06:02 (New York Time)
Sunday, March 15, 1942
Control room of the U-800
Arriving on station off Boston Harbor
‘’Here we are, men: our next target area is in sight. Can anybody tell me what ships headed to a specific port would do if that port would suddenly be declared closed to traffic?’’
‘’Uh, they would then go to the next nearest major port, Herr Kapitän.’’ Ventured Franz Streib, making Otto smile.
‘’And what is the American major port nearest to Portland, children?’’
‘’BOSTON!’’ Replied in unison the men in the control room, turning Otto’s smile into a grin.
‘’Excellent, class! You just passed your examination in basic naval strategy. Let’s see now how well protected this port is. Herr Zimmer, scan for enemy radar emissions with your radar warning receiver set. Herr Junker, power up your radar for a minute or so, time for us to update our position in relation to the coastline. Herr Hartmann, switch on our high definition active sonar, in case there are minefields protecting Boston Harbor.’’
It didn’t take long before Otto, who first took care of updating his present position with the help of the picture of the coastline contours provided by his radar set, started getting a few unsettling pieces of information. Hans Zimmer, operating their Metox radar warning receiver set, was the first to report to Otto.
‘’Herr Kapitän, I am detecting the signals from at least three meter-band radar stations posted in and around Boston. If we could continue on the present heading and in a straight line, I will be ready soon to give you a triangulated approximate fix for those three radars.’’
‘’We will certainly do so. HELM, STEADY ON PRESENT HEADING! REDUCE SPEED TO THREE KNOTS!’’
‘’AYE, HERR KAPITÄN!’’
Michel Hartmann, at the high definition sonar console, was next to report, his voice betraying sudden nervousness.
‘’Herr Kapitän, we are about to broach what seems to be a very dense underwater minefield to our starboard bow. I can detect dozens of moored mines within the narrow detection arc of my sonar set. We however should be able to avoid the nearest mines by about 300 meters.’’
‘’Leutnant Streib, you are now in charge of mapping those minefields as best you can while we pass beside them. Good job, Hartmann!’’
Otto, checking frequently with his operators and Streib and also periodically looking through his search periscope, soon had an early picture of the Boston Harbor defenses. That included visual sightings of a series of coastal towers that were most probably coastal artillery observation and fire control towers. As the U-800 was doing a second run in front of Boston Harbor after performing a 180 degree turn, one particular area to the North started attracting his attention. Consulting his charts and his old but useful American yachting guide to the American East Coast, he called Franz Streib to his side and pointed at a peninsula jutting out of the coast.
‘’I think that we should concentrate our attentions on this Nahant Peninsula, about five nautical miles to the north of Boston Harbor. One of the three radars that we detected is situated on it, plus there is at least one artillery observation tower visible along its southeast shoreline. I am tempted to land Leutnant Margraff and his team there to go investigate that place tonight. With luck, they may be able to capture some pieces of American radar technology, about which we know very little up to now.’’
‘’It sounds like a good idea, Herr Kapitän: our intelligence information on the Americans is rather skimpy, if I could say so. We will have to go grab more info on the spot if we want to know more about them.’’
‘’Then, Leutnant Margraff will be playing tourist again tonight. In the meantime, I want those minefields mapped as accurately as we can without risking ourselves in the middle of them. Use direct observation via our infrared scopes to help identify and plot those minefields.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän! What if some targets show up in the meantime?’’
‘’We will skip on them for the moment, unless they are truly juicy ‘pièces de résistance’: I want to give the maximum time possible to Leutnant Margraff and his men to prepare and then conduct their next land raid before we start hunting ships.’’
15:18 (New York Time)
Navy docks, Port of Portland
Maine
Rear Admiral Theodore Stark Wilkinson and his two assistants had just finished interviewing the various survivors who actually had something useful to report about last night’s devastating attack. With Admiral Ernest J. King and his own retinue of aides and subalterns joining in on the discussion, Wilkinson was reviewing what they now knew when General George Marshall, the powerful head of the U.S. Army, entered the Navy offices, closely followed by half a dozen officers. Admiral King, a man intensely jealous about the control he exerted on ‘his’ navy, promptly faced Marshall while also blocking his way.
