIDE! ALSO, CALL LEUTNANT MARGRAFF TO THE CONTROL ROOM, AT THE DOUBLE!’’
‘’Uh, may I ask what you are thinking, Herr Kapitän?’’ Asked a befuddled Roehm. Otto didn’t take his question badly, instead patting his shoulder while smiling.
‘’You may just have given me a way to screw the Americans royally, my dear Roehm.’’
As Otto went to see Spielberger at the tactical plot table, Roehm could only scratch his head, completely lost by this.
17:42 (New York Time)
Two kilometers south of Fort Williams
Cape Elizabeth, coast of Maine
Invisible beyond forty meters in the thick fog, the inflatable rubber boat beached silently on the rocky shore of Cape Elizabeth, south of Portland and near the mouth of the harbor’s entrance channel. Seven men in camouflaged uniforms and steel helmets and heavily loaded with weapons and large packs stepped out of the boat at once and hurriedly carried it up the slope of the beach, to finally drop it within thick bushes. They quickly camouflaged their boat before crouching in a tight circle for a whispered orders group, with Lieutenant Hugo Margraff doing the talking.
‘’Here we are, back on American soil, men. Low tide just came, so we now have no more than four hours before high tide. Our job must be completed by then. While we can’t waste time, we will have to advance cautiously, as there is a full coastal artillery battalion posted in and around Fort Williams. We will use only silenced weapons if we need to fire at all. Any questions? No? Then follow me!’’
Led by Margraff, the Brandenburg men then went through the bushes at a crouched trot, holding their silenced weapons at the ready.
Forced by the fog to constantly use his compass to avoid deviating from his intended destination, Margraff used to the maximum the bushes and dispersed trees covering the Cape Elizabeth area to stay as stealthy as he could. He had to make detours on the way to avoid a few isolated cottages and residences situated along the coast but didn’t meet a single person along the way, which was not surprising in view of the fog and of the fact that it was supper time. After fifty minutes of cautious advance, he finally saw the first defensive works and buildings of Fort Williams. Not having a plan of Fort Williams, in fact having only seen an icon representing it on a tourist’s map, Hugo didn’t really know what to expect exactly, except that there were supposed to be heavy coastal guns in concrete and stone fortified positions. He had not encountered any outer perimeter wall yet, just a simple wooden low fence easily jumped over, and thus didn’t realize that he and his men were already inside the grounds of Fort Williams, just inside the eastern edge of what would become the Southwest Woodland Preserve, and were looking at the southernmost battery of the fort, Battery Garesché. It took Hugo a moment to understand the true setup of Fort Williams. He then made his men gather close to him, so he could speak to them in a low voice.
‘’It seems that this Fort Williams is not exactly what we were expecting, men. From what I can see, there is no defensive perimeter wall, just a dispersed collection of individual gun battery positions facing seaward, plus a collection of buildings. In a way, that will make our job much more easy, as we won’t have to scale walls to circulate around the fort. On the other hand, we must find the really big guns and, most importantly, their ammunition magazines, which are our priority targets. Thankfully, there seems to be patches of trees all around the fort, which we can exploit to move around stealthily.’’
‘’Will we ignore the smaller gun batteries, Leutnant?’’ Asked his second-in-command, Unteroffizier Franz Stein. Hugo thought that over for a moment before shaking his head.
‘’They still could hurt the U-800 when it will make its run through the entrance channel, so we will have to take out or sabotage every gun we will find. We will however have to be quiet about it, at least until we can find the main ammunition magazines, thus will have to be imaginative in our work.’’
‘’What about the sentries, Leutnant?’’ Asked Gefreiter Hermann Weiss. ‘’Do we silently kill them or do we avoid them?’’
‘’Any sentry left alive and free in our backs could put us at risk, so we will have to eliminate them. Supper time has now passed, so I expect that the relief of sentries has now been done for the evening and that there will be no other switch of sentries until at least midnight. At the worst, we may encounter a few roaming patrols or inspecting NCOs or officers doing rounds between the batteries. The works we see at our one o’clock seems to be the southernmost gun battery of this fort. We will advance in single file along the trees between here and that position and will act according to what we find over there. Make sure that the silencers on your weapons are well fixed, then follow me!’’
