The Laconia Incident Read online

Once again Robby and Jim had drawn guard duty on the pier. As they walked the long dock, they passed beneath a Polish ship that had come into port just the previous morning. The ship was old and rusty, and Robby was unable to read the name that was once brightly painted in white on the fantail. Now all he could make out was a faded initial “E” and most of an “A” about halfway through. He knew the ship was Polish, only because it flew the Polish flag: two horizontal stripes, white over red, the Polish royal crest in the center of the white stripe. There was that, of course, and then there was the contingent of Polish troops that had arrived with the ship and were immediate visitors to the ship’s store at Navy House. They stood out. The color of their uniforms was much the same as the olive-drab of the British, but the cut was markedly different, and the high black boots they wore made them look quite distinct. The ship reportedly was transporting Italian prisoners of war from Libya, en route to South Africa.

  McLoughlin and Robby walked by a Polish soldier who sat on a bollard, smoking. “What ship?” McLoughlin asked, but received only a blank look in return from the soldier. He then repeated the question, louder and slower, as if that would somehow aid the man’s English comprehension.

  “Kominsky,” the soldier said, pointing to himself. “Kominsky, Stanislaw,” he added, and extended his hand.

  McLoughlin shook it, pointing to himself as well, and said, “Jim,” and then, pointing at Robby, said, “This here’s Robby.”

  “Jim,” Stanislaw parroted, smiling broadly and shaking McLoughlin’s hand ever more vigorously, and then turned to Robby, saying, “Thisyearsrobby.”

  “No,” Robby said. “Just Robby.”

  Stanislaw looked at McLoughlin quizzically, still shaking his hand, and said “Justrobby?”

  McLoughlin couldn’t help but chuckle. “Robby,” he said.

  “Ah. Robby!” Stanislaw released McLoughlin’s hand, took Robby’s, and repeated, “Robby!”

  Then he said “Miło mi cię poznać” [Pleased to meet you in Polish]

  Now it was Robby’s turn to look confused. McLoughlin separated the two men, and, once again expounding the theory that anyone can understand English if you speak loud enough, shouted slowly and clearly to Stanislaw, “Guard duty. Need to walk pier,” pointing up along the pathway he and Robby had been travelling. When the Pole only returned a blank look, McLaughlin shrugged, braced, and saluted him. Stanislaw, in turn, braced, put on a game face, and returned the salute. McLoughlin then nudged Robby back along their guard route.

  When their rounds took them back to the spot where they had met the Pole, he was gone. Neither McLoughlin nor Robby ever learned the name of the Polish ship—not even after they learned they were to soon board it and accompany the Poles and their Italian prisoners to Durban, South Africa.

  Aboard the unnamed ship, locked away in an almost airless hold, deep in its bowels, was a diminutive young Italian Army sergeant named Marco Scarpetti. Along with Marco were some 400 of his compatriots.

  * * * * *

  At about the same time the unnamed Polish ship was docked in Port Said, the British troop transport HMT Laconia was docking in Malta, not far from where HMS Valiant had once been berthed. Belying her once colorful, proud, and noble appearance, the Laconia now sported a dull gray paint scheme. The luxurious appointments that once coddled international travelers had been removed and replaced by more numerous and more practical accommodations. One of the more practical items now aboard the Laconia was a single, six-inch gun mounted on her stern. She had arrived there to embark British civilians and foreign service personnel for eventual transport back to England. Also being embarked were some British Army and RAF personnel who were bound for North African duty posts, or for rotation back home. Captain of the Laconia was Rudolph Sharp, late of the HMT Lancastria.

  Headed back to England, and settling into a sparse interior cabin on the main deck, were RAF ambulance driver Donald Logan, his Maltese wife, Violet, and their newborn daughter, Helen. Donald was an RAF ambulance driver who hailed from the difficult to spell and impossible to pronounce town of Ynysybwl in Wales. His wife, Violet, was Maltese, and they had met and married in Malta.

