Kleber's Convoy (9 page)

Unhappy and diminished he drank his coffee looking across the Place to the pavement by which she would come. Time went by. It was a quarter-past five. She was already fifteen minutes late. That was unlike her. He felt a mixture of irritation and concern. Moments later he saw her in the crowd coming up the pavement, then waiting with them at the corner. It was the peak hour. The traffic was heavy. In an interval she saw him and waved. He held up his wrist, pointed at his watch, thumping the table in mock anger. He saw her worried frown and instantly regretted what he'd done. In the next brief traffic lull she rushed across against the baton of the gendarme: his whistle shrilled and he waved her back. But it was too late. Behind the autobus in front of which she'd crossed a car came up fast. There was the shriek of brakes, the squeal of tyres, and a body cartwheeled into the air. The traffic halted. A knot of people gathered. Someone ran to a telephone. Redman raced down the stairs across the boulevard and broke through the ring of people. He saw her crumpled body, the face white and lifeless, blood trickling from her mouth and nostrils. The gendarme kneeling at her side looked up, shook his head. ‘Elle est morte‚' he'd said with heavy finality.

And so had ended a sublime week. He knew immediately, and the years after confirmed that knowledge, that his life would never be the same, that the burden on his conscience would be too great. What had happened affected him
fundamentally
. He became a changed man.

He had welcomed the war as a means from escape from the tragedy with which he had to live. But it had not worked out like that. The agony of remorse remained. He
remembered
only that Marianne had meant more to him than anyone he'd ever known, that he had been responsible for her death, that he'd cheated the fall of a coin, and that her brother had saved his life.

It seemed to him a multiple betrayal.

A few hours before the Vice-Admiral ordered the alteration of course to the south-east, the German High Command transmitted an urgent message to U-boats on the Bear Island and Kola Inlet patrol lines. It gave the last known position, course and speed of convoy JW 137 and continued:
Convoy's
course
at
0610
suggests
intention
pass
south
of
Bear
Island,
but
northerly
passage
more
likely
in
view
prevailing
weather
and
enemy's
knowledge
that
convoy's
course
and
position
known
to
us.
The signal ordered four U-boats to stations north of Bear Island, leaving four on an extended patrol line between the island and the North Cape. The main force of fifteen U-boats was concentrated on the patrol line outside the Kola Inlet. An additional submarine, U-0117, was on passage from Trondheim to reinforce it.

The High Command's signal concluded:
estimated
time
of
arrival
of
convoy
off
Kola
Inlet,
midnight
to
early
hours
tenth
December.

The High Command's signal was intercepted by the
Admiralty
, deciphered and passed to the Vice-Admiral in
Fidelix,
together with an appreciation of the situation. The contents of this signal were unknown to the German High Command for although the Admiralty's message had been intercepted, a new British cipher was being used which defied all attempts by Department B, the German Navy's cryptographic section, to break it. The position given by the Germans was forty miles in error and the course was still that reported by the shadowing aircraft at 0610. The German conclusion that the
northerly passage was more likely was based on interception by them of
Red
Three
's message that the ice-edge was well to the north of Bear Island. This was precisely what the Vice-Admiral had hoped for. The double bluff had succeeded. The German High Command had been forced to split its already thin Bear Island patrol line. There were now only four U-boats between Bear Island and the North Cape, a distance of close on two hundred miles, and their chances of sighting the convoy on its southerly route were
comparatively
remote in that weather. As the Vice-Admiral could not break wireless silence without giving away the convoy's position, the Admiralty signal went unacknowledged. This was the cause of some disappointment to German
tracking
stations on the Norwegian coast but not to their High Command which knew, as did Whitehall and the Vice-Admiral, that the U-boats' main effort would be reserved for JW 137's arrival off the Kola Inlet.

Next day the convoy passed south of Bear Island in the late evening. Not that the time made any apparent difference. The north-easterly gale had persisted, with its storms of snow and sleet and all-enveloping darkness. By morning it was clear that the Bear Island patrol line had been evaded, and during the next forty-eight hours nothing of consequence happened. There were the usual alarms, asdic contacts, pounce attacks, depth-charge explosions, and echoes which
dispersed
to be later classified as ‘fish' or ‘doubtful' or ‘nonsub.' Sometimes these were followed by alterations of course in case the ‘doubtful'
had
been a submarine but, notwithstanding, JW 137 steamed on, a storm-swept armada
averaging
six and a half knots now that sea and wind were no longer ahead.

