THE LONE WOLF (2025 Edition) by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 6 – WINSTON’S SPECIAL À LA KRETSCHMER

09:28 (Halifax Time)

Wednesday, November 5, 1941

Control room, U-800

Ninety kilometers southeast of Halifax

‘’They are definitely warships, Herr Kapitän, about ten of them, including three big ones of at least cruiser size. They seem to be patrolling at slow speed off the Halifax Harbor entrance channel. One of them is actively pinging its ASDIC in a search pattern. From the frequency of the pinging, I would say that it is not a British set.’’

‘’Hum, probably Americans then, since the Canadians use British ASDIC equipment.’’ said softly Otto Kretschmer, standing over his hydrophone array operator in the sonar section. He then turned his head towards the adjacent electronic warfare section. ‘’Do you have anything on your detectors, Hoth?’’

‘’I have one metric band search radar sweeping from that group of warships, Herr Kapitän, and it is an American set, judging from the frequency of the pulses. I have as well a couple of British ship radars to the northeast, but quite distant.’’ Otto mentally analyzed for a moment that information, then looked at Leutnant Streib, who was manning the watch periscope. They had travelled back from the Azores mostly on schnorchel, with their watch periscope and EW mast above the surface in order to detect any approaching possible threat.

‘’Leutnant Streib, what do you see around us?’’

‘’Nothing but fog thick enough to slice with a knife, Herr Kapitän.’’

‘’Very well! Helm, continue on present heading but reduce speed to ten knots. We will further reduce speed when close to those American warships.’’

‘’Reducing speed to ten knots, aye Herr Kapitän!’’

‘’What would such a group of American warships do here, off Halifax, Kapitän?’’ asked Franz Streib, curious.

‘’There are a couple of possibilities, including that those warships may have escorted some high value ship or ships to Halifax. They also could be on their way to Iceland as escorts for a convoy. Thus, they could be departing in the following days

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while screening an important convoy to England. If that’s the case, only a troop convoy would merit such a strong escort in my opinion.’’

‘’And would we have the right to attack them, according to international law, Herr Kapitän?’’

Otto’s expression hardened somewhat, as the question touched something he felt quite strongly about.

‘’Yes, we would! The Americans may still be officially neutral in this war, but they are inside the territorial waters of a declared combatant state and, if they really are going to escort British or Canadian soldiers, will be perfectly legitimate targets for us. The same applies if they attack us in Canadian waters, as we would have the right of self-defense. Those Americans have been playing quite a hypocritical game up to now, providing war supplies and equipment to the British and even escorting British convoys at sea while claiming to be neutral, but I will not hesitate to remind them of the realities of war if they give me an excuse to attack them. Too many German lives have been lost due to the war assistance they are giving to the British.’’

Many heads nodded at those words around the control room. In truth, many in Germany believed that Great Britain would have been defeated by now and the war put to an end, if not for the huge logistical and financial support given to the British by the Americans.

While keeping a vigilant acoustic, radar and radio listening watch, the U-800 silently made its way towards Halifax at ten knots until down to forty kilometers from the American flotilla, which appeared to be slowly going along a long oval circuit. With the American radar signal now becoming dangerously strong, Otto decided that it was time to become really discreet.

‘’Machines, stop the diesels! Switch to batteries! Retract the schnorchel and our masts! Helm, slow down to five knots! Make your depth twenty meters as soon as the schnorchel is secured! Rig for silent running!’’

The few German sailors who had not yet put on their special felt slippers over their boots did so then, in order to cut as much as possible the noise they made. Soon, the U-800 turned into a silent ghost slipping through the dark blue waters. Otto then chose to climb up to the forward underwater watch dome, to watch visually for the sight of any ship coming close to his submarine. With the sunlight diluted by the surface fog still enough to light the ocean to some degree, the bottom of the hull of any ships approaching the U-800 would be visible from below, something that Otto fully counted on. As his

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hydrophone operators warned him that the bearing of the American ships was now changing at a growing rate, a sure sign that they were getting quite close, Otto raised his binoculars to his eyes and started scanning the surface of the ocean from below. It took him less than a minute to spot a number of gray shapes on the surface, shapes which were further highlighted by the white wakes made by the ships as they cut through the waves.

‘’Helm, reduce speed further to two knots! Turn starboard to heading 340 and go to depth of thirty meters.’’

‘’Aye, Herr Kapitän!’’

With his submarine now on a reverse parallel course to the path of the American flotilla, Otto was soon able to detail from less than eighty meters the underside of the American ships as they passed by him at a speed of twelve knots, their own screws and machinery noise drowning the little noise made by his submarine and making it nearly impossible to detect him, short of direct active sonar pinging. Armed with a ship visual recognition book, Otto was able to classify with fair accuracy the type and size of the warships parading above him. What he saw made him frown.

‘’A fleet light carrier, two heavy cruisers and seven destroyers? A simple supply convoy certainly wouldn’t rate such a strong escort, especially when considering the presence of that carrier.’’