  The Logans had expected to leave port soon after they settled in, but were disappointed. Malta could become hot and uncomfortable in June, and while their cabin was comfortable enough, it would have become more so if the ship was moving, and there was at least a sea breeze.

  When the ship eventually got underway from Malta three weeks later, Violet asked Donald, “Why ever are we headed east to the Suez Canal? Wouldn’t it be quicker and easier to get to England if we traveled west past Gibraltar?”

  “So it would seem, my love, so it would seem,” Donald Logan agreed. “But I’m sure the Service has its reasons—probably something to do with Nazi subs in the area, or some such.”

  Violet looked unconvinced. And so, also, deep down, was Donald.

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  11

  Lorient, Vichy Republic, July, 1942

  Werner Hartenstein watched with great satisfaction as one of his junior officers, Leutnant zur See Klaus Herbst skillfully guided U-156 into its slot in one of Lorient’s submarine pens. He smiled at the thought that he was out of uniform, the epaulet on his jacket being a flat silver with two pips—that of a Kapitanleutnant. He had been promoted to Korvettenkapitӓn on the first of the month, and his epaulet should have been of silver braid.

  U-156 had just completed her third war patrol, and Hartenstein and his crew had been wildly successful. The Caribbean had proven itself to be a fertile hunting ground. U-156 had scored twelve solid kills, had damaged another cargo ship, and had disabled the American destroyer, USS Blakeley, having blown off her bow.

  Waiting on the quay was a welcoming contingent from the Befehlshaber der U-Boote, or BdU (Commander of U-boats), flown in from Paris. Among the dignitaries was the Commander himself, Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Karl Dönitz. Hartenstein and Dönitz were well acquainted; the admiral made it a point to get to know all of his U-boat commanders personally, and he genuinely liked this aristocratic gentleman from Saxony.

  Once the gangway had been placed, the admiral was the first to board the boat. “An excellent patrol, Werner,” Dönitz said, as he shook Hartenstein’s hand.

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Hartenstein replied, “but with such a target-rich hunting ground, it would have been impossible not to do well.”

  “Be that as it may, Werner, you and your crew have nonetheless done the Fatherland proud.”

  Hartenstein could only respond with his cadaverous smile.

  “And your home town has arranged a little celebration in honor of you and your entire crew, Werner.”

  Hartenstein’s home town was Plauen, Germany, where he was born in 1908. Plauen, in Saxony, was in east-central Germany, near the Czechoslovakian border.

  “A celebration, Admiral? Plauen has done this?”

  “Yes, Hartenstein, Plauen! It seems that the town fathers have decided to fete one of their own with the Fuehrer’s blessing. The Reich Chancellery has arranged for two private railcars to transport you and your entire crew across France and Germany to Plauen. While your boat is in refit, you will be riding in style.”

  “But there is much to be done, Admiral,” Hartenstein protested. “The boat needs—”

  “Relax, Werner. Paul [Oberleutnant zur see Paul Just] will see to all of it. He will be staying behind. Then Just will be reporting for U-boat commander training, taking command of U-6 at the sub school. When he is ready, there will be a U-boat battle command for him.”

  Hartenstein smiled. “Paul is a good man, Admiral, and a first-rate U-boat officer. He will not disappoint.” He was pleased for his first officer, but was disappointed to be losing him. Paul Just was a man he had grown to trust, a man he knew he could rely upon. Now he worried about the quality of his replacement.

  “I agree.” Dönitz paused, as if weighing his next words. “When you return from Plauen, Oberleutnant zur se
e Leopold Schumacher will become your new first watch officer. Understood?”

  “Yes, Admiral. As you wish.” Hartenstein knew very little about Schumacher, but the U-boat community was very small and very tight. He knew at least that Schumacher was from an aristocratic family, and that he had served with honor in U-boats out of Saint Nazaire.

  “I have great plans for Schumacher as well, Werner, and I want him to learn from the best.” Hartenstein received the compliment expressionless, and without comment.

  Dönitz then made ready to leave the boat, and Hartenstein saluted: open right hand to the visor of his cap. The admiral returned his salute in kind. The open-palm, stiff-extended-right-arm, Nazi salute was used only rarely in the Kriegsmarine.

