The Golden U-Boat

Chapter Sixteen

It proved to be a simple electrical short that prevented U-3313 from launching a second salvo and finishing off the crippled cutter. Otto Koch angrily paced the crowded control room, all the while cursing their misfortune. He had hoped to break the warship’s back with the initial torpedo attack, and sink them quickly.

But this was not to be, and now the Norwegians had plenty of time to inform command of their situation, and most likely help was already on the way. Such notoriety was not in the least bit desirable, and Koch knew that they had to get out into the open seas with all haste.

“Incoming torpedo round!” cried out the sonar operator.

“Somehow it just came out of nowhere, in the waters right above us!”

Koch absorbed this shocking report and his first impression was that it had to be an anomaly of some sort. Surely the Norwegian cutter never had a chance to launch a weapon at them. Or did they? And it was then that he heard the distant buzzing whine that seemed to get increasingly louder and louder with each second’s passing.

This dreaded noise was audible throughout the U-boat, and even the vessel’s captain was temporarily stunned into inaction by it. With not even the time to order evasive action, Charles Kromer could think of only a single warning.

“Brace yourselves for an explosion!” he shouted, seconds before all hell broke out inside U-3313.

First there was an ear-shattering explosion, followed by a powerful, jarring concussion that sent all those crew members not restrained by safety harnesses tumbling to the rocking deck. This included Otto Koch, who ended up on his back beside the periscope well.

The lights flickered off and then on again, while the frenzied voice of the quartermaster relayed the message that had just been passed on to him through the sound-powered telephone he was responsible for monitoring.

“After engine room is flooding!”

Even though he found himself sprawled on his side against the chart table, Captain Kromer reacted instinctively.

“Blow the main ballast! Blow safety tanks!

Blow bow buoyancy!”

No one stopped to question these orders. All were aware that the sea was pouring into U-3313’s stern, and the only thing that mattered now was getting the boat safely to the surface.

Senior Lieutenant Kurtz had been harnessed to his chair at the diving console and he automatically pulled down the levers of the air manifold. This caused a burst of highly pressurized air to roar into the tanks, expelling the seawater ballast with a mad whirl.

“Hard rise on the diving planes!” ordered Kromer unnecessarily, for the men responsible for this task had already initiated it.

As Charles Kromer painfully got back to his feet, his eyes went to the depth gauge and the inclinometer.

Oddly enough, the boat seemed to hang for a moment at even keel at a depth of eighty feet beneath the sea’s surface. But it was pure instinct that told him that his command was waterlogged beyond her buoyancy.

Seconds later, U-3313 began to sink rapidly by the stern. This drop was so sharp that many of the men, who had just picked themselves off the deck, lost their footing again and went sprawling toward the aft bulkhead. Accompanying them were coffee cups, manuals, navigation instruments, and other loose gear.

With his palms biting into the steel edge of the chart table, Kromer could see that there was no chance of raising the boat now. Their only hope was if the U-boat could make it to the bottom in one piece.

But any further pondering on his part was cut short by a new menace, as water began pouring in from the ventilation pipes leading from the aft bulkhead.

It showered down with an incredible force, knocking Kromer to his knees, and completely soaking him in bitterly cold salt water. This meant that the concussion had damaged the boat’s air induction system, and the only way to stem this flow would be to get to the valves and seal off the ventilation flappers.

With a superhuman effort, Kromer dragged himself, hand over hand, up the slippery deck, whose angle was now as steep as forty degrees. His chilled skin was already numbing, but unless he got to those valves, they would be doomed.

A young seaman cried out in horror behind him.

The lights were flickering once again, and the hull plates were beginning to creak in protest of the tremendous pressure that the depths were now applying.

Doing his best to ignore all of these things, Kromer inched himself forward with only one goal in mind.

