Скачать или смотреть German Sabotage and Espionage in the United States During WWII {PART 2}

As the men were trained in the use of bombs, and received some physical fitness training, Abwehr agents worked on creating complete false backgrounds for each of them. They created letters from non-existent friends and relatives, identification documents, and personal histories. The use of German was forbidden, the men were trained in English, read documents in English, and were ordered to converse among themselves in English. American newspapers and magazines were provided for them to read. Other Abwehr agents prepared the list of targets they were to attack in the United States, and assembled the American money which would be necessary to sustain them.

4. {The agents were given specific targets and trained in selecting targets of opportunity}


The Germans knew that America’s ability to manufacture airplanes for their own use, as well as that of the Russians and British, was critical. Airplanes required aluminum, and the manufacturing plants of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) were high on the list of targets. Transportation of coal and steel was done chiefly by rail and river, and the locks critical to navigation on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were other primary targets. So was New York’s famed Hell Gate Bridge, and the extensive railroad complex at Altoona, Pennsylvania. The northeast’s electrical grid was targeted at Niagara Falls.

Besides the primary targets, the agents were trained in the selection of targets of opportunity on their own, with the goal of creating fear within the American population. Random targets were to be selected so as to make it appear that they could strike anywhere, at any time, creating the illusion of a much larger operation (in fact, additional teams were to be recruited to supplement the first eight, operating independently). Bombs were to be placed in elevators, subway stations, smaller bridges, piers and docks, warehouses, railway stations, marshaling yards, and wherever else the agents considered suitable for destruction.

5. {The agents were sent to France following their training}

The idea of sending the agents via ships from neutral Sweden was considered and discarded as too risky. Admiral Canaris, a former U-Boat skipper, decided the agents would be delivered to American shores in U-Boats, which at the time were prowling along the American coastline. The agents were split into two teams and sent to France, with time off to rest before leaving for the United States. While traveling to France by train, Dasch lost several documents which could have revealed the secret plan, though nothing became of it. Another agent, attempting to impress female companionship in Paris, drunkenly revealed he was a secret agent bound for the United States.

The teams boarded U-Boats on the French coast, having decided among themselves that landing in the United States presented their greatest risk of exposure. It was agreed that the teams would go ashore wearing German uniforms, since if they were captured they would be considered prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Convention. In civilian clothes, they were liable to being shot as spies. In late May, U-202, under command of Kapitan-Leutnant Hans-Heinz Linder embarked Dasch, Burger, Quirin, and Heinck and departed for American waters, planning to put the agents ashore somewhere on Long Island.

6. {U-202 went aground on the night of June 12-13 off Long Island}


Captain Linder was able to dispatch his passengers to shore on the night of June 12, and then turned his U-Boat back towards the open sea. The waters in which he was operating that night are among the trickiest in the world, with cross currents and a shifting sea bed making operations near the shore particularly hazardous. To cover the landing, the Germans had selected a dark night. Linder was heading east when he felt the deck trembling beneath his feet as the submarine ran itself aground. He attempted to reverse his engines and back the submarine off of the mud, but it held the vessel in its grip.

Linder was aground on an enemy shoreline with the first lightening of the sky the morning of June 13, having just deposited four saboteurs on the same shore. The village of Amagansett was in view, and cars traveling along the shore road could be seen from his bridge. In another hour or so the long black shape of the submarine would be visible from the village. He was less than 250 yards from the shore. Fortunately for the Germans, the tide began to rise, and Linder backed his engines full, finally breaking free from the muck, and raced for the open sea. As far as he could tell, Linder had avoided detection. Unbeknownst to him, the party he had put ashore had not.