I recently saw two stories in the press that happen to overlap. 

Captain Reinhard Hardegen

The first story was the report of the death of Reinhard Hardegen at 105 years old. Hardegen was believed to have been the last surviving German U-boat commander from World War II. He also ranked among the most successful U-boat captains of the war, sinking 22 merchant ships with a capacity of 115,656 GRT, over five patrols.  

Two of Korvettenkapitän Hardegen‘s patrols were on the East Coast of the United States as part of Operation Drumbeat. With US and Canadian patrol ships diverted to protect British shipping, five German U-boats attacked shipping along the North American East Coast from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. In less than seven months, U-boat attacks destroyed 22 percent of the tanker fleet and sank 233 ships in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The U-boats killed 5,000 seamen and passengers, more than twice the number of people who perished at Pearl Harbor. On Hardegen’s two patrols in command of U-123 during Operation Drumbeat, he sank eighteen ships totaling over 100,000 GRT. 

After the war, Reinhard Hardegen built a successful oil trading company and was elected to the Bremen city council for 32 years.

British Oil Tanker Coimbra

The second news item which caught my eye was about a possible oil leak from the wreckage of a British oil tanker Coimbra, which was sunk 76 years ago off Long Island. A Coast Guard team will be diving on the wreckage of the tanker next week to assess the environmental risk of leaking oil.

The steam tanker Coimbra, carrying 8,038 tons of lubricating oil, was hit by one torpedo on Jan. 15, 1942.  It had left Bayonne, N.J. a day before, and was bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Of the 46 crew on board, only 10 survived. J.P. Bernard, the tanker’s captain, went down with the ship.

The Coimbra was sunk by U-123 under the command of Reinhard Hardegen.

As Faulkner noted, “The past isn’t dead.  It isn’t even past.”

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.