‘’General Marshall? I didn’t know that you were in Portland today.’’
‘’I am here probably for the same reason that I am finding you here, Admiral King: the mess that the Germans left here behind them. Specifically, I now have one of my coastal artillery forts that has essentially ceased to exist, along with its whole garrison. What I found in their place are three huge craters…and this!’’
King and the naval officers around him held their breath, indignation flaring up in them, as Marshall unrolled and unfurled a large, ripped Nazi flag.
‘’This flag was found still tied to the flagpole of Fort Williams, which was itself broken and surrounded by the bodies of dead artillerymen. The culprits who caused all this mayhem left their calling card behind. So, what happened here, according to the Navy side, Admiral King?’’
King, a man known to have a mean, explosive temper, managed to control his anger at the sight of the Nazi flag and answered Marshall in an even voice.
‘’It seems that one German submarine managed to slip up the entrance channel of the harbor last night, at around nine in the evening, using the night and a thick fog to sail in unnoticed. Once inside Casco Bay, it fired salvoes of torpedoes and sank eight of my destroyers, along with a submarine tender and a merchant tanker ship, before leaving. It however laid as well a number of sea mines as it went back down the entrance channel. Two merchant ships which tried to leave the harbor in the panic that ensued blew up on mines, partially blocking the entrance channel. The port is now closed to all maritime traffic until the channel could be properly swept, something that will take at least another day.’’
‘’And the German saboteurs who blew up Fort Williams? Were they from that submarine, Admiral?’’
‘’We do believe so, General Marshall. Furthermore, we have a pretty good idea of who to blame for all this. I will let Rear Admiral Wilkinson, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, tell you the sordid details.’’
Marshall looked critically at Wilkinson as the latter got up and approached him, a file in his left hand. The exchange and coordination of intelligence information between the Army and the Navy in this war had been up to now abysmal to non-existent and it seemed that things were not improving very fast on that front.
‘’Could a single submarine really cause this much mayhem by itself?’’
‘’Oh, the U-800 has already caused plenty more mayhem than this, General Marshall.’’ Replied Wilkinson before handing him the file he held. ‘’This is what we know up to now on the U-800 and its captain, Otto Kretschmer. Kretschmer is by far the top submarine ace of the German fleet to date and he has been associated lately with a squad of elite soldiers of the German Army specializing in commando raids, sabotage and the like. Those soldiers are from the Brandenburg Regiment and were previously seen on American soil when they landed on the North Carolina coast and sabotaged the Cape Lookout lighthouse last December. Those same German soldiers may also have been involved in the boarding and hijacking of two merchant ships which were subsequently used to attack Miami Harbor and the Colombian port of Cartagena, respectively. If anybody could infiltrate your fort and blow it up through sabotage, it would be those men. They are to be considered very well trained and extremely dangerous. As for the U-800, we believe it to be the prototype unit of a new and revolutionary class of German attack submarine. Captain Kretschmer and his wonder boat have cost up to now to our Navy a total of one aircraft carrier, one battleship, three cruisers, sixteen destroyers, four Coast Guard cutters and six large troopships. This does not count the dozens of merchant ships they have sunk to date, plus quite a few British and Canadian warships.’’
Marshall, having problems believing Wilkinson, nonetheless read through the file given by him. What he saw was however enough to make him rethink his opinion on the subject. Thoroughly shaken, he gave back the file to Wilkinson and looked at King.
‘’So, where could that U-800 be now? Could it be on its way back to Germany after such a feat of arms?’’
King grimly shook his head in response.
‘’Not a chance, General! This is typically just the opening shot of what promises to be another bloody campaign by Kretschmer at our expense. As for where he is, I could not say, apart from the certainty that he is still off the American East Coast, preparing his next hammer blow. Unfortunately, my Atlantic Fleet has lost up to now a good quarter of its destroyers, thanks to Kretschmer, and also has to deal with more German submarines that are presently operating further south, around the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia and New Jersey.’’
