Interview with Otto Kretschmer

[lambda*sqrt(u*x)]

PART 2 of the interview

I: How did the loss of your boat occur?

K: By the end of 1940, I committed two of my officers to commander's school, because I believed that these fabulous officers would be better commanders in the war than watch officers on my boat. Hoping, I would get equal replacement, but ["leider Gottes"] this was not the case, leading to a catastrophe on my last patrol in the beginning of 1941 that cost me the boat and three members of my crew their life.
I was returning from a convoy battle, had no torpedoes left, and my bridge watch ran into an enemy hunter/killer group [German "U-Jagd Gruppe"] which at that time was successfully hunting and sinking my comrade Scheppke (U 100). Because my watch officer ordered to dive, I could not escape anymore - my standing orders actually were not to dive when in contact with the enemy at night, but to stay on the surface, show the foe our aft, get me onto the watch, and I would have took control of all that had followed. That unfortunately was not possible anymore, I already was stationary [and submerged, rmk. by translator], was dropped depth charges on, and had flooding, so that I just managed to surface with the remainder of pressurized air left, no chance to defend myself by means of shooting torpedoes, and being shot at. Luckily they didn't hit us with their machine guns and artillery in the night, so I had the chance to get my crew onto the deck on the side of the boat that was not facing fire, and to wait for the boat sinking. When it came to the latter - the aft was already going down, everyone on the deck got washed over board, life vests on, and after operating the U-boat was not possible anymore, all that was left to do was my duty as commander to care for the safety of my crew; so I signalled via the morse signal lamp "From captain to captain, please rescue my men drifting in your direction, I am sinking!". Confirmation was signalled back by the captain of the near HMS Walker, a destroyer, with whom I later became friend, and so the part of the crew who got washed off the deck got rescued, while I myself had to help the boat sinking because the destroyer's crew intended to enter it, and I had to avert that to avoid secrets being captured by the enemy. So I managed to accelerate the sinking of the boat already going down by opening one of the flooding bunkers. I alone stayed on the bridge while the boat went deeper, and found myself swimming - the myth of the vortex of a sinking ship taking you down with it therefore can't be true! So there I was, in my vest, floating on the surface.

I: Did an issued order from Dönitz exist that called for the shooting of enemy castaway crews?

K: I never heard of such an order, far from it! We always had been advised to wage war according to international law. We acted conform to this, and we all in the U-boat navy had the impression not to wage war against human beings, but to have the need for sinking ships. And that castaways had to expect help as sure as possible, and we did help. There was one, I can't remember his name right now, on board [of my boat], whom we rescued up from a life raft, and he spoke to us, believing he was on a British submarine, about finally being fished out of the sea by his own kind after the "bloody Germans" had sunk his ship!
I brought him to a rescue boat I had spotted and which had set sail, and was manned by two white men in blue... merchant ship uniforms, and, on the oars, two yellow men [literally translated, rmk. by transl.] from Vietnam, [a people] whom we were calling "[... sorry, did not understand the term, rmk. by transl.]" in those times.
When I ordered the rescue vessel to come alongside our boat via megaphone, they seemed as if feeling trapped and seeing their end near, and where utterly astonished seeing one of their own entering the boat in a German overall, his wet clothes and some food in his hands, being allowed to join them [by the German enemy, rmk. by transl.]! The Engländer on the rudder was so stunned that he lobbed a pack of cigarettes to the U-boat to express his gratitude!
We wished them good luck, (we were west of Ireland) they should well be able to reach Ireland, asked if they knew the heading, they had set their sail, the wheather was adequate, and we found they should be safe.
There were no orders, [...], that we shall wage war against humans, we were given command to sink ships only, and castaways generally were given help. It was often the case that some [survivors] were swimming around not having been spotted by the crews in the rescue boats, and one had to tell them "Here is one floating, there is one, try to get those!"

Remark by translator:
I did my best to translate this interview. I do not stand behind ideas of war in general, and I have vague doubts that handling surviving crews of attacked merchants and war ships did always happen in the way Kretschmer remembers here. Whatever the real situation was, I lack knowledge of historical facts here. I just want to state here that I do not feel responsible for the content of this interview - I just translated it word by word, adapting it to (my mediocre) English grammar.

[Subtype Zero]

Excellent translation, and very informative! No need to apologize, lambda!

Danke.

[Brag]

Many thanks, Lambda. My German got so rusty I had trouble understanding. Your translation made it all clear. Great job!

[lambda*sqrt(u*x)]

Thanks for the appreciation!!

But... LOL... a forum search would have saved me from a lot of work...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...65&postcount=6

Somebody already _did_ this job, and in much better English, closer to the original!