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Nothing

Not a Gerray sea was as e fro rowboat to shoot at The captain thought of the twelve unused torpedoes aboard the Soviet sub and his anger festered like an open sore Soviet naval headquarters had said that the Red Ar would force a major sea evacuation The S-13 was one of three Soviet subs ordered to wait for the expected exodus off Memel, a port still held by the Germans

When Marinesko learned that Meether He told the, where the evacuation convoys were more likely to be found

Not one man objected Officers and creell aware that the success of their mission could mean the difference between a hero's welcome and a one-way ticket to Siberia

Days earlier, the captain had run afoul of the secret police, the NKGB He had left the base without per on January 2 when orders had come down from Stalin for the subs to sail into the Baltic and wreak havoc a the convoys But the captain was on a three-day bender in the brothels and bars of the Finnish port of Turku He returned to the S-13 a day after it was supposed to sail

The NKGB aiting They became even more suspicious when he said he could not ree Marinesko was a cocky and tough submarine skipper who had been awarded the orders of Lenin and the Red Banner The swashbuckling suber when the secret police accused hi and defection

His sy officer put off the decision on conducting a court-martial That ploy fell apart when the Ukrainians who served aboard the sub signed a petition asking that their captain be allowed to rejoin his boat The commander knew that this display of si to defuse a dangerous situation, he ordered the sub to sea while a decision was made about a court-martial

Marinesko reasoned that if he sunk enough Ger severely punished

Without telling naval headquarters of their plan, he and his men quietly put the S-13 on a course that would take it away from the patrol lanes and toward its fateful rendezvous with the German liner

Friedrich Petersen, the Gustlojf's white-haired master captain, paced back and forth in the wardroo pyrotechnics display He stopped suddenly and shot a red-hot glare at a younger man dressed in the spit-and-polish uniform of the submarine division

"May I remind you, Commander Zahn, that I a this vessel and all aboard to safety"

Bringing his iron discipline to bear, Submarine Commander Wilhelm Zahn reached down and scratched behind the ear of Hassan, the big Alsatian dog at his side "And may I remind you, captain, that the Gustloff has been under my command as a submarine base ship since 1942 I aet your oath not to command a ship at sea"

Petersen had signed the agree captured by the British The oath was a forht he was too old to be fit for service At the age of sixty-seven, he knew his career ashed up no erkapitan, the "sleeping captain," of the Gustloff But he took soer man had been withdrawn fro of the British ship Nelson

"Nonetheless, Captain, under your supervision the Gustloff has never left the dock," he said "A floating classroom and barracks anchored in one place is a far cry froard for the subue that I am the only one qualified to take the vessel to sea"

Petersen had coe, and would never have been allowed to take the helm of the Gustloff under ordinary circu under the command of a civilian Gerroup