Taking the lead, Hugo started walking at a crouch in the bushes, stopping at intervals behind a tree to watch and listen for any sign of sentries. His caution paid off when, now only twenty meters or so from the first concrete bunker, he saw two incandescent red dots appear through an observation slit facing the sea. Hugo smiled ferociously on seeing that: the Americans on guard duty had obviously chosen to take refuge inside one of the bunkers, in order to escape the cold wind sweeping the coast and to smoke cigarettes. This was going to make it rather easy to take them out. Using hand signs, Hugo sent three of his men to quietly go take position on the left of the group of bunkers facing him. Once they were in position, he himself silently advanced, followed by his three remaining men. Slowly climbing at a crouch the right side set of steps of the small bunker complex, Hugo and his men managed to arrive at the level of the observation bunker without being noticed. Signaling by hand to his men to get ready, Hugo checked for a last time that his silenced P38 pistol’s safety catch was disengaged, then turned the handle of the steel door situated at the back of the bunker and calmly entered as if he was simply visiting. The two American soldiers smoking inside instinctively came to rigid attention when they saw a dark silhouette enter, probably thinking that one of their NCOs or officers was coming to inspect their post. The first American to be shot in the chest by Hugo never had a chance to react, while the second American barely had the time to start lunging for his rifle before being shot as well. Hugo then finished both men with point blank shots to the head. Exiting the bunker, he gave orders in a low voice to his three men waiting outside.
‘’Drag out those bodies and throw them down the cliff to our right. Keep their steel helmets, just in case that we would need them as a temporary disguise, but find my spent brass casings and throw them away.’’
His men obeyed him quickly and quietly, with the two dead Americans soon thrown down the rocky ledge beside the bunker. Once his men were ready again to follow him, Hugo sent two of them to go explore the lower level of the bunker while he cautiously checked the second upper level observation post. He found that post empty, save for a tripod-mounted artillery optical rangefinder and a field telephone. Michel Drücker came back as Hugo was exiting the second observation post and reported in a near whisper.
‘’The lower chambers of the bunker are empty, Herr Leutnant. It appears that they once sheltered artillery pieces, but those guns are now gone.’’
‘’Very well! Let’s go to the next series of bunkers, then.’’
First linking back with the three men he had sent to guard his left flank, Hugo then led his small group north, staying inside the vegetation-covered area to the right of what appeared to be the perimeter road of the fort. After less than 250 meters, a long, low concrete structure appeared out of the fog and obscurity. Stopping and putting one knee down, Hugo took out of a large equipment pouch carried by a strap passed across his chest a heavy pair of high quality Zeiss binoculars with extra-wide lens designed specifically to help night vision. Hugo looked through his binoculars for maybe ten seconds before twisting his head back to look at his men.
‘’Bingo! We have a concrete battery position with two heavy guns on disappearing carriages{13} ahead of us. I can see four sentries: two on the upper level, where the guns are, and two on the lower level, guarding large doors to what could very well be ammunition magazines. Each pair stands at one of the two extremities of the battery complex. Here is what we will do…’’
The soldier guarding the southernmost artillery piece of the pair of 12 inch guns forming Battery Blair turned his head when he heard footsteps approaching from his right on the concrete of the gun platform. He then saw coming out of the dark and fog two tall dark silhouettes, each wearing the distinct ‘soup bowl’ steel helmet still widely used by the U.S. Army at this early stage of the war. The soldier quickly but discreetly straightened up his belt and web gear in advance of what he believed to be a surprise inspection and came to attention. He didn’t recognize at first the face of the man who soon stopped in front of him, being little more than a dark shape in the night. The man then spoke to him in English, with a slight, curious accent to it.
‘’I am here to relieve you of your duties…permanently.’’
‘’Uh?’’ Could only say the unfortunate soldier before being shot in the throat once, with the bullet fired at an upward angle and going through his brain before exploding the top of his cranium. Hugo then hurried to grab the dead man before he could fall and make some noise, while Michel Drücker similarly caught the rifle the American had been shouldering. Hugo gently laid the body on the concrete, beside the huge mass of the 12 inch gun resting in its cradle behind the thick, three meter-high protective frontal parapet. The gun’s mass in turn prevented the other sentry on this level from seeing the short drama that had just been played. That other sentry soon fell victim to the same trick used to kill his comrade and died without being able to warn the two sentries on the lower level. Splitting up, Hugo and Michel each went down on their belly at the edge of the upper platform, just above the pair of remaining sentries. Both of those sentries soon died from bullets fired from above them that pierced their heads, then continued down their torso, through their internal organs. Four of Hugo’s soldiers who had waited for just that to happen then ran quickly to the dead sentries and hurried to drag them out of sight, carrying them inside what turned to be the ammunition magazines for the two 12 inch guns of Battery Blair. Joining them there, Hugo grinned with triumph at the sight of the hundreds of huge half-ton shells, with their propellant charges contained in silk bags, themselves contained in thick cardboard casings.
