Read Dönitz: The Last Führer Online
Authors: Peter Padfield
20.9. U 47 made contact with an inward convoy … All boats sufficiently close… ordered to attack dispositions on the enemy course to operate in accordance with shadowing reports from U 47.
21.9 The first boat to contact the convoy, U48, sank two steamers and took over as shadower. During the day U 99 and U 100 attacked the convoy with success, U 65 without success.
22.9. In the morning U 100 was driven off by destroyers which had reached the convoy in the meantime. Because of accurate shadowing reports this inward convoy was attacked altogether by five boats which were originally up to 350 miles away from the point of first sighting. Thirteen ships were sunk. This success was achieved through 1) early interception of the convoy far to the west while the escort was still weak; 2) correct tactical behaviour of boats as shadowers and in disposition over a wide area; 3) fair weather …
The actions of the last few days have shown that the principles established in peacetime for using radio
in contact with the enemy
and training the U-boat arm to attack convoys were correct.
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A month later there was a far more shattering demonstration of ‘wolf pack’ tactics: on the night of October 16/17th, U 48 sighted a homeward bound convoy in the Atlantic, reported, then attacked, sinking two ships before being forced under by two of the escorts and losing touch. The following day U 38 sighted the convoy, reported, shadowed and attacked by night, sinking one and missing another ship before she too was forced deep. In the meantime Dönitz had ordered U 46, U 100, U 101, U 123 and U 99 to form a patrol line off the Rockall Bank in the probable track of the convoy, and it ran straight into this group on the evening of the 19th. It was bright moonlight—full moon had been on the 15th—and the ships were clearly visible as they steamed in eight columns with only two escorts ahead; the attacks started at 9 o’clock and reached a crescendo about midnight with the convoy beset from both sides, lit by flames from torpedoed ships and star shells thrown up continuously by the outnumbered and vainly circling escorts.
Kretschmer, who had worked into position ahead, then dropped back inside the escorts to attack the starboard line from close range, was actually inside the columns of merchant ships at one stage, whether by design or due to an emergency turn towards him is not clear; he was chased out by a freighter which turned to ram, but he returned an hour later and continued attacking repeatedly on the surface until 1.30 the following morning, finally loosing his last torpedo on a straggler just before 4.00; this was his seventh victim and he estimated their total tonnage as 45,000.
Of course it was impossible to check ships’ names in the confusion of a night battle, and the actual total was six ships—since one did not sink and was finished off later by U 123—of altogether 28,000 tons.
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Since the tendency was always to overestimate Dönitz received rather an exaggerated view of the success—great as it undoubtedly was. By chance on the following night another convoy was attacked by Prien and three other boats, Prien causing havoc from close range and claiming eight ships. Dönitz exulted: ‘By joint attack therefore over three days seven U-boats with 300 men have sunk 47 ships totalling about 310,000 tons, a tremendous success.’
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The actual figures were 32 ships totalling 154,661 tons sunk by eleven boats; nevertheless it was a devastating blow, particularly since no boats had been lost in the entire four days’ operation; Dönitz’s conclusions must have appeared justified at the time:
1) The operations prove that the development of U-boat tactics since 1935, and the training based on the principle of countering the concentration of ships in a convoy by a concentration of U-boats attacking, was correct … 2) Such operations are only possible with Commanders and crews thoroughly trained for them … 3) Such operations can only be carried out if there are enough U-boats in the operations area. So far in the war this has only been the case from time to time. 4) The more U-boats there are in the operations area, the more frequently such operations will be possible … 5) Further, if there were more U-boats the English supply routes would not be left free after such attacks because, as today, nearly all boats have to return after using all their torpedoes. 6) Successes such as this cannot always be expected. Fog, bad weather and other conditions could nullify prospects from time to time. The main thing will always be the ability of the Commander.
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The successes of the autumn, which were focused largely into periods immediately after the hunter’s moon, were partly due to the surprise achieved by a concentration of boats attacking and escaping on the surface where Asdic could not detect them and where they could outrun the slower escorts, partly to a shortage of escorts and aircraft and generally inadequate training; for instance, the escorts of Kretschmer’s convoy had never worked together previously. Surprise was a diminishing asset, however, and it was inevitable that the devastating results
would concentrate minds at the British Admiralty. They did. Moreover, it is apparent from the reports of the anti-submarine division that the problem was well understood and the remedies were to hand and only needed development. The October report for instance:
Great efforts are being made to equip all convoy escorts with apparatus that will enable them to locate a U-boat on the surface at night outside visibility distance… This new equipment has also been fitted into the aircraft of coastal command and fleet aircraft. It will detect U-boats on the surface at a range of five miles and will be especially valuable for detecting U-boats on the surface at night …
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This was a primitive radar apparatus; teething troubles were being experienced by the first escorts fitted with it, but ‘no effort is being spared to clear up these difficulties and it is hoped that ASV will soon become effective and its use by our ships universal.’
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Of equal importance in the tactical field—what Dönitz might have called meeting the concentration of U-boats by a concentration of escorts—was training escort Commanders in team work. ‘This it is hoped is being achieved by forming ships into groups, each under its own leader, each working as a team and sharing a common training.’
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The importance of aircraft in ‘keeping down submarines who may be shadowing outside visibility distance in daylight and in locating U-boats that may approach in darkness’ was recognized. And besides ASV radar, aircraft of coastal command were now being equipped with depth charges in place of the ineffective bombs they had been using against U-boats.
There was some time to go before these material and training changes could have effect; in the meanwhile the ‘happy time’ continued, consciously or unconsciously exaggerated tallies were notched up by a growing list of aces awarded the Knight’s Cross, while the Propaganda Department raised them to national stardom.
