The Passenger (37 page)

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
would like to thank Wayne Brookes and Geoff Duffield for their encouragement when I initially proposed writing a novel about a haunted U-boat. I would also like to thank Wayne Brookes (a second time), along with Catherine Richards, Clare Alexander, Steve Matthews, and Nicola Fox for their comments on the first and subsequent drafts. I am indebted to Lieutenant Colonel Michael Pandolfo, USAF (ret.) for reading through the second draft, offering advice with respect to a host of technical matters, pursuing military contacts with specialist areas of expertise, and responding with saintly patience to my follow-up questions that were so numerous as to almost constitute harassment. Thank you also to Colonel G. Knox Bishop, USAF (ret.) for providing information on British and American Air Force activity around Iceland from August 1941 to January 1942; and finally, Kapitän zur See Jurgen Looft (Federal German naval attaché, Washington, DC) for resolving the thorny linguistic issue of whether or not German sailors refer to their ‘neuter' boats using the feminine pronoun, and advising on naval ranks and titles. Needless to say, any errors are entirely my responsibility.

Writing in English about people who are speaking in German is fraught with difficulties. Nautical terminology complicates matters even further. I've tried to get the best fit with respect to the tone of exchanges and the technical vocabulary, but this has necessitated a certain amount of license.

The Passenger
was inspired by the story of U-65, a ‘real' haunted U-boat launched in Hamburg on June 26, 1917. The best known account of the haunting of U-65 was published in July 1962 in
Blackwood's Magazine
and the author was G. A. Minto. The sea is the perfect metaphor for the unconscious. Ernst Simmel (as remembered by Hebbel) was a German psychoanalyst who knew Sigmund Freud. He emigrated to the United States in 1934 to escape Nazi persecution and died in 1947.

The War Diary sections of
The Passenger
are almost literal transcriptions, and wherever possible I have based attacks, biographical details, and crew conversations on passages that appear in U-boat memoirs. The only fictional element in this book is the ghost. Everything else is—to a greater or lesser extent—authentic.

While researching
The Passenger
I made extensive use of
Das Boot
by Lothar-Günther Bucheim. Indeed, I think it's probably fair to say that I wouldn't have been able to write this book without it.
Das Boot
served as my essential model and I willingly confess to ransacking its detail-rich pages. In addition to being a matchless document of day-to-day life on a Type-VIIC U-boat,
Das Boot
is also an outstanding antiwar novel that deserves favorable comparison with works such as Remarque's
All Quiet on the Western Front
. Unfortunately
Das Boot
has been somewhat overshadowed in English-speaking countries by Wolfgang Petersen's impressive film adaptation. The novel, however, possesses all of the virtues of the film and a great deal more besides.

Other books that I found extremely useful were:
U-boat Crews
by Jean Delize,
Type VII: Germany's Most Successful U-boats
by Marek Krzyształowicz,
U-boat Attack Logs
by Daniel Morgan and Bruce Taylor,
The Official U-boat Commander's Handbook
edited by Bob Curruthers,
Grey Wolf: U-boat Crewmen of World War II
by Gordon Williamson (illustrated by Darko Pavlovic),
U-boat Tactics in World War II
by Gordon Williamson (illustrated by Ian Palmer),
U-boat Crews 1914–45
by Gordon Williamson (illustrated by Darko Pavlovic),
U-boat Bases and Bunkers 1941–45
by Gordon Williamson (illustrated by Ian Palmer),
First U-boat Flotilla
by Lawrence Paterson,
Neither Sharks Nor Wolves: the Men of Nazi Germany's U-boat Arm, 1939–1945
by Timothy P. Mulligan,
Teddy Suhren Ace of Aces: Memoirs of a U-boat Rebel
by Teddy Suhren and Fritz Brustat-Naval,
Iron Coffins: a Personal Account of the German U-boat Battles of World War II
by Herbert A. Werner, and
Hirschfeld: the Secret Diary of a U-boat
by Wolfgang Hirschfeld (as told to Geoffrey Brooks). In addition to the above, I also made use of:
USN Confidential (declassified) report 2G-9C S14, Former German Submarine Type IX-C-40
(Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, N.H., March 1946).

On the subject of Nazi mysticism,
Unholy Alliance: a History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult
by Peter Lavenda was highly informative. Wewelsburg, a Renaissance castle in Westphalia, was the ‘cult' headquarters of the Schutzstaffel (SS). The marbled floor of the Obergruppenführersaal is decorated with a runic symbol known as the sun wheel (or black sun). It was supposed to mark the center of not only the castle, but also the entire Germanic world empire, and reflects the extraordinary significance given to runes (and their perceived power) by Himmler and his circle. Prior to the outbreak of war, Himmler had authorized missions to Iceland, the purpose of which was to search for pagan relics. Although such missions were carried out ostensibly as historical and racial-heritage research, many Nazi mystics were convinced that the acquisition of occult ‘tools' would prove to have practical value.

‘Wir Alle' is the SS battle hymn in which the phrase ‘inspired by runes' appears. Runes used by the SS are tabulated in
Hitler's Elite: the SS 1939–1945
(edited by Chris McNab).

Adolf Hitler's words, when quoted, are taken from
Mein Kampf
and a translation of one of his speeches. The translation of Ludwig Teick's poem ‘Despair' was taken from
The Book of Lieder
by Richard Stokes.

The real U-330, a Type-VIIC, was a noncommissioned U-boat (canceled on July 22 , 1944 and broken up). Apart from U-39, all the other U-boats referred to were also noncommissioned or never laid down (see www.uboat.net for details). I did this to minimize dissonance for readers familiar with commissioned numbers, their commanders, crews, and war records.

U-boat men were notably superstitious, but a great deal of their ‘bad luck' was attributable to Alan Turing and the code-breakers of Bletchley Park.

Forty thousand men served in U-boats during World War II. Thirty thousand never came back.

F. R. Tallis,

London, 2014

F. R. T
ALLIS
is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has written self-help manuals, non-fiction for the general reader, academic text books, over thirty academic papers in international journals, and several novels. Between 1999 and 2012 he received or was shortlisted for numerous awards, including the New London Writers' Award, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Elle Prix de Letrice, and two Edgars. His critically acclaimed Liebermann series (written as Frank Tallis) has been translated into fourteen languages and optioned for TV adaptation. His latest books are
The Forbidden
,
The Sleep Room,
and
The Voices
. This novel,
The Passenger
, is his latest.

For more on Frank Tallis, visit his website www.franktallis.com or follow him on Twitter @FrankTallis

BY F. R. TALLIS

The Forbidden

The Sleep Room

The Voices

The Passenger

Writing as Frank Tallis

FICTION

Killing Time

Sensing Others

Mortal Mischief

Vienna Blood

Fatal Lies

Darkness Rising

Deadly Communion

Death and the Maiden

NON-FICTION

Changing Minds

Hidden Minds

Love Sick

THE PASSENGER

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Copyright © 2015 by F. R. Tallis

First Pegasus Books hardcover edition February 2016

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