‘’Well well, we should be able to make a really nice fireworks display with all this. Drücker, Weiss, go back to the guns above and break their firing pins, just in case the Americans somehow manage to prevent these magazines from blowing up. Once we are finished here, we will go look for more gun batteries around this fort.’’
As Drücker and Weiss ran outside, Hugo looked back at the piles of 12 inch shells, a devilish grin on his face.
‘’Let’s see if we can be creative here.’’
21:01 (New York Time)
Control room of the U-800
Slipping up the entrance channel of Casco Bay
Maine
‘’Helm, veer five degrees to port, keep your speed at four knots and your depth constant at seventeen meters. Sonar, call the depth under our keel at intervals of ten seconds from now on.’’
‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän! Free depth is now three meters, with slight depression ahead… Free depth now four meters, bottom still sloping downwards…’’
Otto, bent over the shoulders of his senior radar operator with an old yachting guide map of Portland Harbor in his hands, was concentrated as he had rarely been in the past, listening as well to the reports of his sonar operator as he very cautiously guided his U-800 up the entrance channel leading to Casco Bay and the port of Portland, with the top of his submarine’s conning tower barely under the surface. He wasn’t even sure what he would find inside Casco Bay…if he made it that far without being detected, but he was quite certain that it would contain one or two American warships and a few merchant ships at a minimum. Ulrich von Wittgenstein was presently inside the forward observation dome, ready to help him guide their submarine if and when they would be forced by shallow waters to let part of their conning tower emerge, while Franz Streib stood ready at the attack periscope. This was a truly ‘do or die’ attempt and Otto was hoping fervently that the rewards would be worth the risks. He however tried to reassure himself by thinking that the golden horseshoe painted on the side of his conning tower, an emblem that had decorated his past submarines, would truly bring him luck tonight.
‘’We are passing by the southern point of Cushing Island, Herr Kapitän.’’ Said Roehm, his eyes glued to his radar screen. We are right in the middle of the entrance channel.’’
‘’Free depth is now seven meters, Herr Kapitän. Sonar however indicates a rise of the bottom coming soon: it could be tight, even with the high tide.’’
‘’Helm, hold present heading and depth! Ulrich, you have your infrared night vision scope ready with you upstairs?’’
‘’Yes, Herr Kapitän! Once we break the surface and switch on our infrared projectors, I should be able to see nearly as if in daylight over a distance of close to one kilometer.’’
‘’Good! I am counting on you to find me quickly fine, juicy targets for our eels once in the middle of the harbor.’’
‘’I will be ready, Herr Kapitän!’’
‘’We are now nearly past Cushing Island, Herr Kapitän.’’
‘’Free depth now four meters and diminishing rapidly, Herr Kapitän.’’ Announced Günther Grote, his voice a bit tense. ‘’I counsel that we get up a bit.’’
‘’I’ll buy that, Herr Grote. Ballasts, bring us up by two meters.’’
‘’Two meters up, aye Herr Kapitän!’’
The noise of compressed air entering their ballast tanks was heard for barely more than a second, as the ballast operators injected a calculated amount of air to achieve the requested depth change. It took real professionals to do that with precision, but Otto knew that his men, all of his men, were such pros.
‘’Our top canopy is now nearly breaking the surface, Herr Kapitän.’’ Announced von Wittgenstein from the forward observation dome.
‘’Free depth now steady at about two meters. The bottom shows flat ahead of us.’’
‘’Excellent! The high tide still has not reached its maximum, so we are now mostly in the clear, depth wise. Radar, were are we now?’’
‘’We are about to pass by the southern tip of House Island, Herr Kapitän. I now have a direct radar line of sight on the main anchorage area beyond House Island.’’
The tone of voice of Max Roehm suddenly changed, denoting triumph.
‘’Herr Kapitän, I have a total of nine ships anchored side-by-side in the middle of the bay, to our one o’clock and at a distance of 900 meters and closing. I read eight of them as being of destroyer size, with a bigger ship sandwiched in the middle of the row.’’
Otto grinned ferociously on hearing that and shook a triumphant fist.
‘’A destroyer squadron at anchorage with a destroyer tender! Leutnant Spielberger, be ready to enter target data in your calculator! Helm, slow down to two knots and be ready to do a tight half-turn on my command. Leutnant Streib, has the fog dissipated by now?’’
‘’Partly, Herr Kapitän: I can now see through the periscope the position lights of the ships at anchor. Light levels are poor but I confirm that the row of ships ahead is composed of warships.’’
‘’Yes! Open the outer torpedo tube doors! Flood all tubes!’’
