15 Years Ago

KTB #31 was special in that we were announcing the planning of the First Annual (and the first EVER) SHARKHUNTERS tour; this would be in Key Largo, Florida although initially planned for Treasure Cay in the Bahamas.

TOM HATTON (20-+-1983) received the first of many tragedies in his short life; his apartment in a Chicago suburb had a serious fire, but he and his wife moved to the west and bought an old twelve room Victorian house that had once belonged to a famous American naval aviator. His wife was going to have a baby. All was looking great for TOM – then they lost the baby, his wife left him, and within a few short years, he developed a fatal illness and passed away before his 26th birthday.

KARL-FRIEDERICH MERTEN (23-+-1984) had sent us a lot of great information for our files, and he asked us to help him locate Heinrich Leibe, Skipper of U-38, who had disappeared into the DDR. We searched, and found Captain LEIBE, who then became Member #1670-1990.

VICTOR TURON (28-1984) was writing a book entitled Axis Submarine Successes 1914 – 1918. We do not know if this book was ever published. The television production of former Member JOHN LOFTUS (40-1984) entitled Kojak, the Belarus Secret was on television, taken from his book of similar title.

RICOU BROWNING (60-1984) sent us a bunch of clippings about the U-boats that operated off Florida in the war. If anyone has an unusual connection to the water, it is RICOU. If you ever saw the old movie Creature from the Black Lagoon, that was him in the rubber monster suit. He later produced the excellent television series Sea Hunt which ran for years in the 1950’s.

STEVE TOMAN (70-1984) was due to graduate from optometry school. Since that time, he has served as an officer in the US Navy and is now in private practice.

KK HEINRICH LEHMANN-WILLENBROCK (120-+-1985) sent us some information about his boat. DICK FREITAG (30-1984) told us that, contrary to published information, he dived U-3008 off Puerto Rico in the 1950’s and that it was raised in a US Navy salvage exercise. He was instrumental in saving U-505 and also worked heavily with the preservation of USS SILVERSIDES. He told us that the Navy allowed him to go aboard U-3008 to recover any parts he thought would help with the restoration of U-505. DICK told us that U-3008 was later taken out and sunk in deeper water off Roosevelt Roads.

OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985) sent us a copy of the famed Kretschmer March, which was later performed by the band under the direction of Professor TOM MACKIN (145-A-1985).

KTB #31 was still only 6 pages long, done on an old typewriter and the dues were still $25. It has improved greatly since then.

10 Years Ago

The cover photo of KTB #70 showed Captain JÜRGEN WATTENBERG (154-+-1985) and an ‘honored’ member of his crew named Douglas for the ship they sank – This pig & one other swam over to the submarine. What happened to these two little piggies? That was in the KTB. The story of U-405 was still being told by OTTO GIESE (45-+-1985) as well as BOB MAHER.

We reported a special SHARKHUNTERS only tour of U-505 in Chicago. We continued to report how the Russian Government was paying Pepsico for their products with old, used submarines. Yep, submarines! The value of the submarines, mostly obsolete WHISKEY Class boats, was set at a certain level and the boats were taken to breaker’s yards, mostly in Sweden, and sold for the scrap value, and the money went to Pepsico for the product.

CHARLES GUNDERSEN (205-C-1986) continued his story on the U-Boat development in the face of disarmament. A lot of secrets were revealed away in this piece. CHARLIE has sent us some really outstanding articles in the past.

SIG KLAUSSNER (211-1986) presented an article entitled ‘Paukenschlag off Capetown’. There was more on the way that Captain Steinhoff died in jail in Boston.

KTB #70 was 24 pages long, still done on a typewriter. Thanks to the new computer technology, we can pack more than three or four times as much onto our 44 pages.

5 Years Ago

In KTB #116, we reported the passing of Captain JÜRGEN WATTENBERG (154-1985). The President’s Corner dealt with the stupid destruction of history by the German Government by blowing up everything they could from the years 1933 thru 1945. We ran a piece by OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985) with his memories of the war. There was part of the Doctoral thesis by PHILIP ATTENBOROUGH (440-1988) on military collaboration between Germany and Japan in WW II. We highlighted the Medal of Honor awarded to Commander Sam Dealey.

We broke the story that German U-Boats were in combat long before September of 1939.

GREG CARRUBBA (2732-1993) was doing a series on the Italian submarines of the war. There was a report on Neuschwabenland in Antarctica. There was a nice report by ALFRED NUESSER (092-+-1989) on the sinking of BERTA.

There was a continuation of the story by Spanish spy DON ANGERL ALCAZAR de VELASCO (158-1985) on his activities in the Führerbunker - and for ten years thereafter.

There was more on that group of whackies who rode an American tincan off San Francisco in 1945 who claimed they sank a phantom German U-Boat, then decided it was an American sub they sank in error and finally decided it was a Japanese submarine that was bringing supplies to the secret Japanese Air Force base at Malibu, California – huh? Japanese base in Malibu in WW II? Oh well…

The Royal Navy submarines were discussed by VICTOR HAWKINS (1364-+-1990). MANFRED ROEDER (1517-1990) was in the DDR building homes for poor people – he is currently in prison in Rostok for something he said. There was an anonymous piece on the end of the ‘Cold War’.

KTB #116 was 36 pages long.

This is a reprint of a part of PETER’s PAGE (now called ‘Through Peter’s Periscope’) by PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) and it deals with the first U-Boats in combat – and it wasn’t in September of 1939. Be ready to revise your concept of U-Boats in WW II.

