U-Boat 977

Heinz Schaeffer

• Publisher: Greenhill Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781784382513
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

When it was first published in 1953, opinions were sharply divided between those who deplored the apparent extolling of a vicious form of warfare, and this who found in Heinz Schaeffer's account a revealing picture of the German Navy's training and methods.U-Boat 977 was the German submarine that escaped to Argentina at the end of World War Two. This epic journey started from Bergen in Norway, where in April 1945 it was temporarily based, and took three and a half months to complete. Because of the continuing Allied naval activity the commander decided to make the first part of the journey underwater. Before surfacing near the west coast of Africa U-977 had spent a remarkable sixty-six days submerged.Heinz Schaeffer, the commander of U-977 wrote a full account of his career that culminated in this last command. It depicts the grueling aspects of a submariner's life aboard a vessel that was subjected to harsh conditions of the sea and oceans. As an experienced commander Schaeffer took part in many of the decisive U-boat operations in the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean. In the final months of the war, and in common with most surviving U-boat commanders, Schaeffer and his crew came under constant attacks from Allied aircraft and surface ships.The final part of U-Boat 977 is Schaeffer's account of the journey to Argentina and lays to rest some of the more fanciful sorties that followed its arrival.

1

White Sails

I have in my mind’s eye the image of the great city where I was born and grew up: Berlin, with its hectic life, its great highways and deafening traffic, its buildings and its human masses, whose work and humour left such a mark on the capital of the German Reich. But Berlin for me is above all the shimmering belt which it possesses: the waters of its rivers and canals, the gleaming stretches of its lakes luring you into the distance, its silent and reedy backwaters inviting you to linger. I can still see the lofty pines of Brandenburg mirrored in those waters, and myself as a boy of five.

‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a ship’s captain,’ I assured my mother as she stood over my bed, begging me not to fall into the water again. It was nothing new: and anyway the little water rat was a good swimmer. I lived in close contact with the liquid element. I practised rowing industriously, but soon something else captured my attention. My friend and I gazed enviously at boats under sail apparently gliding along without effort. We hit upon the idea of converting my father’s boat into a sailing dinghy. It was intended for angling but had never been used for the purpose. The time seemed ripe, for my father was out hunting and my mother was busy stewing fruit for bottling.

The work progressed with alacrity. Each of us stole, or in later German parlance ‘organized’, a bedsheet and we used a beanpole as a mast, hammering large iron nails into it for the washing lines that served as the rigging. The first run was satisfactory and we sailed downstream for several hours with a following wind, but when it became time to turn back we found we could not, since we had no keel or dagger-board. We had often seen passing barges making to windward with leeboards, and so with wood from our garden and a supply of nails the ‘leeboard’ was secured to the hull. It was a good thing my father was not around to see the result. Now the boat leaked and needed caulking with hot tar: many bricks were loaded for ballast.

We set out for the second time but a squall capsized us and the ‘proud sailing boat’ sank to the masthead. Fishermen retrieved the wreck. ‘Don’t do it again, that won’t be the last ship you sink,’ my father said. I got a thrashing and house arrest.

Years later as a youth I joined the junior section of a large and highly respected yachting club. ‘Youth member Schäffer report to the club committee,’ came the order one Sunday in the spring of 1934. With racing heart I entered the committee room. Behind a huge table covered with a grey cloth sat the chairman of our club, a well-known figure in the commercial world with many titles.

‘Would you like to be boatswain of the schooner Sonnenwende?’ he asked. My eyes lit up, for it was an honour to be chosen by the owner of a large sailing yacht. I knew of course that it would involve a lot of work, but more importantly I would have to pass the yacht master’s examinations as soon as possible in order to represent club yachts responsibly at regattas.

‘Jawohl!’ I replied. With this word I bound myself for the season, and duly signed my name on the club register, modelled on the articles of the merchant service. I knew that if proved unfit for my duties I would be struck off, but I was determined never to suffer such a disgrace.

