EDITOR NOTE - Excerpts from this interview were part of the special presentation on the History Channel. The interview is now available in its entirety on videotape H-72 for only $30 (plus $5 shipping). It runs about an hour.

SHARKHUNTERS: In what way do you pay respect to the fellows that were lost on U-boats?

Photo of Fregattenkapitan Thater on his retirement from the new German Navy, known at the time as the Bundsmarine.

THATER: I high respect and admire those who went out into the wide open space of the Atlantic, despite the fact that they were not the superiors anymore. And a high percentage of courage has to be in the man's mind to go out and know the risk he's taking and that the chances of his survival are rather low. For everyone who takes such a risk for that's in the air or on ground, whether it's a fireman going into a burning building trying to carry out a little child what's still in there who'd run such a risk -- admiration. We have to admire everyone in such a position.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe the atmosphere of the crew in the U-boat as you went into an attack.

THATER: At that time of the war, when you were attacking, what was a proud feeling - - ha, this is it! Yeah? And know there's some action. When there is nothing happened. And here you are all longing for such a moment that's something is going to happen and then - that you have a pray before you are topping the tubes. And I don't know whether you have seen a picture of this boat, the boat (the movie das Boot). Then I said, the attack music always combines with such an attack as a dot dot dot dot The machines are humming at high speed and there's expectations going through the boat - ha! This is action. At that time of the war, you really enjoyed life. And while later on, you had to sneak somewhere along to be able to attack, to be in a position to attack. And here was - it was marching into the battle. I had a high feeling aboard the ship and then they came to prepare the torpedo and it, well you had the feeling this is it. That this is why we are out here in the ocean. This is our job we have to do.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe how you joined the U-boat force.

THATER: When the war started I joined and later on I was one and a half years on PT boats. On a PT boat for a while and then I joined the U-boats on the first of July '41. At first I was Executive Officer on U-568 and after a commander's course, I became Captain of U-466 which I commissioned on the eleventh of June 1942.

SHARKHUNTERS: What does the Executive Officer do on a U-boat?

THATER: He so called charge of the boat, and he was in charge of the Seamen division and was dependent for the torpedoes.

SHARKHUNTERS: When you became a captain of a U-boat, what did you see your responsibility as?

THATER: I was on two missions -- U-568, as I told you before and I was on my second mission as Executive Officer and I came on that commander's course. I had two missions experience.

SHARKHUNTERS: What was life like on a U-boat?

THATER: Yeah, what's life? It's a little bit more difficult than all other naval ships, because the room is very, very small. But on the other hand the main thing was that a smaller crew has better condition -- you have better let's see, treatment of everybody.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe the comradeship of your crew. How did you rely an one another?

THATER: The most feeling was that everybody had his own experience and responsibility. So when I made Captain I had a little more responsibility than anyone else, but everyone worked and that was the main thing as a comradeship - it was goad, and you pass everyone as such

SHARKHUNTERS: Tell me about eating on a U-boat, sleeping on a U-boat, bathing, etc THATER We normally did not even have a head cook One week we looked for the sailors - well, we found one and he cooked, who could cook and then we treated him as a cook But normally the most of our food we had was canned food so that it was not too difficult to learn cooking on the side. But they had only dried approximately ten days fresh food and then the canned food started, even the bread was canned. The food was very, very good, such good fruit we ate. There is no more question about that

SHARKHUNTERS: How did people sleep on the U-boat? How'd they bathe on the U-boat?

THATER: The sleeping was a little bit difficult. There was just the Captain. the officers and the petty officer chief who had their own bed. I don't know if you call it that. And the other one was sleeping in, I don't know how you call that, what that is - it is these things made of string and hang down. Then you sleep in but

EDITOR NOTE - Hammocks were used in U-boats there are just one bunk or one hanging bed for two people. So the room was very, very small and it was not very comfortable.

SHARKHUNTERS: People bathe or shave on a U-boat?

THATER: No. No. Shave? Nobody was shaving. Or washing. You just got one glass of water for cleaning your teeth. That was all. All we had to use was salt water.

SHARKHUNTERS: Tell me about the typical mission. How long did it last and what did you do?

THATER: I think, well, you never can say what typical was because everything was different. But it was depending on the time where you were out. Somebody was on patrol in '39, `40, '41 was different than in `44 - '45. Next time started at forty-three. Then it was very difficult to get engines running to put the batteries in condition, because as soon as we was surfaced, somewhere was a British plane more or less all the time. So at that time and somewhere around '43 and especially crossing the Bay of Biscayne, there obviously there are airplanes on your neck.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe these airplanes.

