For this section, we have used the excellent work Lone Wolf  The Life and Death of U-Boat Ace Werner Henke by Timothy P. Mulligan. Published in 1993 by Praeger Publishers of Westport, Ct.  We highly recommend this fine work for a more complete look at Henke's life and times.  Book jacket designed by Richard Rossiter.

     Werner Henke was born on May 13, 1909 in the city of Thorn on the Vistula River in what was than West Prussia.  He went to sea late in 1925 as a cabin boy aboard the square-rigged sailing ship    Grossherzogin Elisabeth.  He advanced  to ordinary seaman and took part in the Winter cruise to South America in 1926-27.  On shore leave he was out-going and loved American music.  He was a good dancer and never lacked for female companionship.  In the summer of 1930 he studied for examinations to advance to  Steuermannspatent, a merchant marine officer, and was awarded his certificate in July, 1931.

     The great depression was having a negative effect on German trade and Henke struggled to find adequate employment.  In the spring of 1933 he applied for a post to officer cadet with the Reichsmarine which was being expanded by the new National Socialists government.  The following year he was accepted and after training he was detailed to the new "pocket battleship" Admiral Scheer.  He served there from late 1935 to April, 1937, advancing to the rank of Leutnant zur See (ensign).

     In March 1939, Henke was assigned to the old battleship Schleswig-Holstein a veteran of the Battle of Jutland.  On Sept 1 this ship was ordered to open fire on Polish fortifications and World War II had begun.  Schleswig-Holstein conducted herself well all during the month of September and Henke was awarded the Iron Cross (2nd class) for his work with the gun crews.  In late March 1940, Henke received notice that he had been transferred to the U-boat service and was to report to submarine school on April 2, 1940.

     By mid-November he had reported to Lorient, France as a watch officer aboard U-124 commanded by Kapitanleutnant Georg Wilhelm Schulz.  On Dec 16, 1940,  U-124 left on her third patrol and Henke began his education on the realities of a U-boat at war.  In this patrol and the next two, Henke proved his worth and when Jochen Mohr took command of U-124 in Sept, 1941, Henke moved up to first watch officer (executive officer).  The next patrol was very successful and Henke was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. In October he received orders to report to sub command school in Dernzig where he spent 10 months preparing for combat command.

     On January 12, 1942, Henke reported to the commercial shipyards of the Deutsche Werft firm in the Hamburg suburb of Finkenwerder where he saw, for the first time, the metal skeleton of the submarine that would be his.  She was commissioned on Feb 21, 1942 and entered the German navy as U-515.  She was a type IXC designed for long range missions to the Caribbean, the South Atlantic, and the West coast of Africa.  More training and shakedown cruises followed and it was not until Aug 12, 1942 that she slipped out of Kiel for her first patrol.  She would never see Germany again.

     It took nearly a month to move his boat into the area of Trinidad-Tobago off the coast of Venezuela, a good hunting ground but growing very dangerous to U-boats of late.  On Sept 12 came the first two victories, followed the next day by two more.  The following three days brought three more sinkings and much valuable experience.  On Sept 20 the British Steamer  SS Reedpool went down and the 23rd saw still another double victory with welcome orders from headquarters to return to Lorient for resupply.  The patrol was over after 64 days and 10,266 nautical miles.  Ten vessels had been sunk totaling 52,807 tons.

     The second patrol began Nov 7, 1942 just as the allies began their Operation TORCH--the invasion of North Africa.  Henke was ordered toward the enemy fleet off Casablanca, but on Nov 11, off the coast of Portugal, U-515 was hit by an Allied bomber and temporary lost fire-control.  That evening they spotted a British convoy of warships consisting of two cruisers and three destroyers and although they were damaged and out-numbered, Henke plotted an intercept coarse to attack.  Working themselves into a firing position, U-515 fired on and hit HMS Hecla, stopping her dead in the water, and also damaged HMS Marne.  As Hecla rolled over and sank, U-515 was forced down and took a beating from depth-charges for 12 long hours.      Although  U-515 made her escape, Allied air and sea patrols forced her to stay submerged for long periods in the following days until, on Nov 21, Admiral Donitz ordered all 16 submarines in the group to move west and north out of range of the Gibraltar-based aircraft.