  * * * * *

  The 20 July affair at Plauen was such that Hartenstein was not sure it was all worth the long train ride. His parents had passed on, his siblings had long since vacated the place, and, as he was a confirmed bachelor, there was no wife nor family in Plauen to greet him. The day itself was dreary, the air hot and sticky, with an overcast sky and rain threatening, but, thankfully, never materializing.

  There was a short parade through the town from the railway station, the officers and crew of U-156 marching to the beat of an oom-pah-pah band, the street lined with cheering townspeople waving little Nazi flags: the black bent cross in a white circle, centered on a red banner. At City Hall, the squat, fat mayor gave a lengthy speech, praising their heroism and extolling their U-boat’s exploits. The mayor then gave Hartenstein an oversized key to the city as the crowd applauded, and the city fathers looked on approvingly. When the speeches were over, there was plenty of beer and even some sausages for all.

  Some of the submariners caught the eye of some of the more willing among the ladies of the town. And while Plauen was not all that big, there were many private and quiet spots available where the young ladies could do what they regarded as their patriotic duty.

  When the crowd finally dispersed, Hartenstein and his men returned to the rail station, and boarded the train for the long ride back to Lorient and their boat.

  Back in Lorient, Oberleutnant zur see Leopold Schumacher had already reported aboard for duty.

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  12

  En Route to Durban, July - August, 1942

  The passage through the Suez Canal, around the horn of Africa, and down the west coast of Africa to Durban, Union of South Africa, was long and tedious. The sea itself always seemed the same: listless, languid, green. The sea air was oppressive, salty-wet, and hot—even at night. The weather never broke until after they had rounded Mozambique, and headed into the Madagascar Straight. Even then, it was never exactly cool.

  The unnamed Polish ship was old and slow, and her engines broke down continually. Robby swore they spent more time drifting in the open sea, or at anchor, while the crew worked on its ancient reciprocating steam engine, than actually sailing under propulsion.

  Robby, McLoughlin, and their mates, Ralph Tinsdale, Charles Martin, and James Fellows, were nominally on board to man the single, aged, 4.5-inch gun mount affixed to the ship’s stern. But the chief petty officer in charge of their little band spent most of the trip in his cups, and the gun was actually limbered no more than a dozen times during the entire trip south. There was, thankfully, never the requirement to actually aim it, let alone fire it, at anything threatening.

  It seemed that only Robby fumed in anger at their situation. There they were, far from the fight, and not even training with the one weapon they had aboard. He had joined the Navy to fight—specifically to shoot Germans—and now he and his mates were playing nursemaid to Poles and their Italian prisoners. He felt useless, his talents, such as they were, being wasted. “Relax,” McLoughlin had advised, “we’ll be in the thick of it again soon enough.”

  “We might at least shoot some with the bloody thing,” Robby had countered, referring to the barely-used gun. “It’s all we have to defend ourselves with.”

  “Defend against what?” McLoughlin asked. “There ain’t a bloody enemy plane within miles. Any sub in the area would be lost. Better we get whatever rest and relaxation we can, while we can!”

  Robby had no answer for that, but was still not mollified. And the weather was exactly what one would expect in equatorial East Africa at that time of year: hot—stifling hot. The daytime sky was filled with blazing sunlight, and the night sky with the wet, hot, fetid breath of Africa. Even the sea, green and oily, seemed to have been lulled into a languid stupor.

  Robby and McLoughlin ran into the Polish sergeant they had met on the dock at Port Said on their second day out. Stanislaw recognized them immediately, and greetings and smiles were exchanged, if not in words mutually understood.

  Over the next few weeks, the three men became ever more friendly, with McLoughlin, Robby, and Stanislaw introducing them to their respective mates. The British contingent learned some Polish, and the Poles some English.

  Their Polish keepers had no particular beef against the Italian POWs. It was the Germans and the Russians who had raped and pillaged Poland, and it was the Germans and the Russians that the Poles hated. The Russians were now nominally on the Allied side, but were still just as hated. The Italians, on the other hand, might have allied themselves with the Germans, but had never set foot in Poland. The Polish troops aboard the unnamed ship, therefore, actually sympathized with the plight of the Italian POWs.

