Bruckner
Off the Coast of Greenland, April 30, 1945
Ostermann had navigated with his usual precision.
The U-5001 had cleared the northern face of Iceland without incident and was tracking south toward Cape Farewell. Erich Bruckner stood in the con, checking his chronometer against his Warrant Officer’s plots on the chart. Traveling at a cruising depth most of the past thirty-three hours, they had maintained a speed of more than 24 knots per hour. They had only chanced near the surface for schnorkelling—a chance to draw air into the diesels and recharge the batteries.
A close estimate had them at more than 800 miles since evading the air attack. During all that time and distance, Erich had maintained a strict radio silence, and had ventured above the surface only once in the deepest, darkest part of the night. His boat had skimmed the Arctic Circle at perhaps its coldest moments of the year, and even though the pipes and radiators were searing hot to the touch, every inch of the sub was as cold as the grave. Only the thickness of his parka kept him anywhere close to comfortable.
“Excuse me, Captain,” said a voice behind him.
Erich recognized the graveled tones before turning around to face his Chief Warrant Officer, Helmut Massenburg. “Yes, what is it?”
“Hausser has fixed you something special, sir. I took the liberty of telling him you have been awake for twenty hours and have not eaten a thing.”
Erich looked at his Chief and could not hide a small smile of appreciation. Massenburg was short and stocky and fancied a thick beard, which was streaked with gray like his thinning hair. At forty-six, Massenburg was surely one of Germany’s oldest kriegsmariners.
“Why, thank you, Helmut…I am hungry.”
Massenburg nodded, smiled. “Why not head down to the officer’s mess while it is still hot, Captain. I will take the control deck.”
Old enough to be many of the crew’s father, the Chief took on the role of such a surrogate with warm affection. Along with his general duties on the con, he acted like he should be watching out for the needs of everyone else. Erich liked him very much—not just for his kindness and thoughtfulness, but because he was a loyal and dedicated military man. Not like a lot of the youngsters who dreamed of being SS.
“Thank you, Chief. I will go now.”
“Very good, sir.”
Pausing at the hatch and ladder to the main deck, Erich paused to add a cautionary thought. “Let me know if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“Jawol, Captain.”
Erich touched the brim of his hat in a gentle salute and eased down the ladder, then along the central corridor to the officer’s galley, which was chock-a-block to the crew’s mess.
It would be dawn soon, and the day-shift crew would be filling the larger room jammed with economically-designed benches and tables. Unlike the whisper quiet of the officer’s galley, the other dining facility would thrum with chatter and the clank of tableware. But for the moment, the space was empty as Erich walked past it to the smaller officer’s space, took a seat near the bulkhead door.
“Captain!” said Frederich Hausser, the U-5001’s cook, who appeared in the doorway holding a dinner plate in two hands in front of him. He sounded surprised as he quickly set down the plate to issue a proper salute.
“The Chief told me to come see you,” said Erich.
“Yes sir! Here you are, sir. My best sauerbraten. And dumplings.” He was thin and sandy-haired with bright hazel eyes. He couldn’t be more than twenty-two, and looked like he’d only recently started to shave. But he had a reputation back at Trondheim for being a fantastic cook, so Erich had hand-picked him.
Ten minutes later, Erich was very pleased with that decision. His meal had been extraordinary, and had easily been the best thing he had ever tasted on a U-boat. Hausser had a talent for his work, no doubt. When he appeared to clear the plates, he looked at Erich expectantly.
“Seaman, that was simply fantastic.” Erich said, then sipped from his coffee mug.
“Thank you, sir.” Hausser dared a small smile.
“Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“It is in my family, sir. Back in Bavaria, my father and his brother used to work in their father’s inn. Later on, my father opened his own restaurant in Augsburg,” Hausser paused, as if uncertain whether he should continue, then added: “After the Armistice, my father’s brother took his family to America.”
Erich carefully placed the mug on the stainless steel table, looked at the cook. “You have relatives there?”
“Yes. In Baltimore. My uncle and my cousins, they run a restaurant there.”
“That is amazing, Hausser. How do you feel about that…and this war? Do you stay in touch with them?”
Hausser looked fearful, unsure how to answer, what to say. Erich gestured with a slight wave of his hand, smiled. “Relax, sailor. I am not SS. You are not the only German with relatives across the Atlantic.”
The cook tried to smile, and did a bad job of it. He shrugged. “Well, I have not spoken to them in years. But we used to be close. I have a cousin my age—Richard, who wants to be a chef. I used to like him a lot.”
“Hmmm,” said Erich. “And…you speak some English?”
“Yessir. Not bad at it, actually.”
“It is not on your papers…”
“No one asked me,” said Hausser.
Erich smiled. “Spoken like a true German. Very well, Hausser. I would like to thank you for the wonderful meal and the enlightening conversation.”
