The Laconia Incident Read online

  Other Books by Gene Masters

  Silent Warriors—The year is 1941. Shortly after the United States declares war on Japan in response to Pearl Harbor, Japan’s Tripartite Treaty allies, Germany and Italy, declare war on America. The United States finds itself in a two-theater war. President Franklin Roosevelt sets as America’s first priority the defeat of Nazi Germany, electing to wage a more-or-less holding war in the Pacific. In the beginning, the only force opposing the Japanese onslaught in the Pacific is the U.S. Submarine Service.

  Jake Lawlor begins his war as executive officer aboard USS S-49, an aged S-class submarine, with orders to conduct unrestricted warfare against the enemy in the Pacific. When a freak mid-sea grounding causes the loss S-49, Jake assumes command of another boat, USS Orca, a new Gato-class submarine, under construction in Groton, CT. As Jake prepares a new boat and a freshly-assembled crew for war, the conflict in the Pacific is going badly for the Allies.

  This is the story of Captain Lawlor’s eleven war patrols, including an ongoing conflict with Imperial Japanese Navy Captain Hiriake Ito of the destroyer Atsukaze. The crew of the Orca is made up of grizzled veterans and wet-behind-the-ears youngsters, all working together for a single purpose: to bring an implacable enemy to its knees. Along the way, friendships are forged, and love affairs and marriages are created—and destroyed.

  Operation Exodus—Six Christian missionaries are kidnapped by the Iranian government and become unwitting pawns in a high stakes gambit to embarrass a hated U.S. sitting president and ruin his chances of reelection. With the help of Israel’s vaunted intelligence agency, Mossad, the prisoners are located in an ancient fortified prison just outside the southeastern Iranian port of Kanarak, a resort city off the Gulf of Oman. Rescue Operation Exodus is launched, headed by Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jake Lawlor, grandson of a legendary WWII submarine commander. Will the torture and brainwashing be successful, or will Jake and his fellow SEALs save the day? Find out in Operation Exodus.

  The Laconia Incident

  By

  Gene Masters

  The Laconia Incident

  Copyright © Gene Masters, March, 2020

  FIRST EDITION

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  KINDLE EDITION

  This book is a work of fiction based upon real events. The names, places, and incidents are entirely historical—only a few of the characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

  This book may not be reproduced in print, electronically, or in any other format, without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts for publicity purposes.

  Cover photo Cunard Line postcard

  of the RMS Laconia circa 1921 - Public Domain

  Periscope image © Shutterstock 105943382

  Published in the United States of America by

  Escarpment Press, Indian Land, SC

  For Ruth

  encore une fois

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  PART I

  Prelude to Calamity

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  PART II

  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Introduction

  This book is a dramatization of a true story. The incidents related actually happened, the ships described really existed, and the majority of the characters described in this book are real people.

  The story of the HMT Laconia, and of her sinking by the German submarine U-156, has, of course, been told before, but, most hopefully, never better than in the pages that follow. There is, famously, a two-hour BBC series, also entitled The Laconia Incident. The series tells the same story, but it centers more around a fictional subplot than the incident itself.

  In my telling of the Laconia story, the real events surrounding the sinking of the Laconia directly affect the lives of the people involved, and are, I believe, substantive enough to tell an amazing tale of both wartime savagery, political intrigue, and unexpected gallantry.

  There have been other, nonfiction books written about the subject. One purely historical version, The Sinking of the Laconia and the U-Boat War, by James P. Duffy, proved an excellent resource. A second, One Common Enemy, by Jim McLoughlin, is a survivor’s tale, and a great read it is, but it’s more about McLoughlin’s life experience, and his trials in an open lifeboat for twenty-eight days after the sinking. The Laconia sinking itself is a vital part of McLoughlin’s story, but only a part of it.

  My book relates the experiences of the fictional Robby Cotton, a Scots native who enlists in the British Royal Navy after his family is killed in a German air raid (the Clydebank Blitz of March 13-14, 1941). Seeking to avenge the death of his family, Robby enlists in the Royal Navy, and is assigned to a gun crew aboard the battleship HMS Victory. He soon discovers that the ability to strike back at the enemy involves becoming exposed to risks that he hadn’t planned upon: to be shot at, in turn, not only from the air, but also from the sea, and, most frighteningly, from under the sea. The danger from German U-boats is brought home when Robby witnesses the torpedoing and sinking of Victory’s sister ship, HMS Barham. A series of subsequent events finds Robby serving as part of the gun crew aboard the HMT Laconia. And, only after having his ship literally sunk beneath his feet, does Robby discover that, after all, even his most dangerous enemy has a human face.

  The Laconia Incident also tells the story of Marco Scarpetti, a sergeant in the Italian Army, who is captured by the British in North Africa, and that of one of his Polish guards, Stanislaw Kominsky. Both join Robby Cotton as passengers on the Laconia’s final voyage, en route to Liverpool by way of Cape Town, South Africa, along with 1,800 Italian POWs, their Polish guards, and several hundred other British passengers and crew.

