05:29 (Halifax Time)
Monday, February 15, 1943
Family’s apartment, residential suburb of Halifax
Nova Scotia, Canada
Charles Simpson would have preferred for his wife and kids to keep sleeping as he quietly packed his kit bag for yet another risk-filled transatlantic crossing on his cargo ship, but his wife Rachel was already awake in bed, having apparently been unable to go to sleep. Rachel, seeing him pack his meager things, left their bed and went to him, gluing herself to his back and holding him emotionally with both arms.
‘’Do you really have to go, Charlie? So many of our neighbors have gone and never returned in the last few months.’’
Interrupting his packing, Charles turned around to embrace his wife, both having tears in their eyes.
‘’I must, Rachel! England badly needs the cargo of wheat grain that the TRURO is due to carry on this trip. Besides, if I don’t go I will end up jobless and may just be conscripted into the army or navy. I will be careful, I promise you.’’
‘’Then, let me wake up the kids: they will want to see their father before he goes to sea again.’’
She didn’t add ‘…for the last time’ then and went with Charles into the bedroom occupied by six year-old Emily and four year-old John. There, Rachel gently woke up their two oldest children and let them hug Charles while she went back to the main bedroom, in which a crib contained one year-old Mary. Rachel brought their baby daughter to her husband, who took little Mary in his arms and kissed her on her forehead. He kept her in his arms for a good minute, savoring the moment, then gave her back to Rachel so that he could kiss as well Emily and John and hug them one last time. His heart broken and his eyes wet, Charles finally picked up his kit bag and quickly finished filling it, then shouldered its carrying strap and kissed Rachel on the lips.
‘’I will return, Rachel, I promise. Take good care of the kids in the meantime.’’
He then turned around and left before he could change his mind.
Charles took the nearest bus line from his home that went to the port area, ending forty minutes later on the quay at which the TRURO, a relatively small general cargo ship, was tied up. Climbing with a heavy heart the gangway leading up to the weather deck, he was greeted at the top by old Ronald Blake, the First Mate of the TRURO and a true salty dog.
‘’Hello, Ronald! I am not late, I hope?’’
‘’Not at all, Charlie. We will depart in only two hours. Go unpack! I will see you again with the others before we cast off.’’
Ronald Blake marked off Charles’ name on his list of 28 crewmembers, then resumed his wait at the top of the gangway. There had been more and more instances of merchant crewmen not showing up for departure in the last few weeks and Captain Morton was nervous about ending shorthanded for this trip to England. On the other hand, Ronald could understand, even if he didn’t excuse them, those who had decided to desert their ships. The losses among merchant ships doing transatlantic runs had been truly appalling in the last few months, while service conditions and pay had not improved one bit. At least, Captain Morton had not been a bastard about that and had done his best to support his crewmen, contrary to other ship captains who had turned into modern day versions of Captain Bligh{35} in order to enforce discipline aboard their ships.
As the hour for departure was coming closer and closer, Blake had to bitterly realize that they would end up with maybe four men short for this trip. By the time that Captain Morton gave the order to fire up the boilers, then to cast off the lines of the TRURO, five men were still missing. The graying captain of the TRURO lowered his head for a moment when told about the missing men, then looked outside the bridge at the various ships inside Halifax Harbor.
‘’Well, if that could reassure a bit the men, Ronald, I was told at the briefing given by the harbormaster that we are going to proceed independently to England: as of yesterday, the transatlantic convoy system has been discontinued. The convoy that went by from New York four days ago was the last one, with all ships now running on independent courses and timings. That way, the Admiralty is hoping to swamp German submarines with a multitude of widely dispersed targets. With luck, we will make it to England and back…again!’’
Blake could only nod in approval at that. What he and Morton didn’t know yet was that the decision to terminate the convoy system for transatlantic runs had been taken after the last convoy mentioned by Morton had been mauled and nearly completely destroyed off Newfoundland.