That made him think furiously about the significance of the presence of such a powerful group of American warships here, just off Halifax. He knew well that American ships already routinely escorted British supply convoys between Newfoundland and Iceland but, up to now, these escort forces had consisted only of destroyers. If those American warships were really here to escort a British convoy towards England, then that convoy had to be exceptionally important, which meant that he, Otto Kretschmer, wanted badly to hit it. With this in mind, he thought about the best location for his submarine to be when that British convoy would come out. That, however, was a difficult decision to make, as both close and remote locations from the harbor had advantages and disadvantages. There was also the problem that he didn’t know when that convoy would come out of Halifax. However, those American warships wouldn’t keep circling around off Halifax, burning a lot of fuel, if that convoy was not due to come out soon. Finally taking a decision, Otto made his helmsman turn directly towards the entrance channel of Halifax Harbor, about sixteen kilometers away by now, while increasing speed to six knots.

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The U-800 was only a few kilometers from the entrance channel when Otto got a warning by intercom from his hydrophone operators.

‘’Herr Kapitän, we are just now picking noises of anchors being pulled up and engines starting straight ahead. From the noise, I would say that we have at least three or four very big ships ahead, pretty close to us. They must have been at anchor outside the harbor.’’

‘’At anchor outside the harbor?’’ said Otto, puzzled. If those ships were due to go to England under escort, then weighing anchor outside a port didn’t make any sense, even if you took account of the thick fog. One would simply wait inside the harbor for the fog to dissipate, then would come out. However, ‘very big ships’ could only mean ‘troopships’ to Otto, if they were not warships. If those big ships turned out to be warships, meaning possibly battleships, then Otto wanted to know it quickly, in order to be able to decide what to do about them. Either way, his original plan to lay on the bottom near the entrance channel, so that he could quietly slip under an outgoing convoy and thus lose himself among the loud noise generated by the ships, still sounded good to him. Now concentrating his attention ahead and above, Otto soon started seeing the propellers and hull bottom of a large ship. Giving a series of orders by intercom to his helmsman, he made his submarine veer to starboard, then to port, so that he could be a few hundred meters off the side of that ship. To his astonishment, he soon found out that the said ship was enormous, over 200 meter-long, and was no warship. It had to be a passenger liner, probably converted to transport troops by the thousands. Furthermore, five other large ships, two of them as big or bigger than the first one, were also pulling up anchor and starting their engines nearby. Otto’s heart jumped in his chest when he understood that he was looking at a troop convoy with a capacity to carry a whole army division. Unable to resist the temptation and wanting badly to confirm his suspicions, he gave a series of quick orders from his position in the underwater observation dome.

‘’Herr Streib, have all our tubes ready to fire on short notice and stand by at the fire control computer. Have us come slowly to periscope depth: if this is what I think, we may have to shoot torpedoes from close range and at multiple troopships.’’

‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’ replied the Third Watch Officer, excitement detectable in his voice.

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As his crew got ready for combat and as his submarine slowly rose to periscope depth, Otto suddenly realized that something was wrong: the big troopships were now entering the harbor entrance channel, not leaving Halifax! Completely confused by that, he nonetheless waited for his submarine to be just under the surface, then slid down the ladder to the control room to go take position at the attack periscope, raising its optical head just above water with the flip of a switch. The ship that he saw less than 400 meters was easy enough to recognize for a naval officer like him.

‘’Mein Gott! We have the passenger liner SS Washington, painted in gray war livery, just in front of us. I can also see the SS Manhattan and the SS America, all painted in gray, plus three smaller liners. They are now making their way into Halifax Harbor.’’

First lowering the head of his attack periscope before someone aboard the big liners saw it, he then looked at his watch officer.

‘’Change of plan: we are not attacking at this time, as those ships are going in Halifax, probably to go load up with British or Canadian troops. We will instead quietly take some distance, so that we could take a safe watch position far enough to be able to use our schnorchel and thus conserve battery power for a future attack. Dive to a depth of 25 meters and take Heading 085, speed of five knots.’’

‘’Depth of 25 meters, Heading 085 at five knots, aye, Herr Kapitän!’’ With many crewmembers probably wondering by now what was going on, the U-800 quietly slipped away from Halifax, leaving the American warships flotilla to its starboard side. Those American warships however broke off their waiting circuit and then also entered Halifax harbor behind the troopships, confirming to Otto that they were here to escort the converted liners.

Once he was in what he considered a good, safe watch position, Otto made his submarine stop and assembled his officers in the officers’ mess for an impromptu command meeting. After telling his officers what he had seen of both the American escort force and the six converted liner ships, he looked around the table of the mess at his officers.

‘’We now have what seems to be a group of American liners converted into troopships and escorted by a very strong American escort flotilla which includes an aircraft carrier, with the liners probably entering Halifax harbor to load up with British or Canadian troops. Just the strength of the escort flotilla is enough to convince me that

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this American convoy is of great importance to the British. If it would be a purely American convoy, with American troops onboard, then it would be unlikely to stop like this in Halifax, as all the ships I saw have more than enough range to make it to England or the Mediterranean from American Atlantic Coast ports without the need to refuel in Halifax. What do you think, my friends?’’

‘’I agree with you, Herr Kapitän.’’ said Ulrich Von Wittgenstein. ‘’This must be an American convoy about to load up with Canadian troops heading for England. It would thus be our duty to do everything possible to stop such a convoy from getting to England.’’

‘’Could these American liners be going to deliver troops to Iceland instead?’’ asked Herman Spielberger, the second watch officer. Otto shook his head at that.

‘’Who would waste a whole army division just to defend Iceland? That would be stupid.’’

‘’What if those troops to be loaded in Halifax were headed to somewhere else than England?’’ cut in Werner Jentz, the chief engineer. ‘’The British Empire is vast and it has plenty of potential trouble spots around the Middle East, India and Asia.’’

