Reinhard Hardegen in a wartime propaganda photograph, climbing out of the hatch of a U-boat
Korvettenkapitän Reinhard Hardegen, who has died aged 105, was the last of the so-called “aces of the deep”, U-boat commanders who sank more than 100,000 tons of Allied shipping.
On December 23 1941 Hardegen sailed from Lorient on the French Atlantic coast in U-123, one of five boats destined for Operation Drumbeat, the German attack on shipping on the East Coast of the US.
Three weeks later, after having negotiated continuously appalling weather in the crossing, he waited on the seabed for a night before entering the mouth of New York harbour, where, despite warnings of his arrival from British naval intelligence (who were analysing German radio messages), ships were silhouetted against the bright lights of the city.
Hardegen, who had visited New York as a cadet, saw the lights from houses and cars on Coney Island. From there to Cape Haterras, North Carolina, between January 12 and 19 1942, Hardegen sank eight ships of 48,396 tons, of American, British, Latvian, Norwegian and Panamanian registry.
One of his last victims was the US steam tanker Malay, which, despite being shelled and torpedoed, reached New York five days later and was refitted for service.
Three times Hardegen heard via public radio broadcasts that he had been sunk by American planes. But with all torpedoes expended, and the port diesel engine malfunctioning, he recrossed the Atlantic, finding two more victims, which he sank with a 105mm gun on the fo’c’sle.
Hardegen returning to Lorient after his second Drumbeat patrol
However, when on January 19 he met the Norwegian whaling factory ship Kosmos II, he closed to 1,000 yards to sink her by gunfire, but suffered the indignity of being chased by Kosmos’s skipper, Einar Gleditsch, who attempted to ram. Kosmos II was too close for Hardegen to submerge, and U-123’s speed advantage so small that it took more than an hour for Hardegen to gain enough of a lead to be able to manoeuvre and submerge.
Hardegen returned home to Lorient on February 9 to a hero’s welcome. On March 2 he sailed again for US waters. By now the Americans were better prepared, but still there was no blackout, and between March 22 and April 17, off Florida, Hardegen sank 11 ships of 64,277 tons, including one British and one neutral Swedish ship.
His victims included the decoy or “Q” ship, USS Atik. After torpedoing Atik, Hardegen surfaced to sink her with gunfire, only to have Atik drop her disguise as an innocent merchantship and open fire on him with guns concealed behind false bulwarks. U-123 was hit and Hardegen had to submerge and expend another torpedo to sink Atik.
On the night of April 11, U-123 torpedoed the tanker Gulfamerica, close inshore and shown up against the lights of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Keen to provide an exhibition to the crowds he could see onshore, Hardegen manoeuvred to attack the tanker from the land side.
Reinhard HardegenCredit: Heinrich Hoffmann/ullstein bild via Getty
According to his biographer, the roads were thronged with the curious trying to get to the beach to see the fiery spectacle. But later that morning off San Agustin, U-123 was attacked by the destroyer USS Dahlgren dropping six accurate depth-charges. Hardegen prepared to destroy his secret codes and abandon ship, but, frozen by fear, he could not open the escape hatch.
Dahlgren passed overhead but did not renew her attack, and seeing air, oil and debris from U-123 thought the U-boat was sunk. Hardegen later explained: “She made a big mistake, not waiting for my white cap to appear.” U-123 completed emergency repairs and limped towards deeper waters. Hardegen said: “Only because I was too scared, was I not captured.”
He returned to Lorient on May 2, after 62 days on patrol when he was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, and the U-boat Badge with Diamonds. His 1943 book Auf Gefechtsstationen! U-boot im Einsatz gegen England und Amerika (“Action Stations! U-boat in Action against England and America”), printed in hardback in resource-hit wartime Germany, was a bestseller. Hardegen was the 24th most successful U-boat commander of the war, credited with having sunk 22 ships of 115,656 tons.
A schoolmaster’s son, Reinhard Hardegen was born on March 18 1913 in Bremen. As a teenager he was a skilled yachtsman, and he joined the navy in 1933, initially serving four years as an aviator, but following a crash and hospitalisation, he was sent to join the U-boat force in November 1939.
He received his first operational experience in U-124, under Korvettenkapitän Georg-Wilhelm Schulz. Hardegen’s three patrols in command were not auspicious. In December 1940 he sailed from Bergen in U-147, when several attacks in the North Atlantic were frustrated by defective torpedo fuses.
Later, he mistook a destroyer for a merchantship, and was depth-charged, but surfaced in the darkness and repaired a damaged hatch. With his engines severely restricted and his torpedoes expended, he returned to Kiel at slow speed for permanent repairs.
Next he was given command of U-123, and sailed from Lorient for a patrol off West Africa, where he sank the neutral Portuguese freighter, Ganda, an event which Karl Dönitz, Commander of the U-boat fleet, covered up by altering the German records.
On another patrol, again in the North Atlantic, Hardegen torpedoed the 13,984-ton British armed merchant-cruiser Aurania, but, although he counted her in his total, she reached Britain under her own steam.
Reputedly Hardegen was not a Nazi, and when invited to dine with Hitler, caused embarrassment by criticising the Führer’s neglect of naval priorities. Reprimanded by Hitler’s Chief of Staff, Alfred Jodl, Hardegen replied: “The Führer has a right to hear the truth, and I have a duty to speak it.”
When Hardegen’s medical records caught up with him (as a result of his air crash one leg was shorter than the other, and he required a special diet, making him officially unfit for U-boat service), he was obliged in July 1942 to relinquish command.
He began to train a new generation of submariners at schools in Gotenhafen (Gdynia) and Mürwik, before helping to develop new acoustic and wired torpedoes.
Hardegen served as a politician in later years
In January 1945, as the British Army closed on Bremen, he took command of an improvised naval infantry regiment which was involved in fierce trench warfare. Most of his officers were killed, but Hardegen survived because he was in hospital with diphtheria.
In the final days of the war, he served on Dönitz’s staff in Flensburg, where the rump of the German high command had taken refuge. There he was mistaken by the British for an SS officer with the same surname, arrested and imprisoned for 18 months until he could prove his identity.
Postwar Hardegen started an oil trading company. When the German navy was re-established he declined to rejoin, and served as a Christian Democrat Member of Parliament in Bremen for 32 years.
At 100 he was still driving himself to golf tournaments and winning trophies. He is survived by four children. Reinhard Hardegen, born March 18 1913, died June 9 2018
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