09:14 (Newfoundland Time)
Wednesday, February 17, 1943
Control room of the U-800, sailing at periscope depth
220 nautical miles southwest of St John’s, Newfoundland
‘’Well, this is not what I would call an overly juicy target.’’ Said Otto while looking through the eyepiece of his attack periscope. ‘’One little, solitary cargo ship of no more than 2,000 tons in displacement.’’
‘’It seems that the British have finally given up on the convoy system, Herr Kapitän.'’ Said Franz Streib, who was manning the tactical plot table of the U-800. ‘’We haven’t encountered more than one ship at a time in the last day or two.’’
‘’You may be right, my good Franz. We will have to review our tactics in view of that. In the meantime, we have this small cargo ship to take care of. I am however reluctant to waste a torpedo on it and there are patches of fog around us. I think that we will use our deck gun mount instead. ELECTRONIC WARFARE SECTION, DO YOU HAVE ANY AIRBORNE RADAR ON YOUR DETECTORS?’’
There was a slight delay before he got an answer from Albert Wolff.
‘’UH, I’M HAVING SOME PROBLEMS WITH THE CENTIMETRIC RADAR DETECTOR SET, HERR KAPITÄN. HOWEVER, I HAD DETECTED NOTHING THE LAST TIME I CHECKED IT HALF AN HOUR AGO.’’
Otto weighed that response for a moment before deciding that he could take a bit of a risk, with this fog and generally bad weather making it difficult for aircraft to fly around.
‘’Very well! SURFACE, SURFACE! GUN CREW TO THE FORWARD ACCESS AIRLOCK!’’
The big submarine soon broke through the surface of the sea less than 500 meters away from the cargo ship and within mutual visual sight of it. Otto, staying at his periscope, then started flashing via the signal lamp incorporated to his periscope head a short message intended for the cargo ship.
‘’To Canadian cargo ship, this is the U-800. Stop your engines immediately and refrain from transmitting radio messages from now on. If you don’t obey, I will sink you at once instead of letting you evacuate your ship.’’
He repeated twice his message before receiving a reply.
‘’We will comply. Please do not shoot.’’
Otto felt better on seeing the response from the Canadian ship: he never had taken pleasure at killing merchant crewmen or civilian passengers. Denying to the British the goods carried by this cargo ship was enough to satisfy him. He then used his intercom box to address his gun crew.
‘’GUNNERS, TO YOUR DECK STATIONS! WE WILL WAIT UNTIL THE CREW OF THIS SHIP WILL HAVE LOWERED THEIR BOATS IN THE WATER AND HAVE TAKEN SOME DISTANCE BEFORE STARTING TO FIRE.’’
Otto was still at his periscope, watching the crew of the cargo ship as it started lowering its lifeboats, when an alarmed shout came by intercom from Leutnant zur See Wolfgang Schwartz, the 3rd Watch Officer, who had climbed up to the forward open bridge.
‘’ALARM! AIRCRAFT ENGINE NOISE OVERHEAD!’’
Otto didn’t even take the time to swear and shouted at once in the intercom microphone.
‘’GUNNERS, GET BACK INSIDE! HELM, PREPARE FOR EMERGENCY DIVE! ENGINES, SWITCH TO BATTERIES!’’
He was however too late, as two powerful explosions in the waters immediately adjacent to his submarine raised its stern half out of the water, to then splash back. On the open bridge, young Leutnant Schwartz saw the shadow of the B-24 LIBERATOR patrol bomber pass overhead after it had dropped its two depth charges from an altitude of less than 150 meters, having used its new A.S.V. III centimetric airborne radar to bomb blind through the fog. Schwartz then saw large air bubbles come out of the stern section.
‘’WE HAVE BEEN HIT AT THE LEVEL OF THE ELECTRIC MOTORS ROOM!’’
In the control room, a shaken Otto picked himself up from the deck, where he had been projected by the shock of the explosions, and quickly wiped off the blood coming from a cut to his forehead. His head aching and his heart beating furiously, he assessed the situation as best and as quickly as he could. He already could feel his submarine start sinking by the rear, while his control room operators had alarming messages for him.
