During the time our submarine was being built in Wilhelmshaven, we were sent to Hela to train on a submarine that was already in service. We had to train under the watchful eyes of the regular crew.

We worked hard, diving and surfacing and repeated this maneuver over and over again. It was my job to switch the electric motors and the valves for the compressed air tanks on and off at the proper time. When we went down, I had to turn the electric motor on, when we came up, the diesel was turned on and the electric motor was turned off. This was extremely hard work.

The U-boat, type VII-C had two drive shafts. Each drive shaft had a diesel engine and an electric motor. There was a clutch which engaged one or the other. All day long, I was turning these machines on and off and turning the flood valves for the compressed air tanks. At the end of this training period, we had a little mock ceremony where we all received a big medal, a sweat medal.

When our submarine, number U-767, was ready, the Navy took it over from the shipyard. Our commander was First Lieutenant Walter Dankleff. After an hour long ceremony we left the harbour. We left Wilhelmshaven, went through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in the direction of Kiel. This canal is now called the Nordostseekanal. Our next destination was Hela, north of Gdansk on a peninsula.  Hela was to be our home port.

Of course, training continued. We were constantly honing our skills which eventually had to become habitual. One of the main exercises was to improve the speed at which we could submerge. This involved precision as well as speed. When the order came to dive, the bridge watch would come down and the hatch would be clamped. Then each section of the sub would report that they were ready to dive. The diesel engines were stopped, the exhaust and intake conduits were closed, and at almost the same instant the electric motors were started. When all this was done, the commander gave the order to flood the tanks and the submarine submerged.

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Our crew excelled in the exercise of getting the men from the outer deck into the sub in order to dive. Several submarines would move parallel to one another with half of their crew on the outer deck. When the signal flag went down, we would run to the tower, climb up and get down the hatch into the upper level of the tower. Then we had to climb down the second hatch into the main part of the sub and get out of the way as fast as possible. Our record in this competition was forty-eight seconds.

We also practiced maneuvers for about eight weeks. Each morning we went out at daybreak to practice all day. There were fourteen submarines and each sub had a square in which to practice in; each area was approximately fifteen kilometers by fifteen kilometers. Each sub had to practice within its assigned square. All day long was spent practicing diving and re-surfacing. As soon as the sub was down and leveled out we came up again. After a short time up on the surface, there would be an alarm and we would go down again. This was hard work.

One day, we were submerged and ready to surface right on the edge of our designated square. Our commander, First Lieutenant Dankleff, thought that he could stay on the same course and come up slightly across the boundary line of our square. We would only be in another square for a short while and then we would return to our own square.

As it happened, the commander of the sub in the adjacent square was also planning to surface at the edge of this square. So, when we came up, the other sub was right there. He rammed us, taking our tower right off. In this kind of emergency, when damage is done to the machinery, the command goes over to the engineer. Our engineer, Lieutenant Schuster, gave the order to come up all the way. Fortunately the sea was calm and since we had no leaks, we were able to proceed at normal speed without any danger. The other sub, however, was not so lucky, it had some serious leaks and had to hurry to Gdansk at top speed.

When we reached the harbour in Gdansk, we saw the huge floating crane nicknamed “Big Heinrich”, the largest floating crane in the world at that time, lifting out the other sub, with water running out of all the leaks.

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Our submarine went into the shipyard as well, thus giving us three weeks in Gdansk while it was being repaired.

Of course, there was an investigation into the accident and it was determined that our commander was at fault, because he was in the wrong square at the time of the collision. As it turned out, our commander was given a reprimand, but was not disciplined for this incident.

We had a fairly slack time while we waited for the repairs to be completed. During this time, Lieutenant Dankleff gave me a package to deliver to his wife, who lived in Wilhelmshaven. Since I was from Oldenburg, which was close to Wilhelmshaven, I was given this assignment.

I was also supposed to pick up a package, which had something to do with the Navy. For this assignment, I was given a pass which allowed me to take any form of transportation and get priority, because I was on an assignment for the military. The higher ranking officers would not necessarily like it, but they had to let me travel any way I wished.

I was quite proud of this assignment, so I went first class. Some of the officers just gave me a questioning glance, but there were some who challenged my right to be there and asked me all kind of questions, which I didn’t have to answer. All I was supposed to do was show them my pass. Whenever officers challenged me, I would produce my pass and wait for them to cool down and stop asking questions.

