Shadow Voyage

Peter A. Huchthausen

Description

A fast-paced, little-known story of danger at sea on the eve of World War II

On the sweltering evening of August 30, 1939, the German luxury liner S.S. Bremen slipped her moorings on Manhattan's west side, abandoned all caution (including foghorns, radar, and running lights), and sailed out of New York Harbor, commencing a dramatic escape run that would challenge the rules for unrestricted warfare at sea. Written by naval historian Peter Huchthausen, Shadow Voyage tells the epic adventure of the Bremen's extraordinary flight to Germany, which became a life-and-death race with British warships and submarines intent on intercepting her. Revealing new details from naval archives, Huchthausen's riveting narrative captures the great courage and magnanimity of the Royal Navy, the cunning and intricate planning of the Germans, and the tension and ambiguity that preceded the outbreak of World War II.

Captain Peter Huchthausen, U.S. Navy, Retired (Hiram, ME), has had a distinguished career, serving at sea and on land as a Soviet naval analyst and as a naval attach? in Yugoslavia, Romania, and the Soviet Union. He is now a consultant and writer, author of the bestselling Hostile Waters and October Fury (0-471-41534-0).
Acknowledgments.

Prelude.

Introduction.

1. Uncertain Crossing.

2. Roosevelt’s Neutrality.

3. Obfuscation and Delay.

4. Into Oblivion.

5. Running North.

6. Close Encounters.

7. Running for Refuge.

8. Soviet Support.

9. Plotting Escape.

10. Salmon Bags a U-Boat.

11. Running for Home.

12. Salmon’s Dilemma—Bremen’s Escape.

13. Cheers and Retribution.

Afterword.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

Sujets

• Histoire
• SS Bremen
• Armada de los Estados Unidos
• Marina Real Británica
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Peter Huchthausen
• Military
• World War II
• History of Germany
• Naval
• History
• Royal Navy
• United States Navy
• Seconde Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 21 avril 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470308813
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

S HADOW V OYAGE
 
Also by Peter Huchthausen
Echoes of the Mekong
Hostile Waters (with Igor Kurdin and R. Alan White)
Frye Island, 1748–1998
K19: The Widowmaker
October Fury
America’s Splendid Little Wars
S HADOW V OYAGE
T HE E XTRAORDINARY W ARTIME E SCAPE OF THE L EGENDARY SS B REMEN
P ETER A. H UCHTHAUSEN

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
 
 
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2005 by Peter A. Huchthausen. All rights reserved Maps by John Lane
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Huchtausen, Peter A., date.
Shadow voyage : the extraordinary escape of the legendary SS Bremen / Peter A. Huchthausen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-45758-2 (Cloth: alk paper)
1. Bremen (Ship) 2. World War, 1939-1945—Naval operations, German. I. Title.
    VM383.B7H88 2005
    940.53—dc22
 
