Charles McCain

Daily Factoid

2010-07-31T08:00:00.001-04:00

U-23 was the third of three U-Boats that the Germans tried to sell to the Turkish government after evacuating Konstanza which the Germans used for Black Sea operations. The other two U-Boats, U-19 and U-20, suffered the same fate as U-23 as all three were scuttled near Erekli off the coast of Turkey on 10 September 1944 when the ships ran out of fuel.

What the US Navy Learned from the Crew of U-128 - Not Much (Part 1 of 2)

2010-07-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Below are excerpts, with my comments, from the declassified summary report of all interrogations of all crew members of U-128. You can find the complete document here.

On the whole, the crew of U-128 was both more friendly and more polite than some of those that had proceeded her. The majority of ratings and enlisted men "had been drafted" into the U-boat arm, and, although many of the enlisted men had only recently entered the service, the crew as such could not be called inexperienced. This fact seems due mainly to the group of petty officers, "13 of whom had been in the German Navy previous to the outbreak of the war," one of them having entered in 1928 and two in 1933.

The German U-Bootwaffe and many surviving veterans vigorously maintained the myth that all U-Boat men were volunteers. This has been dis-proven many times in memoirs and in reports such as this. The other key fact in the above paragraph is the large number of experienced Petty Officers, 13 of whom were regular German Navy sailors who had enlisted long before the war. Men such as these would have proved vital in keeping this U-Boat and any U-Boat operating.

No doubt, however, the good treatment they had received played its part in unlimbering some of the prisoners most of whom were happy that for them the war was over. They were, in the words of some prisoners, “very lucky”.

They certainly were. German U-Boat losses had become so catastrophic in May of 1943 that the submarines were withdrawn from the North Atlantic and sent to less dangerous areas such as the waters off Brazil where U-128 was sunk. The US maintained substantial anti-submarine forces of ships and aircraft in Brazil which declared war on Germany and Italy on August 22nd, 1942.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-30T08:00:00.001-04:00

U-23 sank the SS Loch Maddy on 22 February 1940 which had been abandoned after being torpedoed by U-57 the prior day.

The US Interrogator's report on Oblt. Steinert

2010-07-29T12:00:00.001-04:00

Except for my comments, this is the verbatim report on the what I believe was the first interrogation of Oblt. Steinert.

Interrogated on 18 June 1943

(Interview by Captain Hansen)

Not recorded

Veracity: rated good because P/W will refuse to answer a question but not attempt false or evasive replies. Moreover, he has an honest look about him. Is very security conscious as befits an officer.

He answered all the usual processing questions willingly and intelligently. As a professional officer he has no political affiliations but volunteered the information that he had been in the Hitler Jugend and in the arbeitsdienst. He knows both admirals von Doenitz and Raeder.

One wonders if this were translated correctly since it seems impossible that he would have known those two men in our sense of the word although it is certainly probable that he met them. Further, membership in the Hitler Youth would have been mandatory. Additionally, all German males were required to serve six months in the Reichsarbeitsdienst, or RAD - the State Labor Service. This program, like many other social welfare programs in the Third Reich, was actually started during the Weimar Republic. The Nazis just took credit for it.

I.O. suggests this man be approached in a friendly manner in future interrogations. He is tense, as the navy characterized him, and enters the interrogation room in a nervous frame of mind. He will respond to a conversational approach and might give us some of the information wanted by Army Anti-Submarine command. But hardly anything technical; for instance, he would not answer the I.O.’s question on extra towers on U-boots.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-29T08:00:00.001-04:00

U-23 sank British destroyer HMS Daring as she was escorting an HN convoy on 18 February 1940.

Not Much To Brag About: the U-Boat career of Oblt. Hermann Steinert, Kommandant of U-128

2010-07-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

U-128 was a Type IX C, a larger boat than the more prevalent Type VII. Prior to Steinert, the boat had been on a number of successful war patrols so the crew was experienced. In March 1943 the existing Kommandant was promoted out of the boat to a training assignment and Steinert was then assigned as Kommandant of U-128.

He made one war patrol, which ended after 42 days with the destruction of the U-Boat. During his first and only war patrol, Oblt. Steinert, like the majority of U-Boat commanders, never sank an Allied ship nor was he ever decorated for anything.