‘’Hum, that is actually a very good point, Werner.’’ said Otto, thoughtful.

‘’Shouldn’t we alert our command headquarters in France about this convoy, Herr Kapitän?’’ asked Gustav Munchausen, the assistant engineer officer, attracting a dubious look from Otto.

‘’Do you know how many radio direction-finding stations there could be in and around Halifax, not counting those American warships offshore? If we radioed a message now, we might as well pop up a flare to signal our position away.’’

‘’Didn’t you know why our captain was nicknamed ‘Silent Otto’, Gustav?’’ Joked Ulrich Von Wittgenstein while elbowing Munchausen. ‘’He likes to be invisible…to everybody.’’

‘’Well, with this said,’’ cut in Otto, ‘’I’ve made my mind to wait here at schnorchel depth until those big troopships come out of Halifax. Then we will attack them, ideally before their escort ships can form around them, and while they are still in Canadian waters.’’

‘’What if those American warships attack us then or afterwards?’’ asked Werner Jentz. Otto answered at once, his expression firm.

‘’Then we will exercise our right of self-defense. Those American liners will be transporting enemy soldiers to an enemy land, which makes them legitimate targets of

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war, irrespective of any hypocritical protests President Roosevelt could make afterwards.’’

Otto and his crew then settled in for a possibly long wait, the EW mast and watch periscope of the U-800 popping out at intervals and with its schnorchel mast raised during nighttime in order to replenish the batteries. The next day, on November sixth, they heard and saw a big, strongly escorted British convoy pass by, coming from the East, and then enter Halifax Harbor. The British transport ships were actually escorted by a very powerful American escort fleet consisting of one battleship, one fleet carrier, two light cruisers and a full destroyer squadron. That American escort force left as soon as it reached Halifax, handing over convoy protection duty to the task group led by the carrier USS RANGER. Such an escort arrangement, with the United States supposedly being still a neutral state in this war, was both completely out of the ordinary and highly irregular according to the international laws of war. That would normally have pushed most submarine commanders to immediately fire up a radio report back to France, to alert Admiral Dönitz about this. However, Otto Kretschmer suspected that doing such a thing would probably signal him to the enemy and attract a whole fleet on top of him. The British transport ships left Halifax three days later with a much smaller escort than the one that had accompanied them from England. Otto was tempted for a moment to attack those British ships but refrained from doing so, now certain that a big prize was going to eventually come out of Halifax in the next few days. He now knew that those British troops would not be sailing on the American troopships to go to England, since they had just come from there. Werner Jentz’s suggestion that they would be heading towards some distant part of the British Empire sounded more and more like the correct guess.

07:32 (Halifax Time)

Monday, November 10, 1941

U-800 control room, waiting position off Halifax

‘’Kapitän! We have multiple ships noise coming from the mouth of Halifax’ entrance channel: ships are coming out.’’

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‘’What do we have on radar and radio listening?’’ asked at once Otto while approaching the sonar section. The operators in the next compartment shouted their answer.

‘’Nothing yet on radio, Herr Kapitän, but that American surveillance radar from the carrier USS RANGER can be heard weakly now.’’

‘’Very well, this is the moment that we had been waiting for. Leutnant Spielberger, call the crew to battle stations! Machines: cut the diesels, go to battery and retract the schnorchel. Helm, take Heading 304, speed: ten knots at depth of twenty meters. We are going to take our preselected ambush position. Hydrophones, are the American destroyers pinging their ASDIC sets on active?’’

‘’Affirmative, Herr Kapitän! However, the way they are accelerating now to clear the entrance channel, they won’t be able to hear much on passive mode, while their pinging will be quite ineffective.’’

‘’I won’t complain about that. Leutnant Spielberger, make sure that both our forward and aft underwater watch domes are manned and vigilant.’’

‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’

With its own radiating noise much less than that of conventional U-boote, thanks to its ducted propeller, noise insulation and raft-mounted engines, the U-800 glided nearly silently to its chosen ambush position a few hundred meters southeast of Rockhead Shoal, outside of Halifax’ entrance channel, where the bottom lay at an average depth of 35 meters. The American warships passed by the U-800, unaware of its presence, while speeding towards what looked like an assembly point about twelve kilometers south of the port. The acoustic signature of the U-800 was anyway soon drowned out completely by the noise from the powerful machinery of the carrier USS RANGER and of the heavy cruisers USS QUINCY and USS VINCENNES, coming out single file behind the destroyers. Otto was thus able to get to his selected ambush point undetected and wait there at periscope depth, but with the top of its periscopes left just under the waves. The first of the big converted American liners started coming out of the entrance channel maybe fifteen minutes later, a Canadian destroyer in the lead. However, that destroyer, unlike the American ones, was not pinging his ASDIC set on active mode and did not detect the U-800. Otto shook his head at that: while the British Navy had been fairly quick in learning its lessons from the blows given by German submarines, the Royal Canadian Navy was still quite amateurish, hampered by

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inexperienced crews, insufficient training and inadequate equipment. In contrast, Otto had been at the command of submarines for more than two years now and had conducted twelve war patrols, notwithstanding this present one. His crewmen were all veterans with at least two war patrols under their belts, while he had personally selected the officers of the U-800, training them and the crew for months as a whole. Otto also had a good four days to think about his attack plan, while he had quite a good knowledge of the ships which were to become his targets.