We begin with the Skippers involved in Operation ‘URSULA’:

Kurt Freiwald lateron became the adjutant of Erich Raeder and also for a brief transfer period of Karl Dönitz when he (Dönitz) became Chief of the German Navy on January 30th, 1943. Thereafter he was given command of the TYPE IX-D2 boat U-181, which he took over from Wolfgang Lüth and commanded on a long patrol ending up in Penang-Malaysia and Singapore. U-181 was eventually taken over by the Japanese on May 8th 1945, when Germany capitulated.

EDITOR NOTE - OTTO GIESE (45-+-1984) was II W. O. on this boat on her run to Penang - and into Chang-Gi Jail when Germany surrendered! That story later.

Captain Freiwald became senior officer of the German prisoners in Japanese Camps and in Malaysia. After these were taken over by the British in August of 1945 & eventually repatriated with the U-Boat crews of the Southwestern Asia Command.

Kurt Freiwald also was activated again for the Bundsmarine and retired eventually as a Flotilla Admiral and died in 1975. He kept his oath of silence regarding Operation ‘URSULA’ until he departed from this world.

He also commanded U-7 prior to Operation ‘URSULA’.

Harald Grosse had been Captain of U-8 and U-22 and during the war was assigned U-53 and was sunk with all hands on the first war patrol that he made with U-53 off the North Channel on February 23rd 1940 by the British destroyer HMS GURKHA.

Operation ‘URSULA’ Begins

On November 20th, 1936 both U-Boats U-33 and U-34 departed jointly from Kiel Wik and proceeded together through the Kiel Canal to Brunsbüttel Lock where they entered the North Sea and traveled together towards the English Channel transiting same during darkness. Operation ‘URSULA’ was off and running.

Prior to departure from Kiel each crew member including the two new captains had to read and sign this written declaration:

‘It has been made known to me, that any break in my absolute obligation to remain silent regarding this operation, even including any slight or indirect hints with respect to either the sea area and any events or occurrences of this operation will constitute High Treason and will be punished by death in accordance with paragraph #88 of the Reichs Criminal Penalty Codes. I understand that this duty to remain silent extends to the entire duration of my life!’

A special radio communication circuit and code had been assigned to this operation, called ULME - or Elm tree. Spanish Republican ships were to be referred to as ‘ORANGES’ and Sowjet flag ships as ‘SOYBEANS’. U-33 was assigned the code name ‘steamer TRITON’ and U-34 the code name ‘steamer POSEIDON’. Kurt Freiwald was to be called ‘Supercargo Frei’ and Harald Grosse ‘Supercargo Groß’; surely a somewhat infantile disguise.

The U-Boats also had instructions to radio false positions and to avoid all shipping. In Berlin, both captains had only received verbal instructions and orders for this operation, including the specification to sink without warning, Spanish Republican or Sowjet warships or merchant ships if this could be done unobserved. But as it was anticipated that once Spanish waters were reached, that these U-Boats could not avoid being sighted entirely, to paint over numbers and identification marks and to circumnavigate close inspection, pretending to be British submarines and hoisting the Royal Navy flag if necessary. Originally they were to pretend to be Spanish Republican submarines and a supply of Spanish Navy hats was furnished to strengthen that impression, but Erich Raeder blocked and vetoed that particular scheme and it was scratched consequently.

During the night from 27th to the 28th of Nov. 1936, both U-Boats passed through the Straits of Gibraltar unobserved and continued into Spanish coastal waters along the sector allocated to the British Navy by the International Control Commission. In order to avoid incidents, instructions had been given to mainly operate within the three mile zone or close to the Spanish shore because the Control Commission assigned warships were to operate outside that three mile zone while patrolling their sectors.

Both U-Boats initially moved toward Cartagena and Almeria and were told not to proceed further north than Valencia. Admiral Boehm had added that the captains ought to consider all darkened warships as Red Spanish or Sowjet Russian automatically and thus hostile, because Franco Spain did not have any destroyers as yet and the warships on Control Commission assignments had orders to travel fully lighted and with special strong spotlights illuminating huge painted flags and similar national identity signs on both ship sides. All attempts to sink such Spanish or Sowjet ships must take place within the three mile zone so that no problems would be incurred with British or French warships by mistake.

On December 1st, U-34 under Harald Grosse was positioned during the early evening just off Cartagena harbor, one of the main bases of the Spanish Republican Navy, and fired his first torpedo at a darkened destroyer but missed it, though the end-of-the-run detonation was heard eventually. Grosse was able to observe three different Spanish destroyers, but was unable to reach a suitable attack position, as these destroyers moved about a lot because they were protecting Sowjet Flag ships entering Cartagena. U-33 was unable to reach a suitable attack position due to the irregular rapid movements of the protecting destroyers off Malaga and Almeria.

Admiral Boehm felt it was essential and important to sink some of these destroyers to frighten the rest and discourage the entry of Sowjet Russian supply ships, his instructions were thereafter changed to attack only convoys not warships traveling alone. But to the chagrin of the various admirals involved, no successes were obtained; both U-Boats were forced away from the small coastal convoys by the escorting warships during the following night. Then U-34 and Harald Grosse missed with his second torpedo and finally on December 8th, with his third torpedo again. Were these the shades of the torpedo disaster to come in 1939 to 1942????

The involved admirals wired complaints and morale support, but at that point 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 already been partially accomplished. Under no circumstances were the captains to endanger their secrecy cover by reckless attacks or irresponsible actions!

EDITOR NOTE – How many didn’t know that German U-Boats were actually into combat action as early as 1936? You won’t read it in any history books and certainly not on any website. It was only because PETER dug into this history that it was reported. The operation was named for the daughter of (then) Kapitän Karl Dönitz, Ursula. She had been Member #1339-1990.

There is a lot more to this historical report, and it will continue in KTB #165 next month. This is great history – thanks PETER!