U-128 left Lorient on 6 April 1943. On 17 May 1943 in the South Atlantic, the boat was attacked by American aircraft and heavily damaged.

Two destroyers, USS Moffett (below-left) and USS Jouett (below-right), were directed to the scene. As soon as the Germans identified the ships as American destroyers, Steinert gave the order to abandon ship. 47 German crewmen survived, 7 were killed in action during the attack of the American planes.

Although Hermann Steinert was interrogated on 18 June 1943, he is listed as an Oberleutnant, although he was promoted to Kapitänleutnant on1 May 1943. Perhaps he did not know he had been promoted although this would have been very unusual since U-Boat Command promptly communicated that type of news. Because of this discrepancy, I'm not convinced he was promoted to KptLt, the rank he is listed under on U-Boat.net.

He became a dentist after the war. According to my sources in the German Navy, Steinert is alive and well in Germany.

[Images courtesy of U-Boat Archive.]

Daily Factoid

2010-07-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

U-23 survived an encounter with a British submarine on 9 February 1940 after all three of the British torpedoes fired missed the U-Boat.

What Did They Ask German U-Boat POWs at Ft. Hunt?

2010-07-27T12:00:00.001-04:00

When first taken to Ft. Hunt, each German U-Boat officer was asked a standard set of questions. I have a copy of that now declassified information for U-128 Kommandant, Oblt. Hermann Steinert. I received this from the US National Archives in 1981.

This is what we learn:

He was twenty-six when he was captured, single, had dark hair and blue eyes, weighed 163 lbs and stood 5'10" tall - slightly tall for a U-Boat man. Anyone above 6' could not stand upright. His parents were his next of kin.

There are two unusual things on this form: Oblt. Steinert is from Bavaria which would have made him stand out. The officer corps of the German Navy was largely drawn from Northern Germany, particularly the port cities. Second, Oblt. Steinert is a Roman Catholic. An informal rule in the German Navy limited Catholics

to less than one in seven members of the officer corps.

Oblt. Steinert had graduated from gymnasium, passed his exams, and received his arbiter, one of the many requirements to be an officer in the Kriegsmarine. He was a member of the Crew of IV/1936 (that he is entered the naval academy in 1936) and spoke some English - which would have been required of an officer in the Kriegsmarine.

U-128
Ordered: 7 August 1939
Builder: AG Weser in Bremen
Laid down: 10 July 1940
Launched: 20 February 1941
Commissioned: 12 May 1941 by Ulrich Heyse
Fate: Sunk, 17 May 1943

Training, Flotillas and Duties
05.41 - 05.43 2.U-Flottille, Wilhelmshaven & Lorient
Ausbildungsboot (under training)
Frontboot (operational)
Commanders
05.41 - 02.43 KL Ulrich Heyse
03.43 - 05.43 OL Hermann Steinert

06.04.1943 - 17.05.1943
Seventh Sailing
U-128 left Lorient under the command of Hermann Steinert on 6th Apr 1943 and arrived at return on 17th May 1943 after nearly six weeks.
On 16th May 1943 U-128 came under attack from an aircraft of USN VP-74 Squadron.
On 17th May 1943 in square FJ 67, U-128 came under attack from an aircraft of USN VP-74 Squadron. U-128 was heavily damaged in the attack.
On 17th May 1943 in square FJ 67, U-128 came under attack from an aircraft of USN VP-74 Squadron. U-128 was heavily damaged in the attack.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

After laying mines on 18 September 1939 in the Firth of Forth, U-23, under the command of Otto Kretschmer, patrolled the area looking for targets but the only ship spotted that proved to be a worthy (and potentially doable) target evaded destruction when U-23 missed with three consecutive torpedoes.

The Secret of Ft. Hunt Revealed: Again

2010-07-26T12:00:00.002-04:00

German U-Boat POWs were interrogated at a secret facility simply known as P.O. Box 1142. In actuality, the location was Ft. Hunt outside of Washington, DC in Northern Virginia. The over one hundred buildings erected during the war are gone now, the land now a national park run by the US Park Service.