Having lost all the feeling in his hands by now, he desperately lunged for the valve cover, and by sheer tenacity alone he was able to hold on. With a pained grunt, he pulled up his soaked body. Not even taking the time to wipe the stinging salt out of his eyes, he went to work tightening the valves, and soon the onrushing roar of water faded to a trickle.

As Kromer caught his breath and turned around, he viewed yet another frightening scene develop at the aft hatchway. Two men were in the process of pulling themselves out of the knee deep water that filled the passageway leading to the engine room. The terrified seamen were scrambling for their very lives, for if they didn’t get into the control room they would be trapped like their shipmates back in engineering. Any second now, the water would begin flooding over the stoop and the hatch would have to be sealed. With this realization the two sailors literally threw themselves forward into the control room. With great difficulty the hatch was then closed and its handles dogged tight.

Gradually, the U-boat’s steep angle of descent lessened.

Kromer was able to get to his feet, and as he scanned the compartment, he spotted Otto Koch seated in his red robe with his back up against the periscope well, with his soaked German shepherd faithfully at his side.

Kromer really wasn’t certain when the actual grounding came. All that he was aware of was a slight bumping sensation, and the fact that the depth gauge was remaining constant now at 407 feet, just within their hull’s crush limit. But before anyone could celebrate, the lights flickered and then went out for good, leaving them in total darkness.

Someone managed to get a hold of a flashlight, and began distributing the emergency supply of battery-powered torches that had been stored beneath the weapons console. Kromer got hold of one of these torches and initiated a quick inspection of the compartment’s valves. For the moment they were holding, and this allowed him to move across to the quartermaster.

“Any word from the men back aft?” inquired the captain anxiously.

The quartermaster somberly shook his head.

“I’m afraid not, Sir.”

Unable to accept the fact that over half of his fifty-man crew were dead, Kromer grabbed the quartermaster’s telephone set. Hurriedly adjusting the headphones, he shouted into the transmitter.

“Hello, engineering, do you hear me? Engineering, this is the captain. Do you hear me? Siggy!”

Kromer was cut short by a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Let it be, Charles,” advised Otto Koch compassionately.

“You must accept the fact that they most likely died instantly, and concentrate on more important things such as our own survival.”

Knowing that the old man was right, Kromer turned his attention to the forward portions of the boat and found them almost completely undamaged.

This included the torpedo room, where ten men waited for further orders, and the main storage compartment, where their foodstuffs were stored along with the gold, the heavy water, and their six prisoners.

Also located in this compartment was the forward escape hatch, which right now looked to be the only way out of this fix.

“Good heavens, my dear Lottie!” exclaimed Otto Koch, who suddenly remembered that his servant had been in his stateroom when this tragedy befell them.

The Director’s cabin was located in the forward portion of the U-boat, and Lottie was eventually found bruised and shaken, but otherwise in good health.

With this concern out of his mind, Koch began the grim task of sizing up their situation.

For the moment, there was air to breath, and plenty of food and water available. The cold would be a factor though in the next few hours, especially in their soaked conditions. So one of the first priorities would be to dry themselves off as best they could and find as many blankets and spare clothing as possible. Then the long wait would begin for their rescue.

There was no doubt in Otto Koch’s mind that this moment would come. For even though the Golden U-boat would no longer be of service to them, surely there were other vessels capable of fulfilling their mission.

The mere fact that they were still alive filled him with a renewed sense of hope.

Yet another drama was unfolding on the opposite end of the Kongsfjord Strait, as the USS Cheyenne valiantly attempted to shake the pair of torpedoes that the Soviet vessel had fired at them. Orchestrating this effort, Steven Aldridge stood with his hands tightly gripping the edge of the chart table as the Cheyenne initiated a tight, highspeed turn.

“Both fish are still on our tail!” exclaimed the voice of Joe Carter, which was now being broadcast over the control room’s P. A. system.

“Bearing is zero-two-zero, relative rough range 3,700 yards and still closing.”

