Why the first U-boat to surrender in North America landed in this N.S. town
Speaking through an interpreter, the U-boat's commander said he would 'very much' like to stay in Canada or the U.S.
The U-boat was analyzed by Canadian officials to understand what equipment was on board
Richard Woodbury · CBC News
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After Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 during the Second World War, German submarines known as U-boats were ordered to surrender, but whether the crews would comply was a question that worried Allied commanders.
U-boats were to head to the surface of whatever waters they were in and fly a black flag to indicate they were obeying and would not fight anymore. They would then surrender to Allied forces at sea, before being escorted to port.
While the war in Europe was over, it was still ongoing in the Pacific.
"It's a pretty grave concern on the part of Allied commanders, which is what threat do they pose?" said Jeff Noakes, the Second World War historian with the Canadian War Museum.
"And also, are they even going to surrender? Because there is a worry that there might be diehard German submarine commanders who don't want to give up and who might want to keep on fighting."
For U-boats in the Atlantic, most surrendered on the European side, said Noakes.
For ones on the western side, there were four North American ports they could surrender to, with the first landing in Shelburne, N.S., where a throng of reporters interviewed the ship's captain.
A Royal Canadian Navy seaman is shown with the White Ensign on board U-889 on May 13, 1945. (CWM 20070014-017/George Metcalf Archival Collection/Canadian War Museum)
Noakes said the metric the Royal Canadian Navy used in labelling Shelburne as the first was when a surrendered U-boat arrived at a North American port.
"There may well have been other U-boats in the western part of the Atlantic that surrendered to Allied forces, or at least were spotted by Allied forces sooner," said Noakes.
Besides Shelburne, the other ports where U-boats could surrender in North America were in Bay Bulls, Dominion of Newfoundland (which had not yet joined Canada), and two in the United States.
Part of a Second World War Allied document shows the co-ordinates for ports where the Royal Canadian Navy said German U-boats could surrender. (Submitted by Derek Waller)
U-boats were not named, but were numbered. Before U-889 and its crew of around 55 landed in Shelburne on May 13, 1945, a surrender ceremony was held just offshore.
Witnessing the Shelburne ceremony were Royal Canadian Navy officials, "a flotilla of Royal Canadian Navy families and Royal Navy frigates, a squadron of [Royal Canadian Air Force] planes and a group of approximately 35 newspapermen," The Toronto Telegram reported in its May 14, 1945, edition.
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Noakes said there was tremendous symbolic importance attached to these events.
U-889 departed Norway on its maiden voyage in April 1945 and was on its way to New York. The plan was to sit at the harbour's entrance to attack ships, but the surrender order scuttled those plans.
The signing of the unconditional surrender of German armed forces of the Third Reich happened on May 7, 1945, at the Allied headquarters in Reims, eastern France. (AFP via Getty Images)
It was spotted by a Royal Canadian Navy plane on May 10, 1945, off Newfoundland. Canadian vessels then escorted U-889 to Shelburne.
In Shelburne, the U-boat's commander, Friedrich Braeucker, gave an interview to the press.
Noakes called this pretty unusual.
The May 14, 1945, Toronto Telegram included images of a crew member from U-889, left, and the ship's captain, Friedrich Braeucker. (www.newspapers.com)
"You're now interviewing [the] commander and other personnel from a German submarine that … just over a week before would technically have been in a position, you know, to be attacking Canadian warships," he said.
When Braeucker was asked about the persecution of Jewish people and others in Germany and German-occupied countries, he called it "a beastly, brutal thing. I do not believe in it," The Toronto Telegram reported.
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The paper described the 26-year-old as slight and handsome with brown hair.
Speaking through an interpreter, he said he would "very much" like to stay in Canada or the U.S.
Braeucker was also asked if he could accept living in a democracy.
"There is not such a big difference between your government and ours," he said with a shrug, The Canadian Press reported.
The crew members from U-889 are shown being brought ashore to Shelburne on a Royal Canadian Navy vessel. (CWM 20070014-016/George Metcalf Archival Collection/Canadian War Museum)
Most of U-889's crew members were in their early 20s, with the youngest crew member being 19 and the oldest 33, and they were "a chubby-faced, shaggy-haired lot," reported The Toronto Telegram.
After its stay in Shelburne, U-889 was led by a Canadian warship and then taken to Halifax, arriving on May 24, 1945. A story in The Windsor Star noted that "shortly afterward, a string of Allied merchant ships, once the hunted quarry, followed in line into port."
Noakes said the U-boat was analyzed by Canadian officials to understand what equipment was on board and the technology it had.
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By summer and into the fall, U-889 and U-190 — which surrendered in Newfoundland, a day after U-889 arrived in Shelburne — were escorted by Canadian warships and taken to East Coast ports on publicity tours.
"This is partly to show to people this is what the enemy had," said Noakes. "It's also being done as fundraising."
American ports
All told, five U-boats ended up in American ports, said Derek Waller, the author of The Surrender of the U-Boat Fleet 1945. He told CBC News in an email that four of the U-boats landed in Portsmouth, N.H., and the fifth was taken to Fort Miles, Del.
"In the end the surrender process in the Western Atlantic proved to be very easy — primarily because of the lack of U-boats still in the area," he said in an email. "But the naval planners did not know that before the capitulation actually took place."
U-889 was later transferred to the United States Navy and was sunk off its coast in November 1947.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Woodbury is a journalist with CBC Nova Scotia. He can be reached at richard.woodbury@cbc.ca.
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