HESSLER: Two Greek ships: the Papalemos and Pandias.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: How did you help the lifeboats?
HESSLER: First of all I gave the survivors their exact position and told them what course to set in order to reach land in their lifeboats. In the second place, I gave them water, which is of vital importance for survivors in tropical regions. In one case I also furnished medical aid for several wounded men.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Did your personal experience with torpedoed ships dispose you to caution with regard to rescue measures?
HESSLER: Yes. The experienced U-boat commander was justifiably suspicious of every merchantman and its crew, no matter how innocent they might appear. In two cases this attitude of suspicion saved me from destruction.
This happened in the case of the steamer Kalchas, a British 10,000 ton ship which I torpedoed north of Cape Verde. The ship had stopped after being hit by the torpedo. The crew had left the ship and were in the lifeboats, and the vessel seemed to be sinking. I was wondering whether to surface in order at least to give the crew their position and ask if they needed water. A feeling which I could not explain kept me from doing so. I raised my periscope to the fullest extent and just as the periscope rose almost entirely out of the water, sailors who had been hiding under the guns and behind the bulwark, jumped up, manned the guns of the vessel—which so far had appeared to be entirely abandoned—and opened fire on my periscope at very close range, compelling me to submerge at full speed. The shells fell close to the periscope but were not dangerous to me.
In the second case, the steamer Alfred Jones, which I torpedoed off Freetown, also seemed to be sinking. I wondered whether to surface, when I saw in one of the lifeboats two sailors of the British Navy in full uniform. That aroused my suspicions. I inspected the ship at close range—I would say from a distance of 50 to 100 meters—and established the fact that it had not been abandoned, but that soldiers were still concealed aboard her in every possible hiding-place and behind boarding. When I torpedoed the ship this boarding was smashed. I saw that the ship had at least four to six guns of 10 and 15 centimeter caliber and a large number of depth charge chutes and antiaircraft guns behind the bulwarks. Only a pure accident, the fact that the depth charges had not been timed, saved me from destruction.
It was clear to me, naturally, after such an experience, that I could no longer concern myself with crews or survivors without endangering my own ship.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: When did you enter the staff of the Commander, U-boats.
HESSLER: In November 1941.