Marshall pondered all that for a moment, thoughtful, before speaking.
‘’Then, I better put all of my coastal defense units and air squadrons on full combat alert, to prevent more damage.’’
A Navy commander then approached and whispered in the ear of Admiral King.
‘’Sir, Task Force 39 was due to start assembling here in three days, prior to leaving for Great Britain. In fact, the eight destroyers we just lost in Casco Bay were due to form the destroyer screen of Task Force 39. What should we do now, Admiral?’’
King couldn’t help bang his fist out of rage then, totally frustrated: the sensible thing to do right now would be to simply cancel Task Force 39, but he couldn’t do that, due to political reasons. President Roosevelt had promised to Prime Minister Churchill to send a strong naval task force to Great Britain, in order to support the hard-pressed Royal Navy in the North Atlantic area. King had vehemently protested that drain on his already insufficient Atlantic Fleet, but in vain. He knew that arguing with Roosevelt again on that point would do no good, thus that mission would have to be fulfilled somehow, despite this latest disaster.
‘’Tell Admiral Ingersoll to change the assembly point of Task Force 39 to Boston and to assign a new destroyer squadron to it. Those ships are to stay away from Portland for the time being but their mission and departure dates will stay the same.’’
‘’Understood, Admiral.’’ Said the commander before walking away, leaving Marshall to stare questioningly at King.
‘’Something new happened, Admiral?’’
‘’Not really, General Marshall. I was just dealing with a late adjustment in naval unit deployments.’’
Marshall, not really convinced, however let it go at that: he had plenty of problems of his own to deal with right now.
In another section of the port, the Spanish Naval Attaché in Washington, Captain Rodrigo Garamon, was accompanying the Spanish Consul in what was officially a visit to various Spanish nationals and shipping companies in Portland, to inspect the damage and losses caused by last night’s pandemonium. Consul Pedro Morales actually had quite a few people to visit relative to that matter, as debris and unexploded ordnance had rained all over the port and town area, causing dozens of civilian casualties and some extensive damages to property. Morales, who was a strong fascist sympathizer, fully intended to dump those damages and losses at the door of the U.S. government in general and the U.S. Navy in particular, claiming that American Navy negligence had caused them. Garamon’s motives were however more subtle. While he had come to Portland with Morales to officially advise him and lend him his competences in naval affairs, Garamon also worked for the Spanish Military Intelligence, which in turn had close ties with the German Abwehr. He already had bought a number of copies of local newspapers, which had published hyperbolic articles and striking pictures about the sinking of destroyers in the harbor and the destruction of Fort Williams, and this despite the efforts of the official government censors to hide that double disaster from the American public. In that last respect, censorship could not possibly hide everything: panicked telephone conversations between residents of Portland and their friends and family members around the rest of the country had already made impossible to deny the extent of the damage, or the culprits who had caused it. As he was looking at the blackened, twisted remains of destroyer superstructures sticking out of the waters of the harbor, Garamon couldn’t help mentally praise the daring and abilities of the German submarine captain who had managed to pull such a feat.
21:36 (New York Time)
East Point, northeast shore of Nahant Peninsula
Five nautical miles north-northeast of Boston Harbor
‘’Maybe we should apply for tourist visas at this rate, Herr Leutnant.’’ Joked in a near whisper Unteroffizier Franz Stein as he helped carry the team’s rubber inflatable boat out of the surf and up the pebble shore on which he and his six comrades had just landed at night after a silent but strenuous approach on paddle power. That made Hugo Margraff smile as he pictured such a scene.
‘’Yeah! I could imagine the face of the American customs officer as he stamps our passports…at gunpoint!’’
There were a few chuckles then before they regained their seriousness. Unfortunately for them, the shoreline near the water’s edge was devoid of vegetation and they had to actually climb the moderate slope of a short cliff while carrying their boat before finding bushes substantial enough to hide and camouflage it. The seven German commandos, led by Hugo, then started their stealthy exploration of the peninsula, walking slowly at a crouch and making as little noise as possible. They already knew the approximate location of the radar previously detected by the U-800, having seen its tall antenna rotate in the night and having been helped by the poor light discipline displayed by the crew of that radar set. Hugo was however resolved to thoroughly explore the whole peninsula before jumping into action: he didn’t want to attack that radar station only to find out too late that more enemy units were nearby and able to react quickly to him.
