The Mystery of U-33. Episode 2

Serialisation of the book by Nigel Graddon, author of UFOs, Aliens and the Fairy Kingdom and Celtic Tales of Evil and Wonder.

Episode 1 | Episode 2

Synopsis

THE MYSTERY OF U-33: HITLER'S SECRET ENVOY

On the surface, the story of German submarine U-33 is a tragic but standard World War II footnote—a Type VII U-boat destroyed in the Firth of Clyde in February 1940. But beneath the frigid Scottish waters lies a web of espionage, cover-ups, and Nazi secrets that defied the official historical record.

Why did Adolf Hitler and Admiral Dönitz personally bid farewell to this specific crew? Why was a secret forest banquet thrown in their honor? And who were the phantom passengers aboard—men scrubbed from the official Kriegsmarine logs and buried under hushed, heavily guarded circumstances in a Greenock cemetery?

From whispers of mythological artifacts and the shadowy fate of SS occultist Otto Rahn, to covert drops of Nazi agents and secret connections to Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess's bizarre flight to Scotland, The Mystery of U-33 peels back the rusted hull of history. Packed with meticulous research, unredacted diaries, and startling new evidence, this is a clarion call to uncover the truth of a doomed "suicide mission" that the British and German governments wanted buried forever.

The truth didn't sink with the ship. It’s waiting to be found.

 U-33: the Official Story

 I would fain die a dry death

 The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre Peninsula, which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire. At its entrance the firth is some 26 miles (42km) wide. Its upper reaches include an area where it is joined by Loch Long and the Gare Loch. The area includes the large Clyde Anchorage off Greenock, known locally as the Tail of the Bank in reference to the sandbar that separates the firth from the estuary of the Clyde. The river is still almost 2 miles wide at the sandbar and its upper tidal limit is at the tidal weir adjacent to Glasgow Green.

      The cultural and geographical distinction between the firth and the river Clyde is vague. People will sometimes refer to Dumbarton as being on the Firth of Clyde, while the population of Port Glasgow and Greenock frequently refer to the firth to their north as “the river.”

      In Scottish Gaelic the landward end of the Firth of Clyde is called Linne Chluaidh, while the area of the firth around the south of Arran, Kintyre and Ayrshire-Galloway is called An Linne Ghlas, which simply means a long narrow estuary.

      The area’s defences in 1940 included the Cloch Coast Battery in Inverkip Parish, which formed a part of the Clyde defence system in both World Wars. It was originally fitted with 6-inch guns from Portkil in 1916. The Coast Battery was decommissioned in 1956. Today the site has been partly demolished with its two gun emplacements filled in.

      One of the most important beacons on the Clyde is the Cloch Lighthouse situated two miles south of Gourock. Erected at a point where the firth suddenly changes direction, the lighthouse is a circular tower eighty feet high. The jurisdiction of the water-baille of Glasgow terminates at this point. Here there is a regular ferry to and from Dunoon on the opposite shore. Above and beyond Dunoon are the peaks of the Argylleshire Mountains.

      During the war years on a hill high above Cloch Lighthouse was a naval station operated by members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRENS). Their task was to send and receive messages to and from vessels as they came through the boom. The blinking “dot-dot-dot-dash” of the WRENS’ Aldis lamps must have been one of the last sights for many sailors leaving the Clyde.

      At the beginning of September 1940, Greenock was a part of the Clyde Sub Command of the Rosyth Command. The Flag Officer in Charge, Clyde (Rear Admiral J.D. Campbell), was based in Glasgow with an Extended Defence Officer and Boom Defence Officer at Greenock.

      Consequent to the sinking of HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, naval authorities decided in October 1939 to remove the armed merchant cruisers of the Northern Patrol and base them on the Clyde, which also became an alternative base for ships of the Home Fleet.

      After visiting Greenock in HMS Nelson in December 1939 the Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet decided that Flag Officer in Charge, Clyde, was too far from the scene in Glasgow to keep in regular touch with operational matters. Consequently, the Sub Command was divided into a Glasgow Sub Command and a Greenock Sub Command.

      Rear Admiral J.A.G. Troup was appointed as Flag Officer in Charge, Glasgow, and was responsible for all fitting-out, repair and maintenance work in the Clyde area.

      Rear Admiral B.C. Watson was appointed Flag Officer in Charge, Greenock, responsible for seaward defences, Anti-Submarine (A/S) patrols, control of traffic in port, berthing at Greenock, issue of sailing orders and local administrative work at the Greenock base. Later we shall return briefly to Rear Admiral Watson when we examine the burial details of the deceased from U-33 in Greenock Cemetery.

      The £1,000,000 defence boom installed in the early autumn of 1939 between Cloch Point, Renfrewshire and Dunoon, Argyllshire protected the Clyde Anchorage during WWII. The massive A/S defence, comprising two lines of torpedo nets constructed in 12-foot square mesh and laced with depth charges, was supported by a twin row of floats. It spanned the whole width of the firth except for a small gap near the Dunoon shore left open to allow river steamers and shallow-draught local traffic to come and go. The boom was patrolled constantly by a fleet of seven hastily conscripted A/S Guard vessels: two trawlers, three armed motor yachts and two motor boats. Nearby gun towers were built with bevelled frontages to support the revolving actions of the guns. Officially, the coastal guns never saw action against U-boats but, interestingly, the history books do record the successful penetration of the boom in 1943 by a top-secret British midget submarine.

           Its crew was practising for raids on ships like the Bismarck battleship Tirpitz, which they carried out successfully later that year. Its undetected passage through the netting meant that the lookout men of the Cloch battery subsequently had a lot of explaining to do.

Standing today on Millport pleasure beach in the southeastern corner of Great Cumbrae, looking out over the sparkling waters of the Clyde, it is difficult to recall that during WWII this great Scottish river saw much of the violent events of the time.

Convoys assembled in the Clyde Anchorage before setting out on the hazardous voyage to America, Gibraltar, Africa or India—indeed anywhere in the world where the war was being fought—while hundreds of ships bringing vital cargoes from the U.S.A. unloaded their precious burdens at the ports that lined its banks. In turn, other large convoys of men and supplies set out through the Cloch-Dunoon boom on many notable operations, including the invasion of Africa (Operation Torch) and the invasion of Europe. Between May 1942 and the end of 1944 more than 1,200,000 American GIs had been been delivered safely to the Clyde by various troop ships.

Exiled governments also set up bases and billets in Greenock, including the Poles, Czechs and Free French. A memorial to the latter, erected in the form of a Cross of Lorraine on a hill above Greenock commemorates the members of the Free French Navy who lost their lives during the hostilities.

Nine miles northeast of Millport is Largs, the Ayrshire town where so many top-secret plans were laid by Britain’s senior wartime administrators away from the glare of London. Not least among these covert operations was the occasion when Largs hosted at the Vanduara and Hollywood Hotels the major planning conference for D-Day (Operation Overlord) in June 1943 on behalf of Lord Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations. The gathering of Britain’s top brass also planned the fake D-Day operation, “Fortitude,” which was leaked to the Germans to fool them into thinking the offensive would take place from Kent and the Pas de Calais.

For the D-Day landings pier-heads for the “Mulberries” (artificial harbours still seen scattered around the Normandy beaches today) were made by Clydesiders. Fresh water for the troops was taken from Loch Thom behind Greenock.

RAF Coastal Command was also based in Largs. The base housed a large number of Catalina flying boats and two Sunderland flying boats fitted out for U-boat killings. U-33 would be heading for very dangerous waters.

In December 1939, ten thousand Canadian troops arrived in Greenock in an assortment of well-known liners escorted by a great assembly of battleships and cruisers. They were welcomed by Colonial Secretary (later Prime Minister and Earl of Avon) Anthony Eden. In 1942 twelve thousand American troops arrived on the liner RMS Queen Elizabeth.

On 1 December Greenock residents were treated to the startling spectacle of five officers and thirty-eight ratings from U-35 being led along Hamilton Street, at that time the town’s main shopping thoroughfare. In front and behind these officers was a Royal Navy jeep, each carrying three or four British servicemen. Behind the rear jeep followed the U-boat ratings. Both groups of POWs were smartly attired in their uniforms. The 4 December edition of The Scotsman reported that the men were rescued after their vessel had been destroyed. U-35 was sunk in the North Sea on 29 November in position 60.53N 02.47E by depth charges from the British destroyers HMS Kingston, HMS Icarus and HMS Kashmir. All forty-three men on board survived.

The officers and ratings were given a remarkably friendly send-off by Greenock folk. The briefest of official Admiralty communiqués said:

“A number of U-boat prisoners were landed last night at a Scottish port, the result of recent naval operations.

