Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 03 - Secret Honor

"I understand, Herr Admiral."

"The Filhrer has not found time in his busy schedule to share with me his thoughts about what happened in

Argentina, or, for that matter, to convey to me the impor tance he places on Operation Phoenix. Possibly this is because the Fiihrer-who not only believes, as we all do, in our ultimate victory, but is burdened with the leadership of the state-does not feel he should waste his time dealing with the contingency of being offered, or forced to seek, an armistice, and the ramifications thereof."

"I understand, Herr Admiral," Boltitz said.

This wasn't entirely true. Karl Boltitz was trying very hard to understand what Canaris was really saying.

Kapitanleutnant Boltitz recalled what his father, Vizeadmi-ral

Kurt Ludwig Boltitz, had told him as he was about to report to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht for duty with the

Abwehr: "The best advice I can give you, Karl, is to listen to what Canaris is not saying."

Kapitanleutnant Boltitz had not been at all happy about his assignment to a desk in Berlin. After a brief service upon the Graf Spee, he had been reassigned to submarines. He had quickly risen to become the Number One (Executive

Officer) of U-241, operating in the North Atlantic from the submarine pens at St. Nazaire, and there had been no question in his mind that he would shortly be given his own boat.

There had in fact been orders waiting for Leutnant zur See

Boltitz when U-241 tied up at the underground pens of St.

Nazaire after his seventh patrol. But rather than announcing that he was detached for the purpose of assuming command of another submarine, the orders told him to report for duty to

Section VIII (H) of the Naval Element, Oberkommando der

Wehrmacht.

He had been a bureaucrat in Navy uniform long enough to know what Section VIII (H) was. It was the purposely innocuous-sounding pigeonhole to which naval officers working for Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the Chief of Abwehr

Intelligence, were ostensibly assigned.

Earlier, he had had no doubt that his father had arranged his assignment to the Graf Spec; and now he had no doubt that Vizeadmiral Boltitz's influence was getting him off sub marine duty… a situation that gave him a good deal to think about.

For one thing, he could not deny his first reaction to his orders… both the shame and the immense relief. Relief because he would no longer have to put to sea in U-241 and face the terrors of being depth-charged by British or American destroyers.

Shame because of the simple question of honor. His father had acted dishonorably in using his influence to remove his son from combat service. And consequently, as a man of honor, it was clearly his duty to protest the special treatment and to resist it in any way he could. If necessary, he decided, he would appeal upward in the chain of com mand all the way to Admiral Donitz, even if that meant embarrassing his father. That couldn't be helped. His father should not have done what he did.

When he confronted his father in Berlin with the accusa tion, Vizeadmiral Boltitz's response was not at all what he expected.

"I had absolutely nothing to do with your transfer," his father said.

"I have your word?"

"If you feel that that's necessary, Karl."

"In that case, I offer my apologies."

"Don't. If I had the influence you think I have, you would never have gone to submarines in the first place. And I have tried and failed ever since you went to submarines to get you out."

"That's dishonorable!"

"Let me tell you something, Karl," his father said. "For reasons we can only guess at, God gives some men authority over others. How a man uses that authority, for good or evil, is between himself and God, as well as between himself and the

State. We are engaged in an evil war, if I have to tell you that.

If I can keep my son from being killed in an evil war, I will do that, and I think God will be on my side."

Karl didn't reply.

"Tell me, Karl," Vizeadmiral Boltitz said, "do you remember your first cruise out on the U-241?"

Karl did, vividly.

His first patrol aboard U-241-as the gunnery officer, in charge of the deck-mounted cannon and the conning tower-mounted machine guns-had not been quite what he had expected.

For one thing, firing his cannon at an old, battered, and rusty merchantman and watching her sink mortally wounded beneath the waves, and then leaving her crew afloat in lifeboats, three hundred miles from shore in the

North Atlantic in winter, had not seemed to be much of a glorious victory at sea.

And what had happened in the captain's cabin immedi ately afterward was not in the honorable naval tradition of, say, Admiral Graf Spec.

The captain-Kapitanleutnant Siegfried von Stoup-had been two years ahead of Karl Boltitz at the Naval Academy.

They had not been friends, but they knew each other. "Con gratulations on your marksmanship, Boltitz," Kapitanleutnant von Stoup said.

"Thank you, Sir," Boltitz replied.

"You may examine the entry in the log," von Stoup said, and slid it across the tiny table to him.

Sank by gunfir e(obleBoltitz )ss star of Bombay, Est. 12000 Gross

Tons No Survivors.

"No survivors, Sir?"

"I am sure, Boltitz, that if there were any survivors, you would have seen them. In which case, in compliance with orders from our Fiihrer, you would, as an obedient officer, have made sure there were no survivors. Nicht war?"

"You mean fire at the seamen?"

"I mean ensure there were no survivors, as our Ftihrer has ordered."

"That's the order?" Boltitz asked incredulously.

Kapitanleutnant von Stoup nodded. "So far, I have not informed the enlisted men of the order," he said. "Except, of course, the Chief of the Boat. Some of them might find machine-gunning seamen in lifeboats distasteful."

"Good God!"

"The Fiihrer is of course right, Boltitz. Survivors of a sunk merchantmen are skilled seamen, who can serve aboard other ships. This is total war-we can't permit that to happen."

Karl had looked at him in disbelief.

"You will make sure, won't you, Oberleutnant Boltitz, that no one on your gun crew saw any survivors either?"

"Jawohl, Herr Kapitan."

"That will be all, Karl, thank you."

It was the first time Kapitanleutnant von Stoup had ever called him by his Christian name.

Later the same day, the Chief of the Boat told him that he had served under his father when he was a young seaman and would be grateful, when the Herr Oberleutnant had the chance, if he would pass on his respects. The Chief added that he had already spoken to the deck gun crew to make sure no one had seen any survivors of the Star of Bombay.

"As an honorable officer," Karl's father was saying, "how did you feel about machine-gunning merchant seamen in their lifeboats?"

"That never happened on U-241," Karl said.

"You have sworn an oath of personal loyalty to the Fiihrer.

Was it honorable to disobey an order from the Fiihrer? Or did you perhaps think that disobeying an order to commit murder was the more honorable thing to do?"

"I was never actually given the order," Karl said. "My captain-Kapitanleutnant von Stoup-was an honorable man, incapable of murder."

"It's always easier, of course, to let a superior decide questions of honor and morality for you. But sometimes you will have to make those decisions yourself. That, I suspect, is what you are going to have to do when you go to work for

Wilhelm Canaris."

"Are you suggesting he's not an honorable man?" Karl asked, genuinely surprised.

"My experience with him, over the years, is that he is far more honorable than I am, and certainly more than the people he serves."

"What are you saying?"

"The best advice I can give you, Karl, is to listen to what