General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: Icarus
Posted by:
Ken Dunn
()
Date: July 22, 2001 09:39PM
<HTML>Hi Arnaldo,
Your story is wrong. Nobody was fired on in the water. All of the U-352 men killed were killed in the boat or on her deck. The boat was the target. One man had his leg blown off on the boat and he made it into the water. He is the one who died shortly after being picked up by Icarus. The part about the 88mm gun being gone when they surfaced is also incorrect. It was blown off later and salvaged.
There was no trial for anyone on the Icarus because there was no crime!
A while back a North Carolina dive shop held a reunion between some of the crew of Icarus and some of the crew of U-352. There were no hard feelings at the reunion. The crew of U-352 was treated correctly by the crew of the Icarus. There was no reason for hard feelings and the U-352 crewmen certainly wouldn’t have come all the way from Germany for a reunion with men that machine gunned them in the water!
Here is what really happened (from “Dive Into History Volume 3: U-Boats†by Henry C. Keatts and George C. Farr. ISBN: 1-55992-064-5):
“Nine days after the raid on St. Nazaire (by British commandos - KD), U-352 headed through St. Nazaire\'s only undamaged lock for her second war cruise. It was April 5, only six months since her commissioning, but the new U-boat would never return. Fate might have treated U-352 and her crew more kindly if that one lock had been destroyed by the British.
The U-boat headed directly for Cape Hatteras to patrol the American Atlantic coast, a war zone that by then had been named the \"Graveyard of the Atlantic.\" Rathke hoped to add his share of enemy ships to the many already littering the bottom. The crossing was intentionally slow; it took almost a month, in order to conserve fuel for a longer patrol.
On May 2, the U-boat reached the coast of the United States and sighted enemy vessels almost immediately. Several unsuccessful attempts were made against merchant ships, while constant alert was maintained against the most serious threat, air attack, which materialized on May 7 when an aircraft dropped two bombs. The pilot claimed a \"kill,\" but U-352 escaped undamaged.
That night, Rathke received a message from German Intelligence that a convoy would pass through his operational area in the next few days. Tension mounted - this was the moment for U-352 to earn her niche in the military archives of Germany, alongside U-37 and U-99, and make the citizens of Flensburg proud.
The tempo quickened on May 9, 1942, as a silhouette took shape on the horizon - it was one of the convoy ships. Ratlike ordered \"action stations,\" maneuvered U-352 into position, carefully sighted, and fired a single torpedo. Then he gasped in dismay - it was not a merchant ship as he had supposed, but a small American warship. His submarine was in shallow waters, where the odds of escape from a depth charge attack were against him. His only salvation lay in the hope that his running torpedo would hold course and strike a crippling blow. Ratlike\'s hopes perished when the torpedo exploded prematurely, 200 yards short of the port quarter of the American target. She was Icarus, a Coast Guard cutter en route from Staten Island, New York, to Key West, Florida. Sonar had alerted her captain, Lt. Commander Maurice D. Jester, U.S.C.O., to the U-boat\'s presence even before the explosion.
Ratlike headed into the churning waters of the explosion area, hoping to throw off pursuit. Jester anticipated the maneuver and took up position directly over the turbulence. A diamond pattern of five depth charges set for 100 feet was followed by a \"V\" pattern of three. Another was dropped when large bubbles boiled to the surface. The first pass destroyed U-352\'s attack periscope and killed her executive officer. The hull of the U-boat shuddered under the barrage, with shards of glass, crockery, and loose gear flying about at random. Crewmen hurtled into obstacles and one another with crippling consequences.
The electrical system was destroyed, leaving no propulsion and only emergency lighting. The U-boat was stripped of means for escape or battle. The second depth charging broached the pressure hull in the forward torpedo room, drowning part of the crew and breaking the engines loose from their mounts. The final depth charge discouraged all hope of escape.
Ratlike ordered the remainder of his crew to don escape lungs and life jackets, then had the ballast tanks blown. The U-boat shot to the surface 44 minutes after the initial sonar contact by Icarus.
In response to the order to abandon ship, the well-disciplined German sailors passed through the conning tower with clockwork precision - into a hail of gunfire. Icarus had opened fire as the U-boat hit the surface. Her 50-caliber and 30-caliber machine guns raked the deck. Then, her 3-inch deck gun moved into action at 80 yards. The first two shots straddled the hull, but the third was a direct hit on the conning tower. Six of the next 11 rounds struck the battered conning tower or hull. Two Germans, Fritz Badneck and Erhard Picket, reached the deck and attempted to man the antiaircraft gun. Badneck was shot and toppled overboard. Picket took cover behind the conning tower. Others tried to man the U-boat\'s 88-mm deck gun, but they too were forced to take cover.
