There’s exciting news for all you World War II buffs — a U-boat was recently discovered in Lake Ponchartrain near New Orleans. Local lore has long told of a Nazi submarine in the lake, and there are vague references to it in Kriegsmarine archives. But it’s never been proven — until now. The local paper, The Statesman-Picaroon, has the story; but it’s behind a paywall. I can’t link to it, so here’s a synopsis.

Early in 1942, Admiral Donitz, commander of the U-Boat arm of the Kriegsmarine, authorized unrestricted submarine warfare off the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico.  One piece of the Gulf operations was a secret mission to cripple the vital oyster industry around New Orleans. The idea was to interrupt the US supply of oysters (a well-known aphrodisiac), thus driving down birth rates and leaving the US with insufficient manpower to fight a protracted war.

The mission was assigned to the U-1369, an older Type VIIA boat under the command of Kapitanleutnant Gustav von Merkin, an ardent Nazi and the grand-nephew of the famous German naval hero, Der Captain Katzenjammer (LINK). The U-1369 left Bremerhaven in February 1942; and after an uneventful trans-Atlantic crossing marred only by persistent problems with the batteries, she arrived in the Gulf in late March. The mission was timed to coincide with peak oyster harvesting season, which would allow von Merkin to destroy virtually the entire oyster fleet.

U-1369 entered Lake Ponchartrain via Lake Borgne undetected and spent several days reconnoitering the area. Before dawn on the appointed day, von Merkin brought his boat to the surface and went to battle stations in preparation for his attack on the unsuspecting oyster fleet.

Unfortunately for the boat, he was spotted by a young Civil Air Patrol cadet on his first solo flight. Cadet Alphonse Boudreaux, flying a Vought O-1 3/4 “Brown Pelican” observation plane, spotted the U-1369. Without a radio to report the sighting or weapons to attack, Boudreaux did what he could and made a series of simulated strafing runs on the submarine in the hopes of spoiling its attack. His efforts succeeded and caused von Merkin to order an emergency dive.

Eager to do anything to damage the boat, Boudreaux threw his thermos of turtle soup at the sub during a pass. Against all odds, the thermos struck the submarine and lodged in one of the air intake vents, preventing it from closing. The lake’s brackish water rushed in as the submarine dived and flooded the battery compartment.

Due to the aforementioned battery problems, the water caused deadly chlorine gas to form and to quickly fill up the boat.  The lethal gas forced the crew to abandon the boat as it sank to the bottom and buried itself in the mud of Lake Ponchartrain. The entire crew escaped, with the only casualty being the boat’s mascot — a pet chicken named Heinrich, who was heard clucking the Horst Wessel Lied (as the crew had trained it to do) before being overcome by the chlorine gas.

Cadet Boudreaux returned to Moisant Army Airfield and reported his encounter.  However, Boudreaux was known to spin some rather fantastic yarns. Plus, he had had a few too many sazerac cocktails before (and during) the flight. No one believed him nor did anyone make an effort to locate the boat, which would have been difficult as Boudreaux, in his impaired state, could not remember where he had spotted U-1369.  Boudreaux went on to serve honorably throughout the war and became a local celebrity in the years after. He insisted to his dying day that he had attacked a Nazi submarine in Lake Ponchartrain — a claim now proven true.

U-1369’s crew made it to the south shore of the lake and attempted to blend in with the local populace. New Orleans has a sizeable German community, and they would have succeeded if not for their native Aryan arrogance. They refused to split up and made little effort to keep a low profile. Soon, they were all picked up by the local FBI office after trying to tip the strippers on Bourbon Street with reichsmarks and insisting that they have bratwurst with their red beans and rice rather than andouille sausage.

When interrogated, the crew, to a man, refused to answer questions, fearing that the US would get classified documents and equipment (especially the ENIGMA machine*) if the boat were salvaged. None gave any answer other than name, rank, and service number.  Getting no information whatsoever from the crew, the feds sent them to a local POW camp where they herded crawfish at local farms and worked in the Tabasco mines of southern Louisiana for the duration.

After the war, most went back to Germany, but some stayed. It is of note that Gustav von Merkin stayed in Louisiana, married, obtained US citizenship, got a law degree from Tulane, and even ran for governor once in 1960, garnering a hefty share of the electorate with the slogan “You Can’t Do Much Worse Than What You’ve got Now!”

U-1369 was finally discovered by a team from Robert Ballard’s Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute that was investigating Titanic sightings on Lake Ponchartrain**. During routine sonar soundings, the team came upon the wreck and confirmed its identity after several dives. Despite repeated calls to explore the sunken ship, there are currently no plans to do so. Soon after U-1369 was found, PETA successfully sued to have it designated a war memorial that contains remains of war dead. PETA claimed, successfully, that Heinrich the Chicken’s remains qualify as legitimate war dead because, as PETA’s lead lawyer in the suit said, “Chickens are people too.”

* The ENIGMA machine was a coding machine invented by the noted German mathematician, Professor Edvard Nigma of the Berlin Institute of Numbers. The machine turned plain text messages into a series of intricate riddles that could only be decoded by a similar machine on the receiving end.  The Allies eventually broke the ENIGMA code by using a BAT (Bedeutung Aus Torheit) computer developed by an American industrialist and his young ward.

** Titanic on Lake Ponchartrain