Decorated U-boat ‘ace of the deep’

Kapitanleutnant Reinhard Hardegen recalled how he had stood on the bridge of his U-boat, hypnotised by the sight before him: the undimmed lights of Manhattan seemed to emit a warm glow that hung in the night sky.

Surfacing his submarine, U-123, just outside New York’s inner harbour on the night of January 14, 1942, was a daring act. Barely a few weeks had passed since Hitler had declared war against America, soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, and the sleeping giant had been awoken.

The U-boat commander drank in the view and then invited other crew members to see it too. ‘‘For the first time in this war a German soldier looked upon the coast of the USA,’’ he wrote in his memoirs.

Hardegen, who has died aged 105, had left

Lorient in

Brittany on

December 23,

1941 as captain of one of five

U-boats ordered to attack the eastern seaboard. Operation Paukenschlag (Drumbeat) was designed to rattle America and rupture Britain’s crucial supply-chain convoys across the Atlantic.

Allied plans to protect convoys were not yet ironed out and coastline navigation and shore lights stayed on, helpfully guiding the German submariners along Long Island and backlighting targets.

‘‘I thought it would be a big surprise for the Americans that a submarine would be there,’’ Hardegen said. ‘‘There was no blackout, also no dimming. I could see on Coney Island the houses, lights and motor cars.’’

Lack of cogent defences meant success for Hardegen, who had already sunk the British freighter Cyclops off Nova Scotia on January 12. Moving south, his other scalps included the Norness, Coimbra, Norvana and the Ciltvaira. By the time he arrived in Lorient on February 9, U-123 had sunk or crippled nine merchant ships.

Hardegen received a hero’s welcome, a personal message of congratulation from Vice-Admiral Donitz, and the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.

U-123’s second transatlantic patrol, which started on March 2, brought further destruction to America’s doorstep. However, when Hardegen attacked the decoy ship USS Atik on March 27, believing her to be a merchant vessel, she dropped her disguise and returned fire. U-123 fled on the surface, crash-dived then returned to sink the vessel.

But one of Hardegen’s crew was mortally injured in the engagement. Fearing the sailor would endure a lingering death before they could reach a neutral port, his captain gave him a fatal morphine injection.

U-123 also attacked the oil tanker Gulfamerica on her maiden voyage to Britain. She exploded in a ball of fire four miles off Jacksonville Beach on the night of April 10, 1942. The American destroyer USS Dahlgren sought out U-123 in the hours that followed, depth-charging her six times in shallow

‘‘There was no blackout, also no dimming. I could see on Coney Island the houses, lights and motor cars.’’

waters off St Augustine. Hardegen wrote in his log how the boat ‘‘takes a terrible beating. The crew members fly about, and practically everything breaks down. Machinery hisses and roars everywhere’’.

Hardegen gave the order to abandon ship, handing out the rotors of his Enigma code machine to officers. Luckily, the destroyer sailed away.

Emergency repairs were carried out while U-123 sat on the seabed and she returned victorious to Lorient on May 2, 1942, to find Donitz waiting on the quayside. Her 28-yearold captain was awarded Oak Leaves for his Knight’s Cross, which he received from Hitler personally, and the rare U-Boat War Badge with Diamonds. U-123 had sunk another 10 vessels, contributing to a final tally for Operation Paukenschlag of 397 ships.

With a career total of 22 ships sunk and five ships damaged from a handful of patrols, Hardegen was one of Germany’s most lethal submarine commanders. He was blond, handsome, candid, brave to the point of recklessness and humorous. An assured leader, he needed every ounce of his unstoppable drive for a kill, or as he referred to it, ‘‘fulfilling his business’’.

The Kreigsmarine was the least politicised of all the German military and Hardegen insisted that he fought for his country, rather than because he ascribed to the fascist doctrine of the day. By contrast the Nazi regime eagerly celebrated this ‘‘ace of the deep’’. Hardegen’s New York visit made perfect front-page propaganda fodder and fans received signed photographs.

The son of Elisabeth Dreier, a housewife, and Dr Friedrich Hardegen, a historian and teacher, Reinhard Hardegen was born in 1913 in Bremen, where his forebears had lived since the Middle Ages.

At 4 he followed his father as he marched in a column of troops on their way to fight in the trenches. Affecting to march alongside him, he bumped into a lamp-post because he was staring at his father, but he didn’t cry out, which made his father proud. That was the last time he saw him. His father was killed in the battle of Passchendaele in 1917.

Young Reinhard, an accomplished yachtsman by his teens, was recommended to the German navy by World War I U-boat commander Paul Konig, a family friend. After joining as a cadet in 1933, he visited New York and climbed to the top of the Empire State Building to view the city’s nocturnal skyline.

Transferring to the Marinefleiger (naval air force) two years later, he trained as an observer and a pilot. Badly injured in a crash, Hardegen spent six months in hospital before being sent to join the U-boat force in November 1939. He should not have been serving at sea at all, because he now had a shortened right leg and suffered from chronic internal bleeding. Because of administrative laxness, his papers repeatedly failed to catch up with his postings. By the time Donitz became aware that this promising captain was medically unfit, Hardegen’s reputation in U-123 was such that the admiral allowed him the two ‘‘Drumbeat’’ patrols.

Hardegen spent the final days of the war on Dontiz’s staff, where he was arrested by the British who, mistaking him for an SS officer with the same surname, held him for 16 months. It was not until November 1946 that the British realised it was a case of mistaken identity and he was released.

Returning to Bremen, he eventually became a wealthy businessman after founding a trading company for ship fuel.

He also served in the regional Bremen parliament for 32 years and, although he drove a car with the private plate ‘‘U-123’’ well into his 90s, he largely confined his wartime exploits to the past. Like all former U-boat crew members, he did not like the acclaimed German film Das Boot because of errors in details and because the actors swore; swearing in real U-boats was verboten.

Hardegen, who spoke English with a heavy German accent that his children made fun of, was a domineering man who was disciplined, hard-working and renowned for his stubbornness. Instead of relaxing in retirement he set about winning golf trophies, collecting more than 100 and winning the German championship in the seniors category. He was not an easy golfing partner because he knew all the rules and insisted on applying them. ‘‘I sink putts now, not ships,’’ he reflected laconically.