Germans and Americans later agreed that U-352\'s 88-mm deck gun might have sunk Icarus, allowing the U-boat to limp off to safety. Only the immediate action and accuracy of the cutter\'s gun crews kept it and the 20-mm antiaircraft gun neutralized. Five minutes after blowing to the surface, U-352 plunged down with two officers and 11 crewmen. There she remains, about 26 miles south of Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in approximately 115 feet of water.
Before abandoning his U-boat, Rathke had ordered scuttling charges set. Their muffled explosions were audible on the surface as the German crew struggled in the ocean. Jester radioed for instructions regarding the Germans.
According to Kurt Krüger of U-352, while the coastguardsman waited for instructions, someone on the cutter called to the Germans over the loudspeaker, \"Have a good night with the sharks.\" Icarus steamed away, leaving the survivors in the water. Kurt Krüger gave his lifebeit to Heinrich Twirdy, who had no lifebelt and could not swim. Later, Krüger found one floating on the surface. Forty-five minutes later, the cutter returned after receiving orders from the 6th Naval District to bring the Germans to Charleston, South Carolina. As Icarus moved in to pick up survivors, Ratlike asked the cutter\'s crew to take his wounded aboard first, and warned his men not to divulge information to their American captors.
Four wounded survivors were treated aboard Icarus. Machinist\'s Mate Gerd Reussel had been knocked into the air, and his left leg was torn off by gunfire as he climbed out of the conning tower. Kurt Krüger and Funkmaat Ludwig Sorg kept the injured man afloat. As he struggled in the water, Krüger removed his pants belt to make a tourniquet for Oberrnaschinist Heinrich Bollmann who had lost his left arm. The man survived, and now lives in Germany.
All of the survivors suffered severe headaches from the rapid ascent of the U-boat. Amazingly, the prisoners were in good spirits, with excellent morale and military manner. A search produced German, French, and Norwegian currency, but only one set of papers that included any form of technical information.
Thirty prisoners were placed under guard in the forward crew compartment. The sailor who had lost an arm and another of the seriously injured were placed under guard in the crew\'s head. Reussel was placed on a litter to remain on deck for minimum movement and warm, fresh air. His rescuers administered adrenalin and a sedative, but despite those measures, Reussel died.
Jester was instructed by the 6th Naval District to bury the German at sea, but Ratlike objected, and the corpse was delivered to Charleston with the survivors. Reussel was buried with military honors in Post Section, grave #18, National Cemetery, Beaufort, South Carolina.
Aboard Icarus, Ratlike reinforced his order that the crew not divulge information to the Americans. Their compliance, he pointed out, would be a memorial to their dead comrades. Jester isolated Ratlike from the others, but still, when asked about their U-boat, the Germans either refused to answer or diverted the questions.
Icarus reached Charleston the day after sinking U-352. As Ratlike and the U-boat crew left the Coast Guard cutter, the German captain thanked his captor for the treatment provided his men.
The district intelligence officer at Charleston was as unsuccessful interrogating U-352\'s crew as the Icarus officers had been. The prisoners were turned over to the Provost Marshall at Paris Island, South Carolina, for transfer to a detention camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, a special investigating unit of United States and British officers, specially trained in the interrogation of U-boat survivors, was equally unsuccessful in uncovering any information that might help to reduce the undersea menace.â€
The following from the same source as above describes the reunion (the U-352 crewmen were in North Carolina for two weeks):
“George Purifoy, the first to determine U-352\'s location 33 years after she sank, was instrumental in honoring the survivors and victims of the German U-boat in May 1992. The two-week visit and commemorative events were organized by George and his wife Linda of Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City, Ed Caram, author of two books on U-352, and members of the United States Coast Guard.
A Battle of the Atlantic commemorative banquet, attended by about 300 people, was held in Morehead City, reuniting eight surviving U-352 crew members led by chief radio operator Kurt Krüger. The brother of a German who died in the action also attended. Two crewmembers who served on Icarus at the time of the sinking and four other Icarus alumni also participated.
