Operation Pastorious - What really happened out there on Amagansett Beach

[Pangaroo]

Read about that landing for the last 42 years, ever since I bought my first Loran C I've been reading about shipwrecks and the German Spies who landed on Amagansett Beach. I read Spy George Dasch's 1959 book about the landing and 4 or 5 other books that got information from the National Archives and the U Boat Capt's Log Book. I read the British Royal Navy U 202 interrogation report that was prepared a month after U202 was sunk on June 2nd 1943 SE of Greenland. One of the German Sailors interrogated said he rowed the 4 spies onto Amagansett Beach and was on the beach about 10 minutes or so . Sailor Said U202 got stuck on a sandbar , dumped nearly all it's fuel into the Amagansett surf to lighten the U Boat , was so close to shore they heard dogs barking, heard car horns . Said they crossed the Atlantic mostly on the surface going 8-10 knots with 2 practice dives daily . U202 left Lorient France with 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Maybe 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel was dumped into the Amagansett Surf.
U202 was a type VII C U Boat -500 Tons, About 212 feet long , 5 torpedo tubes , 1 -88 MM Deck gun and 4 machine guns on the deck. Top speed was about 18 knots. The Commander was 29 year old Hans Heinz Linder and this trip to Amagansett Beach to drop off 4 spies was U202's 6th War patrol since the boat was built in 1941.
There were 4 spies on the beach, 2 German Sailors and 1 sick crewman who had appendicitus and a U Boat officer. 8 Germans stood on Amagansett Beach that morning June 13th 1942..
About the 4 spies:
George John Dasch was 39 years old, was married to an American Woman who he called Snooks . Came to the US in 1922 as a stowaway and landed in Philadelphia where he briefly worked. Served in the US Army Air Corp from 1924-1926 and was a US Army Veteran. Worked mostly as a Waiter in NYC and out on Long Island. Lived in NYC .

Ernst Peter Burger was in his 30's , was a member of the Brown Shirts , was an early follower of Adolph Hitler . Joined the Brown Shirts under Ernst Rohm and after Rohm was killed during the Night of The Long Knives , Burger and many of his followers were thrown into Concentration Camps. Burger proved his loyalty and they released him. Was a US Citizen and lived in the US for quite a while.

Richard Quirin - Lived in the US , was a member of the German American Bund in the US , worked at a Volkswagon Factory in Germany.

Heinrich Harm Heinck - not much known.