One of the watchmen in the forward underwater observation dome was the first to call a warning by intercom to Otto, who was standing by at the attack periscope.

‘’Herr Kapitän, we have the SS WASHINGTON coming out of the entrance channel, followed about 600 meters behind by another liner. They are going at about eight knots at this time and should pass approximately 600 to 700 meters from our bow.’’

‘’Understood! Attention, all hands! We will execute the attack plan we rehearsed as discussed. We will fire our bow tubes first, using G7e torpedoes. Fire control solution team: stand by for my inputs and commands! Trim and ballasts control, be ready to compensate for rapid torpedo fire.’’

That last command, which would sound superfluous to the uninitiated, was actually very important. With torpedoes each weighing over a ton and a half and with submarines’ trim balance and depth keeping being very sensitive to any change in mass, each torpedo firing had to be compensated for by admitting an equivalent mass of water in properly located trim tanks. With rapid ripple fire, trimming was even more critical, to avoid the submarine breaking accidentally the surface of the ocean at the time of maximum danger. Thankfully, Otto’s men were old hands at that game and were fully ready. As the watchmen in the forward dome signaled the coming out of the third liner, Otto raised the top of his periscope out of the water for a few seconds, just long enough to register and announce out loud the bearings of the three big liners about to pass in front of him in single file. Lowering his periscope head while his fire control solution team entered that data in their electro-mechanical calculator, Otto waited another twenty seconds, then raised again his periscope head and registered the new bearings for his three first targets, lowering again his periscope head after that. Ulrich Von Wittgenstein spoke up less than fifteen seconds later.

‘’Fire solutions ready!’’

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Raising his periscope head for the third time, Otto pointed it at the port side of the SS MANHATTAN, which was third in line and furthest from his submarine.

‘’First target, bearing 043 relative, fire Tubes One and Two!’’ The submarine shuddered slightly twice as the two G7e electrically-propelled torpedoes were ejected in quick succession from their launch tubes in the bow. With one crewman clocking their running time, Otto pointed his attack periscope at the second farthest liner, the SS AMERICA.

‘’Second target, bearing 021 relative, fire Tubes Three, Four and Five!’’ The U-800 shuddered again three times. Otto then pointed at his nearest target, the SS WASHINGTON. From the mere distance of 700 meters, he was able to see that it had been renamed the ‘MOUNT VERNON’.

‘’Third target, bearing 005 relative, fire Tubes Six, Seven and Eight!’’ As soon as his three last bow tubes had fired, Otto lowered his periscope head and shouted commands.

‘’HELM, STEER PORT TO HEADING 240, SPEED TWENTY KNOTS AND DEPTH OF FIFTEEN METERS! HERR VON WITTGENSTEIN, START CLOCKING THIS RUN AND WARN ME AFTER FOUR MINUTES! MINES LAUNCH TUBES CONTROL, BE READY TO EJECT TWELVE MINES IN RAPID SEQUENCE ON MY COMMAND! SET THEM ON BOTH MAGNETIC AND ACOUSTIC TRIGGERS!

FORWARD TORPEDO ROOM, RELOAD OUR BOW TUBES AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN!’’

As the U-800 sped through the water, its crew tense and ready to react to anything, the men in the forward torpedo room started reloading the eight bow torpedo tubes, working frantically the controls of their two huge chain-driven torpedo carrousels, each of which contained sixteen torpedoes. Torpedoes were pushed out of the carrousels by electric rammers, to then enter the opened launch tubes with which the carrousels had indexed themselves. The whole procedure took less than eight minutes but was barely starting when the distant, muffled noise of underwater detonations started to be heard in quick succession, making the German submariners briefly shout in triumph. Otto Kretschmer had just used a tactic an artillery officer would call a ‘time-on-target fire mission’. Firing in succession his torpedoes at his targets in order of diminishing distance from his submarine, he had thus ensured that his torpedoes would all hit and explode at around the same time, not giving a chance to the enemy to react to the first explosions and also giving the impression that many submarines were attacking the convoy at once. Otto

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himself briefly shouted with joy as all of his eight torpedoes ran true and hit their respective targets, exploding on impact. Briefly raising his periscope head out of the water, he gave a quick look at his three victims: all three liners were now distinctly slowing down quickly and were even starting already to develop a list to port. He saw as well the three other liners of the convoy, aft of the stricken liners and coming out of harbor in single file. He was going to be able to take care of them soon enough. First, however, he had to secure his back against the American and Canadian escort ships. Turning his periscope around, he was able to quickly acquire visually the old Canadian destroyer which had been leading the liners, now performing a hard turn to port maybe two kilometers ahead. As for the American destroyers, four of them were also turning towards the harbor entrance but they were a good five kilometers away and would take some time to arrive on the scene.

‘’Fire control team, possible next target, bearing 010 relative. Sonar, give me one active ping to get the distance for that next target!’’

Less than four seconds later, the U-800 used its low frequency active bow sonar for the first time in combat.

BONG

The low frequency sound pulse, much more powerful than the ones from the standard British and American high-frequency sonar sets of the time, started sending back echoes within seconds as it painted in succession the American and Canadian ships around the U-800, giving a complete and accurate tactical picture to Ulrich Von Wittgenstein, who hurried to record and plot it on his tactical plot table. At the same time, the sonar operator shouted his information towards Otto.

