Michael Dobbs - Saboteurs

In fact, they had been seen from the shore. Standing by the water’s edge, several coastguardsmen could see the outlines of a long, narrow boat lying very low in the water. They watched, fascinated, as the U-boat revved up its diesel engines, turning slowly in the direction of the sea. “It was so close it looked as if it was ashore,” one of the men later recalled. 29

Barnes, the petty officer in charge of the Amagansett Lifeboat Station, was also on the beach when the diesel engines started up for the final time. The engines were so loud he immediately concluded that a boat must be trying to pull itself off the sandbar. He noted “a heavy odor of oil in the air.” As he returned to the station, he saw the boat proceeding west, in the direction of Manhattan. When he phoned his superior to report what was happening, the noise of the engines was clearly audible at the other end of the line.

By the time Barnes emerged from the station, the submarine had turned around, and was heading toward the ocean. “Which way is it going now?” he yelled to a coastguardsman on top of the observation tower.

“Eastwards,” the lookout replied.

Barnes was not quite sure that the boy knew his east from his west, so he asked if he was facing the ocean.

“Yes.”

“Which hand is it moving towards?”

“My left hand.” 30

The boat was indeed moving east, toward the Atlantic. According to the Eastern Sea Frontier war diary, Coast Guard headquarters failed to respond to the original report of a German submarine in the vicinity of Amagansett the previous evening. “No ships were dispatched to the area until after the reported landing,” the war diary concluded, and “no action was taken” as a result of the radio direction finding. 31

Despite ample opportunities to capture it, U-202 was permitted to escape.

DAWN BROKE over Amagansett Beach to reveal an expanse of golden sand at the edge of a prairie. The Hamptons in 1942 bore little resemblance to their appearance today: there were no sprawling beach communities, no smart boutiques, no immaculately manicured lawns and glistening swimming pools, hardly any paved roads. There were not even many trees. Instead there were miles of rough scrubland and a few sandy paths leading down from the East Hampton–Montauk highway to a wide, windswept beach.

Since it was June, vacationers were already coming out from New York to occupy the dozen or so modest bungalows strung along the beach. Amagansett had recently been discovered by a circle of avant-garde painters around the heiress Peggy Guggenheim and her lover, Max Ernst, but it was still a quiet, secluded spot. The lifeboat station stood out from the other buildings because of its size and location next to the beach; it has since been sold and moved inland, and is today dwarfed by multimilliondollar mansions.

It was now four hours since the landing of the saboteurs and an hour since U-202 had pried itself loose from the sandbar. America’s military machine was belatedly mobilizing itself. Several dozen soldiers from the 113th infantry unit arrived on the beach, followed by an army lieutenant, alone and somewhat bewildered. He had been roused from his bed by repeated phone calls and was “looking for his men.” 32Barnes suggested diplomatically that the army keep behind the sand dunes, well clear of the beach itself. His own men were patrolling the beach, and they were armed and jittery, not a good combination. He himself had almost shot one of the soldiers as a suspected Nazi. 33

Around 4:15 a.m. the men on the beach again heard the sound of a boat revving up offshore. 34This was either U-202 making its final escape after picking up the seaman with appendicitis or, more likely, a Coast Guard cutter investigating the reports of a U-boat washed up on the sandbar. The sound died away after a few minutes, as the boat went out to sea.

The Coast Guard intelligence officers, Nirschel and Franken, arrived at the lifeboat station at 4:30, having made the three-hour trip from Manhattan in just over two hours. Barnes returned from the beach at the same time, together with his haul of four wooden crates and a very wet seabag. The two lieutenants used a can opener to slice open the sealed container inside the crate already opened by Barnes. A variety of sabotage devices—including time bomb mechanisms, detonator caps with lead wires attached, and vials containing inflammable liquids—spilled onto the floor of the boat room.

“Timing devices,” murmured one of the lieutenants, as he examined the fake pen and pencil set. His colleague discovered a German inscription on the pack of cigarettes found on the beach—“D. Mosel, Hamburg-München”—and the French words “Allumettes de Sûreté” on a box of matches. 35Soon the floor of the boat room was littered with German naval uniforms, explosives, and other instruments of sabotage.

Excited by their findings, the officers imagined a starring role for themselves in uncovering a Nazi sabotage plot. They ordered Barnes to return to the beach and fill in the holes he and his men had dug “in such a manner it would not be noticeable that the material had been removed.” 36They also insisted that their own visit to Amagansett be kept secret. Their idea at this point was to return the following night in civilian clothes and keep watch over the beach near the arms cache, on the assumption that the Germans would return to pick up their equipment. In the meantime, they instructed the coastguardsmen to load the sabotage gear into their station wagon.

Before leaving for New York, Franken questioned Cullen about his strange encounter on the beach, and signed a receipt for the money offered him as a bribe. It turned out not to come to $300—as the stranger had claimed—but $260, consisting of two fifty-dollar bills, five twenties, and six tens.

In the excitement, nobody thought to ask the obvious questions: If the invaders were not on the beach, where were they? And where were they likely to be headed?

DASCH’S MAIN concern was to get away from the beach as soon as possible. This meant heading in the opposite direction from the sound of the surf. As dawn was breaking and he could see a little better, he led his men away across the scrub to the East Hampton–Montauk highway. He knew from the coastguardsman he had met on the beach that they were somewhere near Amagansett. He had a vague sense of the local geography, having worked in the area a few years previously, but had no idea whether the village lay to the left or to the right.

The saboteurs decided to explore along the main road, without knowing where it would lead. To avoid being seen, they kept behind a hedgerow. They were wet and exhausted, and suspicious of one another. Quirin insisted they all go through their pockets, looking for anything that might give them away. They were alarmed to discover that Burger had two draft registration cards, one in his real name, another waiting to be filled up. 37Dasch demanded that he tear up the empty registration card.

Soon they came to a house with lights on in the front, and a parking space out back for several cars. It turned out to be a campground. “Jesus Christ, I’m falling into a trap,” thought Dasch, as he steered his men around the campground. Nobody noticed them. Behind the campground, they found some railroad tracks.

Looking at the tracks, Dasch was struck by “one outstanding fact”: 38he could see a single track to his right, but a double track and then a triple track to his left. He concluded that the village of Amagansett must lie to the left. They took that direction and, after a mile or so, reached the railroad station. It was around five o’clock in the morning, and the ticket office was closed.

“Filthy and wet and as stained as anyone could have been going through water and wet grass,” they cleaned themselves up as best they could. Dasch got rid of his wet clothes—swimming trunks, tennis shoes, tattered shirt, and a pair of socks—by throwing them into a hedge opposite the station.