The Landing:
U202 approached Long Island on Friday Night June 12th , their target destination was East Hampton . It was a New Moon and there was dense fog. 8PM they sent a coded Enigma message back to headquarters and US Navy Intelligence on Church St. in Manhatten was able to triangulate their location at 30 miles South Of Amagansett. Right until the end of WW2 the Germans didn't know we had the ability to locate their UBoats every time they communicated. The US Navy knew there was a U Boat off the East End Of Long Island that night.
U202 arrived off Amagansett Beach about 11:30 PM Friday Night , during a New Moon , Dense Fog and it was dead low tide. The Boat came up on a Sandbar 200 yards off the Beach and quickly they got the 4 spies and 2 German Sailors in a raft . The Sailors were armed with Light Machine Guns . All 6 in the party were wearing German Naval Uniforms when they landed on the beach. They attached a rope to the raft so they could pull the Sailors back to the Boat. They rowed away from the Boat and when they were almost to the beach , George Dasch miscalculated how far they were from the beach and jumped overboard too early. He nearly drowned and they just pulled him in time and saved his life. They continued rowing to the beach and landed . The rope attached to the U Boat fell off the raft. They all got out of the raft and quickly took off their Uniforms. Dasch quickly put on his Civilian cloths , the other spies walked up the beach wearing swim suits . They quickly put all the spy stuff/explosives into sacks and were dragging them up the beach . George Dasch was at the surf line helping the Sailors overturn the raft and get the water out when he looked over his shoulder and saw a light coming down the beach. Quickly Dasch walked over to the light to see who it was and he came face to face with 21 Year Old Coast Guard Seaman John C. Cullen. Cullen shined his flashlight at Dasch and said who are you , why are you on the beach ? Dasch said they were fishermen going to Montauk and they ran aground. Right away Cullen thought these men were odd , out of place, Dasch was wearing tennis shoes . didn't look like a fisherman . Spy Peter Burger Sees what's going on, comes up to Cullen and Dasch and speaks to Dasch in German . Dasch turns around and says shut up you fool, go back to the others . Burger returned to the others and told them what was happening . Spy Richard Quirin furious that Dasch didn't over power Cullen and subdue him, started to run over to tackle Cullen and the other spies held him back. The 2 Armed German Sailors were right there witnessing the whole thing. The order was given on the U Boat by Capt. Linder that if you encounter anybody on the beach , you are to overpower them and bring them back to the U boat and we'll feed them to the fish. Dasch looks at Cullen again realizing the danger the Coast Guard guy is in , says do you have a mother, a father, you want to see them again ? Here , take this money and forget about everything you saw here and have yourself a good time. Dasch looked at Cullen very closely and said would you recognize me if you saw me in a restaurant in SouthHampton?, Cullen sensing the danger he was in said no I wouldn't. Dasch let the Coast Guard guy get away and Cullen ran back to the Amagansett Coast Guard station to tell his superior what happened. Dasch disobeyed the order to subdue anybody they encountered on the beach . Dasch realized they'd probably kill Cullen and that's why he let him go. Dasch was no killer, he was Catholic, thought about being a Priest and was married to an American Woman.
End of Part 1 - I don't know how much I can write here and post on one page. Part 2 to follow.

 

[Pangaroo]