‘’RANGE TO TARGET AT BEARING 010 RELATIVE: 1,700 METERS!’’

‘’THANK YOU, SONAR! HELM, BE READY TO TURN NINETY DEGREES TO STARBOARD AT MY COMMAND! MINES FIRE CONTROL, YOU WILL START SOWING TWELVE MINES AT ONE HUNDRED METER INTERVALS AS SOON AS WE TURN TO STARBOARD.’’

‘’AYE, HERR KAPITÄN!’’

Maybe a minute later, with the Canadian destroyer rushing in at high speed, Von Wittgenstein spoke up.

‘’Four minutes on the clock for our run, Herr Kapitän!’’

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‘’Thank you! HELM, TURN NINETY DEGREES TO STARBOARD NOW!

REDUCE SPEED TO FIVE KNOTS! MINES CONTROL, START EJECTING YOUR MINES IN 45-SECOND INTERVALS!’’

As the U-800 started turning hard to starboard, rolling in its turn like an aircraft and forcing its crewmembers to grab solidly something fixed to the deck, the operator at the control panel of the forty sea mines launch tubes, whose outer doors on the flanks of the submarine were already opened, started ejecting his two-ton sea mines at intervals of 45 seconds. While the U-800 was spewing its deadly eggs, Otto pointed his attack periscope at the incoming Canadian destroyer, which was apparently rushing in blind and was going to pass to the starboard side of his stern.

‘’Target, bearing 206 relative, mark!’’

‘’Bearing entered!’’

Otto waited a few seconds, during which he kept his periscope head under the surface, then popped his periscope up again.

‘’Target, second bearing 198 relative, mark!’’

‘’Bearing entered… Fire solution in!’’

‘’Match bearings and fire Tubes Nine and Ten!’’

Otto gave another order just after the two torpedoes had left their stern tubes.

‘’Stern torpedo room, reload immediately Tubes Nine and Ten with two G7a high speed torpedoes!’’

He then waited nervously for the results of his two last torpedoes. To his chagrin, only one hit the Canadian destroyer, but a quick look with his periscope up showed him that this particular opponent had been severely hit at the level of its engine room and was slowing down. There were however four American destroyers bearing down towards him at 35 knots. ‘Good! They won’t hear a thing on their sonar at that speed and will probably grenade blindly around.’ thought Otto, who concentrated his attention next on the liners of the convoy. The three biggest ones, which he had hit on his first salvo, were definitely in trouble, with developing lists to port and speed down to only a few knots. The three other liners of the convoy were however accelerating and passing to starboard of the stricken liners, squeezing past them in the relatively narrow navigation channel and obviously trying to get out of the constricting waters of the harbor approaches and nearer to their waiting American escort ships. Otto sighted his periscope at the liner trying to push ahead and was able to read its name, painted on the bow.

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‘’In a hurry to slip away, LEONARD WOOD? Not so fast!’’ Otto waited a couple of minutes more, time to complete the sowing of his twelve first sea mines, then had his helmsman turn to starboard again to go down the approach to the entrance channel of Halifax Harbor. With the big, 21,900-ton LEONARD WOOD coming nearly straight at him, Otto had an easy job of firing two torpedoes down the throat of the liner. Hitting the forward section of the hull just aft of the bow and on the starboard side, the explosion of the two torpedoes created huge holes in the bow section, with the forward speed of fourteen knots of the ship making even more furious the rushing in of water. The unfortunate ex-SS WESTERN WORLD literally dug down under the waves, its watertight doors giving up in quick succession under the water pressure. The more than 1,800 British soldiers of the 18th Infantry Division traveling aboard the liner were quickly scrambling to survive as their ship sank rapidly by the bow.

While still going towards the entrance of the harbor, Otto turned his periscope to aft, sighting in the Canadian and American destroyers, who were the biggest immediate threats to him. The old Canadian four-stacker destroyer was apparently out of the fight, listing severely and nearly immobile in the water. That left four much more modern American destroyers bearing down on him at full speed. He however had a bad surprise waiting for them.

‘’Helm, turn to starboard, Heading 080. Stay at five knots and a depth of fifteen meters. Sea mine control, start sowing another twelve mines now, as a second layer of our improvised minefield.’’

With its periscope head again below the surface, the U-800 sailed across the bows of the sinking LEONARD WOOD and MOUNT VERNON, returning towards its original attack position while sowing mines behind it. Suddenly alerted by his watchmen in their underwater watch domes that a liner was trying to pass between the SS MANHATTAN and SS AMERICA, Otto raised and pointed his periscope head, just in time to see the ex-SS AMERICA ram the side of the ex-SS PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, which had turned across its bow and miscalculated its turn in the panic of the moment. That was just to Otto’s taste, who hurriedly pointed his submarine to port and fired two torpedoes at the now wounded ex-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT. That left intact only one troopship, the smallest one. That liner, last in line, had turned hard to port and was speeding past the stern of the ex-SS AMERICA. With no other ships in the way, it now had a fair chance to make it to the open sea and its escort ships. Otto however left it no chance,

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firing a spread of three torpedoes at it from less than 500 meters. Its starboard side ripped open and with its engine rooms filling with water, the ORIZABA quickly came to a stop, taking a heavy list quickly. Nearly stopping his submarine, Otto did a quick tour of the horizon with his periscope to reassess the situation. All the troopships were now hit and either sinking or heavily damaged, while the American destroyers were still not on the scene and wouldn’t be for at least another three minutes. Knowing that he had to ensure the complete destruction of the troopships, Otto started firing additional torpedoes into them, distributing his torpedoes according to the degree of damage already sustained by each troopship. The MOUNT VERNON and WEST POINT ended up being hit by a total of seven torpedoes each, the WAKEFIELD getting a total of five torpedoes, the JOSEPH T. DICKMAN and LEONARD WOOD three torpedoes each and the ORIZABA capsizing and sinking after a fourth hit. By now, the frigid waters of the harbor approaches were covered with thousands of men desperately swimming on the surface or rowing in lifeboats.

