Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

The U-Boat Commander
Among the graves for more than 30 German POWs
buried in the Fort George G. Meade Post Cemetery, that
for Korvettenkapitän (Lt. Commander) Werner Henke
represents the only one for an officer, and the only one
for a member of the German navy. In fact, Henke was
not held within the Fort Meade POW camp, and died in
another state. So why is he buried here?
Werner Henke was a highly successful U-boat
commander, an ace who sank or damaged 27 Allied
merchant vessels and warships and earned one of
Germany’s highest decorations, the Knight’s Cross of
the Iron Cross, which he received from Adolf Hitler
himself in 1943. Yet despite this recognized success,
Henke remained an outsider within his own navy: a
former merchant marine officer, he was impetuous,
cosmopolitan, a ladies’ man, and ill-disciplined. A visit to a
girlfriend during a unit transfer nearly cost him his career,
and he argued with Nazi Party and Gestapo officials over
friends victimized by the Nazi police state. He was very
fond of Cole Porter and American jazz, and he shared
his record collection with his appreciative U-boat crew.
He was married two weeks before departing on his final
patrol.
On Apr. 9, 1944, his submarine U-515 was tracked
down and sunk by a U.S. Navy task force centered on the
escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal about 700 miles
west of the Azores. Henke and the 43 survivors of his
U-boat were brought to the United States, where most of
the U-boat crew proceeded to Papago Park, Arizona, the
principal POW camp for captured German submariners.
Henke and a few of his men, however, were held at
Fort Hunt, Virginia, a secret interrogation center near
Mount Vernon. Linked administratively and logistically
to Fort Meade, Fort Hunt served as a special detention
center that employed hidden microphones, stool pigeons,
special rewards (such as visits to Washington shopping
districts), and psychological tricks to supplement regular
interrogation sessions.
One such psychological trick concerned Henke, who
was informed he was wanted by British authorities for
war crimes. Unless he cooperated with the Americans,
WORLD WAR II YEARS
By Timothy P. Mulligan
Henke was threatened with repatriation to the British for
trial. In fact, there were no war crimes committed and
Henke’s presence in American captivity was unknown to
the British. When Henke still refused to cooperate, camp
officials decided to simply transfer Henke to Canada,
where the submarine commander would have sat out
the rest of the war quietly with other German U-boat
officers. Henke was informed on June 14, 1944, of his
imminent transfer to Canada, a seeming confirmation of
the threatened British war crimes trial. The next evening,
at the conclusion of his time in the exercise yard, Werner
Henke died scaling a barbed wire fence in the Fort Hunt
compound.
With an obvious concern over a possible compromise
of Fort Hunt’s security, U.S. Army representatives
immediately drove Henke’s body to the hospital at Fort
Meade, where he was pronounced dead on arrival and
autopsied. His burial in the Post Cemetery followed on
June 17, 1944.
***
(Below) German Day of Mourning is observed each November
at the Fort Meade Post Cemetery, with members of the
German and Italian embassy delegations from Washington,
D.C., paying tribute to those who died while POWs on Fort
Meade.
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