From now on I waited at seven o’clock each Sunday morning for my Lord and Master in order to act in his service, unpaid, as boatswain. I was 13, and the youngest of the hirelings. I had made the dinghy shipshape and was dressed in spotless whites. Finally my Chief arrived, accompanied by his family and a retinue of friends. The dinghy could take only three besides myself as boatswain. The yacht lay at anchor about 100m from the landing stage. I rowed back and forth four times and was pretty well exhausted by the end.

‘We have no time to waste, Heinz,’ he told me, ‘Ready the sails to leave in half an hour!’ I made the preparations while they relaxed and drank vermouth. Unfolding the sails a halyard got hooked and I had to go to the masthead, 20m above me. The very thought gave me vertigo but I knew I must show no fear and so up I went.

With a stiff breeze blowing we sailed downstream. She was a 16-tonne two-masted schooner: I would have loved to taken the wheel. Instead I had to clean the bilges of accumulated water and filth and was soon covered in it. It wasn’t my idea of fun but I gritted my teeth and ‘carried on’, and I even had to do the washing-up. ‘Practice is the best teacher,’ my captain told me. To make things worse, next day we lay becalmed on the return journey and, like a galley slave, I worked the oars of the dinghy to pull the yacht home.

I felt that I might as well build a new boat, for the ropes had to be changed, the pulleys oiled and new splices made. Every day there was something to be varnished. My captain was a former naval officer and therefore a thorough man who knew his business. He always made a fine showing when there was a race. Later I was allowed to handle the jib myself and finally even got to steer. With pride I informed my father that I had passed the yacht master’s examinations and could now be master of a sailing yacht of any size on German inland waters. I was too young at fourteen to have a certificate of that kind, but my captain pushed it through for me.

From now on I was my own master. My father gave me the present of a 10-square metre racing jollyboat, about 7m long and only 1.3m in beam, a real regatta boat. I spent every free moment aboard her, picking up many tips from the best sailors in the club. For every wind-strength there were different sail slats and the mast had to be set to the correct position, every centimetre being of the greatest importance. The smoothness of the hull underwater also played a great role. Everybody had his own secret recipe. Mine was to go over the keel with graphite on a cork and then wax it thoroughly, polished until it shone like a mirror, the finishing touch being a compound of eggs and oil.

The first race! As soon as the starting gun fired we set full sail despite the strong wind so as to make best use of the calmer waters inshore. We shipped a lot of water, Hans at the jib baling water with one hand, trimming the jib with the other and stretching out over the side to keep her upright. The worst stretches came with the full force of the following wind – three competitors had already dropped out. We had fallen so far behind that we risked raising the spinnaker, and shot through the water carrying three times the spread of sail – 30m2 – rather than the 10m2 for which the boat was designed. Soon we caught up the leading group but found it very difficult to keep the boat on course. The efforts of other competitors to copy us proved disastrous: two capsized and three had their costly balloon-silk sails ripped to shreds and gave up. We kept well ahead, and after six hours of it were awarded the bronze medal.

I took part in other regattas with varying success. Nearly always I would come up against very well-known yachtsmen who boasted titles such as ‘German Champion’, ‘Olympic Medallist’ and suchlike who turned up each year with a new boat. This made competition very difficult. During my secondary education my heart was in sport. No wonder I was near the bottom of my class but at least I never missed a year. In all I went to six different schools, sometimes changing of my own free will, at other times being asked to leave.

My best subject was mathematics: other subjects seemed to need too much reading up and I resisted cramming. In 1938 my father arranged for me to have a long stay in the United States. The sea voyage alone was a wonderful experience. The impressions I received in that great country were extremely interesting and instructive. I attended high school in Cleveland which was a great help towards my learning English.

After my return I considered the question of a career. What should it be? For some time my family had been thinking that I should go into forestry. I did and actually have an interest in nature, woodcraft and hunting, but the lure of water was stronger. It was clear that I would be in my element there.

Being a naval officer appealed to me. At the club we often had the opportunity to meet and observe Reichsmarine officers. What an impression they made! They were practical and knowledgeable people concerned with wind and weather but also with all manner of interesting technical developments. I thought little about the possibility of war. I never thought seriously about bloodshed and death. Did young men have such ideas? If it came to it, one had to do his duty for the Fatherland whatever job he had.