“The crew were brought in by two destroyers, which berthed at the wharf alongside each other. When the prisoners went down the gangway, they were cheered by the sailors who lined the rails and decks of the warships. One little fairheaded German, a fluent English speaker who made himself popular with his captors, was greeted by the British sailors as ‘Blondie’ and given a special cheer.

“The U-boat commander [Werner Lott], a strongly-built young man, was the last to go ashore and as he stepped across the gangway there was clapping and cheering. An officer in charge of the military armed guard on the quay remarked to him, ‘I suppose you will be glad to be out of it,’ and the German replied, ‘Yes.’

“Before landing the submarine commander shook hands with the officers of the warship. Cigarettes were distributed to the prisoners by British sailors. As the Germans drove away in motor buses to an internment camp there was more cheering and the members of the U-boat crew, who were all scantily attired, replied by waving their hands.”

The crew of U-35 was transported by train to London on the night of 2-3 December 1939.

Winston Churchill made many visits to Greenock during the war. Other distinguished dignitaries who came to the town included King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, General de Gaulle, and other members of both the British and Norwegian Royal Families. British celebrities of the day such as Gracie Fields and Harry Lauder made public appearances. Later, Hollywood stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Robert Montgomery, serving in the U.S. Navy, came to Greenock.

When the decision was made early in the war to relocate Britain’s gold reserves (Operation Fish) one of the consignments was transported to Greenock where it was loaded onto HMS Revenge for removal to Halifax in Canada. Security was extremely tight in the July of 1940. Boxes containing either four gold bars or bags of coins arrived in Greenock harbour in railway box wagons. One naval officer checked the boxes coming off the wagons while another checked them going into the boat. A third officer checked them being lowered to the bomb room and a fourth checked them arriving in the room. The procedure was reversed in Halifax.

By far the biggest story of the war in the locality was the blitz on Greenock and district on the nights of 5, 6 and 7 May 1941. The towns in what is now Inverclyde suffered almost 1,000 casualties, including nearly 300 dead. Between 8,000 and 10,000 houses were destroyed or damaged. Industrial centres were decimated, including the destruction of a distillery storing thousands of gallons of industrial alcohol.

The banks of the Clyde were the birthplace of a great armada of ships. Shipbuilding yards literally lined the river. The Royal Navy had secure and formidable bases here. The Clyde echoed to the noise of riveting and metal forging. The very air was acrid with welding fumes and diesel exhausts from the host of small vessels engaged in servicing the frantically busy shipbuilding industry. While out in protected anchorage areas ships were marshalled together in preparation for their next dangerous journey.

On 24 September 1939, just three weeks after the commencement of hostilities, the Admiralty requisitioned the Clyde Steamers for war service. The turbines King Edward, King George V and the Duchess of Hamilton and the paddlers Waverley, Jeannie Deans, Mercury, Juno, Jupiter, Caledonia, Duchess of Fife, Duchess of Rothesay, Queen Empress and Eagle III were all withdrawn from sailings, leaving only the Marchioness of Graham to carry on the Clyde ferry services.

And so it was that steamers, paddlers, tugs and battle cruisers passed downriver into the firth then out into the open sea. All too often they struggled back savaged and battle damaged to the places on the Clyde where they had been given life. Mostly they were repaired as quickly as possible then set off again to keep their next appointment with the enemy. Some died facing fearful odds. Others would fall victim to sly torpedo attacks. These “Daughters of the Clyde” were proud ships, constructed by craftsmen who made the words “Clyde Built” an international benchmark for the best. With 1939 drawing to a close and the likelihood that the war would continue for some time there was also great concern about moving the Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth out of the Clyde danger area as soon as possible.

Across the North Sea Germany had fifteen yards building U-boats (Unterseebootes) of the VII (often wrongly called the VIIA) and VIIB types. U-33 was the VII-type, which boasted four torpedo tubes in the bow and one in the stern, which, together with a highly efficient 88mm deck gun, made this easily manoeuverable boat a dangerous opponent. In addition, it could with relative ease be used for minelaying if the torpedoes were removed and replaced with twenty-two TMA mines.

The presence of so many ships made the Clyde a most desirable target for Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz of the German Navy and his U-boats. It was brutally savaged by air raids. Right through until May 1940 U-boats operated around the coasts of Britain and in the North Sea attacking with both torpedoes and magnetic mines. Mines were also laid by surface ships and aircraft. In January 1940, U-32 was the first enemy submarine to be detailed with mining the Firth of Clyde but her commander Kplt Paul Büchel laid a small minefield south of Ailsa Craig instead. Dönitz quickly dismissed Büchel for taking what he considered the easier option.

According to Michael Gannon,[1] on 3 September 1939 Germany was equipped with between 39 and 51 operational U-boats, of which between 22 and 26 were Type VII-IX vessels. Additionally, there were training boats, new boats in workup for duty and boats on the builders’ ways. Taking these facts together, German U-boats in commission on 3 September 1939 were:

Ø  2 x Type IA: U-25 and U-26

Ø  6 x Type IIA: U-1 to U-6

Ø  18 x Type IIB: U-7 to U-24

Ø  6 x Type IIC: U-56 to U-61

Ø  10 x Type VII: U27 to U-36 (including U-33)

Ø  8 x Type VIIB: U-45 to U-49 and U-51 to U-53

Ø  7 x Type IXA: U-37 to U-43

All the other types came along after the war started so the total commissioned fleet in September 1939 was 57 boats of which 40 were out at sea, namely:

Ø  18 on patrol in the North Atlantic (1 x Type I, 12 x Type VII, 5 x Type IX)

Ø  18 on patrol in the North Sea (17 x Type II, 1 x Type VII)

Ø  4 on patrol in the Baltic Sea (4 x Type II)

Ø  3 x Type VII previously patrolling in the Baltic from 1 September, then patrolling in the Atlantic in the second week of September

Ø  14 U-boats were schoolboats or in training

Apart from minelaying the only other activity that is often missing from the BdU War Diary and even the U-boats’ logbooks (Kriegstagebücher, abbreviated to KTB) is the landing of agents. We will return to this topic.

The story of U-33, a VII-type, Feldpost # M28 962, began quite typically at the construction yard of F. Krupp Germaniawerft AG, Kiel-Gaarden for Kriegsmarine, Kiel.  Every German naval unit had their own Feldpost (German military mail service) number. Those allocated to U-boats were preceded by the letter M for Kriegsmarine. Feldpost numbers had other uses apart from that of postal address. For example, in the case of individual crewmembers being called out in a public place to report back to base the Feldpost number would be used instead of the U-boat number in the interests of security. She was ordered on 25 March 1935 within the batch of U-33 to U-36.

U-33’s keel was laid in Yard No. 556 on 1 September 1935. The Baubelehrung[2] took place at Marinelehr-und Reporaturwerkstatt, Kiel. The Type VII could accommodate a 45-man crew, a distinctly cramped experience in a space 142 feet long and a mere 10 feet wide, compared with the U-boat’s 210 by 19 feet outer shell.

The 500-ton U-boat was launched 11 June 1936, commissioned by Kplt Ottoheinrich Junker 25 July 1936, and formally assigned to Germany-based U-Flottille “Saltzwedel” at Wilhelmshaven as a frontline boat until 31 December 1939. Junker, born 12 July 1905 in Freiburg im Breisgau, joined the German Navy in 1924. He commanded U-33 until 2 June 1937 except for a four-week period from 21 November to 20 December 1936 when Kplt Kurt Freiwald took the helm. Freiwald resumed command for seven weeks from June 1937 before Junker once more took over the post, remaining in charge until 29 October 1938.

      Junker then passed command of U-33 to Kplt Hans-Wilhelm von Dresky (pictured), who would be at the helm on U-33’s night of disaster in February 1940. Von Dresky was born in Halle an der Saale 27 January 1908. He joined the Kriegsmarine in 1929, serving as Watch Officer on U-20 between February 1936 and September 1937. He then took command of the small "duck" U-4 on 30 Sept 1937, promoted to Kapitänleutnant on 1 August 1938. Over a nine-month period von Dresky led the crew of U-33 in continual practice runs, including trimming practices, balancing the boat, radio and torpedo drills and anti-aircraft procedure. On 19 August 1939 U-33 went to war. She set out from her home-port on what was to be the first war patrol for all on board, including von Dresky. She proceeded to an operational area southwest of Ireland. Nine days later U-33 reached the Western Approaches where she waited to receive news of the commencement of hostilities with England and France.

      At 14:55 GMT on 7 September U-33 found a British vessel, the steamer SS Olivegrove (4,060 tons), 420 miles southwest of Land’s End in the Atlantic and sunk her with a torpedo. The Olivegrove was sailing independently from Puerto Padre, Cuba, to London with 4,500 tons of sugar. She sank at position 49:05N 15:58W. The crew abandoned ship in two lifeboats. Von Dresky’s subsequent actions showed him to be a chivalrous foe. He brought Olivegrove’s master Captain James Barnetson on board U-33 for questioning. After being returned to the lifeboat Barnetson decided to head for Fastnet, which was almost 300 miles away. Von Dresky courteously sent a radio message to the 24,289-ton American liner SS Washington, giving the position of the lifeboats. During the nine hours it took for the ship to arrive on the scene U-33 slowly circled the two boats and actually fired Very lights to guide the Washington to the scene before sailing off to the west. The survivors were landed at Southampton on 9 September 1939.