Divers, businessmen, and dignitaries, including U.S. Representative Martin Lancaster (D-North Carolina), attended the banquet featuring speeches, presentations, and my (Keatts\'s) slide program of sunken North Carolina U-boats. Krüger declared, \"It is necessary to have some link for friendship between the two crews (Icarus and U-352).\"
The next day, Purifoy took the German survivors and a party of Americans 30 miles off- shore to the remains of U-352. It was an emotional experience for the survivors as they participated in a memorial service on the stem of Purifoy\'s dive boat Olympus II, and later viewed a video of George Purifoy and his son Bobby diving to the wreck to lay a wreath on the conning tower in tribute to those who died there.
The following day, at a reception held at the Olympus Dive Center, Purifoy offered Krüger a well-preserved leather jacket with insignia indicating that it was probably Krüger’s own service tunic. Purifoy had recovered the jacket inside the U-boat, and had restored it. He thought the German sailor would like it as a memento, but Krüger preferred that Purifoy display it in his shop for the interest and enjoyment of divers and visitors.
At the reception, Krüger told me (Keatts) that when he reached the bridge of the conning tower during the action, he was greeted by a severed hand on the deck. He added, \"I was lucky that I wasn\'t shot to death. We German survivors consider ourselves to be ambassadors of peace and understanding to the United States and the rest of the world; we hope that future generations will not forget the futility of war.\"“
Additionally, the official reports of the sinking of U-352 (from which Henry C. Keatts extracted a lot of the information in his book in addition to interviewing the U-352 survivors) can be found at [www.uboatarchive.net]. Here is a quote from one of the documents there: “The U-boat’s gunner stated that they intended to man the 2cm A/A gun on surfacing, but were dissuaded by fire from ICARUS. Rathke, when asked why he did not try to use his deck gun, said that the angle of the boat was too great (she was stern down with the bow sticking up in the air - KD), and that the ICARUS was firing at his men. Thirteen of the crew went down with U-352.†The names of the crew of the U-352 including the names of those killed can be found on the above site as well.
Also Arnaldo, please state your sources when you put stuff like this on a public forum.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
</HTML>
Your story is wrong. Nobody was fired on in the water. All of the U-352 men killed were killed in the boat or on her deck. The boat was the target. One man had his leg blown off on the boat and he made it into the water. He is the one who died shortly after being picked up by Icarus. The part about the 88mm gun being gone when they surfaced is also incorrect. It was blown off later and salvaged.
There was no trial for anyone on the Icarus because there was no crime!
A while back a North Carolina dive shop held a reunion between some of the crew of Icarus and some of the crew of U-352. There were no hard feelings at the reunion. The crew of U-352 was treated correctly by the crew of the Icarus. There was no reason for hard feelings and the U-352 crewmen certainly wouldn’t have come all the way from Germany for a reunion with men that machine gunned them in the water!
Here is what really happened (from “Dive Into History Volume 3: U-Boats†by Henry C. Keatts and George C. Farr. ISBN: 1-55992-064-5):
“Nine days after the raid on St. Nazaire (by British commandos - KD), U-352 headed through St. Nazaire\'s only undamaged lock for her second war cruise. It was April 5, only six months since her commissioning, but the new U-boat would never return. Fate might have treated U-352 and her crew more kindly if that one lock had been destroyed by the British.
The U-boat headed directly for Cape Hatteras to patrol the American Atlantic coast, a war zone that by then had been named the \"Graveyard of the Atlantic.\" Rathke hoped to add his share of enemy ships to the many already littering the bottom. The crossing was intentionally slow; it took almost a month, in order to conserve fuel for a longer patrol.
On May 2, the U-boat reached the coast of the United States and sighted enemy vessels almost immediately. Several unsuccessful attempts were made against merchant ships, while constant alert was maintained against the most serious threat, air attack, which materialized on May 7 when an aircraft dropped two bombs. The pilot claimed a \"kill,\" but U-352 escaped undamaged.
That night, Rathke received a message from German Intelligence that a convoy would pass through his operational area in the next few days. Tension mounted - this was the moment for U-352 to earn her niche in the military archives of Germany, alongside U-37 and U-99, and make the citizens of Flensburg proud.
The tempo quickened on May 9, 1942, as a silhouette took shape on the horizon - it was one of the convoy ships. Ratlike ordered \"action stations,\" maneuvered U-352 into position, carefully sighted, and fired a single torpedo. Then he gasped in dismay - it was not a merchant ship as he had supposed, but a small American warship. His submarine was in shallow waters, where the odds of escape from a depth charge attack were against him. His only salvation lay in the hope that his running torpedo would hold course and strike a crippling blow. Ratlike\'s hopes perished when the torpedo exploded prematurely, 200 yards short of the port quarter of the American target. She was Icarus, a Coast Guard cutter en route from Staten Island, New York, to Key West, Florida. Sonar had alerted her captain, Lt. Commander Maurice D. Jester, U.S.C.O., to the U-boat\'s presence even before the explosion.