I never had an interest in politics. The circle in which I lived had no contact with National Socialist ideology. I was never in the Hitler Youth. During the summer holidays in one of my last years at school, I did voluntary work on the land, which I really enjoyed. The village Bürgermeister gave me a certificate of thanks, which I used to impress the school authorities, but I steered well clear of membership in any organization save that of my sailing club. I knew of course that as a naval officer I would have to obey orders without question, but that would be within a community with a clear separation of command and responsibility, a service bound by tradition and its own code of honour.

I persuaded my father to allow me to sit the examinations for naval cadetship. These were held before the Abitur (diploma) examinations in the last year of secondary school. I had submitted a handwritten CV and other requested documents. The examinations lasted fourteen days and fell towards the end of 1938.

At Kiel things proceeded quickly. A large number of psychologists observed us constantly. After a medical examination and answering countless questions we had to go through some strange procedures. We had to sit in a giant box and watch for lamps on a large board that lit up suddenly and at regular intervals, and had to be turned off within a time limit using a lever. If they went out by themselves, one lost a point. Depending on what colours appeared on two boards one had to turn a steering wheel left or right, and also work two sirens and a bell under our seat simultaneously with our feet. This brought many to a state of nervous collapse.

Especially impressive was an electric shock machine. We had heard that coating the hands with the white of an egg was a good insulator but it didn’t seem to work at all and we had to go through the ordeal as best we could. We had to grasp the two ends of a bar, and when the current was switched on it was impossible to let go. The idea was to see how we reacted to torture. Many cried out – this being quite the wrong response – others bit their cheeks and gave the impression of dour endurance. The whole session was filmed but not shown to us afterwards, which might have been amusing. In the foreign languages test I got high marks in English.

Would we conduct ourselves as gentlemen at the dinner table? As the tests went on for fourteen days there was plenty of opportunity for this to be established. We were introduced to several high-ranking officers using high society etiquette, by no means easy to master, especially when conversation was required with their wives and daughters likely to misunderstand what one was trying to say. Fortunately we were introduced, and did not have to introduce ourselves; I doubt whether we would have been up to that.

We sat at a long table between officers with many gold rings on their sleeves. The candidates sat stiff and upright while the officers committed the grossest errors of etiquette at table, this one sitting with arms and legs hunched up, another helping himself to another glass of wine without summoning a steward, the idea being to see if any candidate copied them, and woe betide him who did. The table was laid with the cutlery, crockery and glasses of normal table service but missing the odd item. Naturally one could begin the courses and await the point at which the missing implement was required: one of my colleagues skilfully, but unwisely, transferred a spoon from an elderly captain into his own set but the watching psychologists spotted it. The correct thing to do was have the stewards bring whatever was missing. The whole affair tended to be lively.

Dessert was the high point of the meal with mirabelles, small yellow plums which looked delicious, the largest and juiciest of the crop having been selected for us with much forethought. By now the only item at one’s disposal was a teaspoon. The mirabelles were rather hard, which made them very difficult to cut up with a teaspoon and they were too large to simply cram into one’s mouth. If one did so, he was bound to be asked something, or somebody would drink his health and then he would go red in the face and look silly. I had never eaten mirabelles before and had bad luck when trying to cut one up with my teaspoon: it shot off the plate and hit the butterfly collar of the psychologist seated at my side. I apologized, requested a steward to bring me some water to erase the stain, then gave up with the teaspoon and ate the remainder with my fingers. The examination ended at last and we all went home. I was informed later that I had passed.

1939 dawned. Though it had broadened my perspectives, my visit to the United States could not make up for my deficiencies in some academic areas and I got permission to have these subjects postponed from the Abitur examinations to be held at Easter, and to be sat in the autumn that year. By then, however, war had broken out.

Germany had embarked on a great struggle whose extent and consequences could not be estimated at its outset. The Polish campaign ended very quickly, but where would the war lead us next, and what would befall me personally in naval service? The Navy was obviously destined to play a major and decisive role in the war against Britain, the world’s leading naval power, but such reflections were of less importance for me then than the training upon which I was about to embark.

