CHAPTER 4 – KIPPER ON THE MENU
16:38 (Berlin Time)
Wednesday, May 12, 1943
Wardroom of U-900, Submarine Pen Number Four
Submarine bunker ‘Bruno’, Bergen naval base
Southern Norway
Ulrich waited that all seven of his officers were seated around the long dining table of the officers’ wardroom before starting to speak in a friendly, relaxed tone.
‘’Well, gentlemen, you must be dying to know by now what is our mission and where Admiral Dönitz is sending us. Since we have a few hours available to us while the base personnel is topping up our diesel fuel tanks, now is a good time to put you in the picture.’’
Turning over a map that he had laid face down on the table, he gave his officers a few seconds to look at it. There were a few gasps in response, something he had expected and also could understand very well.
‘’Gentlemen, our mission will be to hit the shipping around the North and West coasts of Great-Britain, including inside the Irish Sea and the Mull of Kintyre, concentrating on hitting the maritime traffic heading to the port of Liverpool. Admiral Dönitz is however giving us carte blanche on how to proceed and on the routes we will take to accomplish the mission. The one thing he wants is to stop cargo and tanker ships from getting to Liverpool with their precious supplies. If we can do that, on top of the damage inflicted on enemy shipping by our other submarines lying off the Canadian coast and Newfoundland, then Great-Britain will have no choice but to sue for peace if it doesn’t want to starve in the dark.’’
‘’But, Herr Kapitän,’’ objected his first watch officer, Oberleutnant zur See Bruno Barber, ‘’the British coastal waters are lousy with maritime patrol aircraft, patrol ships and coastal observers, plus underwater minefields laid in strategic locations.’’
Ulrich nodded his head to Barber, a man with enormous experience as a submariner, having enlisted years ago as a simple sailor and who had obtained his commission as an officer two years ago.
‘’That is all true, Bruno, and that is why Admiral Dönitz gave that mission to us. We are the only U-Boot capable of doing this mission and survive. Our other boats don’t have enough endurance or speed underwater to escape constant British air and sea patrols in the constricted waters around Great-Britain. We also happen to be by far the most heavily armed U-Boot in the fleet, with plenty of torpedoes and sea mines to do lots of damage during our war patrol. Hell, if things allow it, we may even use our twin 12.7 centimeter gun mount to bombard some British coastal installations.’’
His officers looked at each other, still concerned, before his third watch officer, Leutnant zur See Heinz Blischke, spoke up.
‘’And what itinerary will we follow, Herr Kapitän?’’
‘’Well, since we came out of the Baltic and are now in Norway, we will evidently have to round Scotland by the North before we could go down the North Channel and the Mull of Kintyre, in order to enter the Irish Sea. From there, we will play things as they go, alternatively hiding and attacking to inflict maximum damage on the British and escape their patrols. But first, I intend us to leave a few gifts…here!’’
His officers collectively held their breaths when Ulrich put his right index on top of the Orkney Islands, where the biggest Royal Navy base and anchorage was situated.
‘’We are going to attack Scapa Flow, Herr Kapitän?’’ asked his second watch officer, Werner Wendt. ‘’But, after Kapitän Prien’s daring raid in 1940, the British are liable to have reinforced further the defenses of their harbor.’’
