After a week of growing impatience and anticipation, he had finally received the summons to U-boat Force Headquarters at the avenue du Maréchal Maunoury for an appointment with Admiral Karl Dönitz and the senior BdU staff. Once there, Degen received thrilling news: the admiral and operations chief Fregattenkapitän Eberhard Godt told him that his next patrol would begin with a mine-laying operation at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, where the Thimble Shoal Channel enters the Atlantic.BdU had chosen the night of June 12–13, when a new moon would help obscure the U-boats as they moved close inshore, for the mine-laying operation. Two other U-boats would attempt to lay minefields at the same time at the mouth of New York Harbor and Delaware Bay. Closing the main shipping lanes at those three sites would strike a major blow against the Americans, especially if the mines managed to sink large ships in the narrow passages, thereby bottling up the major ports. After the frustrations of his first two patrols, Degen returned to Brest excited that Dönitz had picked U-701 for this “very special”
