How could they navigate blindly for 66 days?
Schäffer writes in his book the following:
"A few days after we had sailed our main periscope collapsed. This was serious, as we now had no choice but to use the Snort, and with the Snort we had to travel blind. [...] True, we carried a reserve periscope, but that did not help us out as it was a short type, designed only for use when we attacked at night or in the twilight. The glass was a special one and through it we could only see what lay directly on top of us".
On 7 May, he received a radio message from Dönitz's headquarters, advising all German U-Boats to surrender.
"We didn't pick up the speaker's name because the aerial attached to our Snort (Schnorchel) broke before we got so far. Who was it who had been speaking? Certainly not von Dönitz, after all his fine words? No, it was probably an enemy trap...
"Next day [8 May 1945--VE Day] we again picked up another signal, which I again felt must come from the enemy since it was quite irreconcilable with the outlook and temper of our own leaders and completely at variance with our own orders. I decided to ignore it and act on my own initiative.
"Finally [on 10 May 1945] there came a third signal to all U-Boats at sea to surface, put their armament out of action and hoist blue or white flags--from the Allied Disarmament Commission. I could stand it no longer and gave orders to shut off the wireless".
Here is where the account gets a little fuzzy. Schäffer claims that it was his decision, and his decision alone, to undertake the epic voyage. But critics argued that a trip to Argentina was already in the cards when U-977 left Norway.
According to Schäffer, he called the ship's company into the chart room on 12 May 1945 and made his speech:
"Kameraden [Comrades], it seems the darkest hour has struck both for us and for Germany. We have lost the Second World War. We all knows what lies before the German people--the enemy propaganda has made no secret of it...We must decide the right course to take. We can either hoist the white flag, or sink our boat, or put into harbor in some country that has behaved honorably all through the war. One of our engineers knows Argentina and has kept in touch with friends there, so he is well-informed about this South American republic, and I myself have friends and acquaintances there...I suggest, therefore, that we continue on our way, but that we do not attack a single ship, for I would not have us avenge ourselves with the blood of innocent men. It is futile to carry on the war alone. As it is, we have all the stores we need for our voyage to Argentina to spare us the bitter bread of captivity".
The crew voted on it.
"Thirty out of the forty-eight plumped for South America, two wanted to go to Spain, hoping to make a surer and speedier return (to Germany) from there, and sixteen expressed a wish to return to their familes--these last married men, nearly all of them petty officers, the oldest on board".
Schäffer gave the sixteen men the U-Boat's rubber dinghies, surfaced at night off the coast of Norway, and then let them go. Once submerged again, U-977 headed for the British Isles. Getting down the Channel would be like running a gauntlet, for, as Schäffer pointed out, "the British would certainly be patrolling the approaches. They didn't mean to let any leading personality of the (Third) Reich slip away, and were well aware of the audacity of their enemy. We turned out to be right. The sea around Britain was thoroughly patrolled without relaxation for a long time after the war...Often we heard mines and depth charges exploding in the distance. Were they after other U-boats?"
To a stunned crew, Schäffer outlined his incredible plan. He intended to sail to the Equator--without surfacing at all. Such a voyage had never before been attempted by any submarine. By cruising at a depth of 25 fathoms (150 feet) by day, and 10 fathoms (60 feet) by night, and by slowing the cruising speed to 3 knots to conserve Diesel fuel, he calculated that they could reach Cabo Verde "in a couple of months."
"After eighteen days without a break, the crew began to get on edge, with black rings under their eyes, and faces pale and even greenish-looking. The bulkheads, too, were turning green with damp. Since we were permanently dived, now we couldn't get rid of the refuse from the galley and this piled up into a revolting mess, apart from the smell, breeding flies, maggots and other vermin.
"After seven weeks of the same old faces, some of us were on the verge of nervous breakdowns. With rubbish and dirt piling up everywhere, there was clearly only one thing to do, namely to unload a torpedo, jam the refuse into the empty tube and fire it out by compressed air.
"The mould was getting the upper hand, and unless we washed down the bulkheads every day, they began to turn quite green. Our clothes stuck to our bodies, and as we had to wash in salt water, we began to itch all over. Some of the chaps broke out in rashes, others into boils, but it couldn't be helped. We had been fifty days under water, and we had to hold out till we were off Gibraltar, when we should be able to proceed surfaced by night. The U-boat's crew began having second thoughts about the voyage.
"One of the men came to me to suggest that we put in to a Spanish port," but Schäffer was "determined to stick fast to my resolution. Something had to be done, for discipline was going to pieces. I would come upon a group of men muttering together, but when I approached they would suddenly fall silent.
"The boat was often full of vapour (Diesel smoke), which hurt our lungs and made our eyes smart, for every wave would automatically shut off the Snort valve and temporarily reduce the (air) pressure before the valve could open and let the (fresh) air rush in".
Schäffer was well on his way to becoming the Captain Ahab of the Twentieth Century. While some crewmen remarked, "Are you certain this white whale is in Argentina?" and "The skipper must be half-fish. Maybe he doesn't need air down here, but we do!" others worried aloud about being executed as pirates should the U-977 be caught by an Allied task force.
Schäffer "decided to act rigorously...When my Number One reported, 'All hands mustered forward,' I put on my white cap, which had been lying in my locker for ages, as well as my blue uniform with all my decorations and went to address the men".
