Michael Dobbs - Saboteurs

As their train headed out of Jacksonville through northern Florida and southern Georgia, Kerling and Neubauer watched the little towns and railroad stations flash past the window. What they saw made them both very anxious, particularly Neubauer, who was still suffering from the shock of his narrow escape from death on the Russian front. There were men in uniform and civilian guards everywhere. Factories, bridges, and railroad sidings all seemed well protected. It would obviously not be easy to carry out the kind of sabotage mission for which they had been trained at Quenz Lake. 20

Neubauer had mixed feelings about Operation Pastorius. On the one hand, he was a soldier of the Reich, accustomed to obeying orders. On the other, a sabotage operation seemed somehow unsoldierly. He thought of his wife, a loyal American citizen, who had stayed behind in Germany. On the submarine trip over, he had asked a crew member to deliver a letter to her, suggesting she try to return to the United States on a neutral ship as part of an authorized exchange of American and German civilians. 21Before sealing the letter, he had shown it to Kerling, his group leader. To his surprise, Kerling made no objection, even though Kappe had forbidden them to communicate with their families.

Ever since landing in America, Neubauer had the feeling he was being watched, a sensation he felt even more strongly now as he sat in a train crowded with men in uniform. He was unnerved by ordinary, everyday occurrences. When the train reached Atlanta, he wanted to buy a newspaper, but the kiosk was just outside a gate, next to which “a couple of fellows were standing in civilian clothes.” 22In his paranoid frame of mind, he decided that the two civilians must be FBI agents, so he got back on the train without buying the paper.

As they traveled north, Neubauer steered the conversation to a previously unmentionable subject: the feasibility of carrying out the sabotage mission. Instead of dismissing his fears out of hand, Kerling seemed to be thinking along similar lines. Back in Germany, he had boasted that the American soldier was “no match” for the German soldier. Now he was not so sure. He was particularly worried by the introduction of gasoline rationing along the eastern seaboard, which he had heard about on the submarine. Without gasoline, it would be very difficult to go back to Florida to pick up the sabotage gear they had buried in the sand.

Together, they talked of various “ways out” if they were unable to go ahead with the sabotage plan. Kerling mentioned Mexico or Canada. Neubauer wondered what they should do if the American authorities heard about Operation Pastorius and sealed off the border. In those circumstances, perhaps the best solution would be to turn themselves in to the FBI?

Kerling seemed willing to consider anything. But on one point he was adamant: whatever they did, they all had to agree on a common course of action. No one would be permitted to just go to the FBI and say, “Here I am.” 23

SEATED ACROSS the desk from Traynor at FBI headquarters in Washington, Dasch was alternately animated and irritable, verbose and reticent. Smoking one cigarette after another, he announced that he had been sent to America by the German government to organize a “sabotage wave,” then refused to say how he had arrived or provide the names of the men who came with him.

“I won’t answer that kind of question.” 24

Having noticed the streak of gray running through Dasch’s hair, just as the coastguardsman had described it, Traynor was pretty sure he had the right man. His main goal was to keep Dasch talking. This meant keeping him happy by plying him with cigarettes, playing to his vanity, and doing nothing to disturb the impression that Dasch was a free man voluntarily cooperating with the FBI.

After saying he planned to “begin at the beginning,” Dasch asked for a Dictaphone to record his life story. The ever-courteous Traynor suggested that “it might be better” to bring in a stenographer. Dasch said this sounded like a fine way to proceed, and for the next six days and nights, fueled by a diet of milk, chicken sandwiches, and the occasional scotch and soda, he dictated a statement that eventually grew to 254 single-spaced typewritten pages. 25

The statement soon became too much for a single person to handle, so a team of six stenographers was assembled, each of them taking dictation for an hour and then typing up the transcript, with multiple carbons. The copies were immediately distributed to the FBI officials responsible for tracking down the suspected saboteurs. Regular summaries of what Dasch was saying were also rushed to Hoover in his fifth-floor office.

By the time he got back from lunch, Hoover had decided that Dasch, alias Davis, alias “Franz V. Postoreous,” held the key to the “whole affair.” He was strengthened in this conviction by a surreptitious search of Dasch’s hotel room by agents of the Washington field office. It took the agents just a few seconds to pick the lock on his briefcase and find the thick wads of fifty-dollar bills wrapped up in manila envelopes. They then went through the rest of his belongings, noting that they all appeared “brand new.” 26They were particularly intrigued by a pair of “small white metal emblems, about the size of a fifty-cent piece, which were cut in the shape of porcupines.” One of the agents made a pencil tracing of the porcupines—a memento from Dasch’s U-202 trip—carefully replacing them in the pin tray where Dasch had left them.

Marshaling his troops like a military commander, Hoover called his assistant, Eugene Connelley, in New York at 2:36 and again at 3:57 to go over the latest developments. He reported that “Postoreous” was a “rather temperamental individual” who had nevertheless “taken a shine” to Agent Traynor, and was being permitted to tell his story in his own way. 27He then reprimanded the New York office for failing to relay the message from Dasch the previous Sunday announcing that he was on his way to Washington. What disturbed Hoover most was the thought that Dasch “might have been considered crazy here and brushed off,” in which case— horror of bureaucratic horrors—he might now be meeting with some rival agency, such as the Secret Service, or army or navy intelligence. He demanded a full investigation.

The next step, Hoover told Connelley, was to establish definitively that the man now talking to Traynor in room 2248 was the same man who accosted the Coast Guard patrol on Amagansett Beach.

JOHN CULLEN’S life had been turned upside down since his mysterious encounter on Amagansett Beach. At first everybody had praised him for reporting the incident promptly, and turning in the money given to him as a bribe. But later, FBI agents had raised doubts about his story and kept watch over him day and night. They behaved as if he was somehow in league with the men on the beach. After failing to catch him in an obvious contradiction, they grudgingly accepted his version of events.

As reports flooded in of suspected German spies, the agents drove Cullen around German-inhabited areas of Long Island and New York to see if he could spot the man who had tried to bribe him. Sometimes, he would sit for hours in a car, waiting for a suspect to walk out of an apartment building or a restaurant. 28But the search proved fruitless.

On Friday afternoon, Cullen was taken to the FBI office in New York to meet with Connelley and examine a photograph album containing twenty-two pictures of middle-aged men of vaguely similar appearance. Did any of the pictures look familiar, Connelley wanted to know. Cullen narrowed the selection down to three, and then stared intently at an FBI photograph of Dasch, dressed in a suit and tie. He noted the light streak of gray in the man’s hair, and the thin face.