1943 saw me on six different courses for U-Boat watch officer and I advanced from ordinary seamen to Lieutenant. There was much to learn, but my experiences from U-405 were a great help. After a short time on U-1191, I received orders to report on board U-181 in Bordeaux, France.

This was one of the most successful boats; under the command of one of our highest decorated U-Boat officers, Korvettenkapitän Wolfgang Lüth. I found the boat in one of the U-Boat pens. It looked like a mess, absolutely junky with workmen all over like the ants. Fregattenkapitän Kurt Freiwald arrived to take over his boat. He had been on the staff of Raeder and Dönitz. Here was an officer of the old elite who had been instrumental in building up the new U-Boat arm long before the war. He was tall, slim, elegant, gray-blond hair, steel blue eyes, reserved - they gave him the best boat with the best crew.

Lüth was still on leave. I meet his First Watch Officer Gottfried König, and his Second Watch Officer, Fritz Düring also some newcomers like L.I. (Chief Engineer, Dieter Hille) and our Doctor, Klaus Buchholz.

When Lüth finally came to Bordeaux, the crew jubilated. Soon there was a big farewell party for Lüth with all the many trimmings typical with his temper and often rather drastic humor which the crew who so had greatly cherished. They would have gone for this man through Hell and fire. We wondered if Freiwald would be able to match up with this somewhat rough Wolfgang Lüth, and he did, as we would see later.

For the moment, while the boat was overhauled in the pens, we enjoyed ourselves to the very best in Bordeaux. Whoever was in this vivacious southern French town where the great cabarets were. We had our battles with the MPs, made horse races on chairs, had the chandeliers swinging and of course set on bar stools, on top of bar counters and behaved like acrobats. We enjoyed the excellent French cuisine and the Bordeaux wines, and treated the many and exquisitely charmed little French ladies like queens.

I met the unique Obersteuermann (Chief Navigation Officer) Johannes Limbach, our Third Watch Officer who came back from leave. He was one of the old gang and had been much liked by Lüth. When we celebrated ashore, we usually stayed together so to say, to the last drop in the glasses. Once we had to requisition a wheelbarrow to cart Johannes back to the base. Others we carried home of hooked (borrowed?????) autos. There were never scenes as disgusting as those in the film “DAS BOOT”.

1944

In February, 1944, Grand Admiral, Admiral of the Fleet Dönitz (called the Lion), visited us and we sat with him after lunch in a large circle of officers and talked to him from man to man or from friend to friend, about our experiences, worries, and new trips.

Mid-March on a sunny afternoon, we started on our long trip to the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean towards Penang at the Malacca Strait. König had left us and Düring became Chief Watch Officer. I was Second Watch Officer, Limbach the Third Watch Officer.

We were all on board, ready for new adventures after the long time ashore. The boat ran submerged through the Bay of Biscay and only surfaced two hours after dusk, and two hours before dawn, to charge batteries and to receive coded messages from headquarters. During the nights, we had on the boat daytime routines and during the day vice versa. Through the periscope at radio program time, we saw many fishing boats at the Spanish Coast, only once had we been caught by ASDIC. So to say, we were blitzing through the Bay of Biscay. Soon we ran southward towards Madeira.

Early one morning at 40 meters we were passed by a destroyer, but nothing happened. Life on board this Type IX-D2 boat was more comfortable than on the VII-C because this is one of our largest size types. However we had considerably more crewmembers and we were on a trip, which could easily take 180 days at sea. Consequently the boat was stuffed with stores and provisions and even the second toilet was used as storage. Still there were no showers on board and one had to crawl into a narrow space at the farthest end of the stern torpedo room, in to the bilge to find a hose and use some salty cooling waters from the diesel. Later, in the Indian Ocean, we used to run the boat under a rain cloud, had the crew come up on deck in permissible numbers and in the nude to rub the dirt and oils off the skin. Such moments were like Sundays to us.