‘’True, but we won’t try to enter the anchorage area proper. Here is what we will do…’’
23:11 (London Time)
Friday, May 14, 1943
Forward underwater observation dome of the U-900
Depth of thirty meters, approach channel to Hoxa Sound
Orkney Islands, North Sea
‘’Helm, three degrees to starboard… Steady! Keep present depth…’’
Ulrich, standing beside his helmsman manning the surface helm station inside the forward underwater observation dome of his U-900, kept looking through his own infrared sight as he gave directives quietly, helping his helmsman steer a safe course in the channel between the South Ronaldsay and Swona islands of the Orkney Islands. His submarine was now less than 4,000 meters from the anti-submarine net blocking the entrance to the Hoxa Sound, one of the three passageways giving access to the Scapa Flow anchorage area. His helmsman also had an infrared sight for himself, but it was mounted on a swiveling mount in front of him, while Ulrich was using a hand-held model. All nine powerful infrared projectors contained within pressure-resistant vessels and ringing the frontal arc of the submarine’s sail, plus the four other projectors installed around the bow, were on, ‘illuminating’ the underwater canyon they were following with infrared light invisible to the naked eye. Those infrared lights and sights, combined with the underwater observation domes of the U-900, now made possible to Ulrich something no other submarine could do: navigate with precision at depth and in pitch black waters. The forward and stern lateral thrusters of the U-900 further helped by helping him compensate for the strong currents pushing his boat sideways as he silently glided at a speed of three knots towards the entrance’s defensive net. Right now, however, his two biggest worries were to accidentally scrape the bottom with his submarine’s keel and to hit some sea mine that the British could have sown in this entrance channel, even though that last possibility was quite remote. British ships entering or leaving Scapa Flow had to use these entrance channels, which were quite narrow already, so he doubted that they would have placed mines in this location. However, Ulrich preferred to play it as safe as possible tonight: the rest of his mission was going to be at the least as risky as this part.
As the underwater canyon he was in was suddenly widening dramatically, he caught sight of something dead ahead, less than 1,000 meters.
‘’Dead stop! I see the British defensive net at about 900 meters in front of us. Announce the depth!’’
‘’Our keel is at a depth of 28 meters, Herr Kapitän. We maybe have four or five meters of water under it at present.’’
‘’Good! Control room, be ready to launch individual mines on my command. Anything on hydrophones?’’
‘’Negative, Herr Kapitän. We can’t hear any ship on the move nearby. We however do hear some faint noises from inside the anchorage area, possibly from a barge or motor boat.’’
‘’Excellent! Then, we should have plenty of time to plant our eggs and disappear. Helm, pivot seventy degrees to port and proceed forward at three knots.’’
‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän!’’
A few minutes later, as they were right in the middle of the entrance channel used by ships passing through the designated gate in the defensive net, Ulrich gave a terse order.
‘’Control, eject one mine from our starboard tubes, now!’’
Praying that the noise of the discharge of compressed air would not alert the British, who may have installed hydrophones to watch the area of the entrance channels, Ulrich was able to see with his infrared sight the long cylindrical shape of the powerful TMC type sea mine as it was ejected out and fell to the nearby bottom. At the depth of 32 meters at which it landed on the bottom’s silt, its 1,000 kilo explosive warhead and combined acoustic/magnetic influence mine should be devastating to any British heavy warship passing over it. Ulrich ordered the separate, successive launches of five more mines as his submarine slowly followed a parallel course to the anti-submarine net, leaving a distance of at least 600 meters to it. Once that was done, he made his helmsman go down the western approach channel to the Hoxa Sound. However, he didn’t plant more mines there, as the bottom was too deep along it to make TMC mines truly effective. Instead, he waited for his U-900 to emerge from the channel, then directed his helmsman to follow closely the underwater ridge of Hoy Island, to their starboard, while making him accelerate a bit. A bit over two hours later, they arrived in front of the anti-submarine defensive net barring the entrance to the Hoy Sound, the other entrance to Scapa Flow, where Ulrich had six more mines ejected at interval. As his U-900 turned West-southwest and accelerated away from Scapa Flow, Ulrich allowed himself to discretely blow air out in relief: this was definitely not his favorite spot on Earth. He however knew that he was still not safe, by a long shot: the British may have had a shortage of warships lately, mostly thanks to the U-800, but they still had hundreds of aircraft patrolling along the coasts of Great-Britain, ready to drop depth bombs on the unsuspecting submarines they would be able to see from above. Ulrich thus had his U-900 continue deep under on electric motors, as quiet as a ghost.