On 12-13 September, U-33 laid mines in the Bristol Channel and Swansea approaches. Three days later at 06:00, the 1,567-ton British steamer SS Arkleside (Smith, Hogg Co. Ltd., West Hartlepool) was steaming from the Tyne to Gibraltar with 2,500 tons of coal and coke when U-33 sent her to the bottom. Von Dresky sank her with gunfire off the Scilly Isles, 150 miles southwest from Land’s End at position 48:00N 09:30W. Two French fishing smacks rescued the master Captain Robert William Edmondson and his crew and landed them at Concareau 60 miles south of Ushant.

      Von Dresky repeated this performance on 24 September. U-33 was south of the Faroe Isles and making her way home when she sank the 287-ton Fleetwood fishing vessel Caldew by gunfire at 07:00 at position 60:47N 06:20W. The crew of the Caldew was later picked up by the Swedish steamer Kronprinsessan Margareta. (The steamer was subsequently intercepted by the German destroyer Friedrich Ihn and the crew landed at Kiel.)

U-33 made a triumphant return to Wilhelmshaven on 28 September 1939 and was visited by no less a V.I.P. than Adolf Hitler, a clear indication of the success of their first wartime patrol and of high esteem in which elite U-boat crews were held by the Nazi leadership. In commendation 10 Iron Crosses 2^nd Class were awarded.

      Carrying twelve TMB mines and six torpedoes, U-33 departed Wilhelmshaven with von Dresky on 29 October for its second excursion and sailed for a minelaying operation in the Bristol Channel area, travelling via the north of Scotland. However, on the outbound voyage across the North Sea both diesel engines broke down and U-33 had to lie on the seabed for three days while engineers made repairs. One crewman later remarked that the boat was not really seaworthy and that the men were nervous, so much so that many of them were reluctant to go back to sea in her.

      A mine laid by U-33 sank the 2,473-ton British steamer Stanholme (ex Goleta, Stanhope Steamship Co. Ltd) at 06:45 on Christmas Day. She was sailing from Cardiff to London with 4,300 tons of coal and sank in grid AM9947, position 51:20N 03:39W. The 3,068-ton Norwegian vessel Liv rescued the master Captain David Llewellyn Hook and eleven men and landed them at Cardiff. Twelve crewmen were lost.

The final toll of U-33’s 2nd patrol came at 15:19 on 16 January 1940 when the 9,456-ton British motor tanker Inverdargle (Inver Tankers Ltd., Liffey Transport & Trading Co. Ltd.) detonated one of U-33’s mines southwest of Nash Point in the Bristol Channel. She was on passage from Trinidad for Avonmouth via Halifax (Nova Scotia) with 12,554 tons of aviation spirit and sank at position 51:16N 03:43W. The master Captain Evan Murdock Skelly, one RN Gunner and forty of the crew were lost.

While at sea, von Dresky received a signal (Instruction Number 154) sent

by Admiral Dönitz to all U-boat Commanders. It stated: “Rescue no one and take no one with you. Have no care for the ships’ boats. Weather conditions amd proximity of land is of no account. Care only for your own boat and strive to achieve the next success as soon as possible. We must be hard in this war. The enemy started this war in order to detroy us, therefore nothing else matters.”

The uncompromising tone of Dönitz’s command signal does not square logically with von Dresky’s gentlemanly actions in assisting the captain and crew of the Olivegrove during U-33’s first patrol, a kindly deed that did not appear to have evoked higher-level criticism.

Nor does it sit comfortably alongside the Führer directive of October 1939 which forbade the inflicting of civilian casualties during attempts to target HMS Hood. One might draw the conclusion that gung-ho signals such as Dönitz’s were an official requirement in a period of wartime conflict but, in practice, a less bombastic line prevailed at least in the war’s early stages.

After laying his mines von Dresky searched for torpedo and gun-targets. On 20 November U-33 sank three Fleetwood steam trawlers by gunfire: the 276-ton Thomas Hankins at 13:30, 14 miles northwest of Tory Island, all of the crew were saved; the 250-ton Delphine at 15:00, 18 miles northeast of Tory Island with no casualties; and the 329-ton Sea Sweeper at 16:05, 25 miles northwest of Tory Island, no casualties.

      Two more Fleetwood boats were sunk with gunfire the next morning, Tuesday 21 November, 75 miles northwest of Rathlin Island: the 287-ton Sulby at 07:30 with the loss of the five crewmen and the 276-ton William Humphries sunk at 08:20. Lloyd’s War Losses state that thirteen crewmen were lost.

      Even on her way home on 23 November, northwest of the Orkneys, fate handed U-33 a parting gift in the shape of a German steamer: the 3,670-ton Borkum (Norddeutscher Lloyd). The ship had been on passage from Rosario for Hamburg with grain when the British captured her on the 17th. A prize crew was taking her to Kirkwall in the Orkneys. U-33 encountered the Borkum at 14:30 northwest of the islands at position 59:33N 03:57W. Presumably believing it to be unoccupied, U-33 torpedoed and shelled the Borkum, which nevertheless made it to Papa Sound two days later where it was beached and written off. Unknown to von Dresky U-33’s attack killed five captive German sailors who were on board. (On 18 August 1940 the vessel was re-floated, towed to Rosyth and broken up.) U-33 made her way home through Fair Isle Channel, arriving at Wilhelmshaven on the 26 November 1939. Dönitz commended von Dresky for a “well conducted patrol.”

      The design problems with U-33’s diesels meant she had to be returned to Germania Werft for an overhaul and the crew went home on well-deserved leave. U-33 formally transferred to Salzwedel Flotille (2.U-Flotille), Wilhelmshaven, on 1 January 1940 as a frontline boat.        

      The official reports of U-33’s departure from Wilhelmshaven on Monday 5 February 1940 for her 3rd (and final) patrol record that Admiral Dönitz made a point of being on hand to bid the submarine’s Captain and crew a personal “bon voyage.” We now know that this description of events is dramatically incorrect.

      Max Schiller, at eighteen U-33’s youngest crewmember in February 1940, told Scottish researcher David Hendry that Dönitz came to Wilhelmshaven for one reason only—to try to stop U-33’s departure. The admiral was fearful for U-33’s safety on a mission that he had not sanctioned. Indeed, Dönitz stated in his memoirs: “At first the idea of thus operating in the very jaws of the enemy [the heavily populated Firth of Clyde] was regarded generally as a very bold and hazardous enterprise. The operation orders in the subject, which I had drafted in peace time as part of our mobilization scheme, were held by most U-boat Commanders to be very difficult, if not impossible to carry out.”

            Despite the Admiral’s remarks, he had few qualms about his submarines engaging in high-risk enterprises and was bullish about what he expected his Kriegsmarine officers to deliver once U-boats were at sea and undertaking their operational directives. Korvettenkapitan Büchel wrote in his U-32 War Diary: “…the weather, the navigational difficulties of the Firth and the strength of the naval forces watching over the area made it impossible for U-32 to lay her mines any further up the Firth of Clyde.”

Dönitz did not go along with his officer’s assessment and, as noted, dismissed Büchel for taking an overly cautious approach. Moreover, it was Dönitz who ordered Von Dresky to plant 8 TMC mines at the British naval base in the Firth of Clyde. So, what was it that made Dönitz uncharacteristically fearful about U-33’s operational remit during its 3^rd patrol?

             According to Schiller, Hitler personally overruled Dönitz and ordered U-33 to embark on a journey from which it would not return— precisely the grim fate that the Admiral feared would come about. Hitler’s decision must have been extremely testing for Dönitz who was known for his total loyalty to the Reich leader. Described as the mouthpiece of his Führer, Dönitz was known in Kriegsmarine circles as “Hitlerjunge Quex,” the devoted Nazi youth in a popular propaganda film of the day.[3]

            Just what were Hitler’s additional overriding objectives, which had to take precedence above all other considerations, the safety and wellbeing of the crew of U-33 included? Hitler’s strategic thinking behind U-33’s mission cannot today be clarified. Schiller did not subsequently elaborate further but he did state on more than one occasion that it was U-33’s task to sink HMS Hood, an attack plan that contradicted Hitler’s October 1939 directive. Nevertheless, we have sufficient facts and clues by which to make intelligent assessments of the true nature of the U-boat’s covert activities. By and by, we will examine these extraordinary circumstances.

