Chapter 1
May 10, 1940.
He had accepted the assignment without a second thought, before he understood its enormity. Now, recognition crashed around Elias Jansen like a North Sea tempest summoned by Poseidon himself. As the first streaks of dawn stabbed the horizon, the radio transmitter crackled and a solemn voice broke radio silence long enough to confirm the unthinkable: the Wehrmacht had just roared across the Dutch border – it was 1914 all over again.
The captain’s features contorted, his aspect hardened. We put to sea too damn late, he thought.
Through the soles of his boots, Jansen felt the torque from his ship’s engines catapulting him further and further from his beloved Nederland, well beyond the life he loved. Atop a bluff somewhere behind was the ivy-covered bungalow he’d labored to build for his wife and daughters. His girls had set off for Britain days ago. Jansen would soon join them. But nothing would ever be the same.
Descending from the bridge to the deck, he cursed his country’s politicians. For weeks Dutch reconnaissance and French intelligence had issued reports showing the Wehrmacht was massing on the eastern border of The Netherlands. Yet while Hitler prepared for battle, leaders in The Hague wrangled over whether “Fortress Holland” could withstand the looming blitzkrieg. Folly. If not for the absurd debate, Jansen’s precious cargo would have shipped in time to avoid the Nazi invasion.
The captain sized up the three small antiaircraft guns hastily rigged to the deck of the De Trouw, the cargo vessel under his command. The weapons had little destructive value. If attacked, he would need to rely on two heavily armed British frigates provided by the Allies to escort his craft to safety. Training his eyes to starboard, Jansen examined the first of these escorts as it snaked alongside the larger, slower De Trouw. The second frigate followed a similar course on the captain’s port side.
While Jansen brooded, his first mate approached. “What do you make of them, sir?” he asked.
A good man, this Rogier Donkiers, but he has the confidence of a sailor yet to face enemy fire. “They’ll do,” Jansen said.
“I thought the Brits would send destroyers.”
“Too expensive, lad. Her Majesty’s saving them for the defense of England. Besides, they didn’t have enough before Norway and Dunkirk. Now half are at the bottom of the sea.”
“Do you think we’ll run across any U-boats?”
Jansen shrugged. “I’m more concerned about the Luftwaffe. Hitler’s planes will be within striking distance shortly.”
“Aye,” Donkiers said, stroking his chin.
“Conn, sonar,” the wachoffizer said. “We have three contacts, bearing one hundred twelve degrees. Sounds like two frigates and a merchant ship, Kapitän.”
The jug of coffee in twenty-one year-old Kapitänleutenant Dietrich Knorr’s hand quivered, nearly ejecting its contents onto the floor of the German submarine’s cramped control room. Attempting to mask his emotions, Knorr clutched the ceramic container more tightly. “Designate contacts as Marks Three and Four and Merchant Two respectively,” Knorr said. “And let me know when they’re within torpedo range.”
After an interminable wait, the U-51’s wachoffizier reported again. “Kapitän, range to Mark Three is four thousand meters; Mark Four is at four thousand eight hundred meters; Merchant Two is mid-way between. They’re running together at eight knots, sir.”
“Slow to four knots and let me know when you have accurate firing points for Marks Three and Four,” Knorr ordered. “All hands, man battle stations!”
“Kapitän, I have firing points on Marks Three and Four,” the wachoffizier confirmed.
“Ready tubes one and two and open outer doors.”
The torpedo room supervisor verified Knorr’s command instantly: “Tubes one and two ready. Outer doors open, sir.”
“Match bearings, Mark Three. Shoot tubes one and two.” With a whoosh, the first torpedoes were off. Knorr put them out of his mind. He could only hope they acquired their target before one of the frigate’s sonar officers realized his vessel was being stalked. “Ready tubes three and four and open outer doors,” Knorr said, repeating the firing procedure. Within seconds, the U-51 had sent a duplicate pair of torpedoes speeding at the second British escort.
The clock ticked. Hunkered silently in their cigar-shaped cylinder of war, the submariners listened to the ever-present drip of water trickling into their craft from the frigid North Sea. Eventually Knorr’s sonar operator beckoned. “Conn, sonar. We have three explosions. The first two sound like hits: one on Mark Three, the other on Mark Four. The third is a secondary explosion on Mark Three. She’s breaking-up.” He paused before adding, “Sounds like Mark Four is breaking up too, sir.”
The submariners cheered. Knorr slashed his hand through the air like a sword, admonishing his men to quiet. Until both warships plunged beneath the water’s surface, the U-51 remained at risk. “Take her to five hundred feet,” he said.