In 2006, a Washington Post reporter wrote two very fine stories on the history of Ft. Hunt, the efforts of a young Park Serivce Ranger, Brandon Bies, to gather the history, and a re-union organized by Bies and the Park Service of the very frail men, who, as robust youngsters, once interrogated U-Boat POWs there. When discharged, these men were told never to speak of what they had done and

they kept their silence into the 21st Century.

This is sad. Why? Unknown to the men who had interrogated German U-Boat crews, documents from Ft. Hunt about those interrogations were declassified in the mid-1970s.

These are the links to the two stories: First, Second.

Ft. Hunt was first mentioned by historian John Hammond Moore in his fascinating book, The Faustball Tunnel: German POWs in America and Their Great Escape. I learned about Ft. Hunt when I interviewed Dr. Moore in 1980.

[Image of Ft. Hunt courtesy of Wikipedia.]

Daily Factoid

2010-07-26T08:00:00.001-04:00

On 25 August 1939 U-23 left Wilhelmshaven for the North Sea carrying magnetic mines. On 3 September 1939 she was ordered to make haste for the Humber Estuary and sew the shipping channels with her mines though before she could lay any mines after arriving in the estuary that night, she received an immediate recall order and returned to base.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-25T08:00:00.001-04:00

U-22 went missing on her seventh patrol in the Cape Lindesnes area and was believed at the time to be a casualty of the French submarine Orphee but the French denied this. Now U-22 is believed to have struck a mine in Jammer Bay, northern Denmark. There were no survivors.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

In the early morning of 21 January 1940, U-22 sank the destroyer HMS Exmouth NE of Tarbat Ness in the Moray Firth.

“Another Beautiful Day Comes To A Close”

2010-07-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

The title of this post is the sign-off song played after the German Armed Forces High Command Communique was broadcast at midnight German time. German speaking stenographers working for the New York Times took down the communique and it was printed in the morning paper along with the communiques from all the other belligerent powers. If you have a subscription to the Times you can go online to their archives and type in "communique" and a whole lot of them will turn up.

Below is a brief excerpt from my novel, An Honorable German. The phrasing from communiques in the interior monologue of the main character (Max) comes directly from actual German armed forces communiques during WW II. Max is on a train packed with young German soldiers on their way to Russia. In the time line of the novel, it is approximately 23 January 1943 and Max is thinking about the German 6th Army which has been trapped in Stalingrad since November of 1942.

"How would it end? Not well. Most alarming, a few days after Christmas, in his evening radio address, General Dittmar, the voice of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, had begun to speak of "heroic resistance" by Six Armee's brave troops--never an encouraging sign. Everyone in Germany had learned to decipher the High Command's euphemisms: "grim and sanguinary fighting increasing in violence" meant the line had collapsed and troops were being pushed back under murderous fire with terrible casualties; "bitter and prolonged fighting" meant you were hopelessly surrounded; "heroic resistance" meant you were already dead."

In the very early morning of 23 April 1945, Lt. General Kurt Dittmar, the Voice of the German High Command, along with his sixteen year old son, Eberhard, and the much put upon Major Pluskat mentioned in a previous post, crossed the Elbe River and surrendered to the US Army.

I wrote the first drafts of An Honorable German in New Orleans in the early 1980s shortly after graduating from Tulane University. I corresponded with a publisher to whom I sent several chapters, one being a chapter which takes place in a POW camp in the United States and describes the German POWs reading the New York Times. They sent those chapters back to me including a note basically saying that was 'bullshit.' I sent them a letter they needed asbestos gloves to read and included half a dozen photocopies of German communiques from the New York Times. They didn't have the courtesy to write back and apologize.

Here are several communiques from the archives of the New York Times:

Daily Factoid

2010-07-23T08:00:00.000-04:00

U-22 claimed to have sunk the Polish submarine Zbik on 7 September 1939 but most likely misinterpreted her torpedo misfire as a hit.