There was the continuing problem of ice, and ships' companies were kept busy breaking it away from equipment and superstructures. There were other problems.
Violent
reported that her sub-lieutenant had left the bridge on being relieved at the end of the middle-watch and had not been seen since, despite a search of the ship. It was presumed that he'd been swept over the side while making his way aft in heavy weather.

There were, too, less serious problems. A US Liberty ship using a shaded blue lamp passed a message to her nearest
escort, the corvette
Cape
Castle:
Fireman
McGafferty
has
not
passed
water
for
two
days.
In
great
pain.
We
have
no
doctor.
Please
advise.
Urgent.

The corvette didn't carry a doctor so she discussed Fireman McGafferty's problem by TBS with the nearest Home Fleet destroyer. Having obtained her doctor's opinion,
Cape
Castle
signalled the Liberty ship:
Place
McGafferty
in
bath,
raise
water
temperature
steadily
and
stand
clear.

An hour later the Liberty ship signalled
Cape
Castle
:
Many
thanks.
Worked
fine.
McGaffertys
bladder
now
empty.

The corvette replied:
Splendid.
Delighted
to
have
been
of
assistance.

During the early hours of the 8th December the northeasterly gale blew itself out. A period of calm followed but snow and sleet persisted and
Fidelix
could not operate her aircraft. This was not only a source of considerable
frustration
to the Vice-Admiral, but complicated the task of the escorts as JW 137 was within air reconnaissance range of the Kola Inlet and a good deal closer to the U-boat patrol line. On the other hand, the Vice-Admiral knew that the Germans were equally hamstrung by the weather for as long as it lasted there would be no danger of enemy air attack.

Soon after midday the lull in the weather broke and a south-westerly gale blew off the Norwegian coast, less than one hundred and fifty miles away, bringing with it more snow. But it lacked the ferocity of its predecessor. Wind and sea force 7 were now on the convoy's starboard beam. The ships rolled heavily but shipped little water.

In the first dog-watch the Vice-Admiral ordered a major alteration of course, this time to the south-east. JW 137 was now on its last leg, heading for the Kola Inlet some two hundred and ten miles distant. Allowing for the various courses the convoy would steer on its final approach along swept channels through minefields, the distance was closer to two hundred and fifty miles. But the Vice-Admiral and his escort commanders knew that the U-boat patrol line was probably no more than one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty miles ahead. The most dangerous phase of the journey had begun. Tension built up in escort ships and merchantmen.

The new course put the south-westerly gale on the
convoy's
starboard bow and reduced its speed of advance to five knots. Unpleasant as this gale was, it blew with less violence than the north-easterly which had preceded it, but
Vengeful
and her consorts on the outer screen had resumed zig-zagging. This made life more uncomfortable, if anything, than on the previous course.

Korvettenkapitän Johan August Kleber, commander of U-0117, stood in the forepart of the horseshoe bridge
surmounting
the conning-tower. He was secured by a steel belt to the superstructure, as was Leutnant zur See
Schaffenhauser
, the officer-of-the-watch, and the seamen doing bridge duty. The submarine was running on the surface on an easterly course, the south-westerly gale on her starboard quarter. From time to time the small bridge flooded as she wallowed and sliced through steep following seas. The men wore rubber diving suits, heavy woollens and submarine jerseys under them, and felt-lined seaboots. But it was difficult to keep warm and because of the numbing cold they stamped their feet, swung their arms and struck their chests with gloved hands to keep up circulation. Drips of moisture on eyebrows and beards froze quickly despite eye masks and anti-frost grease on their faces.

There was nothing to be seen on this stormy night. It was more a matter of feeling and sensing. Feeling the gale, the continuous drenching of near-frozen salt water, the brush of snow and the sting of sleet, each man bracing
himself against
the violence of the boat's motion. In some respects the submarine rode the weather better than a surface ship, for other than the forward conning-tower and after gun-platform she offered little obstruction to the sea which foamed and curled about the whale-like steel hull. Only one sound challenged the noise of wind and sea and that was the metallic thunder of the U-boat's diesels.

