Found: A Matt Royal Mystery (43 page)

Further investigation of German records revealed that the U-boat attacked by White and Boggs south of Houma was U-171 that had been in the area at the same time. While the U-boat sustained some superficial damage, it escaped and completed its patrol in the Gulf. The U-171 was sunk when it struck a mine near its home port of Lorient, France, while returning from its only combat patrol. Most of the crew survived.

I am not aware of a German spy ring in San Antonio during the war. However, there was a rather large ring in St. Louis, so we know that such groups existed in the United States during the entire length of the war.

The deep-water boats did not come to Cortez until several years after the end of the war. The fisherman who lived there during the war years
fished for mullet in small boats and came home every night. It was a hard life and the men who lived it worked the bays and sounds for days on end with no respite. They were a tough bunch of guys.

Camp Blanding, Florida, now a Florida National Guard Base, was an army training post during World War II. It also contained a large prisoner-of-war camp, with the first German submariners arriving in September 1942. There was never a successful escape from the POW camp, so I had to fictionalize one. I also moved the date of the first submariner’s incarceration back a few weeks, since the loss of U-166 occurred in late July, or in my fictionalized version, August 2, 1942.

I trust that I have not overstepped the bounds of my literary license in making the changes to the historical record. If I have, I hope my readers will forgive me.