Operation Pastorius Part 2:
Seaman Cullen was born and raised in Bayside Queens , was 21 years old and working at Macy's when WW 2 began. He wanted to join the Marines with his friends but the Marine recruiter said they were shipping out that night and he had to report tonight. Cullen wanted to spend Christmas with his family and he decided to join the Coast Guard Instead. He joined the Coast Guard and was sent out to the Amagansett Coast Guard Station . People like Cullen were called Sand Pounders , they walked the beach day and night patrolling the coast. Saturday June 13th at Midnight, Cullen set out on his patrol . He walked out of the Building at 165 Atlantic Avenue ( It's still there today), walked down to the Beach and began his patrol. He was to patrol East towards Montauk that night. Cullens Supervisor was Boatswains Mate 2nd Class Carl Jennett . Jennett was born and raised in North Carolina , came from a family of Coast Guard Men . After the War he bought a home in Amagansett and lived there for the rest of his life and is buried there .
Cullen was walking East towards Montauk when he stumbled on the Germans. He was about 35-45 minutes into his patrol when he came upon the Germans. Was probably a mile or mile and a half from the Coast Guard Station. The Spies landed 12:30 AM and were dragging the bags of explosives up the beach when they were discovered . The spies were still in bathing suits walking up from the surf line when Cullen arrived .
Cullen ran as fast as he could back to his station and burst in and yelled there's Germans on the beach , get up and go out and search for them. Cullen pulled out the money Dasch gave him and Jennett knew it was for real. Jennett quickly got his men up. There were 6 or 8 guys in the station that morning. Jennett armed each of his men with 1903 Springfield rifles and they all went out to investigate .
The Spies buried all the uniforms and explosives in the sand , Dasch claimed in his book that he left a shovel sticking out of the sand to mark where everything was buried . The Spies were walking up to get off the beach and right before they stepped off the beach they heard a gun go off . They turned around and saw a red flare burst in the sky. The U Boat Sailors fired the red flare because they couldn't find the U Boat and the U Boat fired a Green flare to show their location Terrified they thought they were going to get caught , Spy Richard Quirin got very angry at Dasch for letting the Coast Guard Guy get away . George, you let the Coast Guard Guy get away and now we're going to get caught, I should kill you right here ! Cooler heads prevailed and they walked off the beach . Took a while to get to Montauk Highway , they had to walk thru a lot of brush to get there. Once on Montauk highway they had to find the LIRR tracks. This was about 1:30 in the morning, The Coast Guard was out there searching for them. Jennett called his superior, Chief Boatswain Mate Warren Barnes and said there was a landing on the beach. Barnes notified his superiors in NYC and they sent 2 Coast Guard Investigators out to investigate. They drove in record time from Manhatten to Amaganett in 2 hours !! No Sunrise Highway Extension or Long Island Expressway in 1942, they had to drive Merrick Road, Montauk Highway all the way out.
The spies walked along Montauk Highway ( where all the fancy shops are today ) and a Truck full of Coast Guard Guys drove right past the spies walking down the street and thought nothing of it.
Back on the Uboat, The Sailors told Capt. Linder that Dasch let the Coast Guard Guy get away. Linder was furious that Dasch disobeyed his order. By then the U Boat had turned sideways and was now stuck on the sand bar and they couldn't get off. They dumped nearly all their fuel overboard to lighten the boat and still it wouldn't get the boat off the bar. An hour passed and the Capt. and Crew started getting very anxious they'd have to surrender and be POWS for the rest of the war. They went around the boat setting the scuttling charges thinking they'd have to surrender. They also had a sick crewman with appendicitus and they didn't have morphine to dull his pain. So figuring they were going to surrender, they put the sick crewman on the raft with a U Boat Officer and 2 Armed Sailors rowed them back to the beach and put the 2 men on the beach.
By then , There were probably 20-30 US Sailors and Army men on that beach looking for them and they were able to come back and put 2 more Germans on the beach. It was very dark on that beach , you couldn't see much. The U Boat was sideways to the beach, no doubt they had the 88 MM Deck Gun and Machine guns pointed towards the beach ready to fight. Who knows what would've happened if that fog lifted and all those nervous men started to see each other . Right there on Amagansett Beach Long Island .
The tide came in and the U Boat got off the bar at 3:10 AM. Then they realized they had just put the crewman and the officer on the beach . They rowed back and brought them back to the Boat and they sailed away about 4 in the morning when it started to get light out. Coast Guard Men and Army Men on the Beach heard them sailing away and heard the U Boat racing it's engine to get off the bar. They hid behind sand dunes worried they'd be fired at.
End of Part 2 , Part 3 to follow.

 

[Pangaroo]

Operation Pastorius Part 3 :
U 202 sailed away about 4 in the morning. It dumped nearly all the fuel overboard and couldn't go very far. For the next 10 days or so the U boat went silent. They probably went out to the Hudson Canyon Area and sat on the bottom waiting for a milch cow ( German word for resupply and replenishment U Boat) to come within range. They got word from headquarters that U460 had left Keil Germany and would be in position Mid Atlantic around the end of the month/Early July to refuel them. When U460 got close enough , U202 went on active patrol again and sank the SS Rio Tercero out by the Hudson Canyon and The City Of Birmingham and returned home to Lorient France. This was Capt. Linders last war patrol , he was reassigned to a U Boat Training school and was killed in a Soviet Air Raid in 1944.
Back in Amagansett:
The spies were in Amagansett almost 5 and half hours and nobody stopped them. They walked inland and found the LIRR tracks. They mistakenly walked East towards Montauk and after a while they turned around and walked back to Amagansett . There were FBI Agents, Coast Guard Investigators and probably 200 men searching for them , Even the NY State Police set up road blocks checking if the spies were in cars. I have a picture of a State Trooper Motor Cycle Officer searching a stopped car!
All these people were looking for the spies and the Spies walked right up to the Amagansett train station, bought 4 tickets to Manhatten and walked right on the train without anybody checking them. They were either getting away by car or train and they didn't even bother putting an agent at the train station to watch for the spies. Unbelievable!
The 4 spies walked to the Amagansett train Station in wet clothing . Bought 4 tickets to NYC from Station Clerk IRA Baker. Dasch spoke to Baker and said they were fishermen and the fishing was terrible that day and they were going home. They got on the train, bought 4 newspapers and sat on the train reading about the Battle Of the Coral Sea and The Big NY At War Parade that was being held that afternoon in the city. One of the spies said later that while on the train he saw a long highway with a lot of cars- they rode along the SouthShore thru towns like Massapequa, Seaford, Wantagh, Bellmore, Merrick, Freeport. They saw Sunrise Highway.
They changed at Jamaica and got the train to Penn Station. There, they split up into 2 groups - Dasch/Burger , Quirin/Heinch and they went off and Dasch/Burger Checked into the Hotel Governor Clinton ( Stewart Hotel today) and Quirin and Heinch checked into the Martinique Hotel.