“Is that MOSS decoy ready to fire yet, Lieutenant Hartman?” quizzed Aldridge.

The stocky, crew-cut weapons’ officer answered from his console.

“We’ll have a green light any second now. Hold on, Captain. My boys won’t let us down.”

Designed to simulate the signature of the Cheyenne and lure an attacking torpedo away from the boat, the MOSS decoy was an invaluable asset that Aldridge was counting on. Yet if it wasn’t ready to launch shortly, it would be useless.

In the meantime, Aldridge was trying his best to lose the torpedoes by leaving what was known as a knuckle in the water. This maneuver depended upon a series of tight, highspeed turns that would leave a hissing vortex of agitated sea water in their wake.

“We’re at 380 feet, Captain,” observed the diving officer coolly.

Because of the relatively shallow depths of this portion of the strait, Aldridge had little water beneath him to play with, making his already difficult job even harder.

“Range is down to three thousand yards,” revealed the tense voice of Joe Carter.

The digital knot indicator that lay mounted on the forward bulkhead before the harness-restrained helmsmen registered twenty-eight knots. Yet the turbines were just getting warmed up, and if they hoped to outrun their attackers, they would have to increase this velocity dramatically.

“XO!” shouted Aldridge.

“Get Lonnon to open up those throttles. We need more speed and we need it now!”

The captain turned to the helmsman.

“Pull us up to 300 feet, Mr. Murphy. Make our new course two-eight-zero.”

The boat canted hard on its right side as this turn was initiated, and it seemed to shudder as it also began to nose upward.

“We’ve got a green light on MOSS, Captain!” revealed the weapon’s officer joyously.

“Then fire away, Lieutenant Hartman,” returned Aldridge.

An exploding blast of compressed air indicated that the decoy had been launched, and the deck quivered as the now empty tube began filling with water to compensate for the great weight it had just lost.

“MOSS appears to be running true, Captain,” observed the weapon’s officer.

“We’ve got her sprinting off on course one-four-zero.”

Aldridge’s eyes flashed to the knot counter.

“Damn it, Bob! Where’s that additional speed?”

The XO had the intercom handset cradled up against his ear, and could only hunch his shoulders as the digital indicator seemed to be locked on twenty-eight knots.

“Helmsman, swing us around to bearing two-two-zero, and make it crisp,” ordered Aldridge.

As the Cheyenne turned hard on this new course, Joe Carter excitedly reported.

“We’ve lost one, Captain! It looks like MOSS has a taker.”

Aldridge accepted a brief thumbs-up from his weapons’ officer, but was quickly brought back to earth as Carter added.

“Range of the remaining torpedo is twenty four hundred yards and still closing. Bearing zero-two-zero.”

Having utilized their one and only decoy, Aldridge now had to come up with yet another way to lose the persistent fish that remained on their tail. Briefly glancing down at the bathymetric chart of the strait they were in, he could see that it wouldn’t be possible to out dive the torpedo. There was, at the very most, another two hundred feet of water beneath their keel before they would strike bottom. But could they use this unique bathymetric feature to their advantage in this instance? Aldridge certainly didn’t think that there would be any harm in trying, and he shared this novel maneuver with the planes man

“Mr. Murphy, take her up to ninety feet, on bearing two-six-five. Then take us down hard to 460 before bringing us back up to ninety feet again.”

“Prepare yourselves for a little roller coaster ride, gentlemen,” added the captain, who noted with satisfaction that the speed indicator rose one, two, and then three complete digits before halting at thirty-one knots.

The sail-mounted planes bit into the surrounding sea water and the Cheyenne angled up sharply toward the surface. Steven Aldridge could feel the resulting g-forces pull his body backward, and he had to tightly regrip the chart table to keep from being flung back to the aft bulkhead. Several coffee mugs and other loose equipment had already clattered to this portion of the deck, and the captain bided his time by keeping his stare locked on the depth gauge.