‘’KAPITÄN, WE HAVE MASSIVE FLOODING IN THE ELECTRIC MOTORS COMPARTMENT! THE STERN BATTERY CELLS HAVE SHORTED AND ARE LETTING OUT ACID FUMES!’’
‘’CLOSE ALL WATERTIGHT DOORS! SWITCH BILGE PUMPS AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY! CLOSE THE CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM!’’
Franz Streib, who had run to the ballast control station, twisted his head to shout at Otto.
‘’KAPITÄN, WE HAVE BLOWN ALL THE AFT BALLASTS BUT WE ARE STILL SINKING BY THE STERN. WE WON’T BE ABLE TO STAY ON THE SURFACE FOR LONG.’’
Otto’s heart sank when he understood that he now had only one option left to him if he wanted to save his crew.
‘’TO ALL THE CREW, THIS IS THE CAPTAIN! ABANDON SHIP! I SAY ABANDON SHIP! USE THE FORWARD AIRLOCK!’’
The crewmen inside the control room looked at him with shock and disbelief, forcing Otto in shouting at them.
‘’WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? I SAID ‘ABANDON SHIP’!’’
Only then did his men started getting up from their seats, to run forward to the airlock adjacent to the control room. Going forward as well, Otto stopped at the helmsman station and, seeing that the electric motors were still responding, sat down and grabbed the controls while pushing the motors to maximum power. With luck, the propulsive power of his propeller would help push up his submarine, which was now inclined at an angle of twenty degrees, thus keeping it on or near the surface and giving more time for his crew to evacuate. Fritz Lent, who was urging on the crewmen as they ran out by the forward airlock, saw Otto at the helm and shouted to him.
‘’HER KAPITÄN, YOU MUST COME OUT NOW! WE HAVE ONLY SECONDS LEFT BEFORE WE SINK UNDER THE SURFACE.’’
‘’YOU GO OUT, LENT! I WILL MAKE SURE THAT WE STAY ON THE SURFACE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. JUST MAKE SURE THAT OUR MEN MAKE IT OUT: THAT’S AN ORDER!’’
The Chief of the Boat hesitated, but his inner sense of discipline took over and he then helped a sailor that had twisted an ankle when the depth charges had made the submarine jerk. Now alone in the control room, Otto felt savage joy when he saw that his gamble was paying off: with the motors at full power, the rate of sinking of his boat had greatly diminished. Another minute or two and all his surviving crewmen would have had time to evacuate. Then, maybe forty seconds later, all the lights went out, while the motors went dead. A bitter Otto understood that the incoming seawater had shorted both the motors and the remaining battery cells. In desperation, he switched on the small flashlight he always kept on him when at sea and, taking one step to the ballast controls station, blew air in all the ballast tanks of the submarine. That delayed by maybe twenty seconds the U-800 from disappearing under the waves, but those seconds were enough to allow the last three men to run out by the forward airlock hatch of the conning tower and to jump into the frigid waters. Realizing that he now could do nothing more to help, Otto made his way to the forward airlock in the dark, helped only by the small light beam of his flashlight. Before he could get to the airlock’s external hatch, the water reached the base of the conning tower and started gushing inside by the opened hatch. The wall of seawater propelled Otto back towards the rear of the control room, where his head banged against the attack periscope’s base. He was only half conscious when the control room fully flooded with seawater.
On the surface of the ocean, the 51 Germans who had succeeded in coming out of the doomed submarine were not yet out of trouble, as they found themselves quickly freezing while swimming in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Only a few had had time to put on life vests and those who did not have vests soon found their legs and arms paralyzed by hypothermia. In the two lifeboats that had been lowered in the water from the TRURO after the U-800 had sent its warning, Charles Simpson watched with his comrades as the impressive German submarine sank stern-first under the surface. Captain Morton, who was still on the deck of his cargo ship, intent on being the last to leave, shouted at his men in the boats while pointing at the heads now visible at the surface around the sinking spot of the submarine.
‘’MISTER BLAKE, TAKE OUR TWO BOATS AND GO FISH OUT THOSE GERMANS BEFORE THEY FREEZE TO DEATH!’’
A crewman looked up indignantly at his captain on hearing that.