Kleber disliked intensely the discomfort he and his crew had to endure, but he was in good spirits. In the first place he was grateful for the weather, bad though it was. The gale
brought heavy snow swept off the Norwegian coast, and that and almost total darkness throughout each day ensured freedom from enemy aircraft. He was grateful, too, for the signal from High Command giving the estimated position, course and speed of an Allied convoy sighted by a
reconnaissance
aircraft. His boat, U-0117, was on passage from Trondheim to join the patrol line off the Kola Inlet and he was looking forward to action. It had come sooner than he'd anticipated. Until the signal from High Command there had been no reports of a convoy en route to Russia. As it was, U-0117 would be in time to take part in the operation to intercept it and the weather was right for what he had in mind. He and his navigating officer, Dieter Leuner, had plotted the position of the convoy and its probable courses north and south of Bear Island. Whichever was taken, they had concluded that U-0117 would arrive off the Kola Inlet a few hours ahead of the enemy. Kleber had already altered course some fifteen degrees to the north in the faint hope of making contact with the convoy before it reached the patrol line. If he succeeded in this he should, in that weather, be able to shadow it without undue risk.

Kleber, fair and athletic with a strong face, was a cheerful extrovert with a good brain and sound nerves. But he had been too long out of the war for his liking. Early in 1943 he'd got his first command, and during the first eight months of that year proved himself to be an outstanding U-boat commander. He had sunk over 100,000 tons of enemy shipping before he was unexpectedly removed from the struggle, the victim of a severe wound during an air-raid on Lorient where his boat was based. His spine was damaged and for some time it was thought he would never again be fit for active service. But he fought against the disability with characteristic determination and recovered. Highly thought of in the German U-boat arm he was, both because of the injury and his excellent record, attached to a training flotilla in the Baltic. That took him to Danzig where he became a senior instructor responsible for working up new U-boats and their crews and later, with the changing
fortunes
of war, to Oslo.

Kleber was not happy with the training appointment which he regarded as non-combatant, but he was intelligent enough to realize that it had probably saved his life. Most of his
contemporaries who had remained at sea in U-boats after the autumn of 1943 had not survived.

The Germaa Naval Command allowed Kleber to return to sea in September 1944 because the war had reached a stage where U-boat successes were badly needed. It was felt that the presence and skill of such a seasoned commander would boost morale and secure results. This had already proved correct for U-0117, now on her second patrol under his command, had on the first in the course of a prolonged attack on a Russian convoy sunk a frigate and two merchant ships. His self-confidence, his aggression, his willingness to take risks, had won for him the unquestioned loyalty of officers and men and this had contributed much to the boat's success. The former captain whom Kleber had relieved had had no such successes. Over-cautious, he had lost the
confidence
and respect of his crew. They had been glad to
exchange
him for a man whose name and reputation stood high in the U-boat service.

The son of a patrician family with its roots in East Prussia‚ Kleber made no secret of his opinion that Hitler was an upstart leading the German people to destruction. But it was his custom to simplify complex issues and he had no doubt where his own duty lay: Germany was at war, he was an officer in the German Navy; for him there was no other choice but to devote his skill and energy to the service of his country. This he did with single-minded determination.

Kleber's parents had been killed in an air-raid in 1943. His marriage shortly before the war to Helga Kuschke, a young lecturer in sociology at Heidelberg, had been a
short-lived
affair. While his parents had ascribed its break-up to the war, Kleber suspected the fault was his.

The exigencies of war decreed that when he was not at sea or on leave most of his time was spent in Brest and Lorient, the Atlantic U-boat bases. There he had been
involved
in brief but intense encounters with other women. Though Helga knew nothing of these they worried him, for he felt that in some intangible way they damaged his relationship with her. Moreover, they were lapses from standards of behaviour to which he attached some importance. There was a powerful streak of Calvinist puritanism in Johan Kleber.

It had not occurred to him that, in the circumstances of
war, adherence to those standards was scarcely possible for a man of his boundless energy, high spirits and zest for living.

As it happened, the real reason for the failure of his marriage had nothing to do with amorous adventures in France. It lay in Kleber's character and was well described in a letter from his wife to her mother shortly before the marriage broke up.

Everything
Hans
does
he
does
well.
He
sets
the
highest
standards,
not
only
for
himself
but
for
others.
He
is
a
perfectionist.
This
he
cannot
help
for
he
was
born
that
way.
But
it
is
not
really
a
virtue.
Others – and
I
am
one – find
difficulty
in
living
up
to
the
standards
he
imposes.
Because
of
this
he
makes
me
feel
a
failure
in
many
things.
The
way
I
run
the
house.
How
I
dress.
My
looks,
my
figure.
How
I
manage
on
the
money
he
allows
me
– and
my
own
money!
I
have
to
keep
detailed
accounts.
Hans
checks
them.
He
says
he
does
this
to
help
me.
So
that
I
may
know
where
the
money
goes.
As
if
I
didn't
without
writing
it
all
down.

