Initial Allied reactions

The transit of the S-Boats flotilla remained not unobserved. Of course, Cremer remained inconspicuous, but his Alsatians interlocutors recognized both an U-Boat captain during their conversations with him. A report coming from Bern, trough very discrete channels, landed in the first days of November on the desk of Commander Ian Fleming, Naval Intelligence, London.

After having lengthily drawn on its pipe, Fleming emitted for its secretary, Mrs Henderson, widow of a major of the Army of the Indies, a pensive sentence: " I doubt that a captain of submarines went on this cruise for holidays on the Riviera, may be on behalf of the KdF organization. Doenitz has a plan passing submarines trough these canals, and this officer will have been sent to check the possibility."

- Nazi submarines in the Mediterranean? answered the honourable lady. What can we do against that ?
- Us, nothing, outside keeping watch over that and inform the French.

- do you really believe that the frog eaters will be able to do something worthwhile?

- Let us see, Mrs Henderson, Britannia rules the waves, not the canals. Those, has to be reminded, are precisely full of frogs. Perfect for our continental friends, isnt?

The great-grandfather of Mrs Henderson had been killed in Spain at La Corogne in 1809, and in spite of the Entente Cordiale, the lady respected a family tradition of mistrust towards all that was French. But Fleming knew perfectly that the French would be much more effective in this business than the English.

In Algiers, information coming from Fleming confirmed those which had arrived by other ways (oddly, nobody wondered how the English also managed to be informed of what happened in Alsace). It was obvious that something had to be done to prevent or at least delay this arrival of German submarines in the Mediterranean. A Franco-British meeting concluded that the English would multiply the air photographs of the sector between Kiel and Bremen and along the Rhine to locate any boat or any unusual convoy there, and this as from January 1943, nobody imagining that the transit of the submarines could start earlier. The French, for their part, were going to find where to strike with the most possible effectiveness, and how.




Nothing is simple

November 3, 1942, Raeder called a conference in Berlin for, hoped it, bringing good news to the Fhrer, which needed someone after its disappointments in Russia and the Italian collapse. This conference gathered, outside the representatives of the Navy, Heers (the Army) staff members and delegates from the occupation administration in Paris.

The construction of the submarines seemed to be going very well. The first boat was finished, the pressure test perfect, and all the operational equipments were fitted in place. The trials at sea were to begin the 5th. The eight following boats will be ready to go at sea by the end of the month.

For the transit, all the means necessary in Germany (barges and tug boats) were reserved for February. The complexity of the operations, in particular the transhipments in Strasbourg and Chalon, caused many questions. But when Doenitz explained that the current of the Rhine was faster by places than the speed to which the hulls could advance without risk to sink, and that the gauge of the French canals was well too small for the German barges, everyone agreed that the adopted solutions were not so bad. The occupation administration in Paris promised that the needed barges, as well as the means of towing, would be provided for the arrival of the convoy at Chalon. The assumption one moment evoked to divide the transfer into several convoys at two weeks interval was quickly abandoned, mainly because of the heavy means needed and the difficulties of coordination between the different services and administrations involved.

Because of the military setbacks of the last months "after an uninterrupted flow of victories ", giving " ill-considered hopes to the defeated of 1940 ", the possibility of a terrorist action against the convoy was considered and Raeder asked the Heer for " means of protection ". The principal delegate of the Heer, a full Colonel, answered with lawful courtesy that what will be necessary would be done, then blew with its assistant " the guys of the Luftwaffe were right not to come here, one would have required a whole Luftflotte of them to protect this transport of cans. "

Cremer, present at this meeting, was in a only one hurry : embark on U-685 as soon as possible to begin the trials. According to its terms, " the battles at headquarters were even more difficult to endure than a British depth charging "