Treatment of POWs and the International Red Cross in World War Two (Part 3 of 3)

2010-07-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

All POW camps in the US maintained a canteen, as required by the 1929 Geneva Convention, at which POWs could purchase sundries such as toothpaste, razors, cigarettes as well as Coca-Cola, candy bars, Saltines, local produce, beer and wine - these last at the discretion of the camp commandant. Prisoners purchased these items with the script they were paid in lieu of US currency. Enlisted men received a stipend of 10 cents a day. If they worked, and they were required to do so unless it was dangerous, they were paid an additional 80 cents a day. Many of the men saved a portion of their script which was deposited in accounts kept by the War Department. Prior to their repatriation, the former prisoners of war were paid out their savings in US currency.

Officers were not required to work under the Geneva Convention of 1929 and were paid a monthly stipend according to rank. Captains, for instance, were paid $38.50 per month by the US. However, as was the case with American officers, the cost of food was deducted from the monthly pay of the officers held as prisoners. (American captains held as POWs by the Germans were paid 96 Reichsmarks a month which was comparable with no deductions for food.) If officers worked supervising enlisted men, and many officers did, they were paid extra.

Large camps had their own large auditoriums and the men performed plays and musicals. The Commandant and his wife along with the other officers and their spouses were traditionally invited to opening nights. Once again, I'm not kidding.

Most camps had a crafts room where men worked models, carved various items, painted pictures of all sorts including portraits of Hitler. Each camp had its own library stocked with periodicals, newspapers, and books. Many of the books and other amenities were supplied by the Lutheran Church and the Red Cross. Of special note, all camps subscribed to the New York Times because the nightly Wehrmacht communique was printed in the Times along with the communiques of the other belligerent powers.

[Images courtesy of Alabama Heritage, published by the University of Alabama.]

Daily Factoid

2010-07-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

During a patrol of Pentland Firth, U-21 ran aground on 26 March 1940 off the island of Oddknuppen, SE of Mandal. As a result of this diplomatic incident, U-21 and her crew were interned by the Norwegians at Kristiansand-Sud until after the German landings in Norway on 9 April 1940.

Treatment of POWs and the International Red Cross in World War Two (Part 2 of 3)

2010-07-21T12:00:00.001-04:00

The International Red Cross also inspected prisoner of war camps, arranged for the repatriation of the severely injured, inspected camps where civilian detainees were held, and delivered Red Cross parcels to POWs. In the last year of the war in Germany, many Allied POWs only survived because of the food sent to them in Red Cross parcels. It is fair to note that the Germans delivered these parcels even though they had to use desperately needed space in freight trains. (It is also worth noting that despite the urgent needs of the Wehrmacht for rail transport, trains carrying Jews continued rolling to the death camps until the last few weeks of the war.)

German POWs in American were so well fed most of them gained weight and asked their families to stop sending them Red Cross parcels. The Geneva Convention of 1929 required the belligerent nation holding POWs to treat those POWs in the same way they treated their own soldiers of different ranks. Proper food and nutrition were crucial to meet this standard. The United States strictly adhered to this policy, partly as a way to insure correct treatment of our men in German hands. According to the best and most comprehensive book on the subject, Nazi Prisoners of War in America by Arnold Krammer (four stars), a standard daily meal plan was as follows, this particular daily menu from Camp Clinton in Mississippi for 12 May 1944:

Breakfast: Corn flakes, cake or bread, marmalade, coffee, milk, sugar

Lunch: Potato salad, roast pork, carrots, icewater

Supper: Meat Loaf, scrambled eggs or boiled eggs, coffee, milk, bread

It is worth noting that most of these items were rationed for civilians in the US and almost all of these items were unobtainable in Germany except on the black market.

The irony in this is front line American GIs in Europe rarely ate this well. They subsisted on K rations for days at a time, never seeing hot meals. And if they were fighting in the winter of 1944/45, then the hot meals prepared for them in the rear were frozen by the time the food reached their forward positions.

Even more ironic, in July of 1944 the Provost Marshal General issued an order allowing individual camps to create menus more to the liking of the Germans as long as the food purchased wholesale did not exceed the cost of feeding the same number of American troops. German POWs began to eat better than they had eaten in Germany since the late 1930s.

[Images courtesy of Alabama Heritage, published by the University of Alabama.]

Daily Factoid

2010-07-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

On 4 November 1939 U-21 laid mines off the entrance to Rosyth and succeeding in damaging HMS Belfast so badly that she was out of action for a long time, sinking a British netlayer HMS Bayonet, and a freighter SS Royal Archer.

