One. Unsolved Wartime Murder, Royal Intrigue
German Sympathizers in the Bahamas
Living in Cuba during World War II, novelist Ernest Hemingway convinced Allied naval authorities to let him undertake patrols against the German U-Boat menace, using his own boat and a volunteer crew. At the time the Allies needed all the help they could get.
Nearby, Edward Duke of Winsor was serving as governor of the Bahamas. He had abdicated the crown of England to marry an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson. The notoriously pro-Nazi couple had been effectively banished to the islands to prevent them from creating mischief on the homefront.
The Royals’ best friend was Harry Oakes, one of the wealthiest men in the world, soon to become the 20th century’s wealthiest murder victim.
Hemingway’s third and final patrol began in late spring 1943.
1 a.m., 12 May 1943: Manzanillo Bay, Dominican Republic
Korvettenkapitan Reiner Dierksen scanned the black waters ahead of U-176 acutely aware of the knot in his stomach. The Kriegsmarine prized aggressiveness in its U-Boat commanders, but senior officers recently had criticized the commander for having been too reckless in the pursuit of prey. They liked that he sank ships, Dierksen mused, but they didn’t like how he did it. Those headquarters bastards would probably take pleasure in his state of unease.
Around the captain, four men crowded the bridge scanning their sectors with binoculars, all were shirtless in the tropical heat, as were the crew manning the deck gun. Dierksen, as always, wore his uniform shirt tucked into his trousers and his cap. U-176 nosed into Manzanillo Bay silently on the electrics at four knots.
Dierksen had been ordered not to engage enemy shipping during the Atlantic crossing, not until he had discharged his passenger. U-176 had passed two easy kills outside the shipping lanes and beyond the range of allied aircraft. The luckiest ships in the Atlantic, Dierksen thought.
The slow ocean crossing had salt-scrubbed the men’s sense of smell, which had the effect of intensifying the lush scents that rolled off the hills of Hispaniola, carried by the land breeze into the men’s nostrils.
“That must be the smell of schwartza pussy.” Stabsbootsmann Willy Schroder said, just above a whisper. “I love that smell. I love pussy—black pussy, dago pussy, chink pussy, even Austrian pussy.” The watch-standers chuckled; one of them was a native of the Österreich.
“Stow it, men! Not another word. Focus on your sectors.” Dierksen normally tolerated Schroeder’s colorful outbursts—the petty officer was the dirty old man of the boat, at 36 one year older than his captain, but unnecessary conversation was a breach of surface discipline. “I don’t know what you have been fucking, chief, but for your information that is the odor of charcoal being made in those fires in the hills to starboard.”
The Abwehr had promoted its own ideas about a rendezvous location, but Dierksen had insisted on Manzanillo Bay, and his admiral had overruled the man from the intelligence service. Dierksen liked the fact that the bay was deep—more than 100 fathoms at the rendezvous point about a mile off the beach. He liked the fact that the bay was remote, outside the normal patterns of the increasingly effective American air patrols. What had his stomach in a knot was the knowledge that the bay formed a cul-de-sac, and the quicker U-176’s crew discharged the civilian, the quicker they could retreat offshore and light up the diesels.
“Captain, two dim lights at 2 o’clock,” said a watch-stander. Four binoculars turned and trained eyes on that bearing.
“The lanterns… Inform the gunners to take aim but hold fire,” Dierksen whispered. “Do not use the searchlight until I order it, and then only for a second. Relay: Stop the boat. And get our Algerian friend and his bags up on deck.”
“Speaking of schwartzas,” the petty officer said to no one in particular.
Evening, 27 March 1943: Havana, Cuba
Commander Ian Lancaster Fleming instructed the embassy driver to drop him at the corner of Obispo and Montseratt. He stepped through the massive open door of La Floridita and, as had been suggested, looked leftward to the end of the L-shaped bar. The burly man on the last barstool gave a little wave, and Fleming set a course for the unoccupied barstool on the man’s right.
“Commander Fleming, Royal Navy.”
“I could tell by the uniform, commander. Ernest Hemingway. My friends call me Ernie.” Ernie was wearing shorts and a polo shirt with a stain across the front. He offered his hand.
“Please call me Ian, and thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I don’t get out much anymore, other than the club. Now, there is much to discuss, so let me get this out straight away: I very much admire your work. I was a writer, too, in a small way. Reuters had me cover a trial in Moscow once. Almost landed an interview with Stalin. Pity. Hope to get back to it after…”
The bartender approached, a formal fellow. His red vest matched the decor.
“I recommend the daiquiri. Good rum. The drink’s a local favorite,” Hemingway said.
“Not sure I’ve heard of it. Think he can make a martini?” Fleming asked.
“I’m sure he could, but you might find the local gin atrocious.”
“Make mine a daiquiri then, por favor.”
Hemingway shifted on his stool to face Fleming. “So, Ian, to what do I owe the honor?”
“As you may have heard, we have just concluded an allied summit in Jamaica on the U-Boat threat, and since I was stopping in Havana on my way back to Washington and London, I thought I would brief you on the situation, given the volunteer sub patrols you’ve been conducting with your boat. Pilar’s her name, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Pilar, a Wheeler 38. We’ve got her disguised as a research vessel. Crew of six, sometimes seven. Tough guys and armed to the teeth. Got the Navy’s latest radio gear on loan, along with the operator. Had to convert the head into a radio shack. Now we all shit in a bucket.”