            The 42-man crew came smartly to the salute as the submarine slipped away from the quay where Admiral Dönitz stood in grim repose while a military band played martial music. On the quayside were the tin boxes containing the sailors’ civilian clothes, personal belongings, family contact details and Last Wills and Testaments.

            On this third patrol the boat was charged with the duty of laying mines in the Firth of Clyde, a mission fraught with danger for a number of reasons, which shall be presently addressed.

U-33 firstly made for Helgoland to undergo minor repairs. Owing to the shortage of U-boats, U-33 sailed before the repairs were properly completed. The crew were very nervous on this account. They would have every reason to be. They could not forget the occasion during their first war cruise when U-33 spent the best part of three days lying on the bottom repairing her diesels. (It has been suggested that in the course of U-33’s stopover at Helgoland she may have embarked “special” personnel.)

U-33 set off again on 7 February. An icebreaker had run interference for them through the white fields floating off Helgoland then U-33 was on its own. Von Dresky did not disclose their exact destination until U-33 had almost reached it.

Proceeding west and then due north, mainly on the surface, U-33’s passage across the North Sea seems to have been uneventful. Only an aircraft and some destroyers were sighted.

For six days and nights U-33 headed north, then once again south, steering well clear of known British convoy routes. It seems probable that U-33 passed through Fair Isle Channel between Orkney and Shetland during the night of 9-10 February. It is on record that she was in the Atlantic on the 10th.

On this date three aeroplanes were sighted, estimated to be flying at about 1,300 feet, three miles distant, causing U-33 to submerge to periscope depth. One of the Petty Officers stated that during the morning two torpedoes were fired at the U-boat but as no surface craft could be seen he concluded that a British submarine must have been in the vicinity. Despite steering clear of Cape Wrath off the North Highlands coast, U-33 encountered a mounting gale to the west. When the storm reached Force Eight von Dresky reluctantly gave the order to dive to calmer water below.

On Sunday the 11th von Dresky surfaced to take a star-sight to correct U-33’s position. The star-sight revealed that the foul weather had worked in U-33’s favour. Gratefully, von Dresky found the boat to be ten miles closer to the Isle of Mull than expected.

Von Dresky spoke of his plan to Chief Engineer (Kplt) Friedrich-Ernst Schilling, a second engineer on board for training to meet Dönitz’s requirement that all his submariners should quickly experience war patrols. Schilling subsequently told his interrogators that von Dresky’s plan was to ensure that U-33 was in the optimum tactical position before sunrise on the 12th. He would then submerge and rest U-33 on the seabed until the relative safety of the evening. The boat would then surface and lay its mines on Sunday evening and early Monday morning while proceeding on its electric motors. On this reckoning, U-33 would then make a dash into the open Atlantic and be in relative safety before dawn on Tuesday the 13th.

Skirting west of the Hebrides, U-33 proceeded down but well away from the Scottish coast, making her way into the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland, the gateway to the Clyde Estuary.

U-33 bottomed for five hours at noon, removing four torpedoes and reloading with eight TMC mines. TMC mines had been brought in to replace the less efficient TMB mine at the end of 1939. The TMB mine had a length of 2.31 metres and a total weight of 740kg. The TMC mine had a length of 3.39 metres and a total weight of 1,115kg. The first U-boat to patrol using TMCs was U-32. U-33 then proceeded to her minelaying area as fast as possible on the surface.

The U-boat crept into the Firth of Clyde in the early hours of Monday the 12th at periscope depth. For the crew it was a nervewracking affair. The Firth of Clyde swarmed with A/S vessels, some of them equipped with searchlights. Survivors later remarked that there were so many searchlights that the landward side seemed to glow with light.

U-33 had been ordered to mine firstly the approaches to the Clyde, an area where fast shoaling water made things very dangerous for a submarine. Nevertheless, von Dresky and his crew had shown great determination in carrying out their previous war patrols. They had struggled to address defects in the boat, persevering in their efforts rather than aborting missions and returning home. Their attempt to mine the area, having wrestled with engine problems and then operating just five miles from the Scottish shore showed considerable courage and resourcefulness.

The Royal Navy was not to be caught napping again and certainly not in its own “backyard.” Von Dresky would have to be extremely skilful in carrying out U-33’s mission while avoiding detection, especially in waters where the surface waves broke only 35-40 metres over the seabed. Escape by diving deep was not an available option, a fact that further imperilled the safety of the on-board Enigma cipher machine.

Von Dresky must have known that the Navy patrols in this area were aggressive, vigilant and experienced. Nevertheless, he had his orders (from Dönitz to plant mines at the British naval base in the Firth of Clyde and, by Schiller’s account, from Hitler to perform other unspecified tasks).

Von Dresky would have been acutely aware that Büchel in U-32 had failed a few weeks earlier to carry out the same mission, opting for discretion over valour when he had seen the very large volume of A/S defences in the Clyde Anchorage. Observing these, Büchel elected to lay his TMC magnetic mines in deeper water, an act that triggered his curt dismissal.

         Whatever the circumstances that U-33 might encounter in its Firth of Clyde mission, reprising Büchel’s playsafe action was not among the available options on von Dresky’s charts table. It was “do or die.” Von Dresky pressed on with his mission and, in so doing, was to meet his nemesis in the shape of HMS Gleaner, a Royal Navy minesweeper commanded by an equally determined captain. Minelaying in the seemingly impregnable Tail of the Bank, the local term for the upper Clyde Anchorage encompassing Gourock, Greenock, Port Glasgow and Glasgow was not the least of von Dresky’s operational considerations. He was also acutely mindful of the glaring fact that the 83,673-ton liner RMS Queen Elizabeth was lying at anchor upriver.

Von Dresky did not know it but the Queen Elizabeth was preparing for a fast dash to New York. The Royal Navy was fully aware of her presence and, equally, of its duty to protect this valuable ship for which any enemy submarine commander would give his eye teeth to send to the bottom. The Royal Navy’s keen sense of duty was also heightened by the painful memory of the devestating attack made by U-47 on the naval base at Scapa Flow in October of the previous year.

In these early morning hours of the 12th in the firth U-33 spotted Ailsa Craig (“Paddy’s Milestone”) over to starboard just before an Atlantic gale gathered momentum, making the prospect of minelaying deep in enemy territory highly perilous. With nose now submerged at periscope depth in the southern maw of the Firth of Clyde U-33 approached the tip of Arran.

Suddenly, the lookouts on the bridge saw a ship emerge from the darkness. It was coming their way. With a sigh of relief von Dresky watched as the blacked-out vessel passed them by.

As 03:00 approached, Schilling, like his crewmates unaware of the fast-approaching threat from Gleaner, made an inspection of U-33 and then went up to the bridge. It was a dark night. Visibility was poor, less than 800m. Von Dresky was in a good mood and told Schilling that at 01:00 the sub had passed a large vessel, possibly an anchoring cruiser.

From remarks made by survivors after the sinking of U-33, von Dresky’s short-sightedness convinced him he had seen a cruiser when in fact it had been the Gleaner, which he had observed for several hours before attempting to pass her. Accordingly, von Dresky assumed that the vessel would go by and head for open waters.

But, of course, the “cruiser” did not move away and nerves were stretched taut when at 03:30 a searchlight-equipped vessel was seen from U-33 to emerge from the gloom ahead. Von Dresky shouted: “Alarm!” and jumped down from the conning tower. The crew prepared for an emergency dive. When the alarm was called Schilling went back down below. Later Schilling recalled Paul Anger, U-33’s coxswain, saying in an agitated manner: “Better go as deep as possible because I reckon they have found us.” However, at at this point the captain and crew of U-33 were not completely certain of what had appeared out of the darkness.

In fact, the oncoming vessel was not a destroyer. Moments later the ASW patrol boat, the converted surveyor ship HMS Gleaner patrolling a triangular line south of the Isle of Arran with the patrol apex on the Island of Pladda, detected U-33 and turned its searchlight on the sub, which went down to periscope depth.

            HMS Gleaner, a Halcyon class minesweeper, 245 feet 6 inches overall with a standard displacement of 815 tons, was a sloop launched in 1937 as a surveying vessel and converted to a minesweeper in 1939 armed with two 4” guns. She also carried four 20mm guns, two Lewis guns and forty depth charges. When her conversion was completed, she was sent to join the 1st Antisubmarine Striking Force based in Belfast and operated in the Northwestern Approaches under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Perceval Price, R.N. Her patrols also ranged across the Irish Sea between Belfast and Liverpool, a vital sea-lane for allied vessels, making the Atlantic crossing an area of considerable U-boat activity.

            In November 1939 Gleaner joined the 2nd Anti-Submarine Striking Force operating between the Clyde and Loch Ewe. In January 1940 she became part of the 3rd Anti-Submarine Striking Force concerned with the protection of the Firth of Clyde and its approaches.