Treatment of POWs and the International Red Cross in World War Two (Part 1 of 3)

2010-07-20T12:00:00.002-04:00

During World War Two, the Allied powers along with the Germans and their allies (excluding Japan) communicated specifics required by the Third Geneva Convention to each other through the International Red Cross. The most important information communicated was the name and rank and identification number of each newly captured prisoner of war. Mail between POWs and their families went through the International Red Cross. POWs were not allowed to write to one another.

German POWs in the United States (there were eventually almost 400,000) organized classes in every subject conceivable in their various camps. In May 1944, the Reich Ministry of Education issued detailed instructions through the International Red Cross to these men, specifying which German universities would accept their educational credits and how these were to be documented.

At the same time, also through the offices of the International Red Cross, German Armed Forces High Command issued to each German POW held by the United States, a 40 page booklet, Studiennachweis fur Kriegsfangene, or Evidence of Study for War Prisoners. These booklets were printed in Germany, sent to the International Red Cross in Switzerland, which shipped them to the United States whence they were distributed to German POWs by the American Red Cross. (Similar action being taken in other countries holding German POWs.)

These booklets served as certified transcripts and each student who passed a course had this book or another form signed by the class instructor then counter-signed by the American camp commandant. (All German POWs in the US were in the official custody of the US Army Provost Marshal and all POW camps were administered by the US Army.) German POWs were also allowed to take correspondence courses from various American universities.

[Images courtesy of Alabama Heritage, published by the University of Alabama.]

Daily Factoid

2010-07-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

U-21 attacked a British destroyer near Berwick-on-Tweed on 22 September 1939 but failed due to a torpedo misfiring.

The Geneva Conventions

2010-07-19T12:00:00.002-04:00

In many World War Two movies and novels, characters often make reference to the Geneva Convention and the protection it affords them if captured by the enemy. They are actually referring to the Third Geneva Convention which was in effect during World War Two along with the First and Second Geneva Conventions.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, there are now four Geneva Conventions in effect today:

The First Geneva Convention is the "Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Geneva, 12 August 1949". This agreement provides for the protection of all medical facilities, their personnel, and any civilians aiding the wounded. Of special note, the first convention gives the Red Cross international recognition as a neutral medical group. This convention was originally negotiated and signed in 1864 and subsequently amended and ratified by the High Contracting Parties in 1906, 1929, and 1949.

The Second Geneva Convention is the "Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Geneva, 12 August 1949." This convention extended protections of the first convention to combatants at sea as well as shipwrecked sailors. It was originally promulgated in 1906 and subsequently amended and ratified by the High Contracting Parties in 1929 and 1949. Of special note, this convention defines and gives protection to hospital ships of the High Contracting Parties. This protection was usually but not always observed between the Western belligerents. A number of protests were made to the International Red Cross from Nazi Germany about their hospital ships being attacked by the British and vice-versa.

The Third Geneva Convention is the "Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949". In World War Two and in World War Two movies and books, this is the Geneva Convention usually being referred to and is the one which specifically concerns POWs. Originally promulgated and ratified in 1929, it was updated with the other conventions in 1949.

The Fourth Geneva Convention is the "Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.” This treaty was specifically adopted as a result of the deaths of millions of innocent civilians in World War Two.

According to the International Red Cross, any person caught up in an armed conflict is covered by one of these conventions. There are issues with this interpretation by the Red Cross as one might imagine particularly where terrorists are concerned.

Those acting in the name of an ideology rather than a state pose vexing questions for international law. Personally, I find it hard to imagine extending the protection of the Geneva Conventions to men and women who kill and maim civilians, especially children, in the name of God, or Maoist Revolution, or any other ideology.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

U-20 served in the Black Sea from June 1943 until 10 September 1944 when she was scuttled off the coast of Turkey near Erekli.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

U-20 sank two ships near the Newarp lightship after a minelaying operation on 21 November 1939.

Daily Factoid

2010-07-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

On 10 September 1944, U-19 was scuttled off the coast of Turkey near Erekli and her commander and three of the crew were interned by the Turks for the reminder of the war.