     On Dec 6, 1942 Henke spotted two ships on what appeared to be a course for Gibraltar.  He was forced to race his submarine on a grueling 100 nautical-mile chase at full speed before he could over-take the larger of the two ships.  She was the passenger liner, converted into troopship,  Ceramic, bound for Capetown, South Africa and Sydney, Australia.  On board was 278 crew and 378 passengers.  Among the passengers:  43 British Army officers; 11 Royal Navy officers; 9 Merchant Navy officers; 30 nurses, most from the Order of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service; a 50-man unit of Royal Engineers and 83 military and Navy men of lower ranks.  Of the 152 civilians, there was 90 men, 50 women and 12 children with most of the women and children being dependents of the officers on board.  The cargo was 12,362 tons of general and governmental stores, including aircraft spare parts.

     Moving into position for a surface attack, Henke fired two torpedoes.  Both hit, but only one exploded.  Ceramic's radio operator issued a distress call which was picked up by U-515.  Henke turned the sub to bring his rear tubes into action, firing one more torpedo which exploded and brought  Ceramic to a stop. The Ceramic's captain ordered abandon ship and Henke observed life boats with military men being lowered into the water.  After 20 minutes, Henke fired another bow shot.  He believed he had intercepted a troop ship bound for the fighting in North Africa and he feared her escorts must be close-by.  She was still afloat after a full hour and the clock was ticking.  Turning his boat, he fired a final shot which broke  Ceramics' back and she went down quickly.  Secondary explosions seemed to indicate the arrival of escorts, so Henke retired to the northwest and radioed the encounter to headquarters.

     As morning came, a huge storm blew into the area, capsizing life boats and throwing survivors into the water.  Because of confusion at German Naval Headquarters,  U-515 was ordered back to the scene of the action to gather intelligence and possibly to pick up the Ceramics' captain.  U-515 returned to the site sixteen hours after the initial attack, to find a nightmare of high winds and seas, upturned life boats, floating corpses and debris.  Only one person could be pulled from the sea alive.  He was Eric Munday who would be the only survivor of this night of horror.

     Donitz ordered the boats back toward Portugal but no further contacts were made.  On Dec 19 headquarters signaled U-515 that her commander had been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.  Only 69 U-boat officers had earned this decoration before him.  Christmas was celebrated on board.  Low on fuel, Henke ordered a return to base on Jan 2, 1943.  In Paris, Henke was promoted to the rank of Kapitanleutnant (lieutenant-commander) and granted home leave.

     The United States Navy reacted to this disaster with strong radio propaganda attacks aimed at German U-boat crews, declaring Henke a war criminal and accusing him of machine-gunning helpless survivors in life boats.  This was a total lie.  The broadcast pledged that at the end of the war, Britain would bring Henke to trial and hang him for "crimes against humanity".  The crew of U-515 heard this false report and dismissed it, but a dangerous seed had been planted in Henke's mind which would lead, in time, to disaster.

     On Feb 21, 1943, U-515 was again at sea.  On March 4th, northwest of the Azores, they located and sank a British freighter.  March saw only disappointments as Henke was forced to dive, again and again, to avoid land-based aircraft and aggressive Allied escort ships, with ever more sophisticated detection equipment. Ordered toward the west African port of Dakar in French Senegal, U-515 was able to sink a French ship on April 9.  On April 30, in failing light and thunderstorms which restricted air cover, Henke spotted Convoy TS 37, consisting of 18 merchant vessels bound for Freetown, with only four escorts.  Two hours of careful maneuvering brought him into the middle of the convoy where he fired 6 torpedoes.  Four hit home sending four separate targets to the bottom.  Forced to dive, Henke was still able to regain contact by early morning and sink three more ships before breaking off the attack.  Seven ships in one night!  For a time it was like reliving the glory days of 1940.

     But time was running out and the U-boat war in the Atlantic was being lost.  Long days of tedium followed and it was not until May 9 that a Norwegian freighter could be added to the victory list.  The U-boat was badly in need of repair, so on June 24, Henke returned to Lorient ending a remarkable patrol of 124 days, 20,383 nautical miles, 10 ships sunk for a total of 58,500 tons, enduring 9 depth-chargings, one air attack, and 43 crash dives to avoid aircraft.  During celebrations ashore, Henke learned that he would be awarded the coveted Oak Leaves Cluster to his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, only the 257th recipient of the decoration, and only the 33rd Naval officer.