‘’WHY SAVE THOSE BASTARDS, SIR? THEY KILLED PLENTY OF OUR FOLKS!’’
Morton gave a no-nonsense look from above at his reticent sailor.
‘’WHY? BECAUSE THOSE BASTARDS COULD REVEAL THE SECRETS OF THAT DAMN U-800 TO OUR NAVY! BECAUSE THOSE BASTARDS WERE READY TO GIVE US A CHANCE TO EVACUATE! ALSO, BECAUSE I ORDERED YOU TO DO SO! NOW, GET ROWING!’’
‘’YOU HEARD THE CAPTAIN!’’ Shouted in turn Ronald Blake, sitting at the rudder of his boat. ‘’START ROWING! THOSE GERMANS WON’T HAVE LONG TO LIVE WITH THAT FREEZING WATER.’’
Urged on by Blake, both lifeboats were soon on their way towards the sinking site, rowing as hard as the men could. On the TRURO, Captain Morton ran back up to his bridge, where he grabbed the microphone of his HF marine radio.
‘’St John’s maritime traffic center, this is the cargo ship TRURO, 220 nautical miles southwest of St John’s. I was challenged and forced to go dead in the water by the German submarine U-800. However, a patrol aircraft intervened in time and sank the U-800. I am now in the process of rescuing the Germans that were able to escape from the U-800 before it sank. I request instructions, over!’’
There was a slight delay before a voice responded.
‘’TRURO, this is the Canadian corvette CHICOUTIMI. We are presently about fifty miles from your position. Did you say the U-800, over?’’
‘’Affirmative, CHICOUTIMI! The U-800 came to the surface to give us time to evacuate our ship before sinking it. As far as I can see, I may be able to save a few dozen men from the crew of the U-800, over.’’
‘’Understood, TRURO! We are on our way!’’ Said the voice on the radio, sounding quite happy for obvious reasons. It was as if Morton had announced that the Devil himself had died. Going back out on the open wing of his bridge, Morton saw that his men had started fishing out Germans from the water. Only then did he start to worry about the fact that his whole arsenal on his ship consisted of a grand total of one revolver and twelve bullets.
On the lifeboat piloted by Ronald Blake, Charles Simpson bent over the side and grabbed a German under his armpits, then pulled him out of the water with the help of another merchantman. The German had no life vest on but, strangely enough, wore a cook’s apron. Not able to speak German, Charles then guided the shivering young German to the forward half of the life boat, where the other Germans already fished out were being grouped under the watch of a seaman armed with a long knife. His boat ended up rescuing 21 Germans, while another fifteen Germans were taken aboard the second life boat. The other Germans had by then sunk out of sight, overcome by hypothermia. There was little said during the return trip to the TRURO, where seamen fixed back the life boats to their davits and then pulled them back up into their stowage positions, still filled with Canadian and German sailors. Captain Morton was on deck to greet them, giving a few orders to his men.
‘’Harris, Bigelow and Davies, go back to your stations and man the helm and the engines. Mister Blake, have those Germans brought to the crew mess and give them some hot coffee and warm blankets. Here is my revolver: use it to keep an eye on them but don’t let anyone use any unnecessary violence on our prisoners.’’
After Blake took his revolver and spare bullets, Morton then stepped closer to the boats and shouted in English at the shivering Germans.
‘’DO ANY OF YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?’’
To his surprise, a good half dozen Germans raised one hand.
‘’Well, we do have a well educated crew here! ALRIGHT, WHO IS THE HIGHEST RANKING IN YOUR LOT?’’
After a moment, with the Germans looking at each other, one man in his late thirties raised his hand again.
‘’I am! Kapitänleutnant Konrad List: I am the ship’s doctor.’’
‘’You had a doctor on your submarine? And what about your captain?’’
List lowered his head as he replied with obvious sadness.
‘’Fregattenkapitän Kretschmer went down with his boat, mister.’’
From their sad collective reaction, Morton was able to tell that those Germans seemingly respected and liked very much their now-dead captain.