  But The Laconia Incident revolves mostly about the true story of Korvettenkapitan Werner Hartenstein, captain of the German submarine U-156. It is Hartenstein’s boat that attacks and sinks the Laconia on 12 September 1942. The subsequent, unprecedented actions taken by him, his crew, and the German U-boat command, after the actual torpedoing and sinking the Laconia, make a truly amazing tale. It’s a story of how civility and mercy survive, even amidst the savagery and brutality of all-out war. It also shows how even the best-intentioned efforts can be foiled by stubborn adherence to well-established preconceptions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  In this story, lives are both needlessly lost and gallantly saved. Mistakes, inscribed forever in the historical record, are made by the British Admiralty, the German High Command, and the Uni
ted States Army Air Corps. And these tragic mistakes only unnecessarily added to the enormity of the loss of life originally engendered by this calamity. Yet, in contrast to the barbarity of modern warfare, the gallantry and humanity of one man, striving to do the right thing, stands out. This, then, is The Laconia Incident.

  Gene Masters

  Knoxville, Tennessee

  2020

  Back to Table of Contents

  Prologue

  12 September, 1942

  Through his binoculars, Korvettenkapitӓn Werner Hartenstein studied the target from the bridge of U-156. The boat had just surfaced a half-hour earlier, and was now closing with the British transport that had been spotted the previous midday.

  “What’s her range now, Leo?” Hartenstein called down to his first watch officer through the open hatch to the boat’s conning tower.

  Inside the conning tower, first officer Oberleutnant zur see Leopold Schumacher, peering through the periscope, adjusted the range finder handle. He then read the numbers on the dial. “Target range is 5,100 meters, Captain,” he sang out.

  “Excellent,” Hartenstein replied, his binoculars still fixed on the target. She was big, he noted, perhaps 20,000 tons, a gray ghost still inexplicably belching black smoke from her single funnel. And the weather was perfect for it: the sky cloudless, the air clear and still, the sea below black ink. There was practically no moon, he noted, just the sliver of a waxing crescent, yet the twilight sky was bright enough in these equatorial climes, and the visibility was really quite good. The outline of the ship stood out well enough against such a backdrop that Hartenstein could easily judge the angle her bow made to his line of sight.

  “Right thirty degrees, I should think,” Hartenstein mumbled aloud to himself. And the angle had drifted left just as one would expect from a ship on a steady course relative to his submarine.

  “She’s still not zigzagging, Captain,” Schumacher called out. “Still steady on course three-zero-five.”

  “Very well, Leo. Let me know if she suddenly decides to change course.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Schumacher replied, and then continued relaying periscope ranges and bearings to his fire control team in the conning tower and the control room below.

  “I believe she’s settled down for good, Captain, and for the night. She has not changed course nor speed since 1930 hours,” Schumacher called up to the bridge a few minutes later. “Course is still three-zero-five. Speed is fourteen knots. If nothing else changes, we should be in firing range in just five minutes.”

  “Very good, Leo. Have the forward torpedo room prepare to fire three torpedoes—tubes one, two, and three.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Schumacher replied, and relayed his commander’s orders to the torpedomen forward. Hartenstein then ordered the U-boat to change course, keeping her bow pointed at the target, making her harder for her prey to spot, and a smaller target for the transport’s gun should it come to that. A single-barrel, large-caliber, naval gun could just barely be made out, mounted on the ship’s stern, and Hartenstein was quite reasonably wary about coming under that weapon. As an added bonus, keeping the bow pointed at the target also minimized the torpedo deflection angle required for a hit.

  Five minutes passed. The target’s bow angle had settled out at right ninety degrees.

  Perfect, Hartenstein thought.

  “Range now, Leo?” he asked.

  “Target range eight hundred meters, Captain.”

  “Good. Do you have a firing solution?”

  “Yes, Captain. Recommend deflection angle eight degrees right.”

  “Very good, Leo. Send the order forward, set deflection angle eight degrees right, set torpedo depth four meters.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Then, sending to the torpedomen forward, “Tubes one, two, and three, set deflection angle eight degrees right, depth four meters.”

  “Fire one, Leo.” Schumacher relayed the order.

  Even though the boat was making way forward at seven knots, the pulse of the fired torpedo could be felt through the pressure hull. Thirty seconds later, the procedure was repeated, and a second deflection shot was fired at the target. Hartenstein decided to hold off on the order to fire the third torpedo.

  The first torpedo struck His Majesty’s Transport Laconia at 8:07 PM local time. The torpedo struck forward of amidships, and the ship first listed sharply to port from the force of the explosion, and then rolled back to starboard.

  The second torpedo struck thirty seconds later, just outside number two hold, pitching the ship violently back again to port.