Before the crew could act, the sonar operator said, “Conn, sonar. I’m picking up depth charges. Mark Four is laying them as she sinks.”
The U-boat filled with restrained dismay. “Rig ship for depth charge and take her to five hundred feet,” Knorr said.
Within moments, the vessel lilted forward and descended into the deep. The first charge rocked the U-51 with a deafening boom. Knorr’s crew exchanged glances. Then another blast shook the submarine from outside its starboard hull, the force of the explosion tossing crew members to the floor. The U-51’s already dim lights flickered and failed. Throughout its narrow corridors, pipes burst. Seawater seeped between previously watertight hull seals. A desperate voice skittered though the submarine’s intercom: “Kapitän, we have a breach,” the torpedo room supervisor said. “Station nine is flooding fast.”
Knorr grabbed the intercom. “How much water?”
“Three feet and rising, sir.”
“Get out and seal it off.”
Another powerful concussion exploded overhead. Knorr was hurled against an unyielding surface. The bone in his leg cracked and a searing sensation frayed his nerve endings as saltwater pounded in from above. Men screamed until their voices grew hoarse. Then all was wet and black.
On the surface, the De Trouw strained forward, her screws cutting the brine at maximum speed. A grisly scene of carnage lay in the ship’s wake. The first of her proud escorts had suffered a direct hit on its aft magazine and sunk rapidly, taking its entire crew down. Like some Pleistocene-era tar pit, a widening pool of bubbling oil marked the spot where the frigate had gone under. Inside the greasy puddle floated splintered wood and charred corpses.
The second British warship fared only slightly better. With a wide hole in its hull, the vessel hedged to one side, gradually at first, then with increasing momentum. By the time it rolled over and sank, most of its crew members had abandoned ship. The lucky ones made it to lifeboats retrieved by the De Trouw. The others drowned in the bitter waters of the North Sea.
Through binoculars Jansen searched for his adversary. A gray-black metal shaft rose from the depths near the captain’s port gunwale. As the U-boat’s conning tower emerged, it sent a shower of spray into the morning air. On its side was a gleaming moniker: “U-51.”
There was only death or capture. Jansen chose quickly. Bounding to the De Trouw’s deck, he shouted, “Down the lifeboats, abandon ship!” Arriving at a weapons locker, the captain fumbled with its latch and threw it open, his eyes dancing across the array of small arms stockpiled inside. Removing a handheld rocket launcher, Jansen ran his fingers along its barrel. Around him, winches cranked furiously as men plunged lifeboats into the sea. Nazis clambered from the U-51’s bowels and worked to free its deck-mounted .88-millimeter canon.
From somewhere behind, Jansen’s first mate cried out, “Captain, shall I give the order to fire on the U-boat?”
“Negative. Get the men off the ship.”
“But what about our guns?”
“No use. They can’t take out a U-boat.”
Donkiers glowered, clearly thinking it cowardice not to try.
Jansen had no time to argue. His purpose would be clear soon enough. Locking his gaze on the younger officer, he said, “Get every man off this ship – now!”
“Aye, sir,” Donkiers said, turning to oversee the evacuation.
Again Jansen reached into the weapons locker, this time withdrawing a canvas bag of hand grenades. Grasping the deadly bubbles in one hand and the rocket launcher in the other, he wheeled to face his enemy. The Nazis were rotating the .88 millimeter and preparing to unleash a hail of shells on the De Trouw. Jansen raced inside and down a stairwell leading to the vessel’s boiler room, where he paused to gulp air.
The faces of Jansen’s wife and daughters floated before him, their images a collage of soft features and silken hair. Above the din of the ship’s machinery the girls seemed to speak, urging upon him the strength to carry out what he must. The captain prayed for their safety. He prayed too for his family’s eventual return to their little home by the sea, and that when his girls peered out over the Ijsselmeer Inlet they would remember fondly the doting father and husband who forfeited his life in their defense.
Outside, the German guns clanked to life, jerking Jansen into the present. Shells ricocheted off metal. “Bastards,” he mumbled, pulling grenades from the bag at his side and rolling them underneath the ship’s boiler. With the now-empty bag at his feet, Jansen raised the rocket launcher and rested it on his shoulder. He unlocked its safety with his thumb, sighted the weapon on the De Trouw’s hulking fuel tank, and placed his unsteady finger on the gun’s trigger. Rivulets of sweat cascaded off his forehead and down his back. Anchoring his feet to the floor, the captain squeezed.
In the split-second before the onrushing wall of flame and heat unleashed by the exploding shell incinerated Jansen’s body and destroyed his vessel, he savored victory: he had prevented the Third Reich from capturing his prized cargo. Or so he thought.