‘’Very well, Doctor List. I am Captain Andrew Morton, skipper of the TRURO. I can reassure you that you will all be treated correctly and according to the international conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. My First Mate will now guide you to our crew mess, where you will be able to get some hot coffee. If you may go first, Doctor List.’’
‘’Very well!’’ Said List before raising his voice and giving orders in German to the survivors of the U-800. To Morton’s surprise, the Germans, despite shivering from the cold, suddenly came to attention while facing the sea towards the sinking site of their submarine, then saluted militarily for a minute while keeping silent. Understanding that they were paying an ultimate homage to their dead captain, Morton made signs to his seamen to be patient and not interfere. Once they were finished, the Germans then went inside the cargo ship without further ado. About four hours later, the Canadian corvette HMCS CHICOUTIMI arrived on the scene and went side to side with the TRURO to take delivery of the 36 German submariners from Captain Morton. Some twenty hours later, they were marched out on a quay of the port of St John’s, Newfoundland, under tight military escort.
06:07 (Newfoundland Time)
Royal Navy’s Newfoundland Command’s headquarters
St John’s, Newfoundland
‘’Guards, bring in the prisoner!’’
Lieutenant-commander Rupert Snow eyed with apparent coldness the young man of about 25 years of age who was then pushed inside the bare interrogation room. As an experienced military intelligence interrogator, Snow had already questioned more than a few German prisoners before in this war and spoke fluent German. He however had to say that he had rarely had to deal with a more proud and defiant group of Germans than this bunch from the U-800. Granted, the redoubtable reputation the U-800 had across the Royal Navy had made Snow expect some kind of attitude from the survivors of the U-800 but, up to now, he had been unable to extract anything of interest from the prisoners, most staying silent except to tell their name, rank and serial number. The two Royal Marines escorting the handcuffed German then pushed him down on a wooden chair facing Snow from across a small table before taking waiting positions in corners behind the prisoner. Snow studied for a moment the face of the German while making a point of consulting from time to time a file that he kept standing at an angle, so that the prisoner wouldn’t see that the file contained mostly blank sheets of papers.
‘’Your name and rank?’’ Asked frostily Snow after a long moment of silence. The German answered at once in a monotone voice.
‘’I am Bootsmansmaat Dieter Hannig, service number 20057322.’’
‘’What was your position on the U-800?’’ Asked Snow next, not hoping for much. Up to now, none of the prisoners had answered that question, except for the ship’s doctor, who was requested by international conventions to identify himself as a medical personnel. Snow was thus surprised to hear Hannig answer him in a defiant tone.
‘’I was the second most important man on the U-800 after Kapitän Kretschmer.’’
‘’Really? And how could a simple senior NCO be second in line to the captain on a submarine?’’
‘’I said ‘second most important man’, not ‘second in line’, mister.’’ Corrected the German, wiggling his right index at Snow. ‘’I was the cook.’’
Taken off balance for a second, Snow then had to contain himself in order not to burst out laughing. That German certainly had a sense of humor. The interrogator however managed to keep a straight face.
‘’I see! And would the cook from the U-800 be ready to answer some questions from me?’’
Hannig then took a faked indignant expression while raising his voice.
‘’I will never divulge to you the secret recipes from my grandmother, even under the worst tortures!’’
Snow covered his face with his hands while shaking his head.
‘’Guards, get this clown out of here!’’
14:48 (Paris Time)
Saturday, February 27, 1943
BdU headquarters, Lorient
France
Admiral Karl Dönitz sat slowly behind his work desk, the letter from the International Red Cross he had just received still in his hands. The letter listed the members of the crew of the U-800 who were now officially prisoners of war of the British. Otto Kretschmer’s name was not on the list. Getting back on his feet, Dönitz walked slowly out of his office, to go to a lounge whose large windows faced the nearby sea. There, he gazed in silence at the waves and the cloudy sky, paying a last mental tribute to Otto Kretschmer. He may be gone now, but his exploits had pushed the British close to the brink of defeat. Now, if Germany played its cards right and if the lessons taught by Kretschmer took hold across the German submarine community, then victory was still possible.