At 180 feet, Joe Carter broadcast another update.

“The torpedo’s is coming on up with us, at a range of eighteen hundred yards.”

This would be one instance when Aldridge wanted this fish to get as close as possible to them, for this would give his daring tactic a better chance to succeed.

The Cheyenne gained another knot of forward speed and was soaring upward like a sleek jet fighter of the sea. As they broke the 125 foot barrier, the helmsman readied himself for action. As it turned out, his timing was superb, and he was able to pull the Cheyenne out of her sharp climb only a few feet short of his goal of ninety feet. Remaining at this depth for brief seconds, he pushed down on his steering yoke, reversing the direction of the planes and sending the sub spiralling down into the black, frigid depths.

Now Aldridge and the rest of the crew found themselves being pulled forward, along with the assortment of loose gear that had already clattered onto the deck and now smashed into the forward bulkhead. Once again, he tightly re-gripped the edge of the chart table, and anxiously listened as Joe Carter’s voice boomed out loud and clear.

“Torpedo has just broken the thousand yard threshold, and it’s continuing to come down on our tail.”

Separated now by the equivalent of ten football fields, the torpedo was rapidly closing in on them, and Aldridge found his pulse quickening in anticipation.

At a depth of three hundred and fifty feet this distance was almost halved, and sweat started to mat the captain’s forehead and palms. They were hurtling downward now at a speed of thirty-three knots, and as the floor of the fjord rapidly approached, Aldridge momentarily found himself thinking about his family. Yet he forcefully pushed the images of Susan and Sarah out of his mind, concentrating instead on the rapidly falling depth gauge that had just passed 430 feet.

“Mr. Murphy, pull us up, now!” ordered the captain, who could visualize the hard rocky floor of the fiord waiting to greet them in an embrace of instant death.

The helmsman yanked back hard on his steering yoke, and the Cheyenne slid to a depth of 457 feet before the dive was reversed. Upward they climbed now, and Aldridge knew that this was the moment of truth, for he was gambling that the torpedo wouldn’t be able to pull out of its dive as quickly as the Cheyenne had managed, and that he hadn’t underestimated the depth of the fiord in this portion of the strait.

This time, as they shot to the surface, he allowed his thoughts to return to his family. His fate and that of his crew were in Another’s hands now, and if this was to be the moment when he would be sent to meet his Maker, he wanted to go with the vision of the two people he loved most on this earth firmly implanted in his mind.

He could picture Sarah playing on the heather-filled hills of Mull, with hundreds of sheep milling around her, while his lovely Susan waited for her on the sundrenched hilltop, with a picnic lunch spread out on a large checkered quilt. This was his vision of paradise, and he knew that he had been very fortunate to have experienced it, even if for but a few fleeting hours.

Aldridge was snapped from his brief reverie by a deep, thundering explosion. The deck beneath him madly shook and trembled, and for a second he thought the worse, that the torpedo had struck them.

Expecting next to hear the loud whine of the collision alarm, he looked to the helm and noted that the turbines were still managing to grind out a steady thirty-two knots, while the depth gauge was smoothly displaying their continued ascent. Yet it was only when Joe Carter’s joyful voice broke from the PA. speakers that Aldridge realized that his gamble had paid off, with the most valuable jackpot of all — their lives.

“Scratch one more Red fish,” observed the ecstatic senior sonar operator.

“From that concussion, you can rest assured that this portion of the fjord is now a couple of feet deeper.”

“I’ll note that on my bathymetric chart” replied Aldridge, who caught his XO’s relieved glance and added, “Bob, I think it’s time to give Ivan a little dose of his own medicine. I’m not too sure what the hell is going on around here, but the Cheyenne has more than paid her dues, and now’s the time to even the score.

“Lieutenant Hartman, load up four wire-guided Mk48’s. And keep a couple of SUBROC’s close by for good measure. It’s time to reverse roles, with the hunted becoming the hunter!”