            In Lieutenant-Commander Price Gleaner was assured of a command by an experienced and skilful captain. The ship carried an equally experienced crew of eighty who had spent their war to date hunting submarines in these waters and who were fully aware of the damage a U-boat could do if it penetrated the Clyde. It was not going to happen on Gleaner’s watch.

A report in the Scottish Daily Express of 18 February 2000, the day that BBC Scotland televised Max Schiller’s commemoration on HMS Cromer by Arran for his fallen boatmates, stated that the Gleaner had been shadowing U-33 for several days, a fact not previously reported. If the claim is true, it invites serious consideration as to the source of Gleaner’s prior intelligence. As we make speed into the deepening tale of U-33 we shall see why Lieutenant-Commander Price may have been so well prepared for the U-boat’s arrival.

On the night of 11 February 1940 Gleaner was ordered to maintain Outer Patrol in the approaches to the Firth of Clyde, in particular to the north and westward of Ailsa Craig. Also operating in the region were Home Fleet vessels the battlecruiser Hood, the battleship Warspite and the 8th Destroyer Flotilla, each of which had sailed from the Clyde on 9 February 1940 for operations in the North Sea and would return to the Clyde on the 18th.

            During the small hours of the 12th, Gleaner was about her business searching diligently for any enemy U-boat that might have crept into her patrol area. It was a typically cold winter’s night with the wind lashing the surface of the sea into a strong chop, stinging the faces of the men on watch with hard driving gusts of rain. It was the kind of weather when men wished they were tucked up warm in their beds. It was also the kind of weather when every man strained his eyes to watch the water on dark nights and when poor visibility favoured a determined enemy.

Suddenly at 02:50 Gleaner picked up a hydrophone effect from a submarine bearing about two points on the starboard bow, three miles from Pladda. (In the early stages of the war radar was only fitted to a few very large ships.)

The source of the noises was too distant for an echo to be obtained by asdic. The Officer of the Watch, Sub-Lieutenant E.L. Reade, took instant action in bringing guns and depth charges to the ready and called the captain who ordered the ship to be turned around. On board U-33 Chief Engineer Schilling was making an inspection of the boat before making his way up to the bridge.

Asdic, named after the Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee, was a sonar device, highly secret at the time, for locating submarines by using sound waves. It consisted of an electronic sound transmitter and receiver accommodated in a dome beneath the ship’s hull. High-frequency beams, audible “pings,” were sent out and bounced back when they hit a submarine. The interval of time that passed before an echo was received indicated the range of the submarine. The pitch of the echo revealed if it was approaching or moving away.

Ayrshire undertaker and U-33 researcher, David Hendry, helped to introduce Max Schiller to the BBC in the late 1990s. Subsequently, the BBC produced in 2000 a fascinating programme in which the well-known broadcast personality and political commentator, Kirsty Wark, interviewed Schiller about his time on U-33 (Max’s rank was Matrose - Ordinary Seaman), his life as a POW and his post-war years as a family man resident in Dumfriesshire, southwest Scotland. Schiller told Wark that because of the threat posed by underwater detection systems U-33 always travelled as much as possible upon the surface while on its missions.

Wark asked Schiller how much of each day was spent underwater. Schiller said that there was no hard and fast routine but generally they would go down every morning first thing to see that everything was all right. He remarked drily that it did not matter how many times they went down; that is what they were paid to do and they could only be paid once. Schiller said that roughly speaking, U-33 would dive to about fifty metres when travelling beneath the surface but that the actual depth would vary according to circumstance.

Despite its precautions U-33 was shortly to become the first submarine in WWII to be sunk with the aid of this powerful new asdic detection device.

Able Seaman Mellor, keeping middle watch on Gleaner, reported to Lieutenant-Commander Price that contact had been lost; the object was probably out of range. Course was slightly altered to bring the telltale hydrophone noises more to the starboard side. Gleaner’s speed was increased to 16 knots.

At 02:57 Gleaner made its first asdic contact at about 3,000 yards, using hand transmission. The target was crossing the bow from starboard to port at high speed and was therefore suspected of being a surface vessel. Reade altered course to close upon the unknown craft. 

When the bearing of the target had altered to 55 degrees left the hydrophone effect became very loud and was thought to be a diesel engine giving about two distinct “tonks” per second. A check on the Royal Navy records of allied submarines on operations in home waters indicated that none were in the vicinity. Price concluded that Gleaner had picked up the sounds of a U-boat. Initially, the sound came from astern on U-33’s starboard side and then crossed to the port bow. Reade altered course to intercept and speed was increased gradually until at 03:16 the range was about 3,200 yards. Gleaner then maintained its increased speed of 16 knots. The screws were audible at medium speed as the ship criss-crossed around looking for the U-boat.

At 03:30 Gleaner’s searchlights were switched on and picked out a white object, which could have been spray made by a periscope coursing through the waves. The object disappeared rapidly. A little later, fearing the vessel would escape, Gleaner sheered off to port to bring the searchlight to bear. At about the same time the U-boat must have turned to starboard as the bearing drew aft rapidly. The searchlight swept round and once again illu­minated an object that looked white and was possibly the spray of a periscope. It disappeared almost at once but not before Gleaner had glimpsed a huddle of figures in the conning tower. Seeing Gleaner’s searchlight sweeping the water, the myopic von Dresky was still weighing his first instinct that she was a heavy cruiser.

At 03:36 Gleaner’s wheel was put over and the ship swung rapidly to starboard to close the object, telegraphs being put to full ahead. Gleaner turned towards after accurately locating the submarine, which had now gone towards the bottom.

Schiller told the BBC that in these moments before submerging he was in the conning tower on lookout duty with three other shipmates. Four people were needed in the tower because in order to ensure 360-degree all-round observation the seascape was divided into quarters, each person responsible for their allotted quarter. The officer in front of Schiller saw the shadow of something. It left his quarter and the officer handed the shadow to Max who tracked it until he reported its disappearance from his section. The next thing they knew was that Gleaner was right behind them. Its light went on. The conning tower lookouts made to dash below and U-33 immediately submerged.

The Scottish Daily Mail of 18 February 2000 carried a statement reportedly made by Schiller that when this order was given for U-33 to submerge there were just seconds available for the lookout men to clamber below. Schiller said he made it down by the skin of his teeth but that other companions were not so lucky. They drowned at that spot. This account highlights a particularly tragic aspect of the U-33 story that does not appear to have been recorded in historical works covering the topic.

Schilling asked von Dresky: “What depth?” The commander replied: “Go to 40m.” Schilling was aghast. He wanted to go as deep as possible. The helmsman exclaimed: “He’s got us!”

Gleaner was over the target at 03:40 before sufficient asdic data had been collected to initiate a successful attack. Price ran about 800 yards past the sub, turned, regained contact and then carried out a deliberate attack at 03:53. Gleaner fixed the submarine on sonar and dropped four depth charges. These exploded directly about 25 feet above U-33, which had got as far as 75 feet, pounding the sub and causing severe leaking.

Dropping the charges at a relatively shallow setting caused Gleaner to experience some difficulty with its electrics. Its dynamo failed, as did temporarily all of the ship’s lights and electrical equipment. The carbons in its searchlight were also damaged and attempts to get the light burning continued at least for the next hour. Contact with the submarine was briefly lost.

            There is uncertainty about the precise number of charges dropped in this first attack. Friedrich-Ernst Schilling told researcher Klaus Peter Pohland that five “wabos”[4] exploded close to U-33’s starboard beam. Schilling’s account of the attack enjoys credibility in U-boat research circles. Irrespective of the exact number, the wabos inflicted serious damage.

            The crew were thrown violently onto the floor as a very loud bang cannoned throughout the sub. At first Oberleutnant Heinz Rottman thought that one of his boatmates, in panic, was firing a revolver and then realized that the fearsome noise was that of ruptured rivets ricochetting inside U-33 with incredible velocity.

            Max Schiller, the youngest seaman on board, was asked by one of the more experienced officers to sit with him and talk. The officer was a married man with children and he told Schiller that at that point he needed comfort to help divert his thoughts.

            Von Dresky ordered: “Prepare to hit the bottom, silent routine, get the tauchretter sets[5] ready.”

            The boat settled in a depth of 56m and Schilling tried to assess the damage. U-33 had taken on about 500 litres of water, which caused the port motor to spark. The sub crept along the bottom on the port motor, reasoning that if it kept underway there was always the possibility it might give its attacker the slip.

            The lights were smashed but the crew managed to rig the emergency set. The helmsmen reported that the hydroplanes were loose in their hands. Repairs were made to the port side electrical circuit but it soon became clear that the hydroplane motor was damaged. U-33 was reduced to manual operation.

            The wabos had also ruptured the portside trim tank seams, resulting in a steady ingress of water. The pumps could barely keep pace with the flow. All the depth gauges were damaged with the exception of a gauge attached to the starboard trim tanks.