  Only minutes later, HMT Laconia’s Captain, Rudolph Sharp, foreseeing the inevitable, ordered his third officer, Thomas Buckingham, to pass the order to abandon ship. Buckingham broadcasted the message throughout the ship: “Abandon Ship! Abandon Ship! All passengers will proceed in good order to their assigned lifeboat stations. Abandon Ship!”

  Hartenstein ordered U-156 submerged, wary lest the target’s gun be manned and start firing on her attacker. But the Laconia’s severe list to port precluded any possibility of her crew training—never mind firing—the gun.

  There was sufficient time—just over an hour—from the first torpedo strike and her ultimate demise, for an indeterminate number of the ship’s lifeboats to be launched, each crammed full of survivors. Many of the boats couldn’t be launched at all, because of the ship’s severe list. So it was that many more souls simply jumped over the side, braving the open water and the inevitable presence of sharks and barracuda.

  At 9:11 PM, 12 September 1942, her boilers exploding, the Laconia sank stern first.

  Of the 2,732 souls aboard the Laconia that night, only 1,113 ultimately survived. And, had it not been for the heroic efforts of the captain and crew of the U-boat that had torpedoed her in the first place, the death toll—1,619 souls—would have been far, far, worse.

  Back to Table of Contents

  Part I

  Prelude to Calamity

  1

  The Clydebank Blitz, March, 1941

  “Slow down, Robby,” his mate, Harlan, told Robby Cotton, in a thick Scots accent. “Glasgow ain’t about to run out of brew anytime soon! No need to try and drink it all tonight!” Harlan’s blue eyes twinkled merrily, as he gleefully chided his friend. Truth be told, Harlan White himself had consumed quite as much as Robby had. But then, he was half-again Robby’s size, tall and muscular, and could hold his liquor better.

  “Sod off, Harlan, you’re just crying ‘cause you can’t keep up, is all,” Robby replied untruthfully through a beery haze. It was not yet ten o’clock that Thursday in March, and Robby and his mates were already three sheets to the wind. “’Sides, it ain’t every night your old schoolmates go off and join the Navy! No tellin’ when I’ll ever see your sorry arses again,” Robby added.

  “You could’ve joined up as well, you know,” his other mate, Donald Conklin, joined in, “But we’ll probably blast them Jerries off the sea before you get a chance to come aboard and fire a shot!” For whatever reason, Donald attempted to stand up, but, unlike Harlan, the weight of the drink was too much for his slight frame, and he slunk back down into his seat again.

  “No worries, there, Donald, no worries there.” Robby replied. The beer had slowed his thinking, and it took a few seconds before he added, “Plenty of Jerries left before I get drafted. I’ll be eighteen soon enough, lots of time to get shot at then.”

  “You mean your ma wouldn’t sign for ya, don’t you Robby?” Harlan taunted. Like Robby, both Harlan and Donald were just seventeen, and their parents had signed the papers for them to join the Navy as minors.

  “You sod off, too,” Robby replied, paused, and then added, “that may be true, all right, but ‘tis also true I ain’t at all in a rush to get shot at, mate.” He looked down and realized he had drained the mug in his hand. “But enough of this. You mates are boardin’ a train, and will be bound for Plymouth tomorrow at noon, and there’s plenty of drinking and carrying on to do afore then
!” He called out to the oversized waitress a few tables away, “More beer here, my darlin’. Me mug is empty. More beer here!”

  * * * * *

  The newspapers had called it the “Clydebank Blitz.” It was a series of two Luftwaffe raids on the night of 13 March, and the early morning of 14 March, 1941 over the towns of Clydebank, and nearby Dalmuir, some eight miles downriver from Glasgow. The targets had been the shipbuilding works on the River Clyde and the nearby munitions plant.

  Less than ten percent of the bombs dropped had hit their targets. The munitions plant was completely destroyed. The shipyard where the keel of the Tyrrhenia had been laid down twenty-two years earlier, however, escaped with only minor damage.

  But the errant ninety percent of the bombs were not without their deadly effect. The surrounding townspeople suffered terribly. Some locals, deep asleep in their beds, never woke, this despite the shrill cry of the air raid sirens and the drone of the bombers overhead. It was probably just as well. At least, when the bombs stuck their homes, most never felt a thing.

  Just as they had been trained, the home guard manned the gun emplacements when the sirens sounded. But, while the civilian gunners had practiced firing live ammunition, none had ever fired at an actual target. Despite the determined enthusiasm of the home guard, and a full moon and clear skies, none of the anti-aircraft guns scored a single kill.

  The butcher’s bill included some 1,200 civilian dead, another 1,000 seriously injured, and some 12,000 homes destroyed. The Germans, in turn, had lost just two aircraft in the raids, and those to RAF Hurricane fighters.

  The United Kingdom had already been at war with the Axis Powers for just over eighteen months. But, until that March night, for the people in southern Scotland, the fighting war was the home guard playing soldier, and something you just read about in the newspapers.