JF Ptak Science Books Post 2882
Here's a short tale of surprise and of some disappointment. First, the pamphlet pictured here is a standard work (Der Signalgast, Handbuch fuer Signalkunde, fifth edition, 1935) on naval communications using Morse code and flags. It seems to have been standard issue in Germany through the early 1930's through WWII. It must've been quite popular because there are a number of these for sale around the web in the $10-$50 range, more towards the ten dollar range than not.
This copy is different because it has the Office of Naval Intelligence paperwork of having been removed and secured from the German submarine U-977, captured/surrendered at the port of Mar del Plata, in Argentina, 17 August 1945. U-977 has a provocative history after the war, making a 108-day voyage from Norway to Argentina in the supposed hopes of being able to surrender in peace. There are a number of rumor/tales/conspiracy theories offering other explanations for this long and time-consuming voyage, including transporting Hitler or his remains to Argentina, or carrying stuff of great value, or transporting leading Nazi figures, or some such. There are many stories about the U-977 voyage spread around the web—including one of legend that the boat traveled for 66 consecutive days submerged--though for my reading (and I know very little about these matters) the boat's last captain, Heniz Schaeffer, who wrote a book about the adventure and which was published in 1952 had nothing to say about a number of the high-flying (sorry) tales of intrigue.
It is interesting to me though that the pamphlet was on the submarine, and seems to have been pretty heavily used, which gives all of it together a secondary ephemeral life. The ONI paperwork is pretty straight forward; there was some secondary paperwork that was more mysterious to me, and was not readily readable as it is in Fraktur, which is hardly an alphabet basking in obviousness. Anyway once the script was punched through, all this attractive printed note was was an invoice for some sort of food loaded onto the sub on 24 April 1942. “Delivery note” is the heading from the Marine-Verpflegungsamt (Marine Catering Office), with someone signing off on having received some amount of unsalted something-or-other in the first quarter of 1942.
It was a little deflating as I built the thing up in my head a little, not being able to read the script offhand. Anyway, there it is.
The pamphlet does have one more mysterious piece to it—there are some notations on the title page made in German script (which is basically undecipherable to me), and I don't know yet if it is just a few words or (hopefully) the owner's name. I'll have to get back to you on that. For the time being, enjoyment will have to be found in the fact that this book spent two years on a German sub, then made an enormous journey across the Atlantic at the end of the war, then made its way to Washington DC (where I bought it), and now is temporarily in western North Carolina. It has one more trip to make after the title page annotations get figured out, and that may be the last trip that the pamphlet makes.
As it turns out the date on the food invoice predates by a couple of months the date on which the U-977 was laid down, so there's that.
Finally, the U-977 was escorted north to New London, Connecticut, and then used for target practice and sunk off Cape Cod on 13 November 1946. The U-977 never lost a man and never sank a ship.
Some references:
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-977A/U-977INT.htm
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-977A/U-977Photos.htm
“The U-977, one of the most interesting Kriegsmarine ships in history...” https://www.mhistory.net/the-last-mission-of-u-977-cruise-across-the-atlantic-and-hitlers-alleged-evacuation/
Comments