It took little time to the Brandenburg men before they encountered multiple evidence that a major construction project had been initiated on East Point: dozens of pieces of excavating equipment, along with big piles of bags of concrete mix covered by waterproof tarps and of sand and gravel lay around a large excavation dug on the East-facing side of a long North-South ridgeline cutting across the peninsula. There were even piles of reinforcing steel bars of the kind used to build massive reinforced concrete structures. Exploring cautiously the construction site, which appeared to be unoccupied at this late hour, Hugo soon stumbled onto something that brought a mean smile to his face: a small corrugated steel shack set apart from the rest of the site and bearing warning signs in English.
‘’A depot of dynamite! This could come quite handy later on.’’
Checking the rather flimsy door of the shack, he found it unlocked, another proof of the general carelessness the American military had displayed to date. Silently opening the door and using his flashlight, fitted with a red filter, he saw deep stacks of boxes of dynamite, stacked nearly to the ceiling, along with boxes of detonators, dozens of spools of detonator wires and a few plungers.
‘’Nice! There must be over 600 kilos of dynamite in this shack, enough to do some serious work. This could help us save on our own explosives, men. First, though, let’s continue our scouting work.’’
Closing back the door of the shack, Hugo was about to walk away when the hand of Franz Stein urgently tapped his shoulder.
‘’One sentry up the top of the ridge, Leutnant!’’
Crouching and then freezing at once, Hugo looked up the ridge and saw the incandescent red dot of a lit cigarette, moving from left to right at a slow pace atop the ridge.
‘’I see him! Since that sentry is near the northern end of that ridge, I think that it would be safe to assume that there is at least one other sentry patrolling near the southern edge. We will avoid them for the time being, but they will probably be the first ones to be eliminated once we go into action. Let’s go inspect that radar station now.’’
That radar station, situated on the top of a small, low hill east of the ridgeline, proved to be composed of a tall mesh radar antenna mounted on a flatbed trailer and connected by thick wires to a radio van and a generator van. A disconnected prime mover truck was parked on lower ground, along with a pair of army trucks, while a pair of large tents were erected at the foot of the hill. Hugo was able to see as well the dark outline of a small building atop the hill.
‘’Hmm! This has all the appearances of a temporary setup. That mobile radar set is probably filling in until more permanent equipment can be brought in, possibly once that big bunker under construction is completed. My bet is that this future bunker is destined to house a large coastal artillery gun.’’
‘’Should we quietly get rid of the operators of that radar station now, Herr Leutnant?’’ Asked Franz Stein, making Hugo shake his head while pointing at a small group of men standing in front of one of the tents and smoking cigarettes while chatting in English.
‘’Not yet! We will visit them later on, when most of them will be asleep. There is also that small building near the radar antenna. It could very well be a visual observation post for artillery spotters…which would mean that there actually are operational artillery guns on this peninsula. Let’s find them first. We will now go towards the southern shoreline of the peninsula and follow it westward. That way, we are liable to encounter any gun position located to cover the approaches to Boston Harbor.’’