At around five in the morning, just before Sunrise, Ulrich had his submarine stop and rest on the bottom, at a depth of seventy meters. He was now off Cape Wrath, which formed the northwest tip of Scotland. Grabbing the intercom’s microphone hooked near the attack periscope, he pressed the ‘talk’ switch and spoke in a calm voice.
‘’Attention all hands! This the Captain speaking! We are now resting on the bottom at a depth of seventy meters, some forty nautical miles off Cape Wrath, Scotland. We will now stay immobile and quiet until nine tonight, when it will be dark again. Then we will rise to periscope depth and recharge our batteries while heading for the second phase of our mission. In the meantime, rest, relax and make as little noise as possible while at minimal stations.’’
Once that was done, he turned to look at his third watch officer.
‘’Leutnant Blischke, you have control. I am going to have something to eat and then will go rest in my suite.’’
In any other submarine except for the late U-800, mentioning a ‘Captain’s suite’ would have made eyes roll. However, as in the U-800, the crew accommodations in the U-900 were downright palatial in comparison to other U-Boote, with each crewmember having his own bunk bed, personal effects locker and one of the two large drawers installed under each double bunk. The petty officers and junior officers each had individual cabins, while he, the Captain, had a small suite with a sleeping cabin, private bathroom and a private office. Many would have called that extravagant but, from his own experience while serving on the U-800, Ulrich could say that this level of comfort did a lot to help keep the morale of the crew high during long war patrols. The other big factor in maintaining crew morale was good food, something that was worked hard on aboard all U-Boote at sea. The cook on U-800, Dieter Hannig, now a prisoner of the British, had rightly said that the cook was the second most important man aboard a submarine, just after the captain. With a galley even larger and better equipped than that of the U-800 and with none other than Dieter Hannig’s father presiding in it, the men of the U-900 really had no reasons to complain in that respect.
Going down one deck and going forward through the officers’ quarters compartment and past the infirmary, Ulrich stepped inside the vast compartment housing both the galley and the crew cafeteria/mess, where up to seventy men, basically the whole crew, could sit down and eat at proper tables, another uncommon facility aboard a submarine. Going to the self-serve counter along one side of the cafeteria, Ulrich checked what was available there. What he saw made him nod in approval. An assortment of fresh bread, along with jars of fruit jams, was kept on one portion of counter, covered in order to keep their freshness. Next to it was a small refrigerator containing fresh milk, cream, butter and an assortment of cold cuts and cheese. There was also a salad bar, a fresh fruit bar and a steam table for warm food. There was a big stainless steel pot resting on the steam table and Ulrich raised its lid to see what it contained. The appetizing smell of a nice-looking goulash soup hit his nostrils at once, making his eyes close in contentment for a second. Grabbing the large service ladle hooked near the pot, he found plenty of chunks of meat floating in the soup as he stirred the ladle in it. His mind now made up on his menu, Ulrich grabbed a soup bowl and filled it with goulash soup, then cut for himself a couple of thick slices of fresh bread and grabbed a spoon. He could have gone to eat his soup and bread at the nearby officers’ wardroom, or could even have had the assistant cook bring him his food there, but Ulrich, despite his aristocratic name, was no snob and liked to be with his men. He thus went to a nearby table normally reserved for the petty officers in the crew and sat there after exchanging verbal salutes with three crewmembers who were sipping on hot coffee mugs and eating jam-covered toasts. His soup quickly proved as tasty as it smelled good and he ate it with gusto, dipping chunks of bread in it from time to time. He was done eating in twenty minutes and got up to bring his dirty dishes to the large sink sitting near a big, commercial-size dishwashing machine, the kind you saw in big cafeterias and restaurants. Sometime later on, a crewman on kitchen duty was going to scrape off the food leftovers into a nearby trash bin, then rinse those dirty dishes with cold sea water before placing them on the mobile tray of the dishwater. However, that machine was powered on only when the tactical situation allowed some noise to be made. If not, then other men on kitchen duty would be stuck washing manually the dishes at another pair of sinks. Still, that was a lot better than what the men in other submarines had to live with. His stomach now nicely filled, Ulrich then headed back aft and up to go sleep in his suite.
