May I share with you, the story of a kind, humane U-Boat Commander, who was directly responsible for saving the lives of six American seamen. You may or may not have known about it, but I am going to relate it to you as I have uncovered all the facts and they can be verified. I know there were other humane submarine commanders, but this is a definite story about one man who was commander of U-336, Hans Hunger.

On February 23, 1943 the U-707 (Oblt Günter Gretschel) torpedoed the SS JONATHAN STURGES, a US Flag LIBERTY SHIP in the North Atlantic while en route from Liverpool to New York while a straggler from Convoy ON.166, while in ballast.

HARRY'S NOTE: U-707 was a standard TYPE VII-C frontboot, built at Stülken Sohn (Stülken Shipyards) in Hamburg and launched 18 December, 1941. She was assigned to the 7th U-BootFlotilla at St. Nazairre. The boat was lost with all hands on her third war patrol (51 men) on 9 November, 1943 to RAF aircraft of 220 Squadron.

As a result, 29 Merchant Crew members and 22 Naval Armed Guard were lost from a total compliment on board of 44 crew and 31 Naval Armed Guard.

Lifeboat #2 got away from the ship with 5 crew members and two Naval Armed Guard on board. Lifeboat #1 in charge of the Chief Mate, as the Master was badly injured, contained a total of 17 men. It was never heard from again. Lifeboat #3 containing 17 men was never heard from again. A lifeboat from the Dutch ship MADOERA containing 3 Lascar seamen was found and six men from #1 boat and 13 other men who were on rafts all transferred to this boat, making a total of 19 Americans and 3 Lascar seamen. This boat was picked up on March 12th by the USS BELKNAP (DD 251) after 17 days adrift in the boat. One crew member in this boat died of exposure.

Getting back to Boat #2 again, as this is where the story of Hans Hunger's kindness comes in. On April 5th, U-336 discovered this boat adrift in position 50-04N x 25-15W containing six American seamen. One merchant seaman had died of exposure on March 22nd. He kindly took them on board, thereby saving their lives, and took them to Brest, arriving there at 0815 (GRT) on April 11, 1943. From there, they were transported to the Merchant Seamen POW camp at MILAG NORD (four merchant crew), the two Navy men were sent to MARLAG POW camp. They were repatriated on 21 Feb. 1945 on the exchange ship GRIPSHOLM.

The action of Captain Hunger in picking these men up was strictly against the wishes of GrossAdmiral Dönitz, as you know. He had ordered all of his U-Boat commanders not to pick up survivors after the LACONIA affair as I understand it. And these six men owed their lives to him at that time.

HARRY'S NOTE: U-156 under Werner Hartenstein sank the British liner LACONIA on 12 September, 1942, only to hear many Italian voices crying out in the water. On further investigation, it was learned that LACONIA carried some 1,500 Italian POW's and since Italy was, at that time, allied with Germany, it was decided to save as many survivors of LACONIA as possible of any nationality. One of the survivors was the wife of a British Ambassador. As U-156 and other German U-Boats were involved in this rescue, they broadcast in clear, all details of this sinking and announced that any ship, Allied or Axis, that would assist in this rescue, would not be attacked by any German U-Boat. Despite this assurance, despite pleas from a British officer on the bridge of U-156, USAAF B-24 LIBERATOR bombers were sent to destroy the assembled German U-Boats.

They dropped bombs, missing the U-Boats but hitting one or two of the lifeboats instead! It was this action which prompted GrossAdmiral Karl Dönitz to order U-Boats not to pick up survivors because it put the boat and all her crew in danger. During the War Crimes Trials at Nürnberg, certain prosecutors tried to say that the true intent of Dönitz's order was to machine gun survivors in the water. That was never the intent of the order and, thanks in part to great American submariners and also Admiral Nimitz, who spoke on his behalf, Admiral Dönitz did not receive the death penalty sought by some of the prosecutors.

Whether or not any of these six are alive today, I do not know. I did talk with one Ralph Piehet back in 1984, but he did not wish to talk about the incident at all. He did say he never knew who picked them up, and that it did get very cold and hungry. Can you imagine how those six survived for 41 DAYS in winter in the North Atlantic. I can't imagine it!

The story has a sad ending though, because Captain Hunger and his entire crew were lost when the U-336 was sunk on Oct 14, 1943 position 60-40N x 26-30W by USN aircraft.

The following men were in that boat picked up by the U-336:

Ralph Piehet, Ordinary Seaman;
Rufus W. Stough, Chief Cook;
William E. Weaver, Fireman;
Jose Gerrido, Oiler;
Emer V. Hatcher, US Navy;
Lewis D. Boileau, US Navy

Merchant Marine Veteran CAPTAIN ARTHUR MOORE is a well-known researcher & writer of US Merchant Marine history. Many thanks for this insight, CAPTAIN MOORE.