PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) spent time working for the ABWEHR (the German Secret Service) during World War II and he has information that is known to a mere handful of people. He gives this secret information exclusively to SHARKHUNTERS. Here he tells us:

.....apparently Erich Raeder got cold feet and instructed Boehm to order the captains of the two URSULA U-Boats NOT TO BECOME DANGEROUSLY AGGRESSIVE because their presence by itself was already a considerable hindrance to the Red Spanish supply traffic and therefore their mission had actually already been partially accomplished. Under no circumstances were the captains to endanger their secrecy cover by reckless attacks or irresponsible actions.

On December 9th, 1936 the URSULA U-Boats received wireless directions from Berlin not to remain longer than three more days in their area, this also in view of the fuel situation as supplies were getting low for the U-Boats already to ensure their return to Germany. No suitable targets were sighted for the next days, but finally on the last day in the area of operations, U-34 managed to become successful when Harald Grosse sighted in the periscope a Spanish submarine almost motionless on the surface, off Cartagena. It seemed like it was doing trimming exercises of some sort. Only one man was on the bridge.

The Executive Officer of U-34, Gerd Schreiber, Class of 1931 also looked through the periscope to confirm his captain’s observations. Later on he became captain of U-3 and finally U-95 during the war, which was in turn torpedoed on November 28th, 1941 off Almeria by the Dutch crewed submarine O-21 when 35 crewmembers died and Schreiber was taken prisoner with the rest of the crew. He likewise became also a Flotilla Admiral (one star) in the Bundsmarine many years later.

U-34 fired its fourth torpedo and literally blew the Spanish submarine C-3 out of the water, which was 70 meters (240 feet) deep at that location. This despite the fact that the British destroyer HMS ACASTA on Control Commission duty was patrolling very close by. C-3 was commanded by Lieutenant Antonio Arbona Pastor, who was actually considered inclining towards breaking allegiance and joining Franco, but he died together with 44 men of his crew. Only three crewmembers survived and were picked up and rescued by the hospital ship ARTABRO and taken into Malaga Harbor. Admiral Hermann Boehm was reportedly delirious with glee and pride!

On December 13th both U-Boats passed again through the Straits of Gibraltar unseen and returned to the Atlantic Ocean for their return journey. Admiral Marshall instructed the U-Boats to give false location reports and to doctor their logbooks and documents accordingly, pretending to be commercial steamers in the North Atlantic proceeding on mis-stated courses and to circumvent any ships that they encountered to remain unobserved! The U-Boats were able to manage this and also returned again unnoticed through the English Channel into the North Sea traveling at night. Thereafter they received orders to arrive together at Brunsbüttel Lock where the FdU (Führer der U-Boote; or the Commanding Officer of Submarines) Captain Karl Dönitz was to greet them and meet them on arrival. One of the few surviving crewmembers mentioned that the FdU was smiling from ear to ear, a rather unusual action for him in his experience.

The U-Boats thereafter proceeded through the Kiel Canal to reach Kiel-Wik on December 20th, 1936 where the two Operation ‘URSULA’ captains almost immediately left their U-Boats and the two captains who had originally commissioned them came again on board as if returning from their annual leave, while the operational commanders took the night train to Berlin.

A curtain of total silence was drawn on the entire affair immediately though this was of course, not the end of the story of Operation ‘URSULA’.

The future fate of the two operational captains, Kurt Freiwald and Harald Grosse was already mentioned earlier, but what about the original captains and both of these U-Boats? Otto Heinrich Junker commanded U-33 for a while, but was transferred in 1939 to staff duties. On November 11th, 1942 he commissioned the TYPE IX-C boat U-532 and was its captain until the end of the war in Europe, traveling to Penang and Singapore but when the German capitulation took place on May 8th, 1945 he was approaching Ireland and decided to surrender U-532 in Liverpool on May 10th, 1945 where the boat was immediately inspected by Admiral Max Kennedy Horton, who was the Admiral in charge of Western Approaches and in control of all escort and convoy operations in the North Atlantic.

Ernst Sobe, not a very well-liked and popular officer, commanded U-34 for a while, thereafter became a commander of several different flotillas and eventually was put in charge of the convoy attack operations group where U-Boats had to pass through before they were cleared for front operations during the war. He was relieved by ERICH TOPP (118-LIFE-1985) and Teddy Suhren eventually, and then commissioned the TYPE IX-D2 boat U-179 on March 7th, 1942. On his first patrol, he reached South Africa and attacked and sunk one steamer off Capetown (the 6,558 ton British steamer CITY OF ATHENS) before being sunk in turn by the destroyer HMS ACTIVE with all hands lost on October 8th, 1942.

U-33 in turn was taken over by Hans Wilhelm von Dresky as captain and while approaching the Firth of Clyde on a mine laying mission was located by the British minesweeper HMS GLEANER on February 12th, 1940 and after some extended pursuit was brought to the surface and sunk. The captain died with his boat and 24 men of his crew. 4 officers and 20 crewmembers were picked up by the British and rescued. Executive Officer Heinz Rottmann; L.I. Schilling; Second Watch Officer Johannes Becker; Third Watch Officer Karl Vietor survived many years in prisoner camps.

BEGINNING OF THE END OF CODE SECURITY

Before U-33 was sinking, II. W. O. Johannes Becker had distributed the nine rotors of the ENIGMA coding machine M-3 ...ENIGMA Coding Machine M-3 amongst the officers and also gave three to Senior Engineroom Petty Officer Fritz Kumpf. All the officers dropped their rotors after swimming away from U-33 in the dark and icy cold waters of the Firth of Clyde before being picked up by the GLEANER crew; however Kumpf totally forgot to do the same in the excitement and confusion of the sinking and left his three rotors in the back pocket of his pants.

When aboard HMS GLEANER he finally realized his gross error and confessed to the I,W,O, who sneaked back into the engine room where the British had put the wet clothing of the rescued Germans for drying out again. But the pockets of Kumpf’s pants were empty. British intelligence trained officers had removed the three rotors and they were dispatched directly to Bletchley Park shortly thereafter by the Admiralty to be inserted into the Polish manufactured copy model for trial. But while it assisted in solving some of the technical complications, this was not enough to crack radio messages because the other six rotors were on the bottom of the Firth of Clyde.

More Peter's Page: Ursula

German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#111)
German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#112)
German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#113)
German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#114)
German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#115)
German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#116)
German Subs in Spanish Civil War (#117)