Ratlike headed into the churning waters of the explosion area, hoping to throw off pursuit. Jester anticipated the maneuver and took up position directly over the turbulence. A diamond pattern of five depth charges set for 100 feet was followed by a \"V\" pattern of three. Another was dropped when large bubbles boiled to the surface. The first pass destroyed U-352\'s attack periscope and killed her executive officer. The hull of the U-boat shuddered under the barrage, with shards of glass, crockery, and loose gear flying about at random. Crewmen hurtled into obstacles and one another with crippling consequences.
The electrical system was destroyed, leaving no propulsion and only emergency lighting. The U-boat was stripped of means for escape or battle. The second depth charging broached the pressure hull in the forward torpedo room, drowning part of the crew and breaking the engines loose from their mounts. The final depth charge discouraged all hope of escape.
Ratlike ordered the remainder of his crew to don escape lungs and life jackets, then had the ballast tanks blown. The U-boat shot to the surface 44 minutes after the initial sonar contact by Icarus.
In response to the order to abandon ship, the well-disciplined German sailors passed through the conning tower with clockwork precision - into a hail of gunfire. Icarus had opened fire as the U-boat hit the surface. Her 50-caliber and 30-caliber machine guns raked the deck. Then, her 3-inch deck gun moved into action at 80 yards. The first two shots straddled the hull, but the third was a direct hit on the conning tower. Six of the next 11 rounds struck the battered conning tower or hull. Two Germans, Fritz Badneck and Erhard Picket, reached the deck and attempted to man the antiaircraft gun. Badneck was shot and toppled overboard. Picket took cover behind the conning tower. Others tried to man the U-boat\'s 88-mm deck gun, but they too were forced to take cover.
Germans and Americans later agreed that U-352\'s 88-mm deck gun might have sunk Icarus, allowing the U-boat to limp off to safety. Only the immediate action and accuracy of the cutter\'s gun crews kept it and the 20-mm antiaircraft gun neutralized. Five minutes after blowing to the surface, U-352 plunged down with two officers and 11 crewmen. There she remains, about 26 miles south of Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in approximately 115 feet of water.
Before abandoning his U-boat, Rathke had ordered scuttling charges set. Their muffled explosions were audible on the surface as the German crew struggled in the ocean. Jester radioed for instructions regarding the Germans.
According to Kurt Krüger of U-352, while the coastguardsman waited for instructions, someone on the cutter called to the Germans over the loudspeaker, \"Have a good night with the sharks.\" Icarus steamed away, leaving the survivors in the water. Kurt Krüger gave his lifebeit to Heinrich Twirdy, who had no lifebelt and could not swim. Later, Krüger found one floating on the surface. Forty-five minutes later, the cutter returned after receiving orders from the 6th Naval District to bring the Germans to Charleston, South Carolina. As Icarus moved in to pick up survivors, Ratlike asked the cutter\'s crew to take his wounded aboard first, and warned his men not to divulge information to their American captors.
Four wounded survivors were treated aboard Icarus. Machinist\'s Mate Gerd Reussel had been knocked into the air, and his left leg was torn off by gunfire as he climbed out of the conning tower. Kurt Krüger and Funkmaat Ludwig Sorg kept the injured man afloat. As he struggled in the water, Krüger removed his pants belt to make a tourniquet for Oberrnaschinist Heinrich Bollmann who had lost his left arm. The man survived, and now lives in Germany.
All of the survivors suffered severe headaches from the rapid ascent of the U-boat. Amazingly, the prisoners were in good spirits, with excellent morale and military manner. A search produced German, French, and Norwegian currency, but only one set of papers that included any form of technical information.
Thirty prisoners were placed under guard in the forward crew compartment. The sailor who had lost an arm and another of the seriously injured were placed under guard in the crew\'s head. Reussel was placed on a litter to remain on deck for minimum movement and warm, fresh air. His rescuers administered adrenalin and a sedative, but despite those measures, Reussel died.
Jester was instructed by the 6th Naval District to bury the German at sea, but Ratlike objected, and the corpse was delivered to Charleston with the survivors. Reussel was buried with military honors in Post Section, grave #18, National Cemetery, Beaufort, South Carolina.