2

Officer-Cadet Basic Recruit Training at Stralsund

Towards the end of 1939 I travelled to the training school at Stralsund. On the train I met many of my colleagues from the Crew 1939-B. The word ‘Crew’ in Kriegsmarine usage applied to those officer cadets who entered the service together at a particular point in time. It tended to create a uniquely special bond between its members.

We sat in the compartments or stood in the corridors of the train bringing us north from Stettin, easily recognizable by our short haircuts. At some stops those boarding had had their hair shaved off completely: this would help them to adjust more quickly to military life since no young man would be seen bald in public.

Stralsund! Petty officers awaited us on the platforms and marshalled us into formation, and we sang gaily as we marched towards Dänholm, an island dedicated entirely to naval training. It was mid-winter, –14°C. The pace was brisk and despite the cold we were soon warmed up. A swing-bridge that lifted as soon as we were across signified our separation from the everyday world. After passing two guardrooms we came to the naval barracks. The sentries all grinned as we passed by, knowing that the petty officers would soon dampen our high spirits. At Dänholm they were all officer cadets who had failed the basic training and now had the pleasure of going through it all again from a different standpoint as the alternative to withdrawing their application. It was purely voluntary. Nobody was forced to be an officer, although withdrawal meant that one’s father lost his surety of 800 Reichsmarks justified as being the cost of examinations and training.

We had to spend three months on Dänholm and I have to confess that I hated it. I do not think that all the tricks employed there served any useful purpose, but on the other hand the rough treatment and relentless grinding-down of military recruits belongs in the realm of human experience and teaches one how to react correctly. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The Prussian form of military service is not unique in the world, but we know what went on in other armed forces and that paled into insignificance compared to what was our common experience.

On average, eight men lived in a squad hut and sixteen made a Korporalschaft, a section led by a petty officer: four such sections made up a platoon and four to five platoons a company.

We were awoken at six, but not, as one might think, by a single blast on the whistle and then off to the washrooms. Instead we were treated to a long prelude on the bosun’s whistle which was sheer martyrdom for me. The custom prevails on ships and in naval barracks where the whistle plays a special role. There is no order that is not preceded by a sort of overture: in different keys or without variations by trilling the tongue. Before reveille itself, the boatswain’s mate would pipe the high tone softly at the beginning, getting constantly louder. For me it was the most repugnant noise of my whole period in service. Its chirping could be heard in the distance as a warning that within a few minutes the listener would have no quiet moment to himself for the rest of the day.

After we had got up after the second whistle and the call Reise Reise or some other traditional nautical ballad, we would run to the washrooms to shower and shave. Recruits rostered to act as stewards had to be quick, for breakfast was carried in from 500m away. Then they cleared the tables. The other occupants of the room had only to make their beds, but obviously with military thoroughness, and woe betide him whose cot was not faultless.

At seven we had to fall in on the parade ground. Our petty officer called himself Obermaat Much: ‘My name is Much, because I demand much of you, you lazy shower!’ Our platoon leader was a young lieutenant, ‘Hänschen’, a pleasant-looking young man and fairly friendly. ‘Dying Swan’ was the petty officer of our neighbouring platoon, so-called for his awfully long neck. The Dying Swan turned out to be a very jolly type.

The first few days were relatively quiet. We were issued one grey, two white and two blue uniforms, drill overalls, rifle and gas mask. Only after we were sworn in did things get moving. We learnt correct deportment and how to stand up straight. It was endlessly: ‘Stomach in, chest out. Keep your fingers together’: how to salute sitting, standing and running; and marching up and down the parade ground. After two hours’ drill came an hour’s lecture, but here one only had to sit up straight and look interested. Learning the subject matter posed us no difficulties. We all had eleven to twelve years’ schooling behind us and the Abitur: the point of it in the first three months was to note our character and behaviour and weed out those who reacted against the harsh discipline. Training was based on the theory that only those who know how to obey are fit to command.

At six in the evening we ate, various officers being distributed amongst us to make informal co...