Submarines in the Bay!

One summer morning in the 1940s, Edith Quinn was washing dishes in her kitchen on Eagle Island in Penobscot Bay. (Eagle is two miles northeast of North Haven and two miles west of Deer Isle). Edith and her husband, Jim, had been living on Eagle since they were married in 1935. At one point Edith looked out the window and to her amazement saw a submarine riding on the water a few hundred yards offshore. She called to her husband and they both rushed outside where Jim quickly took a picture.

Jim Quinn died 25 years ago, but 94-year old Edith lives in Sunset on Deer Isle with her son Clifford. In a conversation a few weeks ago about the submarine in the picture, she recalled, “It was just sitting there. Shortly after we took the picture the sub began to move and suddenly it had submerged and was gone.”

It was well known that German submarines roamed the waters of the Gulf of Maine during the war. Was this a photo of U-boat whose captain was determined to sink one more Allied ship before returning to his base in occupied France or Norway?

During the course of our conversation, I asked Edith if she had any recollection of when the picture was taken. She couldn’t remember, except that it was during the summer, when the Quinns were on Eagle Island. (When their three children reached school age the family moved to Vinalhaven during the winter.) A few years after the war, Edith’s brother, John Beckman, gave the picture of the “mystery sub” to the Vinalhaven Historical Society.

There are many stories about German U-Boats operating in Penobscot Bay during the war. Since no one could remember the exact date of this picture, it was unclear whether the Quinns’ photograph was of a German U-boat or an American submarine on patrol. John Beckman, who served on a naval repair ship in the Mediterranean during the war, believes it was a German U-boat. His logic was that most American subs were in the Pacific Ocean attacking Japanese shipping.

Identifying the “mystery sub” called for some historical detective work. I faxed a copy of the Quinns’ picture to Wendy Gulley, archivist at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT. She faxed me back an article by J.L Christley (USN, Ret.) complete with illustrations. Close examination of the Quinns’ picture suggests it is similar to the profile of a converted post-war GUPPY 11submarine. The work on these submarines was begun in 1947 at the naval shipyard in Portsmouth, NH. In fact, the GUPPY program provided a link between World War II subs and nuclear submarines, the first of which, NAUTILUS, was launched in 1954.

So what was a GUPPY? GUPPY is an acronym for “Greater Underwater Propulsion Power.” In the years following the Second World War, the navy realized that a number of improvements needed to be made in their submarine force as the Cold War loomed. The GUPPY program took a number of late-model wartime subs that were in good condition and reconfigured them with an emphasis on more underwater speed and endurance. A streamlined hull and bridge, additional battery capacity and a snorkel breathing system characterized GUPPY subs. The deck gun, and all other external items that would increase underwater drag, were also removed. It is significant that there is no evidence of a deck gun in the Quinns’ picture.

Sixty years after World War II it is hard to are certain about all the facts connected with the boat in the Quinns’ picture. It is likely, however, that the submarine that Edith and Jim Quinn photographed that summer morning in the 1940s was a converted GUPPY 11 American submarine on her sea trials out of Portsmouth. If this is the case, it is difficult to see how the picture could have been taken before 1947.

The Winter Harbor Connection

If there is uncertainty connected with the identity of submarine in the Quinns’ picture, there is less of a mystery about this next submarine tale. My father always loved a good story to tell his children. When he heard that German U-boats had been seen in “Winter Harbor” during the Second World War, he naturally assumed that the reference was to the Winter Harbor on the east side of Vinalhaven, just below Starboard Rock. The secluded fjord-like harbor seemed a likely place for U-boats to surface and recharge their batteries. As children, we naturally accepted my father’s view, ignoring the fact that the harbor was only 20 to 30 feet deep, and too narrow for a 175 foot U-boat to maneuver. Recently the reality of this submarine story was clarified.

Several years ago a friend loaned me a book entitled Agent 146, about two spies from Germany who were put ashore from a U-boat at Winter Harbor. This Winter Harbor, however, was Downeast of Mt. Desert on the eastern shore of Frenchman Bay. One of the spies (and the author of the book) was named Eric Gimpel. Gimpel’s book, first published in 1957 and re-released by St. Martin’s Press in 2003, is an exciting story.

In 1935 Eric Gimpel was a 25-year-old German working as a radio engineer in Peru, where he was recruited by German intelligence. At first he was merely asked to report on ships and cargoes leaving for English and French ports. In 1939, at the start of World War II, Gimpel returned to Germany where he was formally trained in espionage. It was at that point that he became known as “Agent 146.” In 1943 he was told that he would be smuggled into America to blow up the Panama Canal. Gimpel recalls thinking, “Why not land on Mars, why not kidnap President Roosevelt”? Fortunately for Gimpel, the plan was called off at the last minute.

In July of 1944, Gimpel was given another far-fetched assignment. In October he and another spy were ferried across the Atlantic on sub U-1230*. Their task was, “to find out all they could” about the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb). The crossing took 46 days and was, as Gimpel recalls, “a tight fit in a sub with 240 tons of oil, 14 torpedoes, six months’ supply of food and only two heads for a crew of 62 men.” Nearing the coast of Maine, they got their bearings from the Mt. Desert Rock lighthouse, which conveniently remained lit. The U-boat captain, Hans Hilbig, decided that Frenchman Bay, east of Mt. Desert, was a good place for them to land. “Everywhere else he looked on their chart the water was too shallow.” The U-1230 waited on the ocean floor until nightfall and then, as Gimpel writes, “We let the current carry us beneath the destroyer on patrol, into Frenchman Bay and up to Winter Harbor. We could hardly believe they didn’t discover us…. If the American coastal defenses hadn’t been so asleep we would have been detected.” Indeed, the Coast Guard was to answer for this later.

The two spies were rowed ashore at Winter Harbor, just north of Schoodic Point, on Nov. 29, 1944. An alert Boy Scout saw two “suspicious characters” walking along the road towards Ellsworth and reported them to the local authorities, but his message was ignored by an amused local policeman. The two men hitchhiked a ride to Bangor and then took the train to New York. From there, Gimpel had a series of adventures culminating in his arrest in New York by the FBI late in December 1944. In fact, he was betrayed by his fellow spy, a treasonous American who lost his nerve. (You’ll have to read the book for all the details, including his whirlwind romance with a beautiful New York woman who testified for him at his trial.)

After his arrest, Gimpel was interrogated by the FBI and sentenced to death. In April of 1945, the day before he was scheduled to be hanged, his sentence was postponed during the period of mourning that followed the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. In September of 1945, with the war over, President Truman commuted his sentence to life. Gimpel spent the next ten years in various American prisons, including three at Alcatraz. In 1955 he was paroled and sent back to Germany where he wrote a book about his adventures, including his landing at Winter Harbor.

* After dropping her passengers, U-1230 resumed her war patrol and sank the Canadian steamer CORNWALLIS (5,458 tons) on December 3, 1944. She then returned to her base in Kristiansand, Norway. Following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, U-1230 was transferred to Loch Ryan, Scotland, where she and a number of other U-boats were sunk by gunfire from the British frigate HMS CUBITT.