"In our darkest hour, you bore yourselves in a way history won't forget--they didn't call us the Sea Wolves for nothing," he shouted, "'And are you going to let yourselves go now? Go sulking around looking like whipped curs? You've lost all interest in our dash for freedom, haven't you, just because life seems too tough for you at the moment? Because you can't see the sun and have to spend your time down in this hold and don't know what the future holds in store? How often have I heard it said, 'Oh, we should have done this or that;' 'Our fuel won't take us to South America;' 'We might run out of stores' and 'Our health is being undermined?' What sort of fool do you take me for? Do you think I don't know what I'm doing or never foresaw all this? Didn't you all decide freely on this venture and put your trust in me? Well, it's too late to go back now".
Mutiny had been narrowly averted, but the U-Boat's ordeal went on.
"Woodwork started to rot, condensation was permanently dripping down the bulkheads, bunks and linen permanently damp. When they were not on watch, the majority would just lie down on their bunks in a complete stupor".
Finally, on Day 66, Schäffer gave the order everybody had been waiting for. "All hands, prepare to surface".
"I raised the conning-tower hatch and climbed out onto the bridge," Schäffer recalled.
"The senior watch-keeper came up after me, and we looked about us. There was no ship anywhere in sight. Overhead stretched the starry vault of sky, astern all was a-sparkle with the moon's diamond glimmer, and everywhere about us rolled a vast expanse of sea. I gazed on the universe around me with a new kind of awe. To breathe great breaths of this clear fresh air was indeed an elixir, for after the scanty oil-laden atmosphere of our underwater prison, this sea- air seemed the most precious of all gifts. The U-977 made straight for Cabo Verde.
"I saw...that some of the islands of the group were uninhabited, and the crew jumped at the idea of landing on one of them. We made for Branca Island and surfaced off of it, feeling by now quite secure. Everyone came up on deck to admire the dead-calm sea with the rocks mirrored in stretches of blue, and the white beaches beyond".
From this point on, the U-Boat's voyage became almost a pleasure cruise.
"Naturally, everybody wanted to bathe in the sea. The ideal thing would be surf-riding behind the boat, and, as we had plenty of wood and, of course, rope, in a day we had our surf-board ready...One day a man on the surf-board gave a terrifying yell, for an enormous fish was swimming alongside. We wondered if it was a shark. I had never seen such an enormous sea monster in all my life, but luckily it turned out to be a whale. If the man was terrified, the whale was quite unimpressed.
"No sooner had they gotten the terrified crewman back aboard the sub than 'Moby Dick' began sounding. With a crash of its rear flippers, the whale disappeared beneath the waves".
When its prow broke the surface, U-977 had entered a new postwar world.
"We often passed passenger ships with all their navigation lights on, for, after all, the war was over now. One night a passenger steamer overtook us, and we caught the distant strains of dance music. People were walking up and down on the promenade deck, and we looked on, itching to take action, while the giant vessel, a very mountain of light, passed unconcernedly on its way, remaining in view for a full hour. The Sea Wolf, once the terror of the ocean, had become a very tame puppy indeed".
Crossing the Equator without incident, the U-Boat continued on its journey southward.
"Time passed quickly. At one time we saw the haze of light in the sky that betokened Rio de Janeiro. We were proceeding now more and more to the south, and it was colder again--we had left the tropics behind us".
[In 1945, Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil. Fifteen years later, in 1960, President Juscelino Kubitschek opened the new and present capital city of Brasilia].
"One day, we learnt from the wireless that U-530 [under the command of Korvetenkapitän Otto Wehrmuth) had put into the Rio de la Plata (the estuary between Argentina and Uruguay]. We listened anxiously. What was going to become of the ship's company?...Then we heard that U-530 had been handed over to the United States with all its complement as prisoners of war".
Schäffer wrote that this news "depressed" him and he briefly considered surrendering in either Brazil or Uruguay. But then he made up his mind to head for Mar del Plata in Argentin
"17 August 1945 was a brilliantly sunny day. We first made out the Argentinian coastline and then the [Mar del Plata] lighthouse; when this last came into view, the whole crew fell in on deck...While we were still outside the three-mile [five-kilometer] limit we flashed in English the signal German submarine and stopped our engines...Very soon, the Argentinian minesweeper P.Y. 10 and two submarines came alongside and informed us in English that an advance party would be coming out".
According to Dr. Dimitri Filippowitsch, a high-ranking officer in the Russian military:
“The German U-Boats U-530 and U-977 were unusual U-Boats from the so-called 'Führer Convoy', an extremely secret formation, whose exact mission remains unknown to this day". Because the crews of the submarines refused to talk, the Americans were able to learn very few details, although the captain of U-530 did supposedly speak of an operation by the name of 'Walküre 2'. In line with this operation, his ship set sail from Kiel in Northern Germany for Antarctica two weeks before the end of the war; thanks to the Walther Schnorchel, it only had to surface once during the entire voyage across the Atlantic.
"On board were passengers whose faces were allegedly masked, as well as important documents from the Third Reich. The captain of U-977, Heinz Schäffer, confirmed that he sailed the same route with his boat shortly thereafter and in conducting their own research, the Americans realized that numerous German U-Boats traveled in the direction of Antarctica during the war. What was the reason for these voyages?"
In his book "Aftermath, Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich" Ladislas Farago talks about Operation Fire Land to ship documents currency and gold reserves to Argentina from 1943 onwards through Spain. It is also reputed that Bormann shifted documents incriminating Roosevelt, Churchill, the British Royal Family and the Vatican etc to Argentina with which to blackmail their persuers.
-- Heinz Schäffer, "U-Boat 977". W.W. Norton & Co. New York, N.Y., 1952