     August 29th began the 4th patrol with U-515 sporting an extended rear bridge for anti-aircraft guns.  On Sept 5 Henke spotted a convoy of 54 merchant ships with 15 warship escorts bound for Gibraltar.  Attempting a midnight surface attack, Henke was spotted and forced down.  Damaged by depth-charges, she fell, before being stabilized, to a depth of 250 meters (820 feet)--one of the deepest dives recorded by a U-boat.  The boat was too damaged to continue the patrol and U-515 returned to base empty-handed, but alive.  While on leave on Sept 24, 1943, Henke was presented the Oak Leaves Cluster by Hitler himself.

     The fifth war patrol began Nov 1, 1943.  On Nov 18, west of Portugal, contact was made with a huge convoy of 67 merchant ships and 28 escorts.  At periscope depth, Henke was attack and depth-charged by HMS Chanticleer, but was able to get off one torpedo which struck the British sloop, killing 31 men and leaving her dead in the water and listing to port.  U-515's damage was extensive and Henke was forced to make for the Canary Islands where make-shift repairs were made which enabled him to continue his patrol toward Dakar and Freetown on the African coast.  Operating in this area, Henke was able to locate and sink three ships on Dec 17, Dec 19 and Dec 20, but the stress on the repairs made earlier forced him to return to base on Jan 14, 1944.  The excellent performance of the crew on this patrol earned many of them promotions and five of them the German Cross in Gold.

     On leave, Henke married Anita Plangl in Hamburg barely two weeks before his next patrol and brought her back through Berlin and Paris to his quarters outside Lorient the night before he left for the final mission.

     This sixth patrol began March 30, 1944 as U-515 and her 60 officers and crewmen sailed out of Lorient and moved south.  On the same day another group left Casablanca.  This was the U.S. Navy's Task Group 21.12 consisting of the escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal and four destroyer escorts--USS  Flaherty, Chatelain, Pillsbury and Pope--their mission, to find and kill U-boats.  In the early hours of April 9, aircraft from the Guadalcanal spotted U-515 on the surface.  She crashed dived and ran through the night submerged and seemingly out of danger.  After dawn, Henke decided to surface, hoping to recharge his ships batteries.  After only an hour on the surface, ships were spotted on the horizon, but before any decision could be made, U-515 was again attack by an aircraft and again forced to dive.  The USS Guadalcanal lay only 15 miles away.  She sent up more aircraft and ordered in the destroyers for attack.  The four American destroyers worked the site with all their most sophisticated location equipment and advanced weaponry.  U-515 suffered extensive damage and Henke lost the ability to control her running depth.  At 1504, U.S. Navy time, she breached the surface and, as the Germans began to abandon ship, the U.S. Navy vessels and aircraft opened fire.  After several direct hits, U-515's stern rose into the air, than plunged into the depths.  It was 3:12 p.m. on Easter Sunday, 1944, at position:   34 degrees, 35 minutes N, 19 degrees, 18 minutes W.  Sixteen of her crew were dead and many among the forty-four survivors were wounded.  Henke survived and protested the excessive fire by the Americans.

     The USS Guadalcanal set a course for Norfolk, Virginia and during the passage Henke let slip that he feared being turned over to the British due to his belief that they wished to put him on trial over the  Ceramic incident. This fear was based on false American propaganda and although untrue, nevertheless gave the American interrogators a weapon to use against him.

     On April 26, 1944 the task group reached Norfolk and after processing, Henke was moved to Fort Hunt, a classified interrogation center south of Washington, D.C., near Mount Vernon.  Here Henke refused to talk even though he was threaten with being turned over to the British as a war criminal for a quick show trial and later execution.

     After several weeks without success, American officials began to believe Henke had found out the truth about the propaganda broadcast and no longer feared reprisals against him.  Faced with where to move him and not wanting to "reward" him with being reunited with his crew, now in Arizona, they decided instead to turn him over to Canadian officials.  The tragedy was Henke still believed that in British hands he faced only dishonor and death.

     On June 15, Henke must have learned that he was to be moved to Canada.  He resolved to rob his captors of their final victory over him.  He needed only an opportunity.  His chance came in the evening when he was allowed to enter the small yard for his daily hour of exercise.  For fifty-five minutes he walked briskly as usual, than with only five minutes before the return to his cell, he suddenly stopped, turned, and ran for the wire, in clear view of the guards.  He quickly worked his way up the ten foot wire fence and over the top, into the narrow strip of grass that divided the inner fence from the main outer fence.  The shocked guard began to shout "Halt", but Henke paid no attention.  The guard prepared his weapon and again shouted his warning as Henke reached the top of the main wire.  After another warning, the guard opened fire and Korvettenkapitan Werner Henke, one of the top U-boat aces of World War II was dead.

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