(U-boat photo courtesy of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.)
Posted on 07/05/2018 10:56:27 AM PDT by Gamecock
Four months after the Pearl Harbor attacks, Kapitanleutnant Reinhard Hardegen decided that Americans should see for themselves what war with Adolf Hitler's Germany was going to look like.
He began with Florida sunbathers. On April 11, 1942, Hardegen's submarine, U-123, torpedoed the tanker SS Gulfamerica off Jacksonville. He maneuvered U-123 around the flaming wreck and surfaced between the SS Gulfamerica and the beach. He sank it with U-123's deck gun.
Hardegen later wrote in his log: "All the vacationers had seen an impressive special performance at [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt's expense. A burning tanker, artillery fire, the silhouette of a U-boat -- how often had that been seen in America?"
Hardegen was one of the few "Unterseeboot" commanders to survive the war. Most did not, as the U.S. turned to the convoy system and sonar to devastate the "wolfpacks" and keep open the supply lines to Britain.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
>>He apparently embraced the NAZI regime and killed innocent people.
All the articles I’ve read over the years disagree. The courts did too after the war. What is your secret knowledge about the man?
(U-boat photo courtesy of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.)
This dude truly beat the odds.
My uncle a Canadian Merchant Marine was a fireman and trimmer on the S.S. Roxby on November 7th 1942 when they were torpedoed and sunk by U-613. He and and 32 other seaman died, 13 of the crew survived in a lifeboat and one of them died from exposure on the 11th. They were picked up by the Irish Beech on the 12th of November.
Thankfully - All 48 crew aboard U-boat 613 were lost when they were sunk by the the destroyer USS George E. Badger on the 23rd of July 1943.
Thanks to the internet, this stuff is all out there... The good news... All these years later... Revenge is still sweet and thanks to anybody still living who served on the Badger! Much appreciated from his nephew!
I havent heard of anything with a higher rate except oddball things like Japanese Kamikaze. ......................... Or the USAAF.
I was a submariner on SSBN 599.
It was a luxury liner compared to what these brave men did.
I have nothing but respect for these incredible brave men, most of whom died in their boats.
I’m glad I’m not still on a boat and glad I didn’t have to face these people during the war.
The fatality rate among U S submarine crews was also quite high.
Having had the privilege of meeting and hearing many WW2 vets, including several now deceased in my own family, something frequently mentioned was the sense that many of the young men who killed each other, in other circumstances, could have been good friends.
This guy fought, and now he goes to his maker as we all will.
In what way did he embrace the nazi regime?
Pretty easy for British and American troops to befriend before former German enemies. They didn't particularly hate us, and, except for the Death Camp guards and Waffen SS units, we didn't really hate them. You don't see former enemies from the Battle of Stalingrad partying together the same way Rommel's Afrika Korps and Monty's 8th Army did (heck, they were buddies even during the war).
What's more amazing is that there are former Japanese and Ally enemies who've become friends after the war.
Oh please. I’ve zero sympathy for the Germans of that generation. I had members of my family who risked their lives in WW2 fighting those bastards. Ever give any thought to what the world would look like today if they had won? And yeah, I’ve known many guys who fought in the ETO and none of them had anything warm or fuzzy to say about the Krauts.
Theirs was a war of aggression, ours one of self preservation - easy choice to pick the right side.
Any surviving Kamikaze’s? ;)
As a bombardier on a B-24 in the Pacific Theater, my late Father's plane was once clipped by a Jap Zero during an air battle. Years later, in the early 1980s, he met and shook hands with a former Japanese Zero pilot at an air show.
Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigler_incident
I understand the military honor of those who served in war but it is quite horrific to think of those on civilian and military ships who went down by torpedo.
I also think ‘Operation Drumbeat’ is where it was ‘revealed’ that in addition to using the lights from the coastline to silhouette targets, that when going into New York Harbor they basically used an Esso Road Map to navigate LI Sound, using traffic lights etc as guides.
Whenever I see ‘The Enemy Below’ Capt Hardegan comes to mind as he appeared to be someone else who was ‘caught up in the war’ as was the Kurt Jurgens character.
I always thought it ‘strange’ that the only High Command Officer that virtually survived the war and Nuremberg ‘unscathed’ was Doenitz, the Submarine Leader and a short time successor to Hitler.. (Must have been real cooperative when the ‘time came’)
My ultimate sympathies are also with merchant mariners, among them my father, a Kings Point grad, and an uncle who was on the North Atlantic run during WW II. For a brief moment, Germany’s U-boats nearly put Britain out of the war, but on the net, they proved to be obsolete and a waste of lives and military effort.
Thanks for posting; heartwarming.
The Brits’ brought it on with their naval blockade of Germany.
What did they expect? When we were neutral, they knew we would risk our shipping to get goods to Britain, knowing there was no way our ships could run the British blockade to get our goods to Germany, they knew the blockade of Germany would eventually get us into the war once the Germans sank our ships.
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