The crewmen of the forward torpedo compartment were still frantically refilling their eight launch tubes when a muffled but powerful underwater explosion at some distance alerted Otto to the threat looming in his rear. Pointing his periscope towards the open sea, he grinned on seeing that one of the American destroyers had just hit a sea mine and was now limping in the water, a gaping hole in its side. However, three more American destroyers, seeing the fate of their leader, had veered hard to starboard at once, potentially avoiding the U-800’s minefield, and were quickly passing across the bows of the sinking LEONARD WOOD and MOUNT VERNON, intent on sweeping the approaches to the harbor and find the submarine(s) which had caused such mayhem to date. However, Otto was in no mood to make life easy for them. In fact, he was now resolved to give a stinging lesson to those hypocritical Americans, now that he had a good excuse to do so. Ordering his mines operator to eject in succession his last sea mines, Otto made his helmsman come out from the harbor’s approaches at silent speed, getting to deeper waters where he could better maneuver and hide. Their sonar sets hopelessly filled with the loud noises of metal ripping apart, watertight doors giving up and ships breaking up and sinking, the American destroyers searched in vain for over forty minutes, not finding a single submarine while being witnesses to a military disaster of the first order for both Great Britain and for the United States. The only thing they got

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out of their search was to see the destroyer USS TRIPPE hit a mine and break in two, with the unfortunate ship sinking in minutes and taking most of its crew down with it.

10:31 (Halifax Time)

Bridge of the destroyer USS WAINWRIGHT (DD-419) Destroyer screen of U.S. Task Force 14, off Halifax

United States Navy Captain Thomas C. Kinkaid, Screen Commander of the secret Task Force 14, was both frustrated and furious. His destroyers had done everything by the book and had taken all the possible precautions against an attack by German submarines, yet this had happened. It should not have been possible, not with the number of ships and planes that had been patrolling those waters constantly for days and weeks. His destroyers had reacted at once to the first torpedo hits and had come at full speed to close off the approaches to Halifax Harbor and then had thoroughly searched the area with their sonar sets, in vain. With a submerged top speed limited to 7.5 knots, the German submarines which would have been inside that zone should not have had time to escape. Also, no radar or visual contacts had been seen on the surface for miles around. It all sounded like pure sorcery. However, as impossible as this sounded, the United States was still stuck with both a military disaster and a political mess on its hands. First, there was the loss of six American liners, three of them the biggest and most prestigious in the American civilian fleet, plus the loss of the USS TRIPPE and the damaging of the USS MCDOUGAL. Then, there was the business of German submarines finding and hitting an American naval convoy full of British soldiers embarked at a Canadian port. Task Force 14 was a secret operation which directly violated the American Neutrality Act passed by the Congress and signed by President Roosevelt. Roosevelt had secretly arranged the operation with Prime Minister Churchill, in order to help the British prime minister send badly needed reinforcements to the Middle East and India. The U.S. Congress and the isolationist elements in the United States would go bonkers once news of this would come out. There was not even a chance that such a disaster could be hidden for more than a few weeks from the American public now, not when such prestigious liners had been sunk and considering the number of witnesses to it around Halifax.

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The noise of a series of distant explosions then made the 53-year-old Kinkaid snap his head around towards the carrier USS RANGER, which had just turned into the wind a few kilometers to the south in order to launch aircraft which would hunt for the German submarines that had attacked the convoy. The old naval officer’s hair nearly rose on his head and his eyes and mouth opened wide on seeing no less than four huge water geysers which had just risen along its port side. Three more geysers had also erupted along the side of the USS ROWAN, the destroyer tasked with escorting the aircraft carrier. The destroyer survived the torpedo hits for less than a minute, breaking up in two and sinking as Kinkaid frantically regrouped his three other destroyers still intact and ran to the help of the stricken carrier and of the two heavy cruisers of the task force, which had no anti-submarine defenses by themselves whatsoever. Two more torpedoes hit the USS RANGER a minute later, igniting the aviation gasoline vapors from the carrier’s ruptured aviation fuel tanks and pipes and putting it ablaze from bow to stern. The commanders of the cruisers USS QUINCY and USS VINCENNES

understood the lesson and didn’t slow down or stop to help rescue survivors from the RANGER and the ROWAN, realizing that they would then become perfect targets for the German submarines obviously still lurking in the area. They instead went to full speed and started zigzagging in order to avoid any torpedoes fired at them. That left the surviving destroyers of Captain Kinkaid alone to both secure the zone around the burning carrier and rescue the survivors.