Again taking the lead after marking the radar station on a rough, hand-made map of the peninsula, Hugo went southward through the light vegetation and dispersed trees covering this part of the peninsula. Soon arriving at the ledge of a low cliff marking the southern shoreline, he then turned right and started following the ledge, more cautious than ever. After maybe 400 meters of stealthy advance, Hugo stopped and crouched behind a bush while signaling by hand for his men to stop and crouch. Using his wide lens binoculars, he saw in fair detail what had attracted his attention: a big towed gun set on a wide concrete pad, with its split towing trails opened and spread. The gun was facing southeast and had a fine view of all of the Bay of Massachusetts. A row of camouflaged tents stood behind and to one side of the gun, with two medium army trucks parked beside the tents. Two sentries stood next to the towed gun, chatting while watching the sea. Hugo silently pointed the gun position to his men, then signaled them to bypass it from the rear. It took a good fifteen minutes to complete that move but Hugo was in no real hurry: for him now, stealth was much more important than speed. That in fact allowed him to find a second, similar towed gun position about 200 meters further west, without being detected or triggering a single cry of alarm. He also was able to see at the same time a second giant excavation site near the southern end of the ridgeline. Noting the position of that gun and of the second construction site as well on his crude map, Hugo continued westward, skirting the foot of the hill dominating the two towed gun positions. Beyond that hill, the coastline twisted north, with a sort of valley sandwiched between the ridgeline containing the gun casemates under construction and a steep hill forming the western corner of East Point. More construction equipment and supplies were stored in that valley, while concrete buildings under construction and rows of tents were also in evidence. The whole peninsula was proving quickly to be the site of some major construction project, probably the building of coastal artillery gun casemates destined to protect Boston Harbor.
Hugo was still quickly sketching the construction sites and tent groups on his map when Michel Drücker lightly tapped his shoulder and pointed at something in the distance, a couple of kilometers directly to the West.
‘’Leutnant, there is something really big over there. Look at those two distant white patches on the eastern slopes of that far hill. I believe that I also just saw the tip of burning cigarettes from those white patches.’’
‘’Alright, let’s look at them.’’
Taking out again his night binoculars, Hugo examined for a long moment the two white patches, which now appeared to him far from inoffensive through his lenses.
‘’Bingo! Those two white patches are in reality the concrete faces of big gun casemates looking southeast towards the open sea. I see two dark masses in the middle of those concrete faces that must be heavy coastal guns. As well, I can see an observation and spotting tower behind that battery, with a whole village’s worth of lit buildings behind and to the right of the gun casemates. This has all the looks of a coastal fort.’’
While still observing, Hugo started thinking furiously about his next moves. His men however stayed silent, being used to his tactical style and knowing better than to bother him at such a moment. He finally lowered his binoculars and made a sign for his men to gather close to him, then spoke in a low voice.
‘’Those coastal gun casemates are now our top priority targets, along with the radar station we saw earlier. There however appears to be a sizeable garrison lodged near those gun casemates, thus we can expect a quick and fierce reaction once we start blowing shit up over there. Before that happens, I want to eliminate the enemy soldiers in the eastern half of the peninsula that could block our withdrawal route. That will also give us a chance to go grab some dynamite at the construction site. Let’s go back to the two towed gun positions: they will be our first objectives. We will use only silenced weapons or knives until further notice.’’
Going back to the nearest of the two towed gun positions took a mere ten minutes, now that they knew the terrain better. Most of the crew of that towed gun, a 155mm piece, was now asleep, with their tents obscure, leaving two bored sentries standing and chatting near the field gun. Evaluating quickly the distances and the ground, Hugo sent Heinrich Bayerlein and Karl Haussmann to perform left and right hooks around the gun position, in order to kill the sentries from close range. Taking his four remaining men with him, he then slowly approached the two darkened tents, from which snores could be heard. Cautiously looking in turn inside both tents by raising slightly a rear flap, he counted the number of occupied camp cots inside them, then waited for Bayerlein and Haussmann to complete their job. That didn’t take long, with both American sentries killed with silenced pistols from a distance of merely three meters. With the way now free, Hugo waited for his two men to return to the group, then led them quietly inside one of the two tents, his silenced pistol in his hand. At a single word from him, seven pistols coughed once, with three pistols shooting a second time a second later to finish executing the artillerymen sleeping in that tent. Going next to the other tent, they found only three sleeping men there, which were executed as well. Using his red-filtered flashlight afterwards to inspect the inside of the second tent, Hugo found an American Army detailed map of the Boston area on a folding table, covered with transparent plastic and bearing a number of symbols written with felt pens. There was also a heavy HF radio set on that same table, along with a radio log book and a notepad. Noting down in his own notepad the frequency on which the radio was tuned, Hugo then eagerly grabbed the 1:10,000 scale military map and examined the symbols and markings on it, grinning nearly at once.