THATER: During night raids somebody had a…there's these lights on your neck.

EDITOR NOTE - Captain Thater refers to the 75,000 candlepower Leigh Light used in ASW work.

And then you were picked up by radar and then, bombs fell all around. And the other side of the coin, we were on the Brazilian coast. There were no planes around. And I, then, on that trip we didn't see a bit, nothing at all. Just airplanes and we were out for 49 days. They'll ask you a question about the time, how long the boats were out. It was very different. And the first time in '43 for example: we had boats out that we couldn't get any water or food for a few days and so on but there were just six boats and they were all destroyed during the year '43 already. Then afterwards it was very difficult to catch some oil from other boats because we didn't have the chance to stay as one surfaced to get the number, you know.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe the process on the I U-boat of finding a convoy and then attacking a convoy.

THATER: Finding a convoy is - normally you got a order to get to such and such and such place because of a convoy was discovered by somebody else And then you went to that place, which we got from our high command and then we tried to find that convoy. That's our - let's see, only chance. Otherwise we're going to be running around the ocean and then we're looking for it and that you are lucky to find something or not I had a few missions where I didn't even had the chance I would see the ships all the time. So we all had to be lucky at that time. Not as it was in forty, forty-one. When the war started with the States and they are running around the American coast and they always found ships And not even so they could find out which was a bigger ship. If they had an attack on a ship, for example then they would pass over the smaller ship because they saw another, bigger, ship. That good time we never had. Come from forty-three on.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe the process of attacking.

THATER: As soon as you catch a convoy, what I never did I have to say first, but I know where they was and what you had to do. You went in the front of the convoy, and then you tried to get in the convoy, and then you find you are, you were looking for the target. Another possibility was to find a fallen ship, what we call enemy ship and was when you heard the noises of the engines of that ship and then our - for that responding meant that we had to go 200 degrees. We heard a noise of a destroyer or a normal trade ship then she tried to go after that noise & then you found it there.

SHARKHUNTERS: Describe what it's like to be attacked in your submarine by an enemy warship.

THATER: The normal attack was water bombs and you had been in a depths between zero and one hundred eighty that was very dangerous, but after one hundred eighty meters we normally thought we are OK. Nothing can happen anymore. And that meant that we went down to two hundred meters and then we are feeling safe. If that was true, I don't know but there was a story that the water bombs were not going deeper than one hundred and fifty five meters, at that time. I am not sure if that is correct, but it was at least for us when we are down and there at one hundred and fifty five meters, we are feeling safe. That was very interesting.

SHARKHUNTERS: Did they use water bombs in the first 150 meters? Were they shaking the sub, can you hear them?

THATER: Ah, yes they made a terrible noise and then they were very close, we were going up and down with U-boat. Even w hen it was very stormy weather, you were feeling the weather we had on top down to sixty meters. Even at sixty meters you had little movement of the boat.

SHARKHUNTERS: How long did the attacks last?

THATER: That was very, very, very difficult - different to say, to get an answer for that. I had one of `em attacks in the Mediterranean up to eight hours. And we were counting at that time one hundred and eighty water bombs. One hundred eightyone to be correct. But even there were boats which I have heard later on and this one boat because I had all the submarine books you could get, they had taken for more than 24 hours. They had taken punishment you know, from many destroyers. The first, first with three, and then other three came, and then other three came so ,hat they were down and they could stay there.

SHARKHUNTERS: Do they know you're down there when they're dropping these bombs?

THATER: I don't know if they knew that, but they wouldn't drop bombs if they didn't have a contact.

SHARKHUNTERS: Tell me about the U-boat technology. What allowed you to be so successful in the early part of the war.

THATER: Yeah, because at that time, the ships didn't have that much greater than they had later on, and they didn't have at ;hat time found out our Enigma Machine which they later on had from l think it started forty-three. And so it was much easier to take a signal because we could see all the time more or less in the convoy surfaced. And then later on was more or less impossible, since forty-three. And forty-three, 1 think it was March or May, forty-three where we had the most losses. They started out as we had more losses than we could build.

SHARKHUNTERS: What are the main limitations of a U-boat?