09:20 (London Time)
Saturday, May 15, 1943
U-900, resting on the sea bottom
Off the Northwest coast of Scotland
Otto Hannig, having climbed up two deck levels from his galley, found himself into one of the four, five meter-diameter pressurized steel towers occupying most of the internal volume of the submarine’s sail. Those pressurized towers, lined up back to back along the central axis of the submarine, were also connected together via their adjacent walls, allowing easy circulation between them through water-tight hatches. Also, two of those towers were topped by the underwater observation domes of the U-900. Apart from the late U-800, no other submarine had such a sail internal architecture, but that was already changing fast as more TYPE XXI Class boats were being built and were entering service. For Otto Hannig and for his comrades, that architecture provided a dramatic increase in the volume available for living facilities and storage, making service aboard even more comfortable and pleasant. Right now, he was in the forward-most pressurized tower, which was topped by an underwater observation dome and which was used to store deck equipment and some ready ammunition for the twin 12.7 centimeter gun mount and for the forward twin 3.7 centimeter FLAK M42U anti-aircraft gun mount. It also contained the top section of one of the two lift cage wells of the submarine, which serviced all five deck levels of the boat, from the Weather Deck down to the Lower Deck. Those two lifts had been incorporated into the boat’s design mostly because of the huge number of heavy battery cells stored on the Lower Deck which provided the long endurance underwater that made the U-900 such a formidable boat. Each of those battery cells weighed 800 kilos and, when needing to be replaced or refurbished, lifting such a mass up ladders and through deck hatches was a true herculean task, thus the fitting of two one-ton lifts inside the submarine. Those lifts were also most useful to handle and store away the various supplies needed for a war patrol, or to lift machinery parts or other objects or pieces of cargo that was no bigger than one square meter of bottom surface. Going aft and entering the next tower via an interconnecting hatch, Hannig simply went through that tower, which was used to store away inflatable boats and divers’ equipment, to go into the third tower, his destination. That tower, in which the vertical tube wells of the schnorchel system went through from ceiling to deck, was known as the ‘underwater smoking lounge’ of the boat and was a very popular place for the crew, as a dedicated local air recycling, filtering and conditioning system allowed the smoking of tobacco while underwater. When Hannig stepped inside that tower, also of a diameter of five meters, he had to separate two black curtains that both kept in tobacco smoke and hid the white light from the adjacent tower. The lounge itself was plunged into semi-obscurity, with only a couple of red light bulbs providing artificial illumination. Some more illumination came from the six, sixty centimeter-diameter, thick acrylic viewing ports that gave a view of the ocean outside to the men relaxing in the lounge. When he had first used this lounge underwater, Otto had thought that these viewing ports were pure genius, as they did a lot to break the claustrophobic feeling created by working for weeks inside a closed steel cylinder. Allied with the freedom to smoke, that made the underwater smoking lounge about the most popular place in the submarine, next to the two underwater observation domes. Taking an empty seat next to one of the viewing ports, Otto took out a cigarette and lit it up as he looked outside through the dark water. With the Sun now up, some of its light was filtering to the bottom, but not much. That was however still enough to allow Otto to watch a few fish swim around on or near the bottom. Enjoying his cigarette and relaxing while watching the marine life around, Otto spent ten minutes in the lounge, then regretfully left, having to return to his galley in order to prepare lunch for the crew.