November 8, at the end of three days of sea trials, Cremer brought back U-685 to Kiel. Hardly disembarked, it went with Winkler to the shipyard (Deutsche Werft). Engineer Klaus Fleischmann was present during the meeting which immediately took place after their arrival : " As expected, even if we hoped that it would not be necessary, there were many points to correct on the IIE. If Cremer could deal with handling characteristics on surface lower than there of the IID and just equivalent to there of a VIIC, and a rolling on surface as abominable as that of the IID, it could not accept the defects submerged : under water, U-685 was dangerous below two knots, unable to hold his trim and its depth, in spite of the dexterity of the engineer and his men and the thorough checking of all the compressed air circuits. This is why neither the fast diving tests nor some performance tests had been carried out at the time of the first sortie. The engineering and design department was put immediately at work, and the workshop manufactured in the hurry a new rudder and increased diving planes. It was also necessary to re-examine the size of the trim and variable ballast tanks. Cremer returned at sea first once the 18, returned at the yard the 20 for the modification of the trim tanks, and declared the ship safe on November 30. December 15, the other boats of the first batch were also modified. The captains who undertook their tests still found them " too sensitive " underwater, and a partial redesign of the compressed air circuitry was needed. Only after that could these boats be used by normal skilled crews, but never by beginners. But when these modifications were finalized, all the piping was already installed or sent in Toulon for the second batch, and it was necessary to manufacture upgrade kits.

The development of the towing system did not either occur without evil. The half empty hulls were too unstable in rolling, and the floats had to be enlarged. Moreover, the assembly nosedived once towed. The old-fashioned sandbags method made it possible to find by trial and error a satisfactory compromise, because it was impossible to ask the shop to assembly or disassembly any additional equipment unless putting the schedule in jeopardy. The float frame was also modified, so it was possible to push (very slowly) the submarines hull with the prow of the tug boat. This should accelerate the positioning in the locks. The rudder system (two large rudder blades at the rear corners of the frame) was considered satisfactory. The small tug boats did what was awaited from them, the Mainz shipyard having fitted easily dismountable propellers, because those needed for the towing in the Canal would not have made it possible to join Kiel or Strasbourg at the appropriate speed. Cremer required short wave radio transceivers on the tugboats, and this was done.

At the beginning of January, the main difficulties highlighted during the tests of the submarines were overcome. The torpedoes firing system still gave some concerns, but they were finally resolved. On the other hand, to save time, the snorkel device was not fitted on the first batch of nine submarines; testing would have be impossible, those first boats being unable to hold a precise depth

If the battle against the technology was about to be won, on the other hand that against the other services remained badly engaged, in spite of the promises and engagements taken on the November 3 meeting. If, with the civil administration in Strasbourg, all occurred smooth, especially thanks to the goodwill of harbourmaster Kuntz, that was another story with the occupation administration in Paris, which felt reluctant to distract barges and tug boats from their basic mission, which consisted in supplying the Reich with French goods. But it was with the Heer that the things were really badly. An agreement was only found by mid-February : infantry battalions, at rest or in training, would be deployed " along the Canal ", between Mulhouse and Chalon, " near their usual locations ", to ensure " the watching " (and not the protection, the Heer did not want to endorse any responsibility) of the operation. Cremer however managed to obtain from Strasbourg, for the duration of the operation, the assistance of two Engineering sections, bringing heavy material (pumps, cranes on trucks...), in order to make possible emergency repairs of the Canal and the locks in the event of an incident. A radio truck, able to communicate with the tug boats, was also obtained.

During February, dozens of freight trains left Kiel and Bremen, bound for Toulon. They carried all that was to be fitted in the hulls, the external plates, the conning towers, the diesel engines and the electric motors, and all the tools and jigs that were not available at Toulon. These railway convoys hardly appeared to draw any attention at the time of their passage in France to Toulon.



At the end of February, all was ready for the departure. In Kiel only the first nine submarines, intended for the training, remained, but they had to be overhauled. The production line was put in activity again a little later, this time to build the hulls intended for the Black Sea.