            Schilling’s examination of the starboard motor revealed that its switchboard was burned out and likely to remain inoperable. The driving shafts were bent. Schilling’s men managed to repair the cracked battery cells. The noisy engine room valves were shut down. All thoughts were on the best options for making an escape.

            The attack had caught von Dresky by complete surprise. Believing the attacker to be a destroyer, his men urged him to lift U-33 off the bottom, 170 feet below the surface, and evade to sea but von Dresky appeared to be paralyzed.

            By now the high-pressure air was nearly exhausted but Schilling was not overly concerned and told his skipper that there was nothing to stop the U-boat getting home. His plain advice was that U-33 should slip away under the water. Von Dresky, though, decided to keep the boat quietly on the bottom. Surviving officers criticised him for this decision but it is not clear how he could have attacked Gleaner because there was only one torpedo in U-33’s stern tube.

            Fifteen minutes had elapsed since Gleaner’s first round of attack. Lieutenant-Commander Price was worried. His men were doing their level best to keep the U-boat pinned down, while at the same time trying to keep stable 250lbs of high explosives stacked upon the boat’s slippery deck.

            At 04:12 Gleaner made a second attack, this time firing only one charge (a charge that had hung up on the stern rails during the first round of attack), and then began to circle at twelve knots while combing the area with her searchlight.

            Inside the U-boat the replacement light bulbs shattered and the lights went out again. The drive shaft glands that had been leaking since the first attack now allowed water to cascade into the stern. Exterior valves were also leaking badly. The sub was stuck on the seabed.

            The commander considered his options and asked Schilling what he thought should be done. By this stage the boat was shipping so much water that it would never be able to regain the surface unless the pumps were restarted immediately. The boat had a negative buoyancy of about two tons, even without the drop keel.

            It was obvious to the first engineer that U-33 would be unable to regain the surface with just the propellers and he wanted to pump out 1,000 litres in order to get the boat off the bottom. Schilling advised von Dresky of this course of action so that U-33 could crawl away just above the seabed. Von Dresky half-heartedly agreed with Schilling’s plan, believing that with dawn just hours away escape in British waters would be nigh impossible. He objected, however, to the deployment of the pumps, arguing that the noise would serve to attract the enemy. Von Dresky ordered the men to switch them off then came into the conning tower issuing orders: “Both engines, low speed ahead.”

            Gleaner’s second attack had caused further electrical trouble, damaging the minesweeper’s delicate asdic gear, putting it out of action. The first attack had also smashed the carbons of its searchlight and efforts were being made to get the light burning again in case the U-boat should surface. Meanwhile two Aldis signalling lamps were used to comb the surface whilst the ship circled at 12 knots around the position of the first strike.

            Had the men on U-33 been aware of Gleaner’s asdic difficulties, they could have taken the necessary steps to bring their boat to the surface and then submerge again immediately. Their subsequent chances of getting away scot-free, in the absence of sweeping sonar beams, would have been reasonably fair.

            It was not to be. Minutes later Gleaner regained contact. Price brought his ship around and at 04:40 ran over U-33 again, this time making a drop of five charges set between 100 and 150 feet. His target lay on the bottom 177 feet below Gleaner’s keel.

            The ferocity of this third and final round of attack damaged Gleaner’s radio and gyro and prolonged its asdic difficulties. While efforts continued to repair Gleaner’s searchlight the minesweeper used the Aldis signalling lamps to scan the surface while the ship circled the attack position.

            Masked by the noise of the attack, Schilling ordered his men to start the main bilge pump but again von Dresky countermanded his Chief Engineer’s instructions.

            “Water is pouring in astern!” was the shout from the rear compartments but the commander stopped Schilling from returning to locate the cause. It transpired there was a leak in the connecting pipe between the trim tanks and the torpedo compensation tank causing water to run into the bilges. Schilling’s team immediately set to work stopping up the pipe.

            Meanwhile, von Dresky told Schilling that he wanted the boat off the seabed. Orders were given. The first watch officer was to get the mines ready to lay while the second watch officer was to prepare to destroy confidential papers. The crew got the main bilge pump working until a huge flame shot out of the starter motor. Feverishly, the men had to dismantle then reassemble it, succeeding in nursing the pump back to life. The emergency bilge pump was switched on, too. Unfortunately, it made such a loud racket that it had to be turned off right away.

            There was no option now but to blow tanks to get U-33 off the bottom. No one on board was more aware than Schilling that any trip through shallow water with a damaged boat would be a tough proposition. As tanks were vented a shout came from astern: “Strong sound of leaking air!”

            Shutting off the diesel exhaust valves did not work. A crewmember was ordered to vent momentarily tank number 1 to discover whether the noise was coming from the compressed air cylinders, which had been damaged during the first attack. Sure enough, the noise was only audible during the venting process.

            Although the gauges measured just three tons of water in the bilges, despite best efforts the boat hardly budged from the bottom. Two thirds of its compressed air supplies had already been expended. Tank 2 was then blown and that finally got U-33 off the seabed.

            The commander was once again considering the next step. Coxswain Anger thought escape was impossible and that U-33 should surrender to the British. Schilling disagreed. When von Dresky asked if the boat could make it home, Schilling replied: “Yes, I believe I am capable of doing anything as long as the boat is afloat.”

            He made this confident claim in the knowledge that although tanks 1 and 3 were ruptured beyond repair the boat’s fuel leaks were not a serious problem. From the technical and military point of view surrendering the boat seemed to Schilling to be totally absurd. The commander appeared to agree with Schilling at this stage but from a navigational perspective the situation was critical. In a couple of hours dawn would break.

            U-33 survivor records indicate that the sub was lying in a narrow channel with strong currents. The Royal Navy had several bases thereabouts and the men on board the U-boat could expect their ships to come out and hunt them down. They had also not yet shaken off the enemy ship. Indeed, a cry came from the radio office: “Next run starting.” The commander made up his mind and ordered: “Blow all tanks.” At 05:22 the U-boat boat popped up to the surface about one mile from Gleaner. By now Gleaner had got its searchlight working and fire was immediately opened. Five rounds of 4” were fired and one of them whizzed past very close to the conning tower. Gleaner turned to ram with engines full ahead.

When the searchlight’s fierce carbon glare, enhanced by the beams from the bridge sponsons’ signalling projectors, picked out in the conning tower a group of men with arms raised in surrender, Price checked fire. The wheel was put hard to starboard until the ship was parallel with U-33 about one cable away (200 yards).

            “Cease fire. Stop engines and get a boat into the water,” ordered Price as he swung his command around the stricken U-boat and got on with the business of rescue for the submarine was sinking quickly.

            Von Dresky opened the hatch and went out onto the bridge. Whatever he saw made him shout down: “Everybody up. Scuttle the boat. Send the radio message.” Before taking this step von Dresky could have ordered the boat’s gun to be manned and the torpedo in the after tube fired. Why, then, did he he choose the more drastic action?

Armstrong and Osborne, authors of The Clyde at War, claim that Hitler ordered the scuttling. If this is true then one is left to speculate on why Hitler would have intervened in the matter. Was it purely possession of the Enigma parts that the Fuhrer wanted to deny the enemy? Or were there other items on board that had to be destroyed at all costs, perhaps plans or documents of some description? As the following chapters unfold the basis for the decision may become better understood.

            Schilling repeated the order but didn’t understand the change in circumstances that had led to it. The diesel engines were still working. He tried to tell his commander that the engines were in order and that the boat was ready to go but by this stage men were making their way out and he could not get the message to von Dresky. The Chief Engineer joined the men on the bridge and told his superior about the feasibility of U-33 making a successful escape. Von Dresky did not want to listen and merely repeated the order to scuttle the boat. Schilling glanced over to the starboard bow and saw the minesweeper heading towards U-33 at a distance of 400m.  Searchlights were trained on them and shells were being fired. Perhaps it was at this point that Schilling understood why the captain had issued his orders.

            There was no option now but to scuttle the U-boat. Since U-33 carried an Enigma and could be salvaged von Dresky distributed its rotors among his officers and instructed them to swim well away from the boat before discarding them. He then ordered fuses for the explosives to be placed at strategic points inside U-33.     Schilling got on with the task of setting the scuttling charges. His first attempt failed but after a delay of eight minutes Schilling was able to set the fuses.

            However, a quick-witted engineer realised that the fuses would blow before the crew had vacated the boat. Max Schiller explained that the crewman who had set the dynamite fuses asked if there were still men to come out of the sub. When Schiller said that to his knowledge there were still more to follow, the engineer went back down to extinguish the fuses.