For Dönitz it was a time of fulfilment. He had moved from Paris to the château at Kerneval outside Lorient after ‘Sea Lion’ had been called off in September; from the windows of the grand salon which let in the tangy smells of the foreshore and fish jetty immediately beyond he could see the open Atlantic; past the buoyed approaches, past the grey stone fort at Port Louis on the far bank the view stretched up the broad stream to the harbour of Lorient and the quays where the U-boats lay, and where
construction workers of the Todt Organization had started building the foundations for massive concrete shelters to protect them from air attack.
Today one can stand at these great windows of the salon or immediately outside where Dönitz loved to pace, and look upstream to the overwhelming, fortress-like grey concrete monument to his aspirations, now housing part of the French submarine fleet, and cast back to the autumn and winter of 1940 when the whole of Western Europe lay under the conqueror and it seemed only a matter of time before Great Britain too bowed to the new Charlemagne—and imagine the mood of confidence mixed with frustration—for there were still far too few boats to bring about the decision—and sense the pride, hearing on the breeze the songs of aggressive young Germanhood.
There is an echo in the British interrogator’s report of the first of the aces to be captured, Hans Jenisch of U 32, depth-charged to the surface on October 24th:
The prisoners were all fanatical Nazis and hated the British intensely, which had not been so evident in previous cases. They are advocates of unrestricted warfare, and are prepared to condone all aggressive violence, cruelty, breaches of treaties and other crimes as being necessary to the rise of the German race to the control of Europe.
German successes during 1940 appear to have established Hitler in their minds not merely as a God but as their only God. Maintaining that Germany is at present only ‘marking time’ until after the consolidation of a series of political victories and corrective ‘adjustments’ in the Balkans and elsewhere, they think at any moment deemed suitable a German attack on Great Britain would be overwhelmingly successful and profess to be amazed at the British failure to see the inevitability of our utter defeat at any moment convenient to Hitler.
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Nevertheless the strain of the Atlantic war was already telling. Dönitz’s insistence on the quickest possible turn-round in port was the cause of some resentment, and the officers admitted that their nerves were being affected by continuous cruising. Moreover losses of boats, although by no means great, were already causing shortages of personnel; officers were being drafted from the surface fleet for short training courses, sent on one or two cruises under an experienced Commander, then given their own boat to command; ratings were being sent on shortened
promotion courses to fill gaps amongst the petty officers, while among the junior ratings of U 32 there were ‘scarcely any who have volunteered for this branch of the service’;
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most were ‘inexperienced youths with little or no training who had been drafted without option’.
Expecting the utmost from his officers and men at sea, Dönitz did his utmost for them on their return. A special train known as the
BdU Zug
expressed those going on leave to Germany via Nantes, Le Mans, Paris, Rotterdam to Bremen and Hamburg; those not going on leave went to rest camps known as ‘U-boat pastures’ to recreate; these were sited at holiday resorts like La Baule, well away from the bombing and war. Since all hands had U-boat allowances almost doubling their service pay, they could send home French luxury foods, wines and clothes sold to them at reduced prices in special shops for their use
and
paint the town red—as they did. Luxury hotels were requisitioned for the officers who relieved the enormous strains of their under-sea life with similar excess.
More important than material benefits or the adulation these men received constantly in the national media was the personal inspiration they had from Dönitz. He made a point of attending the passing-out parade of every training course and inspecting officers and men, looking each in the eye with his own ‘clear, shining eyes’.
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No one in the arm had not seen his commanding officer at close range, many had exchanged words; he had an extraordinarily retentive memory and he made it his business to remember what they told him; important family news such as births he wirelessed to the boats at sea. And he made it a point personally to attend as many departures and arrivals as his unremitting schedule allowed.
‘
Heil
U 38!’
‘
Heil, Herr Admiral!
’ in unison from the bearded men lined in stained clothes on the deck, weeping rust.
Each felt his eyes as he walked down the rank with his extraordinarily upright bearing. He turned to address them: ‘Men, your boat has sunk 100,000 tons in only three cruises. The credit for this excellent performance is due chiefly to your gallant Commander.
Kapitänleutnant
Liebe, the Führer has conferred on you the Knight’s Cross, and it is my pleasure to hand it to you.’
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He was equally adept at the unexpected word or act of momentary inspiration. At one homecoming of a boat that had been out on many cruises later in the war, he stopped opposite one non-commissioned
Chief Engineer to ask him how many actions he had been in in the Atlantic. ‘Ten or twelve’ was the reply.
Dönitz tapped him on the shoulder, ‘
Ich schlage dich zum Ritter!
’ (‘I dub you a knight’).
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This sort of behaviour would have been unthinkable for admirals of the old school like Raeder, as would his use of the familiar ‘
dich
’. Although reserved by nature, his burning commitment to the service and personal interest in everyone who belonged to it communicated itself to officers and men alike. They knew he would not tolerate anything but the best they could give, but they gave it from admiration—his staff officers say love—not from fear. That came later. He was known as ‘
Onkel Karl
’ or ‘
Der Löwe
’ (The Lion). Undoubtedly he possessed leadership charisma.
Leadership is, of course, a two-way process. These were young men, indoctrinated by Nazi propaganda, many of whom in old age are unable to admit any fault in their former BdU or in the cause for which they were prepared to give their lives. Reading the interrogation report on Jenisch’s band of ‘fanatical Nazis’ who ‘hated the British intensely’ one is left wondering how much this was a reflection of the mood in Germany after the astounding successes of 1940, how much a reflection of Dönitz’s own extreme attitudes and style of leadership. There can be little doubt it came from both; nevertheless these were young men with the ardour and idealism of youth, stunted by Nazi education, and the question must be posed, how much did
they
demand of him? How much was it their recognition of the iron leader for whom they had been prepared since their schooldays, how much his conscious or unconscious response to their idealism in his striving for high morale?