I mentioned in a previous post that my father was the only Infantry officer to accept the surrender of a German submarine during WW2. I’ve had a couple of requests for the details, so here’s a brief telling of the tale—

Captain Hoge’s Combat Intelligence Team was attached to the 66th Infantry Division during their operations in the west of France mopping up German forces cut off by the main thrust through France. While the division was moving along the coast, they captured several naval installations. One day, they overran a U-boat base that had been heavily bombed by the RAF. All the subs, except one, had been sunk, and the intact boat was trapped by the wreckage of the others. When the boat’s captain surrendered the intact vessel, it turned out that my father was the senior allied officer present, so he accepted the surrender. During the surrender, the boat captain gave my father his sidearm.

I have the captain’s Luger here on my desk as I write this.

Dad had a couple of other good war stories. One was about a bank robbery he investigated. That one became the basis for a movie.