            Schiller told the BBC that he and his crewmates were standing on deck in rising water while Gleaner was firing its live rounds at U-33. Consequently, the men ran pell-mell around the conning tower to avoid the bullets. The firing stopped, as did the men who were waiting for the order from the captain to abandon ship. All the while the water level was rising ever higher as the stricken submarine began its descent. Eventually, given the order, the crew jumped from the boat yelling for help. All were wearing lifebelts fitted with oxygen apparatus and carrying small electric lamps on their foreheads. Schiller saw von Dresky climbing back down into the boat.

            It appears that when the fuses were subsequently re-set Schilling, possibly von Dresky too, was not told because when the explosives failed to go off quickly the Chief Engineer, followed by the commandant, hurried down from the bridge to ensure that the fuses were lit and that all the vents and hatches were opened. This was the moment when Max Schiller saw his captain re-enter the sub. Schilling opened the valves beside the ammunition lockers, while von Dresky tried to open valve No.2. But still U-33 would not slip below the waves.

            Fuses were burning in the radio room ready to blow the boat apart. Suddenly water surged in and Schilling told the commander. Von Dresky asked his Engineer to go down one last time to see if something could be done to speed up the sinking of U-33. Before Schilling could voice his intended refusal, the explosives went off. The build up of pressure was so great that a wall of flame rocketed out of the conning tower and shot to a height of thirty metres into the pre-dawn sky. The shock tore the conning tower’s iron ladder from its casing, narrowly avoiding U-33’s stoker MaschOGfr Puchta who, being one of the tail-end seamen abandoning ship, had a narrow escape.      Schilling felt something strike his left shoulder, discovering only later that it had been the tower ladder.

Weber later stated that the pressure hull inside the radio office had been ruptured by the explosion of the charges, detonating the signal grenades and the ready-use ammunition. The U-boat began a dive at an angle of about 40 degrees. Shortly, the boat hit bottom and there was another explosion.

Survivor records indicate that von Dresky, having re-emerged from the sub, jumped into the sea with Schilling to join the other crewmen waiting to be picked up by the Gleaner. At this moment, so the story goes, von Dresky realised that he had lost the mouthpiece of his Tauchretter set. The Second Watch Officer was wearing a life saving vest so he gave the commander his own mouthpiece.

            Contemporary reports state that as the stern went down, the commander shouted: “Hurrah for U-33!” and Schilling heard the commander urge the men to keep together in the water. Max Schiller’s BBC account flatly contradicts this version of events. According to Schiller von Dresky did not die among his men in the freezing waves.

Interviewer Kirsty Wark sought clarification both on Max’s remark that he had seen his captain go back into U-33 and on the latter’s decision to abandon ship:

Wark: “So you think… Did von Dresky go down with the U-boat?”

             Schiller: “Yes, yes.”

Wark: “So he’s still… his body is still on the U-boat?”

Schiller: “Yes, if you find any bones on the boat, they’ll be his.  He’ll be the only person. Every…everyone from us that was accounted for, except the captain.”

Wark: “What made the captain decide to abandon ship?”

Schiller: “Ah, there was no point in us going on, you see, and we had laid on dynamite and they went off and the boat started to sink.  I was standing in water, still on the boat – that much – then waiting for the order to abandon ship. “So…the captain gave the orders to abandon ship, so…and we all left the boat and when I looked back and the captain, he went back down in it, through the hatch, you see.  Everybody from the boat was accounted for, but no for the captain, for the simple reason, he went down with the boat.”

The Monthly Anti Submarine Report[6] for March and April 1940 states: “At 05:30 sparks were seen arising from the conning tower and the crew abandoned ship. It was learned that the Commanding Officer had placed a small explosive charge among the confidential matter and parts of the enciphering machine were distributed amongst the officers with instructions to throw them away when clear of the U-boat. The Senior Engineer Officer (Schilling) who had been ordered to ensure the destruction of the vessel by blowing her up had not time to make his escape before the explosion took place and was blown some considerable distance into the air. U-33 at once trimmed down by the bow to an angle of 40° and disappeared without listing.”

The position of sinking was about 4.8 miles S.E. by S. of Pladda Lighthouse, off the southeastern corner of the Isle of Arran. The number one task was to rescue survivors. Other men on Gleaner tried to wreck-buoy the exact point of the enemy’s position, dropping a sea tombstone to guide Naval Intelligence later.

Sub-Lieutenant Reade took a bearing—Pladda 150 degrees, distance 4.8 miles, position about 55:25N 05:07W. Captain Price also instructed HMS Scott, which arrived on the scene later to locate and buoy the wreck. Elsewhere in Admiralty document ADM 199/123, a succinct report on the attack by HMS Gleaner, the position is given as 55:21:50N 05:02:08W.

Having radioed the Admiralty with the news of U-33’s sinking Lieutenant-Commander Price received the message: “With large convoys arriving and departing from the Clyde every week the sinking of the U-33 has prevented a major disaster in home waters. Well done! The U-33 is the 13^th U-boat to be destroyed since the commencement of hostilities! Repeat, well done!” On arrival at HMS Fortitude’s land base at Ardrossan Harbour, the captain and crew of Gleaner were given a heroes’ welcome. The Enigma rotor parts were sent on to the British code breaking centre at Bletchley Park for detailed study.

Lieutenant-Commander Price was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his “outstanding readiness, proficiency and skill in destroying an enemy submarine.” Sub-Lieutenant Edward Perry Reade, the Watch Officer when contact was made, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross with the same citation.

Able Seamen Harold Thomas Rhodes, Bernard Duncan Winstanley and William John Trevethan Mellor were each awarded Distinguished Service Medals.

 From U-33’s official crew complement of 42 only 17 men, including 3 officers lived to become POWs. Steiner was dead. Kampert had died from exposure. Von Dresky had urged his men through the hatch as the seawater swirled around the bank of batteries, pouring off chlorine gas, until the final explosions. The compilers of the Interrogation of Survivors report make reference to a notebook they had obtained from an engine room Petty Officer, which went some way to corroborate testimony from survivors. Oberleutnant zur See Karl Vietor had saluted Lieutenant-Commander Price at the first opportunity.

In excellent English he explained that he knew Fleet class minesweepers did not carry doctors. They did however have a Petty Officer trained in First Aid. Could he check over the survivors? And would warm clothing be supplied immediately? Price had given the necessary orders before the first survivor had been lifted to the deck. There was concern for Heinz Rottman; he had been in the sea longer than the others. They fed him brandy and hot coffee. In return Rottman volunteered the information all waited to hear. No mines had been launched in the area of the running battle. The British understood that U-33 had intended to lay mines off Pladda Lighthouse. The five in the first lay were far to the west­ward.

Once again, Max Schiller’s testimony to BBC Scotland appears to contradict the contemporary report. Rottman is on record as saying that no mines had been laid off Pladda. On the other hand, Schiller said that their orders were that after laying the TCM mines they were to re-load the tubes with the four torpedoes they had removed the day before in the North Channel. He went on to say that it was during the operation to reload the tubes that Gleaner’s depth charging of U-33 commenced.

One can only interpret Schiller’s statement as a confirmation that all eight mines had been laid: five laid far westward, according to Rottman, and three laid more locally, thereby triggering compliance with the order to reload the torpedoes. Evidently, there had been time to load only one of the four torpedoes: the one in the after tube which could still have been turned to U-33’s advantage, together with the deployment of the boat’s guns, had von Dresky not been obligated to comply with Hitler’s reputed order to scuttle the vessel.

Schiller’s statement is also supported by the content of the BdU log for 16 February 1940: “It seems more and more likely that U-33 has been lost. Several radio intelligence reports show that she was in action with an English minesweeper and then surrendered.  Assistance was requested to rescue survivors. The English authorities assumed that mines had been laid. This is not improbable as these events took place in the early morning hours. The boat would certainly not have chosen this time to penetrate into the Clyde and she then at latest would have been on her way out. If she really did lay the mines, the high price paid will have been worth it.”

Later, HMS Tedworth with a party of naval divers was sent to examine the sunken U-boat in thirty fathoms of water and recovered various articles from the conning tower, amongst them a Nazi Ensign. StObMasch Friedrich Kumpf was rescued by the trawler Bohemian Girl. Official record has it that during the passage to Greenock his pockets were searched and the British recovered three Enigma rotors—wheels VI, VII and VIII. These were helpful to the codebreakers at Bletchley Park (especially wheels VI and VII used only by the Kriegsmarine for which the wiring was then unknown), but not sufficiently so to penetrate naval Enigma (the vital “Dolphin” signals). In the next chapter Schiller tells the Enigma story very differently.