‘’Hey, guys, the gun battery we saw to the West is part of a Fort Ruckman and is called Battery Gardner. I also see a lot of other potential juicy targets for us within a few miles from here, enough in fact to keep us busy for a couple of days. I will try to contact by radio the U-800 to pass some information and ask for a delay in pickup. In the meantime, each of you will grab an American Army overcoat that can fit, along with a steel helmet, rifle and web gear: we may need to go around Boston in disguise. We will also use one of the two medium trucks here to go around. Stein, search the dead Americans and their uniforms for possible interesting documents, likes lists of passwords and radio call signs. Grab as well all the American cash money and field rations you can find: they could prove useful during the next couple of days.’’
‘’I’m on it, Herr Leutnant!’’
As his men got busy, Hugo sat at the table supporting the HF radio transceiver and changed its frequency, tuning it to the frequency used by the U-800, then put on the ear set and grabbed the microphone, pressing the ‘talk’ switch and speaking in German.
‘’Silent Wolf, this is Lander, over.’’
Hugo had to repeat his call another two times before finally getting a response in German.
‘’Lander, this is Silent Wolf. Go ahead, over!’’
‘’From Lander, request a two-day delay in pickup at alternate site Bravo. We will have some extra work to do here, over.’’
There was a slight delay before a new voice, that of Otto Kretschmer, answered him.
‘’This is Silent Wolf. Two-day delay and pickup at site Bravo accepted. Anything else, over?’’
‘’Affirmative, Silent Wolf! Main big sticks located on Nahant Peninsula, Hog Island and Outer Brewster Island. Control centers for floating eggs on Great Brewster Island and Deer Island. That’s all for the time being, over.’’
‘’I copy your information, Lander. Good luck and out.’’
Satisfied, Hugo put down his ear set and microphone and changed back the frequency on the radio to the original one, then went to find an American overcoat, helmet and pistol belt for himself. That didn’t take long, with Hugo also filling a U.S. Army haversack with field rations, on top of stuffing his captured map and notepad in it. Franz Stein had a smile on his face when he came to Hugo to hand him fourteen dollars in small bills and coins.
‘’Your portion of the money loot, Herr Leutnant. It seems that the soldiers of the U.S. Army are paid better than our own soldiers.’’
‘’Well, we were not exactly planning on stopping at some four star restaurant, Franz, so this should prove enough for our immediate needs. Let’s hide the bodies first before we move on. We will take the truck after all the opposition to the East of here is taken care of. Our next objective is now the second towed gun position.’’
Leading his team eastward on foot, Hugo was approaching the other towed gun and its small camp fifteen minutes later. The sentries there didn’t prove more vigilant than at the previous gun position and were quickly and silently dispatched, with their sleeping comrades also dying a minute later. The search of the dead men and of the tents yielded more cash money and rations, plus a pair of something that impressed Hugo quite a bit: hand-held transceiver radios which weighed about two and a half kilos each and were the size of a brick. Inspecting them quickly, he found a nomenclature plate on their back sides, along with a panel opening for a battery housing.
‘’SCR-536 AM Radio Transceiver… Hmm! This looks handy as hell. I’m buying!’’
Looking around the tent, he soon found spare batteries, pocketing a few while giving the others, along with one of the hand radios, to his second-in-command.
‘’Here you go, Franz: this should prove quite useful.’’
‘’Indeed, Herr Leutnant! This is much lighter and handier than our own field radios.’’
‘’Then, let’s tune them to a common frequency before we go visit that radar station.’’
While tuning them proved easy, the radios providing only a few preset frequencies to chose from, it took them longer to figure out how to switch them on, as they could not find an ‘on/off’ switch. Hugo finally found the trick when his radio came alive after he pulled out the short telescopic antenna.
‘’Aaah, here we go! How do you read me, over?’’
Stein, who had walked a few paces away, also pulled up his antenna and spoke.
‘’I hear you loud and clear!’’
‘’Excellent! Close your radio, then let’s go!’’
Now loaded quite heavily, with captured enemy equipment and uniforms added to their or