Eleven hours later, the U-900 got slowly off the bottom and rose to near the surface while taking some speed, heading South-southwest. With his towed array sonar fish reeled out, Ulrich waited until his sonar operators told him that there were no ships nearby before he raised his search periscope, making its head pierce the surface. As he carefully looked around, his electronic warfare operator, sitting in a compartment just aft of the control room, monitored the readings from the passive radar and radio detectors crowning the top of the search periscope head.
‘’No radar signal detected in the vicinity, Herr Kapitän. There are however a number of radio signals in the HF band that I can hear, but nothing that appears to be communications from a plane.’’
‘’Very well! RAISE THE SCHNORCHEL! SWITCH TO DIESELS AND START RECHARGING THE BATTERIES ONCE IT IS UP AND OPERATING. PURGE THE SEWAGE TANKS, REFILL OUR COMPRESSED AIR BOTTLES AND CIRCULATE FRESH AIR THROUGH THE BOAT.’’
As the men in the control room acted on his orders, Ulrich went to his chart table and called to his side his second watch officer to tell him where they were going.
‘’We are now here, off Cape Wrath and heading South-southwest. I want us to go down the sea channel between the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides. Stay over the deepest part of the channel while running on schnorchel, so that we could dive deeply if some threat shows up. If anything untoward is detected, call me at once.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’ replied at once Werner Wendt. Satisfied, Ulrich then went to his suite, where he took the time to write a very brief message, using pre-selected code words, to report to BdU that he had successfully mined the entrances to Scapa Flow. That made him wonder if anyone had fallen victim yet to his sea mines there.
22:03 (London Time)
Bridge of the British heavy cruiser H.M.S. BELFAST
Exit channel of the Hoxa Sound, Scapa Flow
Orkney Islands
Captain Herbert Lumley banged his fist on the bulwark of his open bridge, furious, as he watched his lead escort destroyer sink in the exit channel, a mere 600 meters away from the protective anti-submarine net defending the Hoxa Sound. His own cruiser had avoided in extremis blowing itself on a mine, thanks to the quick reflexes of its bridge duty officer, who had instantly reacted and effected an emergency stop on seeing the unfortunate destroyer being lifted out of the water and breaking in two from a powerful explosion under its keel. Now, his cruiser and remaining three destroyers were blocked inside the Hoxa Sound, unable to sail out without risking blowing on a mine until minesweepers could arrive and clear the channel. This however would take many hours, hours that would make him miss his scheduled rendezvous with the arctic convoy he was supposed to help escort to the Soviet port of Murmansk, on the Barents Sea. The idea of using instead the Hoy Sound, the other exit channel of Scapa Flow, played in his head for a moment but he dismissed that idea quickly: if a German submarine had been daring enough to mine this channel, then it would probably have mined the other channel as well. Better wait and let the minesweepers do their job. That Arctic convoy was going to make do without him, after all. What he couldn’t know then was that his absence would eventually cost the convoy dearly, with German long range bombers and submarines left free to attack it with little opposition, sinking five precious cargo ships and two tanker ships off Norway.
21:29 (London Time)
Sunday, May 16, 1943
Control room of U-900
Coming to periscope depth near the southwest tip of Islay Island
25 nautical miles north of the coast of Northern Ireland
Ulrich barely raised the head of his search periscope above the surface of the sea, wanting first his electronic warfare operator to confirm if any radar was detected nearby. He knew that he was now in a heavily patrolled sector near major British naval bases and airfields in Northern Ireland and along the Scottish coast, so he was especially cautious as he was approaching his second target area.
‘’Anything on the active radar spectrum, EW?’’
‘’Uh, quite, Herr Kapitän: I have what sounds like at least four different radar ship sets around us, plus one quite powerful coastal watch radar on the Irish coast, to our 85 magnetic heading. We probably could raise our schnorchel head above the water without too much risks but I wouldn’t bet my shirt on it, Herr Kapitän.’’
