Michael Dobbs - Saboteurs

Dumping the contents of the heavy canvas seabag onto the floor of the captain’s office, they sorted through several pairs of sneakers, two pairs of heavy canvas trousers, five navy jackets, some with German naval insignia attached, a pair of swimming trunks, and a brown gabardine overcoat. They then ripped open the wooden crates, one of which emitted a hissing sound caused by the blocks of TNT coming into contact with air and salt water. 7At the captain’s suggestion, they completed their examination of the box at the end of a deserted pier.

By the time the officers returned, Coast Guard chiefs had decided that the FBI would have to be brought into the investigation. Back in June 1939, in an attempt to head off inevitable turf fights, President Roosevelt had ordered the heads of the FBI, the War Department, and the navy to coordinate investigations into sabotage and espionage. 8After heated argument, the three agencies came to a working understanding: the FBI would take the lead in investigating sabotage acts on American soil, while military and naval intelligence would be responsible for infiltrating undercover agents abroad. Even though the Coast Guard had been first to learn about the sabotage plot, it would have to recognize the authority of Hoover’s G-men.

It was a painful decision because the FBI under Hoover had the reputation of being the least collegial arm of the government. The FBI director was constantly standing on his dignity and fighting with other agency heads over who was responsible for investigating what. Once the FBI took over an investigation, Hoover’s men shared as little as possible with other government agencies.

At 11 a.m., Baylis called the head of the FBI’s New York office, Thomas J. Donegan, and asked him to come to the Barge Office to discuss “an important matter.” When Donegan arrived, he discovered senior navy and Coast Guard officers assembled around the crates of sabotage equipment. Nirschel and Franken were also present.

The commandant of the Third Naval District, Rear Admiral Edward Marquart, had to rush away to lead the navy contingent in the New York at War parade, which was about to get under way. Before joining the marching bands, he told the Coast Guard to turn over the sabotage materials to Donegan, and to cooperate with Hoover’s men. 9The agreement was that the FBI should take “the lead” in the investigation, and the other agencies would “assist.” But everyone present had a different interpretation of what this meant.

Nirschel and Franken were unhappy at being muscled out of the way by the F.B.I. Having spent the night chasing saboteurs and submarines around Long Island while FBI agents were still asleep, they felt they had a head start on tracking down the invaders and wanted to pursue the leads they had already developed. The FBI would later accuse the two Coast Guard officers of withholding two potentially important pieces of evidence.

One of these items was the $260 in fresh bills used to try to bribe the Coast Guard on Amagansett Beach; the other was a brown vest that had once been part of a suit. Unlike the other pieces of clothing found scattered around the beach, this one had an easily traceable identification mark: a New York dry-cleaning tag was imprinted on the lining. 10

HORN AND HARDART was the kind of American institution that Dasch remembered fondly from his nineteen years in the United States. As the world’s largest restaurant chain, serving over half a million people a day, it had pioneered the business of producing and serving inexpensive and reasonably nutritious food through a bank of glass-fronted compartments known as an Automat. The chain also boasted “the best coffee in town,” brewed by a revolutionary drip filter system and dispensed from a chrome dolphin’s head for a nickel a cup. Horn and Hardart was so successful that its coffee-and-pie formula was even celebrated in song by Irving Berlin, composer of “God Bless America”:

Dasch had enjoyed his first American meal in the original Horn and Hardart in Philadelphia, back in 1922, soon after jumping ship. Penniless and speaking only a few words of English, he had cadged a fifty-cent piece from a stranger, which he promptly spent at the Automat. 11

Dressed in their new suits, Dasch and Burger headed for the Horn and Hardart in Macy’s after leaving their bags at the Governor Clinton. Dasch showed Burger how an Automat worked: change a dollar bill with the lady “nickel throwers,” feed the nickels into the machine, turn the knob, and pick up your meal. After weeks without fresh food on U-202, Dasch chose two different kinds of salad—“my weakness, especially in the summertime”—a bottle of milk, and a piece of coconut pie. He then led his companion upstairs to a table in a cavernous chrome-and-glass eating hall. 12

As they were enjoying their meal, they were taken aback to see two German-looking types appear in the dining hall in loud striped jackets, open sports shirts, neatly pressed pants, and shiny new shoes. The transformation was remarkable: a few hours before, Quirin and Heinck had looked like refugees on the run. After complimenting his subordinates for “looking so neat,” Dasch told them to get something to eat.

“Aren’t you glad to be back in the United States?” he asked with a smile, once they returned to the table with their plastic trays. They agreed that there was a positive side to life in America.

The top priority was to find the others a place to stay, and decide their next rendezvous point. Dasch recommended the Hotel Chesterfield, just around the corner. He said they would all meet again the following day at 1 p.m. at the Swiss Chalet restaurant on West Fifty-second Street. If they were unable to make this appointment for any reason, they would get together at 6 p.m. at Grant’s Tomb, near Columbia University.

Quirin and Heinck paid no attention to Dasch’s recommendation of the Chesterfield, and relied instead on the advice of a passerby, who suggested the Martinique Hotel on Broadway and Thirty-second Street. They checked in under the names of Richard Quintas and Henry Kaynor, sharing a double room for five dollars a night.

In the meantime, there was more shopping to do. Macy’s was running its annual Father’s Day Sale—leather wallets down to $1.98 from $2.98!— and was just the place to pick up a few more suits and shirts. “Today’s Father is a busy man indeed,” the ads proclaimed. “He’s probably busier than he’s ever been on his job and even some of his spare time is given over to defense activities. So this year give him clothes for his precious leisure moments.” 13The store even managed to make a patriotic slogan out of its traditionally low prices: “A Macy gift is proof of your thrift.”

Dasch and Burger headed for the men’s department, where they bought shirts, underwear, handkerchiefs, ties, pants, and another couple of suits, plus a Lord Elgin wristwatch for Dasch. They then purchased three suitcases to haul everything back to their hotel a few blocks away. Not long afterward, Quirin and Heinck appeared in the store on a similar mission.

WHILE THE saboteurs were shopping at Macy’s, American bombers and fighter planes were roaring over Manhattan. Tanks with names like Lincoln, Ball of Fire, and Hellzapoppin’ moved up Fifth Avenue, as hundreds of tons of tickertape floated down from surrounding skyscrapers and rooftops, creating the illusion of a snowstorm in the sweltering heat. The area around Penn Station, where Dasch and his companions spent most of their time, was almost deserted as New Yorkers flocked to Fifth Avenue for the big parade.

The authorities were even more vigilant than usual, mobilizing ten thousand policemen to guard against acts of sabotage by enemy agents as well as more mundane crimes, such as pickpocketing. A series of giant floats passed the reviewing stand outside the New York Public Library, including an “Axis War Monster” float in which a mechanical dictator crushed human beings to death by the thousand while loudspeakers blared “Heil Hitler!” and “Il Duce!” Another float celebrated the exploits of Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle and a small band of American pilots who had boosted morale at home by dropping a few bombs over Tokyo two months earlier.