I believe we were the first German U-Boat to have a film projector on board with a variety of our newest films, compliments of the geniality of our Kommandant. The films were shown in the bow torpedo room on a large screen. When there were some risqué scenes, they went ape and one could always notice some hands going up to try to touch the bosom of a nice actress on the screen. Later we showed our films in the base ports of Penang, Singapore, and Batavia with greatest success.

Also there was a new invention by Freiwald, which met the approval of the officers. This was called: “The Coward on Duty”. Our plans of action were usually discussed by Freiwald with us. These discussions were absolutely honest and in depth. One of us however had to play “The Coward on Duty”, and had to express all the negative and dangerous sides of that particular operation and admonish of utmost care, even to the extent of cowardice. This made us always realize that each penny had two sides to the story so to say.

We received orders to proceed together with U-Kentrat (U-196 under command of Korvettenkapitän Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat) to a plan square south of Madagascar. We were now passing the Canary Islands. One of the Chief Warrant Officers had birthday and while the special record was playing he received his congratulations by Kommandant and officers in the central command room, he went with a bottle of liquor from man to man in the boat and dealt out to each one half an ounce of the good juice. The Cape Verdes were passing by.

Since we left Bordeaux we were running at forty meters, temperature was now on the boat around 35 degrees Celsius or 95 Fahrenheit and we had about 3 percent CO2. Our doctor wrote the daily newspaper, the TYPHOON, which reported the many humorous happenings on board and kept us posted about international news. The Russians had reached at that time the German front yard. And we figured that Hitler should soon come out with his miracle arms in order to turn the war around to our favor, but we knew better.

One morning all Warrant Officers appeared with bald heads, no bad idea. The beards of all men, of course those of age, was sprouting meantime and there were some quite illustrious shapes. On the latest health inspection by the doctor if was detected that seven men still had crabs, another one is full of rash. There is fever, several headaches and angina. This constant marching submerged was a health hazard. Relative humidity in the boat was always 97 to 100 percent. The sweat water on the walls went down in buckets, and all leather and other clothes were covered with a thick layer of mold, everybody is constantly sweating. The only dress we wore were our swim trunks.

Finally the boat had passed the line, the Equator. Still running submerged 37 days out from Bordeaux, she is now exactly on the dangerous track of constant planes between Bahia and Freetown. In the night we meet U-Lüdden (U-188 under command of Kapitänleutnant Siegfried Lüdden) in order to transfer the former Chief Engineer of Lüth who had been with us since Bordeaux. A short HIP, HIP, HIP, HOORAY - and both boats vanished again into the darkness.

By radio we hear that U-Staats (U-508 Kapitänleutnant Georg Staats) was in serious trouble. His young wife was in Bordeaux; now she is a widow. But soon we could take revenge. April 30 on my watch, suddenly prop noises at 1400. Through the periscope we saw a fat freighter. 1500 surfaced with full speed, out maneuvering vessel to gain forward position. The sun burns, the eyes hurt. 2100 ALARM for plane. 2200 up again. Vessel disappeared but soon we caught her again. Bright moonlight; we blitzed to 6000 meters ahead of vessel. When the moon had gone down, we pushed into the dark sector and went 1000 meters rectangular to the main course which had been 175 degrees.

With hard starboard and raced to the under cover until we had vessel at 70 degrees on starboard. Multiple shot tubes one and three. Both torps hit aft on May 1 at 4:05. Vessel sank fast. A man in one of the lifeboats gave the name of his ship. JANETA was 5312 gross registered tons.

When the boat was 25 degrees south on May 5, she finally ran day and night surfaced and I jumped with all hands on cleaning our 3.7cm and the two 2cm twin barrel anti-aircraft guns, which had suffered badly, having been all the time under water. There was jubilation in the boat when the first automatic shots were fired without jamming. The men could finally see the sun again after some seven weeks of life under electric lights. Many had bad skin rashes and several had jaundice, which could not be detected in the boat. Our doctor was down with malaria.

More U-181

U-181: Part I [KTB154]

U-181: Part II [KTB155]

U-181: Part III [KTB156]

Convoy Aftermath
1943 and 1944
Beyond Cape of Good Hope