2004014948
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my son, Paul Duncan Huchthausen
They that dwell under his shadow shall return.
Hosea 14:7
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prelude
Introduction
1     Uncertain Crossing
2     Roosevelt’s Neutrality
3     Obfuscation and Delay
4     Into Oblivion
5     Running North
6     Close Encounters
7     Running for Refuge
8     Soviet Support
9     Plotting Escape
10      Salmon Bags a U-Boat
11     Running for Home
12      Salmon’ s Dilemma— Bremen’ s Escape
13     Cheers and Retribution
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am sincerely grateful to Irmgard Benco for leading me to my good friend Dr. Hannes Zimmermann who launched me on the right track in research and for finding three former Bremen sailors and introducing me to the staff of the Bremerhaven Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum. There, I found the Bremen deck log and other pertinent data and manuscripts with the invaluable assistance of Archives Director Klaus-Peter Kiedel, Library Assistant Simon Kursawe, and Photo Archivists Klaus Fuest and Norbert Rebs. I am deeply indebted to Imke Schwarzrock, a longtime student of Norddeutscher Lloyd, a spirited enthusiast of the history of the liner Bremen, and especially for her assistance finding Frau Renate Wilm, daughter of Commodore Adolf Ahrens and Frau Maris Eberling, daughter of Bremen ’s Leading First Officer Eric Warning.
I am sincerely grateful for the assistance of Janice Robinson in finding the crew list and log of the HMS Salmon and leading me around the British Archives, former Public Record Office, at Kew. I am thankful also for the assistance of the staff at the British Submarine Museum at Gosport for their help finding the late commander E. O. Bickford’s patrol report and endorsements and to Horst Harms, son-in-law of the first Bremen chief engineer Julius Hundt, and to Erwin Drechsel, son of former New York chief marine superintendent William Drechsel. And thanks to Herr Barth of Nordsee Zeitung. Special thanks to former crew members Wilhelm Bohling, Ernst Henningsen, and Heinz Slominski for graciously offering me their time and memories.
P RELUDE
In still, sweltering heat, in the afternoon of August 30, 1939, as war in Europe grew inevitably closer, the one-time speed-record-holding German passenger liner SS Bremen slipped her moorings on Manhattan’s West Side and sailed out of New York Harbor. A dark bank of clouds approached the Verazzano Narrows, promising relief to the week of stickiness that had exacerbated the long process of getting the ship cleared for departure and underway on her voyage into the unknown. The majestic liner swung her bow south for the narrows and steamed defiantly past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Just as the Staten Island Ferry crossed Bremen ’s wake, a knot of Germans gathered on the liner’s stern in the stifling late afternoon heat. After suffering three days of frustrating sailing delays, the Bremen crewmen and a handful of employees from German businesses and embassy and consular staffs, reduced to only essential personnel, were finally heading home to Germany as the clouds of war gathered over Europe. A well-known German photographer recorded the crew on Bremen ’s towering stern as they sang the Nazi “Horst Wessel” march and national anthem and gave the “Heil Hitler” salute with right arms outstretched, paying their final farewell to the United States before beginning their extraordinary flight from New York.
Their departure launched the liner on a three-and-a-half-month life-and-death race with British warships. Bremen ’s master, sixty-year-old Adolf Ahrens, knew from radio intercepts relayed to him from Berlin over the prior two days, that a Royal Navy search force consisting of two cruisers was lurking somewhere in the North Atlantic to intercept the liner along her normal great-circle return track to Bremerhaven. There was little doubt to the master and crew aboard the liner that the recent actions by the New York City collector of the port, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Customs had been concocted to intentionally delay their departure. It was obvious that these delaying tactics were part of a not-so-subtle U.S. effort to buy time to allow British warships to form a naval cordon to strangle Nazi Germany’s trade with the Western Hemisphere and to position themselves along the usual track of the eastbound liner to intercept and seize her as a prize if war broke out.
After clearing Sandy Hook, with a blinding rain beginning to fall, the liner feinted to the south with topside lighting glowing normally. Then, after steaming through the fading light for ten minutes, the majestic 52,000-ton liner abruptly extinguished all her lights, cranked on 29 knots, turned north, using the foul weather as cover to throw off any would-be pursuers, and commenced an epic escape to avoid capture by Royal Navy warships searching for her as a coveted high-speed troop transport. Bremen ’s return voyage to Germany would terminate three and a half months after becoming a worldwide sensation in an episode that challenged the rules for unrestricted warfare at sea. Both Germany and Britain claimed Bremen ’s epic escape run through the Royal Navy blockade as a major propaganda victory. This symbol of hope for a new Germany and a resurgent maritime power gained world attention during the final event-packed days presaging Europe’s plunge into World War II.
At first glimpse, this event seems merely a yarn of superior seamanship and good fortune, but on closer scrutiny, it evolves into an epic maritime adventure pitting daring ship handling and intricate German planning during Bremen ’s sprint from Murmansk through the British naval blockade obstructing the path to her homeport of Bremerhaven, an event that seriously questioned Great Britain’s grip on naval supremacy. “Helene,” the detailed operation prepared by the German Navy High Command, discovered recently by researchers in the Freiburg naval archives, reveals the importance the Germans placed on the safe return of Bremen . The plan governing the security of Bremen ’s dash from the northern Russian port of Murmansk south to her homeport of Bremerhaven, through the Norwegian Sea into the North Sea penetrating the net cast by the Royal Navy, reveals the exceptional coordination designed for the endeavor by the German Navy High Command. The early rules for the Atlantic submarine war, which very nearly strangled the embattled British, were set by a single Royal Navy submarine commander when his decision regarding Bremen unintentionally became a benchmark for Allied, and for a time also, German behavior. This is a story of cunning and deception on the part of the Germans, and of great courage and magnanimity of the Royal Navy.
I NTRODUCTION
There still exists today a grand mystique of the luxury liners of the past, their graceful lines, towering superstructures, castlelike salons, swaying dining rooms, thundering whistles, and raw power, all designed to whisk passengers across the Atlantic in comfort and ease. Despite the efforts of modern cruise lines in the last decades to recapture the breathtaking aura and excitement of yesterday’