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With his Leica camera, a Kriegsmarine officer snapped vivid photos of life on board German blockade runners and U-boats. As a tanker burned in the background, he caught U-405 Commandant Rolf Heinrich Hopman rushing to clean the boat’s periscope as she closed on Allied convoy PQ-18; at right from the top—“Sailor” Giese fresh from an Arctic Ocean patrol in the U-405; 2nd Officer Giese on the top-deck of the blockade runner Anneliese Essberger; and Watch Officer Giese on the bridge of the U-181 with Boatswain Hannes Frolich.
Otto Giese served for more than a year on board the Anneliese Essberger. This blockade runner serviced raiders—the Komet, top, in the South Pacific—and submarines—the U-106, escorting the blockade runner to the northern coastal waters of Spain after successful operations in the mid-Atlantic. For their service, the officer’s corps of the Anneliese Essberger (Giese at far right) received the Iron Cross 2nd Class at Bordeaux, France.
Otto Giese joined the U-181 in November 1943 and sailed with her until she was turned over to the Japanese in Malaya after Germany surrendered. Approaching Pulo Penang, the U-181 sported a white field on the front side of the bridge and white stripes on the deck so as to be recognized readily by Japanese aviators. The U-18Us Captain Kurt Freiwald decorated the crew members in Malaya. Prior to making a run for a return trip to Norway, the boat entered a shipyard in Singapore, where she was rigged with a Schnorchel, a must for the return trip that was never to be.
Captain Giese is the coauthor of Shooting the War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994), his World War II memoirs.