In 1942, Hitler's Nazi regime trained eight operatives for a mission to infiltrate America and do devastating damage to its infrastructure. It was a plot that proved historically remarkable for two reasons: the surprising extent of its success and the astounding nature of its failure. Soon after two U-Boats packed with explosives arrived on America's shores–one on Long Island, one in Florida–it became clear that the incompetence of the eight saboteurs was matched only by that of American authorities. In fact, had one of the saboteurs not tipped them off, the FBI might never have caught the plot's perpetrators–though a dozen witnesses saw a submarine moored on Long Island.
As told by Michael Dobbs, the story of the botched mission and a subsequent trial by military tribunal, resulting in the swift execution of six saboteurs, offers great insight into the tenor of the country--and the state of American intelligence--during World War II and becomes what is perhaps a cautionary tale for our times.
I'm a relative of one of the people who was involved with the Saboteurs. When I was 12 years old, I read my relative's own, unpublished account of these events. But now that I've read Michael Dobbs' excellent novelized retelling of these historical events, I know for certain why my relative's "memoirs" (which I'm currently re-reading) have never been accepted by any publisher; they sympathize with the one and only real Nazi among the Saboteurs.
Naturally I knew the ending of the book from the memoirs, but despite that the book never gets boring. On the contrary - reading about how the FBI screwed this case up makes you doubt their entire credibility.
Six of the saboteurs were executed, two were imprisoned. Only one of them still believed in Nazi ideology, none of them had the slightest intend to fulfill their sabotage plans - they all viewed "Operation Pastorius" as a means to escape the corrupted fatherland and continue their former lives in the USA. But for publicity's sake they were executed nevertheless, and even those who ratted them out, those who were the only reason why the FBI even caught the saboteurs, were imprisoned instead of being treated as the heroes they should have been.