‘’Well, discretion will definitely be the better part of valor tonight. We will find ourselves a nice waiting spot as near as possible to the coast and in about 24 meters of water, so that we could recharge our batteries while the coast’s background radar reflection will partially hide our schnorchel’s radar signature. HELM, HEADING 083 AT FIVE KNOTS! STAY ON BATTERIES AND KEEP PRESENT DEPTH.’’
‘’AYE, HERR KAPITÄN!’’
Going quickly to his chart table, Ulrich studied it for a minute, concentrating on the area of the Southwest coast of Islay Island, and finally decided on a spot he wanted to occupy. Using a nearby coastal lighthouse as a navigation point, he calculated his exact location and then a course to the spot he had chosen. Going to his present watch officer, whose seat was close behind that of the helmsman and of the ballast and trim tanks operators, he explained to Leutnant Heinz Blischke where he wanted to go and what were his intentions. Then, he returned to his search periscope, using the same coastal lighthouse as a marker to establish when he would get near his desired location. That soon came up, making Ulrich give a terse order.
‘’Helm, slow down to three knots! Sonar, start pinging with our high-frequency, high-definition set and find me a nice, flat bottom surface next to the coast, with a depth between 22 and 24 meters.’’
It took his sonar operator about six minutes before he spoke up.
‘’Kapitän, I believe that I have a nice spot right ahead, some 400 meters away.’’
Ulrich immediately walked to the high-definition sonar station, situated beside that of the helmsman so that both men could work in coordination, and looked at the sonar display screen before grinning.
‘’Just what I wanted! Helm, land us gently on that small plateau, with our bow facing south. Then, we will wait in ambush there while recharging our batteries.’’
‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän!’’
Satisfied, Ulrich returned to his search periscope and resumed his visual watch around. His chosen ambush position would allow him to wait and watch in relative safety for the next few hours but, once the Sun would be up, any aircraft overflying him would easily see his submarine in such shallow waters. Thus, he needed to find a suitable target tonight.
A number of ships passed by him in the next few hours, most coming out of the nearby North Channel, which connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Irish Sea, which itself separated Ireland from Great-Britain. The first ship seen going into the North Channel was deemed too small by Ulrich. So was the second one. By then, his batteries were fully recharged and, while he kept his schnorchel mast up to refresh the air inside his submarine, he had his three big diesel engines shut down and switched on his 200 kilowatt auxiliary diesel generator instead. That generator set, not being connected to the propeller shaft or to a gearbox, was mounted on a raft with flexible joints and was surrounded by an acoustically-insulated module. That made the auxiliary generator set very quiet, thus was very difficult to be heard by nearby ships equipped with ASDIC, while the generator was more than enough to provide all the ‘hotel loads’, or secondary electrical needs, of the submarine as it lay on the bottom.
At about three in the morning, the sonar of the U-900 picked up an approaching ship large enough to interest Ulrich. It was in fact coming along the usual route followed previously by convoys from the United States or Halifax heading towards Liverpool. Now that the British and Americans had dropped their convoy systems, such arrivals by single ships were the norm. Ulrich decided to take his chance on that newcomer and ordered his U-900 off the bottom and forward on electric motors. Going south at first to cross the path of the incoming big ship, he then waited a few minutes to let the ship pass by him. What he saw in his periscope with the help of the light from a near full moon made him grin.
‘’A big, fat 11,000 ton American tanker ship. Normally, it would make an excellent target for one of my torpedoes, but today is its lucky day. HELM, TRANSFER TO THE SURFACE HELM STATION: WE WILL FOLLOW THAT TANKER SHIP RIGHT UNDER IT.’’
‘’UNDERSTOOD, HERR KAPITÄN!’’
Ulrich himself climbed quickly to the forward underwater observation dome, soon followed by the helmsman, Matrosenobergefreiter Karl Müller, after he had given the helm below to another crewman. He, like Ulrich, could easily see the dark, massive bulk of the tanker’s hull above and to one side of the U-900. Müller quickly took place at the surface helm station of the observat