Hausser stiffened a bit, nodded ever so slightly in the fashion of the boat’s officers. “Well, sir, I should be getting ready for the day-crew. They will be hungry.”
“Yes, of course,” said Erich. He rose from the table and headed back to the control deck.
After relieving Massenburg, he waited until Gunther Ostermann reported for duty so he could consult the charts and discuss their position. The U-5001 was running smooth and quiet. So far, she was shaking out to be a fine boat. If the rest of this milk-run went as well, there was perhaps a chance of a successful mission when they picked up the Messerschmitt crew.
“Tell me where we should be, Gunther,” he said without looking up from the charts.
“We are nine miles off the south-east coast of Greenland. We are also experiencing the effects of a strong underwater current, which has been pushing against our intended navigation. Within ten minutes, we shall be in range of a very small enemy base here.” Ostermann tapped his finger over a point on the map. A Godforsaken stretch of ice and mud called Ammassalik where it was rumored the Americans had installed a radar installation.
“Hmm,” said Erich. “Bad timing.”
“Yes, Captain.” His Warrant Officer looked at him with concern. “The batteries…”
Erich nodded. They were both very much aware of the demands of the Siemens electric motors and fresh-water distillers. Drawing down 15,000 amps required a careful schedule of recharging which could not be compromised.
“We have no choice,” said Erich. “Helmsman, schnorkel depth!”
The declination of the deck changed beneath his feet as he felt his boat gently angle toward the surface. Normally, Erich appreciated the feeling of a submarine rising, but he knew he would be coming close to the surface in alien territory, with no guarantee it was any safer than the cold darkness of undersea canyons.
“Seventy meters… Sixty…” said the helmsman. “Stand-by… Forty… Twenty… Fifteen… Schnorkel depth…now.”
“Steady as she goes,” said Erich. “Gunther, inform the Chief Engineer the snort’s operational.”
“Yes sir,” said Ostermann, exiting the con.
Soon the diesels would kick in, which in turn would run the generators to rejuvenate the batteries. This part of a sub’s routine was always fraught with danger because of how much noise the diesels made. Erich could imagine the rumbling clatter through the headset of a sonar operator, and how it would scramble the crew of a destroyer into deadly action.
“Bearing 88 degrees,” he said to the helmsman just as Ostermann returned to the con. “Gunther, we will be passing within range of that American base. Since we have to stay close to the surface anyway, I am going to look about.”
“Yes sir, shall I raise ship-status to stand-by alert?”
“Affirmative,” said Erich. “Up periscope…”
As the helmsman raised the scope, Fassbaden and Bischoff entered the control deck. The communications leutnant relieved the man on the Telefunken equipment, and Manfred assumed duties as Exec. “Reporting in, Captain,” he said.
“Good morning, Manny. Sleep well?”
“A better question for you, sir.”
Erich rotated the brim of his hat around, leaned close to the ocular hood of the scope. “On and off. There will be time enough for sleep.”
Manfred nodded grimly.
“Kress reports recharging initiated and is routine, sir,” said Ostermann.
“Good…good,” said Erich absently as he turned his attention to his only connection to the surface. Despite the best Zeiss optics, the U-5001’s scope afforded a very constrained view of things. The American base lay somewhere northwest of their position, and it was in that direction’s horizon he now scanned.
“Looks quiet,” he said. “Herr Bischoff…? What about you?”
“Nothing, Captain. I hear nothing.”
Erich nodded, continued to concentrate on the periscope view. Even though the cruel waters above them looked calm, non-threatening, he felt a need to be vigilant. His few years of staying alive in submarines had been the result of an almost unending paranoia, and a belief that things were eventually going to go wrong.
The U-5001 was a big boat, almost twice the size of a normal submarine. Her conning tower, radio mast, scope, and schnorkel were all proportionately larger as well. When recharging her batteries, Erich knew he was exposing a larger than normal metallic target to the allies and their radar. If the rumors out of Naval High Command were true—that the Americans had developed equipment many times more sensitive than they had even six months ago—then it was a good possibility he could be detected.
An acceptable risk in the open sea, perhaps, but foolhardy when passing within range of an enemy installation. Erich became angry with himself—although he had taken the time to re-calculate each position where recharging would be required before embarking on his course change, he had allowed his boat to be affected by underwater current. A good captain always counts on the capriciousness of the sea, and he had not.
He collapsed the scope, nodded to his helmsman to retract it. As he turned around, Erich saw his Exec looking at him from nearby.
“You look preoccupied,” said Manfred Fassbaden.
Erich shrugged, then shared his concerns.
“It would be different if we hadn’t been spotted right out of the yards,” said Manfred. “You could not risk being trailed or passed along to a pack of destroyers.”