Chief Engineer Schilling also hid Enigma parts on his person. Like Kumpf he, too, did not dump them in the sea straightaway. He knew that navy divers would be making strenuous efforts to recover Enigma parts dropped in the sea at U-33’s sinking position. It was a dangerous gamble but luck was on his side. For reasons unknown Schilling was not searched after being picked up out of the water. He waited until his Greenock-bound rescue boat was as far away as possible from U-33 before he pulled them from his jacket and, unseen, ditched the parts out of a porthole by Skelmorlie Bank, a few miles south of Greenock. Schilling’s action ensured that at least the Enigma parts in his possession would not be recovered by the naval team that would shortly be scouring the seabed off Pladda. (One might ask, however, how Schilling knew that he was ditching the parts by Skelmorlie.)

Dönitz knew at once that U-33 was lost but hoped that minelaying in the Firth of Clyde had succeeded where U-32 had previously failed. His source was B-dienst, which intercepted three signals from Gleaner. The first was an alarm at 05:25 reporting U-33 to be on the surface. The second at 05:30 was a notice stating that the U-33 crew was surrendering. The third at 05:45 was a request for assistance in rescuing the crew. It should be noted that none of these signals appears to have highlighted U-33’s precise geographical position at time of sinking.

Shortly after the sinking of U-3.3 minelaying operations in the area were suspended. Henceforth, Dönitz’s small U-boat force was deployed in supporting the German invasion of Norway. When minelaying operations were resumed the Clyde was avoided with U-boats concentrating on the East Coast and the Channel.

U-33’s survivors were transported to London for interrogation. Senior officers Schilling, Vietor, Rottman, Becker and Kumpf passed through Kensington interrogation centre—the “London Cage” to Intelligence men—and onwards to Grizedale Hall (the “U-boat Hotel”), No. 1 PoW camp in the Lake District.

Lingscheidt, Scherer, Ehrhardt, Krampe and Schiller sailed to Quebec on the Duke of York then travelled by train to Gravenhurst Camp, Ontario, which housed 500 POWs. In early 1942 all U-33 survivors were reunited at Bowmanville Camp. Schilling was repatriated via the Red Cross in 1943 because of illness. Hans-Joachim Ehrhardt’s memoirs speak of the Scottish Reservists guards who played their bagpipes all day long. Shockingly, they also refer to “super Nazis” in Medicine Hat camp, Alberta, who hanged prisoners openly critical of Hitler. They tried to press Ehrhardt into “jury service” in a Kangaroo Court to try suspected sympathizers. He refused. In 1946 four Nazis were convicted and hanged for the murder of Dr. Karl Lehmann.

 Max Schiller was interned in Lockerbie Camp, Dumfriesshire, sharing a hut with thirty prisoners. Captives were transported by truck to work details. Those on neighbouring farms were popular as the men could supplement their rations with farm produce. Max chose dairyhand duty at the large Barrasgait Farm in Cummertrees, thirteen miles south of the camp and just six miles from the English border as the crow flies.

   As soon as Max arrived at Barrasgait and set eyes on dairymaid Jessie Grearson he knew he had seen the girl he was going to marry. Petite, with a ready smile and dark curly locks, Jessie had been a maid at the big house since leaving school. She stepped out of the front door, busying herself with household chores and took Max’s breath away. It was love at first sight for both. “I knew from the first moment, the very first moment,” Max would say. Max resolved to see Jessie as much as possible and was willing to take risks to see his sweetheart. A fellow prisoner in charge of the bicycles owned by the camp guards was persuaded to let Max smuggle a bike under his bed. Max, a man of slight stature and build, would squeeze under the camp's perimeter wire after evening lock-up and cycle back to Cummertrees to see Jessie. He was never caught.

         Max was also an enthusiastic football fan both as a player and and a spectator. Barrasgait farmhands lent Max civilian clothes and money for the bus so he could sneak off to Dumfries and watch Queen of the South, the team he followed all his life.

When Max was released from custody from Bowmanville Camp he refused to be repatriated to Germany, insisting that he wished to return to Scotland—to Barrasgait and to Jessie. He returned briefly to Germany to tell his family of his decision. They were not happy but Max’s mind was made up. He returned to the life of a dairyhand at Barrasgait Farm and married Jessie on Boxing Day 1947. Jessie’s enlightened parents raised no objections to the match.

The couple were given accommodation in a bothy—a tiny rudimentary shelter typically used to house farm workers. Theirs had one room serving as living area and kitchen with an open-hearth fire, one bedroom and a toilet. The family lived in these cramped conditions until 1955, Ray coming along in 1948 and Edna in 1952. They were then given the use of the three-bedroom farm cottage. Jessie died in 1991, Max in 2002. Max was only one among a number of Germans who settled in Scotland after being held there as POWs, many of whom worked on the farms around Dumfries and Galloway, an area today with a large German population and an active German Society

            The Wrecks Section of the U.K. Hydrographic Office records that U-33, Kriegsmarine U-boat, is located at Map Reference 55:21:48.3N 05:01:75.2W, 5 miles south of Pladda, off Turnberry Point, in the Firth of Clyde, at depth 57m. The wreck is orientated in an east by south / west by north (100° / 280°) direction and lies on a firm seabed of sand, mud and stones in a general depth of 57m (187ft), the lowest astronomical depth. She is upright, in reasonable condition, standing 4.6m from the seabed. The conning tower hatch is open and divers peering into it have seen what they describe as a sort of “milk-bottle crate,” which contained about four or six ready-use shells for the boat’s deck gun. The deck casing is showing signs of deterioration but the whole wreck is covered in marine growth and fine silt. The wreck is a war grave, last officially surveyed by HMS Herald in 1976.

The day after the sinking of U-33 HMS Reclaim, which had been assisting in repairs to the battleship HMS Nelson severely damaged by a TMB mine from U-31 near Loch Ewe in November 1939, arrived at the scene. Her divers recovered discarded Enigma parts.

Scottish historian Donald Kelly has told of a story that a heavy lifting operation was mounted to move U-33 from its seabed position.  Other local Scots have told a similar tale. The plan was to send divers down to try and retrieve what they could from around the wreck site. There is no certainty that such an operation was undertaken and there are some doubts that it was viable in that area of the Firth of Clyde. Nevertheless, there were suitable heavy lifting ships in the Gareloch capable of making the attempt. It will be a fact worth recalling when we come to review the true circumstances concerning U-33’s Firth of Clyde activities.

What has been laid out in these opening pages is U-33’s imprint upon the wreck-bed of WWII maritime action, unadorned with questions about the whys and wherefores surrounding it. One might say so far, so good…but is it truly? Later we shall learn of an entirely different version of events, one that fundamentally challenges the official history of the sinking of U-33. In the correspondence of reporter Horace Oakes, we shall read that HMS Gleaner was not alone among the British attack force in the early hours of 12 February 1939. By Oakes’ account the Gleaner was not even the ship that delivered the coup de grâce upon U-33.

As the following pages peel away, we will increasingly have cause to question not only the circumstances that prevailed on the night of the 12th but the wide array of other significant elements in U-33’s history. We will quickly recognise that to do honour to the staunch beliefs of the folk of the Firth of Clyde a new, unvarnished truth must emerge.

Max Schiller, accompanied by his daughter, Edna, and David Hendry, sailed out of Campbeltown Loch on 12 February 2000, the 60th anniversary of the sinking of U-33, on board HMS Cromer. He was. The trip had been planned so that Max could toss a wreath on the waters over the resting place of his former boat. HMS Cromer was joined by German minesweeper, the Weider, on exercise in the Clyde.

When the men on the German minesweeper saw that Max was still standing on the deck of HMS Cromer, looking out to sea, they stood to their feet as one and saluted the elderly survivor from U-boat 33. The BBC cameramen, professionals who had doubtless filmed all kins of challenging action and emotional situations in the past, paused filming, moved to tears by the intensity of the scene, which probably explains why the Weider’s wonderful homage to Max was not included in the broadcast documentary.

In the next chapter Max Schiller, a man who by now can be trusted at every turn to prick the hallowed balloons of U-33 history, will tell a far different story as to the location of the wreck of his former billet under the waves. We will then begin the interrogation process, starting with the first layer of questions that have been posed by various comentators about apparent operational inconsistencies surrounding U-33’s last mission. Subsequently, we will take meticulous note of the questions thrown up by the mass of comments from Firth of Clyde citizenry.

Both the first level review and the far deeper investigation at local level will highlight more doubts and questions about U-33’s final cruise in February 1940 than can be attributable to random statistical chance.

[1] Gannon, M., Black May, HarperCollins, 1998

[2] The familiarisation visit for a U-boat crew on the construction of the vessel—it took place 6-8 weeks before completion under the supervision of the KLA (the Kriegsshiftbandehrabteilung—warship construction training detachment

[3] Beevor A., Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin, London, 2002

[4] A contraction of Wasserbomben: “water bombs”

[5] Bag-on-back rebreathers for self-rescue of submarine crews

[6] ADM 199/ 2034 - ADM 199/123 NARA T-1022, Roll 3103, PG30030, PG33325

More stories by Nigel Graddon

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