Aboard Icarus, Ratlike reinforced his order that the crew not divulge information to the Americans. Their compliance, he pointed out, would be a memorial to their dead comrades. Jester isolated Ratlike from the others, but still, when asked about their U-boat, the Germans either refused to answer or diverted the questions.
Icarus reached Charleston the day after sinking U-352. As Ratlike and the U-boat crew left the Coast Guard cutter, the German captain thanked his captor for the treatment provided his men.
The district intelligence officer at Charleston was as unsuccessful interrogating U-352\'s crew as the Icarus officers had been. The prisoners were turned over to the Provost Marshall at Paris Island, South Carolina, for transfer to a detention camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, a special investigating unit of United States and British officers, specially trained in the interrogation of U-boat survivors, was equally unsuccessful in uncovering any information that might help to reduce the undersea menace.â€
The following from the same source as above describes the reunion (the U-352 crewmen were in North Carolina for two weeks):
“George Purifoy, the first to determine U-352\'s location 33 years after she sank, was instrumental in honoring the survivors and victims of the German U-boat in May 1992. The two-week visit and commemorative events were organized by George and his wife Linda of Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City, Ed Caram, author of two books on U-352, and members of the United States Coast Guard.
A Battle of the Atlantic commemorative banquet, attended by about 300 people, was held in Morehead City, reuniting eight surviving U-352 crew members led by chief radio operator Kurt Krüger. The brother of a German who died in the action also attended. Two crewmembers who served on Icarus at the time of the sinking and four other Icarus alumni also participated.
Divers, businessmen, and dignitaries, including U.S. Representative Martin Lancaster (D-North Carolina), attended the banquet featuring speeches, presentations, and my (Keatts\'s) slide program of sunken North Carolina U-boats. Krüger declared, \"It is necessary to have some link for friendship between the two crews (Icarus and U-352).\"
The next day, Purifoy took the German survivors and a party of Americans 30 miles off- shore to the remains of U-352. It was an emotional experience for the survivors as they participated in a memorial service on the stem of Purifoy\'s dive boat Olympus II, and later viewed a video of George Purifoy and his son Bobby diving to the wreck to lay a wreath on the conning tower in tribute to those who died there.
The following day, at a reception held at the Olympus Dive Center, Purifoy offered Krüger a well-preserved leather jacket with insignia indicating that it was probably Krüger’s own service tunic. Purifoy had recovered the jacket inside the U-boat, and had restored it. He thought the German sailor would like it as a memento, but Krüger preferred that Purifoy display it in his shop for the interest and enjoyment of divers and visitors.
At the reception, Krüger told me (Keatts) that when he reached the bridge of the conning tower during the action, he was greeted by a severed hand on the deck. He added, \"I was lucky that I wasn\'t shot to death. We German survivors consider ourselves to be ambassadors of peace and understanding to the United States and the rest of the world; we hope that future generations will not forget the futility of war.\"“
Additionally, the official reports of the sinking of U-352 (from which Henry C. Keatts extracted a lot of the information in his book in addition to interviewing the U-352 survivors) can be found at [www.uboatarchive.net]. Here is a quote from one of the documents there: “The U-boat’s gunner stated that they intended to man the 2cm A/A gun on surfacing, but were dissuaded by fire from ICARUS. Rathke, when asked why he did not try to use his deck gun, said that the angle of the boat was too great (she was stern down with the bow sticking up in the air - KD), and that the ICARUS was firing at his men. Thirteen of the crew went down with U-352.†The names of the crew of the U-352 including the names of those killed can be found on the above site as well.
Also Arnaldo, please state your sources when you put stuff like this on a public forum.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
Icarus
|
Arnaldo S. | 07/22/2001 01:27PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Capt. George W. Duffy | 07/22/2001 05:21PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
walter M | 07/22/2001 06:14PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Arnaldo S. | 07/22/2001 07:15PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
walter M | 07/22/2001 08:58PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Ralph | 07/22/2001 09:38PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
walter M | 07/23/2001 04:50AM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Ray | 07/23/2001 03:01PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Steve Cooper | 07/24/2001 01:45AM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Kev | 07/23/2001 10:57PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Ken Dunn | 07/22/2001 09:39PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Torlef | 07/23/2001 05:52AM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Walt | 07/23/2001 03:19PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Ken Dunn | 07/23/2001 07:00PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
Kev | 07/23/2001 11:06PM |
|
RE: Icarus
|
FAlmeida | 07/23/2001 03:26PM |