Werner Drechsler was a German U-boat officer aboard U-176 when it was sunk by a US Navy destroyer escort in the Gulf of Mexico in May 1942. After being interrogated by Naval Intelligence, he was offered something that had never been done before: the opportunity to train American sailors in anti-submarine warfare using his firsthand knowledge of U-boat tactics.
Drechsler accepted. He was given the equivalent rank of Ensign in the US Navy and assigned to the Naval Training Center in Newport, Rhode Island. There, he taught hundreds of American sailors how to identify U-boat patrol patterns, how to interpret sonar contacts, and how to predict submarine attack strategies.
What makes Drechsler story remarkable is not the technical knowledge he shared, but the emotional weight of what he was asked to do. Every morning, he stood before a room of young American sailors and taught them how to kill German submariners, men who had been his brothers just weeks before. When asked by a student if it troubled him, Drechsler replied simply, My job was to serve my country. My country was wrong. Now my job is to help end the war. That is the only loyalty that matters.
After the war, Drechsler returned to civilian life and never spoke of his service. In 2008, a diary he had kept during his time in Newport was discovered in the attic of a home in Rhode Island. It was a 200-page manuscript written in German, later translated by his grandson. The final entry reads, I wore the cloth of the Germans. Then I wore the cloth of the Americans. The cloth was different. The cause was the same: stop this terrible war.