Part 4 tomorrow, I'm tired.

 

[Pangaroo]

Operation Pastorius Part 4:
The 4 spies checked into their hotels and then went out to buy new clothing, have good meals and no doubt they stood with the big crowds that day in NYC and watched the NY At War Parade. You can see the NY At War Parade on You Tube.
Really nice seeing what it was like that June 13th Day in 1942. I saw a comment on You Tube from a guy who attended that parade and he said it was hot and humid about 90 degrees.
The spies went back to their old lives almost as soon as they arrived in the city, they met old friends again, Dasch played card games with his friends, some met up with girlfriends and wives.
From the moment the spies left Lorient France, they were very suspicious of each other and they broke up into pairs when they arrived in NYC. Right away , Dasch had second thoughts about the whole mission . He spent the next couple of days with friends thinking what he was going to do. He had almost $85,000 , he could've fled to Mexico and been a rich man his whole life, but he had family back home and worried about them . So he couldn't do that. After a couple of days he decided he wanted to surrender . Him and Burger went up to their room at the Hotel Governor Clinton and Dasch asked Burger if wanted to surrender. Dasch told Burger , only one person will leave this room alive if we don't agree to surrender. Burger said he wanted to surrender . A short while later Dasch traveled down to Washington D.C. to surrender to the FBI. He checked into the Mayflower Hotel and spent the night in room 351. That day or the day after, he called the FBI and said he wanted to meet J Edgar Hoover. Dasch explained to the FBI that he landed by submarine on Long Island and he wanted to speak to Hoover and surrender to him. The person answering the phone thought Dasch was a crackpot and brushed him off. Somebody realized he was telling the truth and sent 2 agents to the Mayflower Hotel to speak to Dasch. FBI Agent Duane Traynor and another agent stayed the whole night with Dasch in room 351 and they talked about the Operation Pastorious Plan. Agent Duane Traynor died about 2 or 3 years ago. Dasch sat down with the 2 Agents and explained everything about the mission, Dasch pulled out a White Hanky and gave it to the agents. Dasch said they wrote the names of the agents and the places they were meet on the hanky using invisable ink . Dasch pulled out his specially designed money belt he designed that held $84,000 in US currency. The Agents realized Dasch was telling the truth. The FBI Lab applied a special chemical to the White Hanky and they could read what was on the Hanky. They used that info and quickly arrested the 6 spies , 2 from the Long Island Group and 4 from the Florida Group.
If you stay at the Mayflower Hotel today in room 351, on the front door they have the mugshot of George Dasch on the front of the door. Cost about $300 a night to stay there. I wanted to go down there and stay a night in Room 351 but never got the chance. Maybe The Hotel Governor Clinton ( Stewart Hotel ) can tell me what room Dasch and Burger stayed in when they were in NYC.
Seaman John Cullen testified against the 4 spies , after the trial he was walking in the hallway and J Edgar Hoover stopped him and shook his hand. Said Good job.
6 of the spies were executed in the electric chair and were buried in a Potters field on the outskirts of D.C. President Roosevelt followed this case very closely , said he wanted them all dead. He instructed that they be buried in unmarked graves so they wouldn't be found ever again . Somehow the National Socialists of America found out where they were buried and put a Grave stone about 30 feet from the actual graves. They put the Spies names on the stone and said they died for their country. Sometime in the 1950's or 1960's it was put there and about 15 years ago there were Utility workers clearing brush who found the Grave Stone. It was quickly removed by the Government.
Burger was given a life sentence and Dasch got 30 years to life. In 1948, President Truman commuted both of their sentences and they were quickly deported back to Germany. Burger went back and disappeared , he died in 1975 at the age of 69. Dasch went back and Germany treated him as a traitor. Had a real rough time. He'd move into a town with his wife and people found out what he did and they forced him to move . He wanted to come back to America and applied many times to get back and each time the US Gov't. refused to let him return. The East Hampton Maritime Museum spoke to Dasch on the Telephone sometime in the 1960's or 1970's and talked about the landing. Dasch wrote a book in 1959 partly to clear his name and to convince America he was a good guy and didn't wanna hurt Americans. Dasch died at the age of 89 in 1992.
Seaman Cullin was a national hero after that beach encounter. He spent the remainder of the war going around the country raising money in War Bond tours. He was married in 1944 and a huge number of people attended the wedding, many more than what was anticipated. Cullen was promoted to Chief Boatswains Mate before the end of the war and when the war ended he moved to Westbury and worked for a milk company as a sales representative. He moved down to Virginia to live with a daughter and died in 2010 at the age of 90.
When Cullen was walking on the beach that morning , he was thinking about a song he heard recently, He couldn't stop thinking about a particular tune sung by the Jimmy Dorsey Band - Tangerine - You can see Dorsey Sing that on You Tube.