Erich nodded. That was true enough—the habits of U-boat captains and the rigid orders from Berlin had made it easier for the allies to predict where a submarine might be once it had been spotted and its position charted. Admiral Doenitz understood this—the reason he had decided to deviate from the usual pattern, opting for a more circuitous route.
“True enough,” he said. “When we have fresh batteries, we will resume at cruise depth.”
Aboard his previous boats, Erich had stayed on the surface as much as possible during the night hours. He believed it was still relatively safe, as it had been—at least until the last six months of the war when allied detection techniques had significantly improved. But this mission was so important, he could not dare risk being spotted on the surface. The secrecy in constructing this giant submarine had been the most stringent of the war, and Erich had been sworn to preserve it.
For now, that meant sweating through the minutes and hours until they could slip beneath surface once more.
Manfred moved closer and looked him squarely in the eye. Erich could read concern and urgency in his friend’s expression. His Exec spoke softly. “I require a word with you, sir. In your cabin.”
Not wanting to leave the con under the potentially troubling circumstances, Erich considered putting things off, but he also knew Manfred would not ask such a thing lightly.
“Very well,” said Erich, leading the way toward the hatch leading down to the main deck corridor. Just before descending he gave the con to Ostermann.
The commander’s cabin was only several strides from the ladder. When both men had entered it, Erich closed the door, and indicated they both sit at a small table which did double service as his desk.
“I will assume there is a problem,” said Erich.
“Potentially, yes.” He paused as if unsure how to continue. He looked embarrassed, as if trying to make himself smaller. The Exec was about as big as a man could be and still function in the close quarters of U-boat.
“Come on, Manny. Out with it.”
“I finally had time to do a routine check of the crew roster, and there is a…discrepancy.”
“What does that mean?” Erich leaned forward, listening intently.
“One of our men in the forward torpedo room is listed as Seaman Oscar Kliner…but Kliner is not onboard.”
“What? And how did this happen?”
“Apparently Kliner suffered an attack of acute appendicitis only moments before the crew was to begin boarding. He was taken to the infirmary, and in order to maintain the schedule, the Officer of the Watch assigned a replacement.”
Erich absorbed this, and fought his immediate reaction, which was to become furious. There was simply no excuse for not informing him of any problem. He had been ordered, by Doenitz, no less, to personally hand-pick his crew. If any one of them were unavailable, he should have been told at the moment it was known. The U-5001 should not have been allowed to sail until its Captain had been given a chance to deal with the problem.
The German military was getting sloppy, he thought. This is why we are going to lose this war. The truth of that sank through him like an anchor plumbing the coldest depths.
“Manfred, what you are telling me…it is frankly unbelievable.”
“I am aware of that. If we had not been attacked so quickly into our mission, I would have learned of it much sooner.” Fassbaden’s fists tightened as he revealed his own anger and helplessness. “To be honest, Warrant Officer Kress was terrified to tell me.”
“Some officious numb-skull at Trondheim took it upon himself to find me a new crewman?” Erich pounded the small table with his open palms. “How dare that fool!”
“There may be more to it,” said the Exec.
“Why?” said Erich understanding instantly what Fassbaden was intimating. “Who is our replacement?”
“His name is Roland Liebling.”
The name resonated with him; he knew this seaman. “He is the man rumored to have attempted to start a mutiny on the U-479. A few days before it hit a mine in the Eastern Baltic Sea.”
“That is our man,” said Fassbaden. “Unfortunately, there is no proof—other than the word of the only other survivor from that sinking.”
Erich felt a sudden urge for a cigarette, but he had forbidden smoking on his ship unless surfaced. He could not allow himself to break one of his own rules. Sheisse…he did not need this kind of trouble. “What else do we know about this man?”
Reaching into his shirt pocket, Fassbaden pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper. “Not much. Without radio, I cannot get a dossier check confirmed. I…had to rely on whatever scuttlebutt the Chief knew.”
Erich had to grin just a little. Chief Warrant Officer Helmut Massenburg had been in the Navy for so long, he probably claimed to remember von Tirpitz. He was also a great repository of information on whatever was going on in the U-boat service.
“All right. And what did he know?”
“More than I would have thought. Seems that Liebling has been trouble from the beginning.” Fassbaden glanced at his unfolded notepaper. “The man is twenty-six. Family runs a very small dairy farm near the Austrian border. He was conscripted—Regular Army—to work in Food Services.”
“What is he doing with us?”
“The Chief says High Command has been pulling men for the U-boats from wherever they can get them. There is, as you know, a great demand for men.”
Erich nodded. His Exec, being as superstitious as most true sailors, would not outwardly acknowledge the outrageously high mortality rate of the U-boat crews. “And they are becoming less and less discriminating.”