  The Poles brought their charges in groups of about forty to fifty up onto the main deck for sunlight and air for at least an hour or two, every day, and throughout each day. As far as Robby could see, the Italians were well fed, and looked healthy enough, all things considered.

  The ship had just rounded the Horn when one of the prisoners, brought up from below for some sun, called out, “Hey, English!” to Robby and Jim, who were loitering on the man deck at the time. McLoughlin, noting that Stanislaw was among the Poles in apparent charge of the Italians, nodded to his friend, effectively asking permission to engage the Italian. Stanislaw nodded in return, and, Jim, with Robby in tow, walked over to the diminutive Italian who had called out to them, and extended his hand.

  “Jim McLoughlin,” he said, “and this here’s Robby Cotton. The Pole is Stanislaw.” Stanislaw stood back, wary of fraternizing with a prisoner.

  “Marco Scarpetti,” the man replied, shaking Jim’s hand. “How do you do?”

  “Fine, mate,” Jim answered.

  Then Marco grasped Robby’s hand, which Robby had pointedly not proffered. “And how do you do?”

  “I’m fine, mate,” Robby said, leery of the man—an enemy after all. Hadn’t he shot at Italian planes in Malta? He wondered if the man had picked up the greeting from an English phrase book, or actually spoke some English.

  “Glad to hear it,” Marco countered. “You look surprised that an Italian can speak English.”

  “I am—surprised, that is.” Robby said.

  “Me, too,” McLoughlin chimed in.

  Marco laughed. “Since one of your blokes captured me, I have had some opportunity to practice what I studied at school.”

  Robby, now warming to the Italian, smiled back. “Well, as we always say, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows no good.’”

  “Yes,” Marco said, “I have heard of that idiom.”

  Robby, not sure what an “idiom” was, said, “I’ll bet you have.”

  “But that’s the first I have heard anyone say it,” Marco allowed.

  Robby just beamed back, still smiling, not knowing what to think. There was, after all, an Italian whose English, he suspected, might be better than his own.

  Stanislaw, all the while speaking effectively no English, could only stand by and observe the exchange. Jim, Robby, and Marco, each exchanging their stories, thus became acquainted.

  Later, that evening, back below in the hold of the ship, Stanislaw approached Marco. “English?” he said. “You can teach?”

  And Marco smiled.

&nbs
p; * * * * *

  As the unnamed Polish ship made its way down along the East African coast, the Laconia was paralleling its route. It was moving faster, but made more, and usually longer, stops along the way, bringing aboard supplies in Aden, refueling in Mombasa, always discharging and picking up passengers. And at each stop along the route, in a seemingly never-ending stream, the ship’s holds were being filled up with Italian prisoners of war.

  Violet Logan grew more and more frustrated as the days wore on. She knew she, her husband, and their baby could have been in Wales weeks ago. If only this bloody ship was headed in the right direction! And now the ship is loaded with Italians! The same people who are bombing my home in Malta!”

  Donald Logan counseled patience, but he, in truth, was even more frustrated than his wife. He had learned that the Laconia, now headed for Durban, South Africa, would languish there for several weeks before hitting yet another port: Cape Town. Only then would she venture out into the Atlantic and head for England. The ship had been comfortable enough, but he was longing to see his wife and child settled in their new home in Wales, and he was anxious about the upcoming passage through submarine-infested waters.

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  13

  Durban, August 1942

  When the unnamed Polish ship reached Durban, on 15 August, Robby noted that the weather had finally gotten cooler, even in the full sun, for they were in the throes of what passed for winter in South Africa. He, McLoughlin, and their mates, Ralph Tinsdale, Charles Martin, and James Fellows, learned that the Italian prisoners, their Polish guards, and they themselves were to be transferred to a British troop ship due to arrive sometime in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, for Robby and his mates, their current quarters aboard the Polish ship would have to do.