The next two hours were both stressful and heartbreaking, with the destroyer men fishing out hundreds of sailors from the USS ROWAN and from the USS RANGER. Many of the survivors from the latter sported hideous burns from the flaming aviation fuel of the carrier, while hundreds of men were already beyond help, either having drowned or having frozen to death in the frigid November waters off Halifax. The heavy cruisers QUINCLY and VINCENNES then decided that it was safe enough after all that time to approach and join the rescue effort. Dozens of Canadian ships were on their part rescuing the survivors from the troopships near the harbor’s entrance. Kinkaid radioed at once to the cruisers to stay away as a precaution, but was ignored by the captain of the VINCENNES and the two cruisers continued to approach while slowing down. To the renewed fury of Kinkaid, a German submarine nearby proved him right and promptly fired four torpedoes at each of the cruisers as they were stopping to put their boats in the water, solidly hitting both ships. The subsequent intense anti-submarine sweep

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launched by Kinkaid found nothing and only cost him the USS RHIND, hit and sunk by two torpedoes before it could even gain speed to join the sweep. The cruiser QUINCY sank twenty minutes later, while the VINCENNES hit a sea mine and sank while being towed towards Halifax Harbor.

21:19 (Paris Time)

Saturday, November 22, 1941

Submarine bunker complex of Keroman I, port of Lorient Coast of Brittany, France

Admiral Karl Dönitz had made a point of being present for the arrival of the U-800, first because of the huge success of Kretschmer’s patrol, second because he was anxious to get something more elaborate than the terse radio report sent by the U-800 twelve days ago, as it was starting its transatlantic trip back to Europe. In that, Kretschmer had truly lived up to his nickname of ‘Silent Otto’. Dönitz however had made certain that the access to the submarine pen reserved for the U-800 would be severely restricted and would especially exclude any non-German worker. It was now clear to Dönitz, from intercepted radio messages sent in clear by panicked crews of torpedoed ships and from various intelligence reports, that the British and the Americans still believed that a whole pack of U-boote had attacked and decimated both a British convoy leaving Halifax on October 16 and the not so secret anymore American troop convoy full of British soldiers out of Halifax on November 10. If they could be made to continue to believe that, it would be most convenient to Dönitz, for many reasons. First was the psychological effect on the British and Americans of believing that whole groups of U-boote could operate with impunity close to Halifax, something that was bound to make them reinforce greatly the defenses of that area at the detriment of other areas, thus making it easier for other German submarines to conduct their operations elsewhere. Second, as long as they didn’t get an inkling of the true capabilities of the U-800, particularly its top submerged speed, endurance on battery and the size of its armament, they were not going to be able to find proper countermeasures to it.

Kapitän zur See Eberhard Godt, Dönitz’ chief of staff, suddenly spoke up, taking his superior out of his reveries.

‘’There it is, Herr Admiral! The U-800 is about to enter the pen.’’

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The other officers, sailors and technicians present in the heavily protected pen of the giant submarine bunker all stared with unmitigated curiosity at the completely unfamiliar shape of the submarine now entering the reinforced concrete structure. Dönitz smiled on seeing the improvised flag rope attached to the extended attack periscope of the U-800: attached to it were 52 small triangular pennants, one for each of the ships sunk by Kretschmer during his epic war patrol. The other Germans present were also obviously impressed by the multitude of victory pennants.

‘’I think that the ‘Tonnage King’ is now going to be impossible to dethrone, my good Godt.’’

‘’Indeed, Herr Admiral! There is bound to be much talk in our submariners’ messes tonight.’’

‘’I hope not!’’ said at once Dönitz, his tone hardening. ‘’The U-800 is to be kept as secret as possible. Please remind our U-boote crews of this.’’

‘’The crew of U-800 as well, Herr Admiral?’’

‘’Especially the crew of the U-800! With the success they had on their patrol, they are bound to want to go brag about it in every Paris nightclub, bar and bordello they will visit.’’

‘’Quite true!’’

The two senior officers then looked on in silence as sailors threw thick ropes to the submariners on the deck of the submarine, in order to tie it to the concrete quay of the pen. A gangway was soon put in place, permitting Dönitz and Godt to go down to the forward deck casing of the U-800, where they were greeted by Otto Kretschmer and by a sailor who blew the whistle traditionally used to mark the arrival of a high-ranking visitor. Kretschmer and Dönitz exchanged military style salutes before shaking hands.

‘’Welcome aboard the U-800, Herr Admiral.’’

‘’Thank you, Korvettenkapitän Kretschmer. You certainly put your new boat to good use during your patrol.’’

‘’I must say that the U-800 is a pure dream, Herr Admiral. We definitely need more boats like it.’’

To Otto’s surprise, his last remark made Dönitz’ smile fade away.

‘’I am afraid that it will take some time before that could happen, my dear Kretschmer.’’

‘’But, why? The U-800’s design is way superior to any of our other U-boote types.’’

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‘’I know and I am not disputing that. However, we were hit by a piece of incredible bad luck while you were at sea. To make a long story short, British bombers hit the Krupp Germaniawerft shipyards in Kiel one evening two weeks ago. The damage was generally light but two bombs hit the offices of the design section. Doctor Gustav Premingen, who often worked late at night, was killed, while the blueprints for the U-800 were burned away.’’

‘’But, but, that’s a true disaster for us, Herr Admiral!’’ could only say the shocked and stunned Otto. ‘’We need more submarines like the U-800: they would be our key to victory at sea.’’