I
think
I
am
still
fond
of
him,
or
much
that
is
him.
But
not
so
much
that
I
am
prepared
to
lose
my
personality
in
his.
To
become
a
sort
of
ersatz
Hans.
I
prefer
to
be
myself,
inferior
maybe,
and
to
have
some
sort
of
life
of
my
own.
Fortunately
we
have
no
children
and
we
are
young.
Now
is
the
time
to
make
the
break,
however
difficult
it
may
be.

To those who knew Hans Kleber well – and they were mostly the officers and men with whom he had served in the U-boat arm – this might have seemed a harsh judgment. In fact it was, in most respects, closer to the truth than they would have cared to acknowledge, for the characteristics of which Helga complained fitted in well with the requirements of naval discipline.

Be that as it may, it was this absence of family ties which at times introduced an element of recklessness into his decisions and explained his willingness to take risks where others refrained.

Conditions on U-0117's small bridge were difficult in the extreme. There was not only the high wind, the seas driving in on them through the unprotected after side of the bridge, and the cold to compete with, but so much spray, snow and sleet in the air that the lenses of night glasses and eye masks
frosted soon after they were cleared. Despite these difficulties, Kleber found running on the surface at high speed
exhilarating
. And the prolonged surface run ensured that the submarine's batteries received a handsome charge, which was important for what lay ahead. Another advantage of being surfaced was that fresh air swept through the boat clearing away the sickly stench of decaying food, grease, diesel oil, chlorine gas and human sweat.

Inside the boat conditions were deplorable on these Arctic patrols. It was not only the foul air but the humidity; water dripped everywhere; verdigris formed on exposed metal surfaces; bedding, clothing, charts, sailing directions and naval manuals became damp and mildewed. Kleber had nothing but admiration for the stoicism with which his men endured their lot, and the fact that their morale was high was all the more remarkable since the Allies now had the upper hand in the war against U-boats; a fact well known throughout the U-boat service.

U-0117 had been running on the surface on passage from Trondheim for over forty-eight hours. During this time she had sighted nothing, the weather having been uniformly bad. Periodically Kleber had dived the boat to free it of ice on the superstructure and external armament, and to check the trim. The temperature of the sea was several degrees above freezing, whereas the air temperature was twenty to thirty degrees below.

‘Das
Boot
arbeitet
hart
in
dieser
See
… the boat works hard in this weather,' Kleber remarked to Schaffenhauser the sub-lieutenant with whom he stood shoulder to shoulder in the darkness, gripping the rail below the bridge screen. ‘But it's refreshing to be travelling on the surface. And we make good speed. At least thirteen knots.'

Schaffenhauser said, ‘
Jawohl,
Herr
Kapitän.
'
While he agreed they were making good speed, he preferred to be submerged. For all the smells of foul air, mildew and
dampness
– and added discomfort when they used the
Schnorchel
in bad weather, when men gasped for oxygen and suffered from bouts of nausea as seas closed the float on the air intake valve – for all that he felt more secure submerged. On the surface he was uncomfortably aware of the air threat. One felt naked and exposed. The sudden swoop from above, the
brilliance of flares dropped by attacking aircraft, the accuracy of their depth-charging and rocket fire. It was good to have a hundred metres or so of sea above you, with thermal layers to protect the boat from searching asdic beams.

But Schaffenhauser mentioned none of this to
Kapitänleutnant
Kleber who had a zest for action and seemed to thrive on discomfort and danger. Schaffenhauser thought a lot of the captain and did not wish to lose his esteem.

As if he were reading the young man's thoughts, Kleber said, ‘Only another hundred and twenty miles to the patrol line, Schaffenhauser. That's about nine hours. We'll have to submerge then if this gale lets up and visibility improves. The air will become too busy.'

‘Yes,
Herr
Kapitän.
'
Schaffenhauser hoped that the weather would break and that they would have to submerge even sooner.

‘It's not the Russian Catalinas that worry me‚' said Kleber. ‘It's the British carrier aircraft which do the damage. They are the professionals.'

‘At what point do we join the patrol line,
Herr
Kapitän
?'