“So it would seem,” said Fassbaden. “Liebling makes it well known he hates the military. He has been in many fistfights, and has been stockaded twice. He claims to know nothing of U-boats, and according to Kress, has already made several enemies among the torpedo and gunnery mates.”
“Have your best men keep a close watch on him. I will shoot him myself if he becomes a real problem.”
Fassbaden nodded, said nothing.
Erich knew his old friend believed him—even though both of them knew he’d never shot anyone in his entire life. Although Erich liked to think of himself as a very civilized man, he would not hesitate to do whatever necessary to protect his crew.
Neither spoke for a moment, then Erich added, “The more I think about it, we should get Liebling out of the torpedo room. Assign him to the galley with Hausser. Have the cook watch him and report anything odd to you immediately.”
“Good idea. If we get called to battle station, I can have Massenburg fill in down there.”
“That will work,” said Erich. “But let us hope it will not be necessary.”
Fassbaden nodded, stood up, knowing instinctively their meeting had ended. Erich liked that decisive confidence in his Exec, and trusted him without question. He followed the tall, broad-shouldered man into the corridor leading to the control deck where Ostermann and his charts awaited him.
“We will be beyond the range of the base within twenty minutes,” said the navigator, who had been carefully plotting their exact position as the U-5001 continued to sneak past the Ammassalik base.
Erich nodded. Good news, even though there was no way of knowing whether or not the Americans or Canadians might have a small carrier or seaplanes in the area.
“All quiet on the surface,” said Newton Bischoff as he adjusted a dial on his board.
“Excellent. Steady as she goes,” said Erich as he paced slowly across the control deck in the space between the chart table and the helm. This was typical service-time in the unterseeboot service—long periods of abject boredom, punctuated by moments of hideous terror.
Not surprisingly, he had learned to love the dull hours.
When he could spend some time alone in his quarters, Erich would read history or philosophy and listen to string quartets on a small crank-and-spring driven phonograph. During those moments, he could allow himself to forget he’d climbed into a metal tube which could become his coffin in an instant.
Unless this present mission was successful, it did not seem like the war would drag on much longer. As much as he loathed to consider it, Erich knew he must begin to think about what his life would be like in a defeated Germany. If the allies repeated the humiliation exacted upon the Kaiser in the previous war, it was not going to be a pleasant place to live—especially for a son of a military family like the Bruckners. He had a feeling there would not be many job opportunities for men like him.
Indeed, he had no guarantee he would even have much family remaining. To exactly what would he be returning? The oddest part of that question was that Erich had not even a hint of an answer. There was this…void…a total absence in his thoughts. Quite simply, his future seemed so uncertain, so unthinkable, he could not even begin to conceive of it.
In that way, he was living the perfect existential life. The modern philosophers would be so proud of him. He smiled as the notion passed through his thoughts. But there was nothing truly amusing in it. More like a thin joke in which the humor had warped into something ugly.
His friend, Manfred, had talked about maybe someday running a sheep farm, and had off-handedly asked Erich if he would be interested in being a business partner. The Fassbaden family—now all dead—had once owned land outside of Stuttgart, along the Neckar, and Manfred believed the need for good wool garments would never change. He was probably correct, and to be honest, the prospect of working a sheep farm did not sound all that bad to Erich. It would be in sharp contrast to his wartime existence, and he would be hard-pressed to think of a place with a lower profile or—
“Captain!”
Bischoff’s voice pierced his thoughts sharply, and he felt embarrassed to have disconnected so thoroughly from his surroundings. How long had he been daydreaming?
“Yes…”
“I am receiving a transmission from Berlin!”
“What?” Erich knew he sounded as stupid as he was stunned to learn Naval High Command had broken radio silence. He watched Bischoff scribble out the coded message.
“I’ll get the Enigma,” said Fassbaden, retrieving the 4-rotor decoding device from its locked cabinet.
Erich watched as Bischoff carefully inscribed the coded message onto the Zuteilungsliste, from which the keys to the decoding process would begin. It was a long message, and that meant more time for his radio signal to be detected and triangulated. Something must be terribly awry for High Command to risk the U-5001’s mission.
Waiting for the funkmeister to finish, Erich glanced around the control deck, not surprised to see everyone, including Manny, watching Bischoff, wondering what horrible news awaited them.
“Transmission closed,” said Bischoff, after what had seemed several lifetimes.
“Very well,” said Erich. “Helm, take her down to avoidance depth. On my mark. Manny, inform Kress of our need to resume electric power.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Almost instantly, his engineer responded—they needed more time to recharge the batteries in case of an emergency. Could he wait a little longer?
Erich did not like the vise into which he was being placed. But he acceded to Kress’s request and belayed his dive order for now.
Slowly, Erich regarded the M4 deciphering device with a distinct aversion. He knew he would not like whatever Doenitz needed him to know.