21:27 (New York Time)
Bridge of the destroyer tender U.S.S. DENEBOLA (AD-12)
At anchor at Diamond Island Roads anchorage area
Casco Bay, Maine
‘’Sir, I have what appears to be some private yacht roaming the entrance channel at low speed, with no navigation lights on. It is now at our ten o’clock, at an approximate distance of 600 meters.’’
The visual report from his young bridge duty officer ticked off the captain of the U.S.S. DENEBOLA, Commander Robert C. Starkey, who was a bit of a stickler where rules of navigation were concerned. Getting up from his command chair, where he had been enjoying the sight of the city of Portland at night, he walked across the semi-obscure bridge and approached his subordinate to look by himself. He effectively saw after a few seconds of searching with his binoculars an oblong dark mass low on the water, from which jutted up what looked like two sailing masts. The boat was seemingly wandering around and was presently turning slowly towards his ship.
‘’What is that idiot doing? Send him the following message by lamp: move on and clear the channel at once.’’
‘’Aye, sir!’’
Starkey continued to watch the dark boat as the junior officer made a signalman send the message. The response to it took nearly too long to his taste before being sent by the boat. Starkey, who knew his signal lamp code about as well as the best signalman on his ship, read the response for himself as it was being transmitted.
‘’Go..to..Hell… What the fuck?’’
Starkey was about to explode in indignation when a second part to the response arrived.
‘’…Signed..U-800…’’
For a second, his brain refused to believe what those two last words meant. Then, he understood that this was not a joke and twisted around to shout orders to the stunned bridge crew members.
‘’BATTLE STATIONS! ENEMY SUBMARINE IN THE HARBOR!’’
To his fury, his subordinates stayed frozen from the surprise and were slow to react, making him scream again.
‘’WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? I SAID ‘BATTLE STATIONS’!’’
The young bridge duty officer finally pressed the large red button that called the crew to action, starting a loud bell alarm, and was about to speak into the ship’s intercom when the first of eight torpedoes slammed in the destroyer at the end of the row of ships, the U.S.S. WARRINGTON, exploding against its port bow section. The underwater explosion created a shockwave that hit the next destroyer in line, the U.S.S. SOMERS, with considerable force, caving in some of its underwater hull plates and ripping open a hole through which water rushed in. Then, the second and the third torpedoes hit, each exploding against the hull of different destroyers, shaking them violently and opening big holes in them. The fourth torpedo however caused the most mayhem when it hit the U.S.S. SAMPSON, which was anchored directly beside the U.S.S. DENEBOLA, at the level of its forward five inch gun ammunition magazine. The blast from the torpedo’s warhead touched off the hundreds of shells stored in the deep magazine, starting a lightning-quick chain reaction of sympathetic detonations. The whole forward section of the U.S.S. SAMPSON, including its two forward five inch gun turrets and parts of the bridge superstructures, disappeared in a devastating explosion that caved in and ripped open the hulls of the DENEBOLA and of the destroyer anchored along the starboard side of the SAMPSON, the U.S.S. MOFFETT. The shockwave from that explosion also blew in all the windows of the destroyer tender’s bridge, cutting to shreds Commander Starkey and the members of the bridge crew. Four more torpedoes then hit the anchored American warships, causing a carnage among their crews and either disabling or condemning all the destroyers and their destroyer tender.
As the series of powerful blasts and explosions echoed around the Portland area, awaking its inhabitants, the U-800 turned around and, before speeding back down the entrance channel in the dark and remaining fog, fired in succession the four torpedoes in its stern launch tubes, aiming them at the row of destroyers and at a single, large tanker ship also anchored in Casco Bay. That tanker, loaded with over 5,000 tons of aviation gasoline destined for Great Britain, blew up in a spectacular fireball that rose slowly in the night sky, illuminating the whole bay area for a few seconds. The National Guard artillerymen whose battery of old three inch guns armed Fort Preble, situated on the corner of the port facing the Diamond Island Roads anchorage area, took way too long to react, having been taken completely by surprise by those sudden events. Most of them had been inside their barracks at the time, with only a few men left outside to guard the guns. By the time that the old three inch guns were manned and ready to fire, the U-800 had disappeared into the night. More ammunition exploding aboard the destroyers and their tender also continuously sent up all kind of metallic debris and unexploded ordnance that then fell back down all around the port area and the city of Portland, making hazardous just the fact of being out in the open.
Aboard the U-800, Otto Kretschmer was not celebrating yet, as he still had to exit intact the entrance channel and get to the open sea. Nagging him was the fact that he had not seen yet any explosions inside Fort Williams, the fort that