End of Part 4 , Part 5 next.

 

[Pangaroo]

Operation Pastorius - Part 5:
Amagansett today- The Coast Guard Building that Cullen and his mates were stationed at is there today at 165 Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett. It's a museum now. It's on the right side of the Avenue right before the beach. There's a sign in front that very briefly mentions what happened. That building wasn't always there. In 1963, the Coast Guard planned to tear it down . A Private landowner purchased the Building and they moved the building onto private property . When the owner of the building died in 2007 , his Estate donated the building to the Town and it was moved back to the original location where it was in 1942.
The Railroad Station where the Spies bought tickets and boarded the train is still standing. It's a crumbling red brick building that you can see when you go thru the town .
The Coast Guard bungled the whole investigation from the get go. They were the only ones out there during the landing, there were some Army up near Napeak , but for the most part it was the Coast Guard calling the shots that morning. The FBI was called and they didn't arrive until hours later. 2 Coast Guard Guys falsely accused a local of being part of the operation. Each agency wanted to do it's own investigation, the Navy, the Coast Guard , The Army and the FBI were all doing their own investigations. Finally, the FBI had enough with all the investigations and warned all the other agencies that if they didn't back off and let the FBI be the lead agency , that the FBI would tell the public how they messed up the whole investigation and let the spies get away. They let the FBI take charge.
The FBI put an agent out at a Montauk Gas Station posing as a gas station attendant thinking the Spies would go out there ?
Coast Guard Chief Boatswain Mate Warren Barnes thought a German invasion was imminent and he quickly sent his family away from the East End. Operation Pastorious was an Amazing Story to tell.
I visited the Science Museum in Chicago where they have U505 on display. Walked thru that U Boat, the only time I ever saw a U boat in person. Incredible standing next to that at ground level and seeing how incredibly huge those boats were. I think U505 was about the same length as U202 was. American Submarines were way bigger than German U Boats , they were over 300 feet long. 2 American Submarines sank off the East End Of Long Island - The USS Bass is about 7 or 8 miles off Block Island and the USS Spikefish is out near the Andrea Doria.
The End .

 

[MakoMatt]

Thank you, that was a great read!!