‘’I do not doubt that, my dear Kretschmer, especially after considering the results of your patrol. However, not all is lost. While the complete blueprints for the U-800 were destroyed, copies of the blueprints for its sub-components were kept at the offices of the various sub-contractors involved with the building of the U-800. We are presently hard at work assembling those copies, so that we could reconstitute at least partly the design of your Type XX U-800. As well, a large team of naval engineers will descend on your U-800 while you and your crew will take some shore leave. These engineers will then study, photograph and measure everything in your boat during the next few days, in order to reconstitute as much as possible the plans of the U-800 that we lost in that British bombing. With luck, we will then be able to build a good approximation copy of your submarine.’’

‘’So, my U-800 will stay unique, Herr Admiral?’’

‘’Maybe not, Kretschmer.’’ replied Dönitz, smiling, before wiggling an index at him. ‘’By the way, you will really have to learn to report more frequently by radio: your long silences made me quite nervous.’’

‘’Herr Admiral, I strongly believe that we ignore too much the danger of being located via radio triangulation by the enemy. We use ourselves radio direction-finding, so why think that we are immune to it? If this may satisfy you, Herr Admiral, my patrol report is already written up and ready for your review. May I invite you and Kapitän Godt to the officers’ mess of my boat, where you will be able to read my report and interview me and my officers in utter privacy?’’

‘’An excellent idea, actually! Show me the way!’’

Godt, who had never seen the U-800 before, quickly grew impressed as Otto led him and Dönitz inside the submarine via the forward hatch of the conning tower.

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‘’Mein Gott! This submarine is really spacious.’’

Those words made Otto smile with malice.

‘’Wait until you see the crewmen’s mess, Herr Kapitän. The officers’ mess isn’t too shabby either.’’

Godt had to agree with Otto when he entered the six-meter by four-meter officers’ mess.

‘’Himmel! You could nearly call this ‘luxurious’ when compared to what we have on our Type VIIs and Type IXs.’’

‘’Actually, I would say that this should have been the norm, both for the officers and for the crewmen, Kapitän Godt. Our submariners have been fighting in cramped and squalid conditions for way too long, in my opinion. That they accomplished so much in such conditions is a testament to their valor and spirit.’’

‘’You may well be right, my good Kretschmer.’’ said Dönitz before sighing with content as he sat in one of the three well-padded sofas of the mess, beside its dining table and ten padded chairs. Otto then handed him his mission report, which had been lying on the table.

‘’My patrol report, Herr Admiral.’’

‘’Thank you!’’

As Dönitz started reading his report, Otto suddenly had an idea and went to Ulrich Von Wittgenstein’s cabin, finding his second-in-command busy packing a suitcase ahead of their expected shore leave period.

‘’Ulrich, could I ask you to give a guided tour of the boat to Kapitän Godt, while Admiral Dönitz is reading my mission report?’’

‘’No problem, Herr Kapitän! Where is he right now?’’

‘’In the officers’ mess.’’

‘’I will be there in a second.’’

‘’Thanks!’’

With Godt soon gone on his guided tour, Otto was left alone with Dönitz and sat in the padded sofa opposite to him, waiting patiently for him to finish his reading. Dönitz, a highly intelligent man and an experienced, competent naval officer, proved to be a quick reader and raised his nose from the report a couple of minutes later.

‘’So, if I read your report correctly, the ASDIC sets of the British and of the Americans were not able to detect you at all during your attacks, correct?’’

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‘’Correct, Herr Admiral. Their sets are not sensitive enough to hear the U-800 when it is going at six knots or less on batteries. As for their active pinging mode, its range is limited and it works only in a unidirectional mode. My submarine was able to easily evade their sonar searches thanks to its high submerged speed, high agility under water and low acoustic signature.’’

‘’Good! I may have something that could improve further on that: it is a revolutionary sort of hull coating which is designed to greatly reduce the sound waves from ASDIC pings bouncing on a hull. While it seems to work very well, my problem with it is that it uses materials and special glues that are in short supply and that are considered vital strategic materials. I was thus unable to apply it on a wide scale on our U-boots. However, I now have on hand a one-of-a-kind revolutionary submarine which just proved itself to be an exceptional weapon of war. Kretschmer, my mind is now made up to make your U-800 benefit from Program Alberich. Your boat was due anyway to spend a minimum of a couple of weeks here in minor refit before you are due to go back to sea. You and your crew are also due for some well-deserved shore leave, so there will be plenty of time to apply that special anechoic coating to your submarine in the meantime.’’

‘’That would be truly nice, Herr Admiral. How effective exactly is that new coating?’’

‘’According to initial tests, the Alberich coating absorbs 85% of the power from sonar pings in the frequency range of ten to eighteen kilohertz, which means that the detection range on active mode of the enemy ASDIC sets will be down to a few hundred meters at the most, instead of a couple of kilometers. With that new coating, your boat will become a true ghost ship for the enemy sonar sets.’’

‘’That sounds fantastic, Herr Admiral. Thank you for your confidence in me and my boat.’’

‘’Oh, I certainly wanted to thank you in a much bigger way, my dear Kretschmer, but the Führer overruled me on that.’’

‘’Uh, I don’t understand, Herr Admiral. What did I do to infuriate the Führer?’’

‘’Nothing!’’ replied Dönitz, a big grin appearing on his face as he delivered his punch line. ‘’He simply told me that he would take my place to pin medals on you. He wants you in Berlin on Monday, along with your whole crew, so that he can give you the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.’’

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