THATER: That you have to get all the time fresh air. There's a big limitation. Another limitation- - the main limitation was to the batteries. You always have to be sure that you are batteries are full as possible, and for that we finally get the so called snorkel. You had to be surfaced to get the gases from it and to charge the batteries. There was one big limitation. Another limitation was the amount of oil. When you're oil (fuel) was out, you couldn't go any farther. And, yeah, what else? Food, for example. But that normally time was enough because when the oil was over then we had no food anymore. So that was not a big limitation. I think that was it.

SHARKHUNTERS: As a U-boat Captain, what were you most afraid of from the enemy?

THATER: The radar. The radar was the most difficult thing for us because as I told you before, on the Brazilian coast, as soon as we had surfaced, some airplane showed up somewhere and if you were lucky then you could shoot down an airplane because you did not have too much possibility to sink a ship.

SHARKHUNTERS: Was there a special kind of man who was successful on a U-boat?

THATER: The most important member was the Skipper, certainly. But on the other hand, the First Watchkeeping officers were shooting the torpedo. And they were the same as the Captain did because he was on the periscope, but on top obviously First Watchkeeping officer was probably because the torpedoes he was shooting too, taking up the target and loose the torpedo.

SHARKHUNTERS: Was there a certain kind of personality that did well on a U-boat?

THATER: Yeah. The most important man in my feeling was a chief engineer. I had the chance to say when I came back from a mission, this mission we only could make because our chief engineer was so good. For example when I went into the Mediterranean in March '44, I was hit by - I don't know yet what it was, nobody knows but it was certainly not a water bomb. It was something else. We were running on to it, and we saw that it was a bomb that went to the bow because the first two, three meters of my boat were gone, under the torpedo. Where the torpedoes start all over the front of the torpedo was gone. Then we went down to 265 meters (more than 850 feet deep) which was depths that we never thought that we could make it and there my chief engineer was a responsible man who really got us up and it is very, very bad condition. So, I would say it is correct when I say that the most important man on the sub was a chief engineer.

SHARKHUNTERS: Why did U-boats lose their supremacy? What happened to cause the tide to turn? What was it that caused the U-boats to stop being so successful?

THATER: The most thing was, as I said before, was radar. And the most important thing I think was when they were able to find our Enigma Machine works. Because then they knew everything what we were doing out by air and they found out where we are staying and as soon as they knew where we are, then you have it.

SHARKHUNTERS: What was it like to return from a mission?

THATER: Everybody was happy. Certainly everybody was looking forward after being at sea at between four and seven weeks, which we normally were. To get home to see family and to our rest. And it was normal that, when you had, dock time, ship stop time, from four weeks, that two weeks is a leave for the people who were let in two paths. One on the boat and then the other one on leave, so that only boats were just 50 percent of the crew. The only two lucky men were the Skipper and the Quartermaster who have been working all the time.

So I shouldn't say it now, it's true - in '43, according to the conditions, I had been half the time on leave from my submarine time. Because I always had destroyed that much that I had so many ships outside that I could be for four weeks on leave

SHARKHUNTERS: What was the most damage you yourself ever took and how did it get that damage?

THATER: The most damage was what I told you before, when we went through the straight of Gibraltar, like that, and the other one - the other one was when we sank a destroyer with the sound torpedo - very close, you know. What was - the torpedo was going after the noises and we were taking this destroyer, and 1 was little bit late in going off of that course. I was shooting and then this destroyer fired on my deck and all his water bombs in forty meters from aft, and more or less everything on my boat was gone.

The five torpedoes tubes there were not able to work anymore and then the first periscope was kaput, so we had to turn back to head home. It was in November '43 and after that we had a very, very long time in shipyards to get new periscopes, to get new torpedo tubes and the same thing happened after, when I went through the Strait of Gibraltar another thing happened as I told you before. Then I got a chance for seven weeks for repair and after that same week somebody find out there were more boats in the Mediterranean. A ship can not go out without certain equipment any longer. So I got another seven weeks, and then we have one from that shipyard and we have another few weeks.

This great story will continue in KTB #155 next month, but why not meet Captain Thater (and a great many more U-bootfahrer) when we go to Germany later this year. There are still some places open but don't wait too much longer. We can take only 30 on our "Patrol in South Germany and Austria" because there will be several veterans on our bus; and we can take only 40 on our "Patrol in North Germany" so don't be left out. Sign up now - you'll be glad you did.

Interview with Gerd Thater: Part II [KTB155]