Born 26 March 1918, GÜNTHER PULST was in the Naval Academy Class X/1937.  When the war broke out, he was a torpedo office aboard the destroyer, WOLFGANG ZENKER (Z 9) during the Norway invasion. He was one of the survivors of the sinking of that destroyer.

He and others of the ZENKER crew joined with the German ground forces and participated in the heavy fighting for Narvik.  This was the reason he was decorated with the Iron Cross, First Class.

When the fighting in Norway was finished, PULST returned to Germany and volunteered for the U-Bootwaffe. On 6 May 1943, he commissioned U-978 into service. During his Feindfahrten (war patrols) he initiated several attacks but was credited with sinking just one ship and damaging one more. This was enough to earn him the Knights Cross. It was awarded 28 December 1944, a little more than four months from the end of the war.

We met GÜNTHER PULST at our 1988 Sharkhunters ‘Patrol in Northern Germany‘. He was one of the 18 Knights Cross winners with us for that event.  He was fluent in English and when HANS-GEORG HESS (125-1985) joined Sharkhunters, PULST undertook the task of teaching HESS to speak English.