It is December of 1942. The captain of a German U-boat finds himself shipwrecked on the North Carolina coast.
During the Second World War, long-range German submarines, commonly referred to by their German name Unterseeboot, or U-boat, ranged the American coastline and placed a stranglehold on the flow of vital war supplies. The shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina were prime hunting ground for these feared sea hunters.As the war raged on, however, Allied destroyers using the newly invented sonar and radar began to hunt down and destroy the U-boats as they moved in to attack. There are six U-boats resting on the seabed near Cape Hatteras, known to mariners as "the Graveyard of the Atlantic." Of the 280 young German sailors who undertook these dangerous missions, only 40 survived to be taken prisoner.What might have happened if survivors from a sinking German submarine were able to land on the eastern coast of the United States?
Excerpt
Wolf Kruger once again climbed the conning tower ladder to the main hatchway, his eyes and nose running horribly from the acidic white smoke of the electrical fire. He flung the cover open, crawling onto the bridge into the clean air, the other occupants of the control room quickly following.
The wind-whipped sea was now beginning to churn and toss in earnest, the U-boat drifting amid the rolling waves without power. The galley hatch below the bridge opened with a clank and emitted a burst of white smoke, followed by Willi Kessel and his mates, coughing and gagging when the moist, cold air hit their irritated lungs. The burning remnants of the tanker were still clearly visible on the horizon, Wolf saw, which could only mean that the American warship was still lurking close by.
Willi mounted the ladder to the shell-pocked conning tower. Wolf reached with a hand to help him to the bridge, fighting hard to suppress the sick despair welling within him. We're not dead yet, he told himself as he tried to think of other options.
“Can we get underway on the surface?” Wolf asked.
“The E-motors are kaput and the vents were damaged in the attack,” Willi told him, shaking his head, “so the diesels are flooded. We can't get below to work on them with this smoke. We'll have to send someone down for masks, and then find and extinguish the electrical fire, then wait for the smoke to dissipate.”
The forward torpedo hatch was now open, the crew crawling out to seek fresh air. There were no orders given to do so but the atmosphere belowdecks had become untenable.
“Let's get a party organized then,” Wolf said. “Four men, to get below and recover the breathing gear.”
“Herr Kaleunt,” Willi said with a worried look, “that destroyer will surely find us before we can get underway. It might take hours to get the diesels running.”
“We have to try,” Wolf frowned.
Willi shrugged. He leaned over the railing and shouted to the men on the deck below.
“Four volunteers needed to retrieve breathing gear!”
“Searchlight!” Was the answer.
The same bright beam was cutting a path through the night, sweeping over the rain less than a thousand yards off the submarine's stern. Through the gale and driving rain the light found them, quickly followed by a second powerful beam that illuminated the now-stricken sea hunter. Collectively the crew shouted warnings to one another and scrambled for cover, but the bridgeworks could not possibly conceal them all. Wolf Kruger had never felt so naked and vulnerable in his life.
“They must have radar. The bastards found us in a hurry,” Willi thought aloud.
“What do we do now, Herr Kaleunt?” Heid asked.
A pair of sailors began to ascend the short ladder from the main deck to the platform just aft of the bridge, where the U-boat's complement of automatic antiaircraft weapons was mounted.
“No!” Wolf shouted, and both men stopped short. Wolf's realization of his only option had begun to settle in.
“What are you going to do, Herr Kaleunt?” Heid asked once again in a much more demanding tone.
Kruger was silent for a moment, and then said, “We don't have any choice.”
His answer was punctuated by a hailing from the American ship over her loud speaker. The voice rang clear and stern, in accented but understandable High German.
“German U-boat! This is the United States Navy! Surrender immediately! Repeat: surrender immediately! If you attempt to submerge or resist, you will be destroyed! You have thirty seconds to comply!”
The U-boat's crew stood sullenly, frozen in place, each bearded, hopeless face staring toward the destroyer in the white light. Wolf wondered if his own expression were as lost and beaten. Willi finally spoke.
“They have us, Wolf.”
“I know,” Kruger answered quietly.
Professional Reviews
A dangerous cat-and-mouse game
It's common to think that the battle for the seas during World War II took place in distant locales like the South Pacific and the North Atlantic, but our own Outer Banks was the site of a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between American merchant and military vessels and German U-boats. In this novel, the young commander of a U-boat makes it ashore after his boat sinks off Cape Hatteras.
Wolf Krugar is no gun-ho Nazi, but he serves loyally to uphold his class traditions and to protect his wife and daughter. After his U-boat is destroyed by an American attack, Krugar clings to the debris of a tanker that he had earlier torpedoed. He drifts on to Hatteras Island. Harnessing his remaining strength, he walks to a remote cottage, home of Anne MacPherson, a local woman who has returned to the island to heal from the death of her young husband, who died in the Pacific Theater. It is the classic setup for a tale of unexpected romance, but this novel is more sophisticated than that. The reader is treated to a story of two damaged individuals who stay true to themselves while recognizing the humanity in the other. The scenes with Kurt and Anne are interspersed with ones that show the local sheriff and military authorities closing in on Kurt. These scenes ground the drama between Kurt and Anne in the larger conflict that includes the need to keep supplies flowing to Europe and the possibility of spies and double agents on each side of the conflict.
A unique tale
Cape Hatteras is a unique tale written about a historical experience that is often missed in our history books. The character development and the story are genuine - - while reading, it's as though you are there, in the scenes instead of staring at the pages of a book. Another of Lloyd's books that I would strongly recommend - you will not be disappointed.
This book also looks to be movie material. Although my name is English, I'm about 90% German heritage. My great-grandfather, Nelson Wenzel, came from Germany and homesteaded in north-central Wisconsin where I was born.
After I got my master's degree, I signed on with GTE Lenkurt in San Carlos California doing quality control under a soft-spoken German, Wilhelm Hemminghaus. When he was still in his teens he joined the German Navy and became a communication specialist running the radio on a ship in the Mediterranean that was destroyed and he floated in the water for hours before being picked up. He was strafed in the water by American planes. Later, near the end of the war, he and his father were traveling on the highway with a car that ran on grass and sticks that they burned in its gas chamber on the engine when they were strafed again by American planes.
Bill came to Canada after the war and then joined Honeywell Minneapolis for a while before coming to California. He was responsible for in process quality control with about 30 female inspectors who were mostly divorcees. He hired me to computerize their inspection process and record-keeping. The system I designed was used for about five years after I left.
While there, a coworker engineer, Jack Swanson, befriended me. He told me he was on an intelligence gathering submarine in the South Pacific. I also wrote about him here. Shortly after he retired from Lenkurt he died from an arthritic spine at about 67. His wife Lois, remarried and moved to Lake Havasu. After the management died she remarried again and I attended the wedding three years ago. Her three sons were there.
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