“Sounds jolly. When he heard about Pilar, my old boss Admiral Godfrey at Naval Intelligence compared your patrols in spirit to the volunteer navy at Dunkirk. Someone said you’ve named this pirate gang of yours “The Crook Factory.”
Hemingway smiled. He enjoyed notoriety. “You are awfully well informed, Ian. Bartender, dos mas por favor.”
“This war caught us left-footed, my friend. Information and the skill with which we leverage information is one of the few advantages we have over Jerry. For example, would it surprise you to know your FBI holds you in low regard? Edgar Hoover thinks you’re a Red, and he’s started a file on you.”
“Yeah, he’s got an agent nosing around my business down here. I pretend not to know. My Navy friends run interference. Someone please tell that jackass that the Russians are on our side.”
“Ernie, there’s something then you should know about Mr. Hoover. Our gang is keen to know our friends as intimately as we know our enemies, particularly if they constitute such a bilious force. Edgar is queer, and he’s keen that no one else find out. That tidbit might come in handy someday.”
The amusement drained from Hemingway’s face. “Just what is it you want, commander?”
“A favor, Ernie. A favor.”
Cocktail Hour, 13 October 1941: Nassau, Bahamas
The woman formerly known as Wallis Simpson had prominent features, not pretty really, but the force of her personality gave her a presence that belied the fact and charmed the pants off men, including the future ex-King of England. Now, something had brought her back to “the topic,” and she was angry.
The ex-King, now entitled Duke of Windsor and serving as governor of the Bahamas, knew it would pass, but, damn the woman, she still could frighten him. Leaning into him, jaw set, she whispered so the men in the front seat did not hear.
“Goddammit, Edward. We can’t be expected to live on your governor’s salary and that pittance from the crown. Your family…”
“My family does what’s best for my family. It always has, always will, and right now my family—and bloody Winston—want us marginalized, so we must live here amongst the bloody niggers. Now please, Wallis, we’re almost to the docks, and I don’t want us to bring everyone down.”
Their driver brought the car alongside Southern Cross, the largest motoryacht in the world. The Governor’s Royal Marine bodyguard stepped from the passenger’s side and opened the rear door. A ship’s crew in starched whites, who had been waiting at parade rest, led the former King and his scandalous American wife up the gangway onto the deck and into the ship’s main saloon, where the two billionaires and their wives awaited.
“Hello, Axel. Hello, Harry. Sorry we’re late,” said the Duke of Windsor, with a nod to the wives.
Axel was Axel Werner-Gren, the Swedish entrepreneur and principal owner of the Lectrolux vacuum cleaner company. He also owned Hog Island across the harbor from Nassau, where he had built an estate. He was close friends with Herman Goering and other prominent Nazis, but steadfastly denied using Southern Cross (purchased from American billionaire Howard Hughes) to scout targets for Germany’s U-Boats.
The Duke liked to joke, “Axel doth protest too much.”
Harry Oakes had started life in rural Maine, earned a fortune mining Yukon gold, converted to Canadian citizenship, then moved to The Bahamas to shelter his investment income from taxes. He had been knighted Sir Harry after contributing a large sum to certain British politicians who had favored a policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany.
In this company alone did the Duke and Duchess feel at home in their exile, and the three couples engaged in convivial pleasantries as stewards brought food and drinks. A break in the conversation gave Oakes a chance to burnish his reputation for crudity.
“If these walls could talk…,” Oakes said, scanning the varnished teak paneling. “I mean, didn’t Hughes use this boat as a fuck palace for all those Hollywood actresses he was seeing?” Oakes’ wife Eunice cringed but resigned to say nothing.
“Indeed.” Wenner-Gren smiled. “That’s why my crew—all ex-Swedish Navy men, by the way—have their own name for the boat they use when they think I cannot hear them. ‘The floating fornicatorium,’ they say. Ha!”
When the laughter receded, Wenner-Gren introduced the topic of the evening.
“As I mentioned in my note to all of you, I have a business proposition that might suit all our needs,” he said with a nod to the Duke and Duchess. “I am going to start a bank in Mexico and I want you as my first investors. President Camacho likes the cut of my jib, and I think a well-capitalized bank will make us richer and advance the cause of the Reich in a sly way.”
“Count us in,” the Dutchess said, but the Duke hesitated. “Wallis, should Winston learn that we are willfully violating wartime currency restrictions, he would have me shot.”
“Not literally, I’m sure,” Wenner-Gren said. “Plenty are doing it.”
“Winston’s too busy trying to convince the USA to get into the war to notice a little money moving around. Axel and I will show you how it’s done,” Oakes said.
“If the U.S. enters the war, it will go down as the biggest sucker in history,” the Duchess said.
“Yes it would be ill-advised for America to enter the war. Europe is finished,” the Duke said. “And even if America does not enter the war, after the war, Germany will crush her. And then, even though the British people may not want me as their King, they will see me back as their Fuhrer!”
Next: Conspiracies in London and Berlin advance as U-176 drops off its passenger, and the new man in Pilar’s crew shows off his assassination skills.