When I got to Wilhelmshaven to pick up the parcel I was supposed to pick up, it wasn’t ready. I went home for the weekend and on Monday I went back to pick up the parcel. Since it wasn’t ready I went back home again. The following day, when I came back, I was told that it would take a few days before I could pick up the parcel and that I shouldn’t come back every day. After two days I went back without success. After another two days the parcel was waiting for me to take back to Gdansk to deliver.

On the train I met several other soldiers. When the train stopped in a

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town, we were invited to stay at somebody’s house overnight. I declined because I thought I had to look after this box I was delivering and had a miserable, cold night in the train station. I don’t think anyone would have taken this box, but I felt responsible for it.

When I got to Gdansk the next day, First Lieutenant Dankleff saw me coming and asked: “Are you back, already? I didn’t tell you to come back so soon. You  knew that we would be here for several weeks. Why didn’t you stay home for a while longer?” “Well,”I said, “I didn’t know I could do that. Why didn’t you tell me?” And he answered:”I couldn’t tell you that.” He thought I would be smart enough to figure this out for myself. “Well, it’s too late, you are here now” he said.

We stayed in Gdansk until the submarine was repaired. Then we went out into the Baltic Sea. At this time, our home port was still in Hela near Gdansk.

The crew on the sub treated each other like a family. The men could take their problems to the officers and it was like a father-son relationship. Of course, when you were on duty, you had to obey the commands of the officers. But otherwise, they were like fathers and sons. An officer might even act like an indulgent father with mischievous boys.

For example, one night, when we were in port somewhere in the Baltic, other Navy men asked for our help. The Air Force had a pub in a park which they had taken over from the Navy. The Navy wanted it back and recruited our help.

My friend, Heinz, and I decided that we would participate as long as there was no fighting  involved. We didn’t see any sense in getting beaten up for this issue. So we hung back while the others, who liked that sort of thing, went in and smashed the place up. They came out with black eyes and other bruises.

We were quite late getting back to our sub. No sooner had we gotten on board when the military police came and insisted that some of the trouble makers had come from this sub. We went to our commander

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and woke him up and told him what had happened. Our commander got up and talked to the military police telling them that nobody from his sub had been involved. All had been aboard for the last twenty-four hours. The military police had to accept this statement because they couldn’t come onboard to prove otherwise.

Our commander, First Lieutenant Dankleff, had told us that if we were in trouble we should always tell him about it. If the MPs didn’t have our names or identity, he would help us. However, if we were caught by the MPs it would be a different matter. Then he could not help us.

Heinz and I would take advantage of this quite often. Whenever we were in port we would go to town together. When the officers came by we were supposed to salute them, but we would ignore them and pretend to look into the windows. When they challenged us, we would protest that we had not seen them coming. They ordered us to give them our names so that they could report us. We had a little game worked out to get away from them, especially if it was dark. When the officer told us to show him our identity books, one of us would take out his book and just as the officer would try to read it by the light of his flashlight, we would take off running.

We managed to get away with this a number of times. We would run into the next street, hop over fences and use any method to escape. Once we almost got caught because we had the misfortune to run right into another patrol while escaping from the first one. However, we managed to escape this time too. This was our way of having fun.

The father-son relationship worked out very well for me when I had a serious problem with my sciatic nerve. Sometimes, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t perform my duties. When First Lieutenant Dankleff heard about my problem he told me to go see a doctor in Gdansk. When I told the doctor what my problem was he asked me how old I was. I said:”I’m eighteen years old”. He said:”Get back to your ship, you’re just trying to get out of your work.”

I had to go back to our base in Hela, which was about an hour’s train ride from Gdansk. Then I had a long painful wait in the cold rain until

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our sub came back from a day’s training exercises. When First Lieutenant Dankleff saw me there, he was surprised and asked what had happened. I told him what the doctor had said. He told me to report to him first thing in the morning.

When I reported to him the next morning, he had received permission from the fleet commander to dock at Gdansk. He took me to the doctor personally. This was one of the very few occasions I saw First Lieutenant Dankleff extremely angry. He told me to sit in the waiting room while he went in to see the doctor. I heard him shout and tell off the doctor in no uncertain terms. The doctor outranked Dankleff, but that didn’t seem to matter to my commander.

When he came out of the doctor’s office he told me to wait and soon a couple of nurses came and took me to another room where they put me in some kind of machine that applied heat to the part of my body that was hurting. I was there for several hours and I had relief from my pain. I didn’t see the doctor again. Later on I heard that he was sent to the Russion front.

Copyright © 2006/2007 Walter Schmietenknop. All rights reserved.