All 143 U-Boat Patrols off Bermuda 1942-1944

1 U-123 Hardegen 20-Jan-1942 5 U-123 under Reinhard Hardegen, on return from his celebrated opening attacks of Operation Drumbeat off New York and Cape Hatteras, decided to swing south and perform an exploratory sail-past of Bermuda on his way home. He entered the region from the west-northwest on the 20th, and skimmed very close to Bermuda on the 22nd before exiting the area to the east-northeast on the 24th. It is one of half a dozen patrols to come so close to the island that the commander undoubtedly utilized the lighthouses of Bermuda as a navigational “fix”. Hardegen had just sunk nine ships (Cyclops, Nornesss, Coimbra, Nordana, City of Atlanta, Malay, Ciltivaira, Culebra and Pan Norway) of 57,627-tons, including one damaged, since 12 January. His was the first U-boat of World War II to attack the US coast – in World War I not only had U-boats done so, but one of them, U-53, spent the afternoon of October 7, 1916 hosting officers of the (neutral) US Navy in Newport before sinking six Alied ships off Nantucket. U-123 began its patrol on the 23rd of December, 1941 in Lorient, and ended it in the same port on the 9th of February 1942. On the 19th of January the submarine was chased by a Norwegian whaling factory ship, the Kosmos II. It was a close call but U-123 was able to outrun its erstwhile quarry before aircraft called in by the Norwegians could arrive and cause permanent damage. The final two ships were sunk northeast of Bermuda. On the 27th of January Hardegen vectored in the Greek ship Mount Etna to retrieve survivors of the Pan Norway which he had sunk two days previously. Since Hardegen’s incursion off Bermuda occurred on 22 January 1942, just over one and a half months following the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war, this makes Hardegen’s brush with the greater Bahamas region the first such patrol there. It also renders any “SSS” or “submarine sighted” Morse code signals from Allied vessels or shore stations in the region before that date without credibility, since we know that no subs entered the area until end-January 1942. Hardegen, who is still alive, achieved the rank of Korvettenkapitän, though at the time he was Kapitänleutnant. Over his career he sank 21 ships for a total of 112,447 GRT and damaged four others for 32,516 GRT – he also sank one warship and damaged another. On 23 April 1942, following this patrol he was awarded the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, and later the U-boat badge with Diamonds. A member of the crew of 1933 at the Naval Academy (Marineschule) in Mürwik, eastern Germany, he was only 30 at the time. Hardegen actually began his career in the naval air force, but injuries sustained when he crashed as a pilot brought him to the U-boat arm in November 1939, at the outset of the war. His total command experience of five patrols of 240 days at sea on two submarines plus his longevity and accessibility have made Hardegen somewhat of a “darling” of U-boat research into attacks on the Americas, or at least the United States. Hardagen’s patrols feature prominently in books such as Operation Drumbeat by Michael Gannon and Torpedo Junction by Homer Hickham, and The Fuhrer’s U-boats in American Waters by Gary Gentile (who accused Hardegen of doctoring his log). His feats are extolled on websites such as Sharkhunters of which he is a member. By all accounts Hardegen is a personable and likeable commander and veteran – he was said to have tied the shoe laces of an old merchant mariner who visited him to meet the man who sank him. Hardegen corresponded with his victims, and took part in two particularly tragic sinkings – that of the only battle-tested armed merchant cruiser which the Americans put forth (the Atik, AK 101 aka the Caroline, in which all members of the US Navy crew and one of Hardegen’s crew perished on a stormy night) and the Muskogee, whose desperate survivors were photographed by Hardegen’s crew but never seen alive again (photos from a German magazine surfaced in a POW camp for allies and survived the war) (Moore). In short Hardegen came to symbolize the opening attack on the Americas in the way that Werner Hartenstein and Albrecht Achilles symbolized the daring attacks in the Caribbean theater, and that Carlo Fecia di Cossato would represent the ravaging of ships off the Bahamas. He would have to be included in the iconic skippers such as Herbert Werner in his autobiographical Iron Coffins and the skipper in the fictional film Das Boot, which was loosely based on the patrols observed by a war correspondent. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2011, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat, Homer Hickham, Torpedo Junction, Gary Gentile, The Fuhrer’s U-boats in American Waters, Moore, Arthur, A Careless Word…a Needless Sinking: a History of the Staggering Losses Suffered By the U. S. Merchant Marine, Both in Ships and Personnel, During World War II, 1998 2 U-66 Zapp 26-Jan-1942 4 Korvettenkapitän (later Fregattenkapitän) Richard Zapp brought U-66 north of Bermuda from east to west for four days starting on the 27th of January. Entering northwest of the island Zapp headed due east, passing north of Bermuda on the 27th and east out of the area on the 29th. Along with U-123 and U-125, U-66 was the first wave of Operation Drumbeat U-boats to reach the US. Before arriving off Bermuda Zapp dispatched the US ship Allan Jackson (6,635 tons) and the British / Canadian passenger ship Lady Hawkins of 7,988 tons on the 18th and 19th of January. Out of 300 people on board, only 96 survived. Then U-66 sank the Norvana, US-flagged and 2,677 tons, followed by the British Empire Gem of 8139 tons and Venore, US-flagged, of 8,017 tons on the 24th of January before heading eat and back to Lorient, which it reached on the 10th of February, 1942, having set out on Christmas Day 1941 for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla. Richard Zapp was born in 1904 and a member of the Crew of 1926. He began the war in Naval anti-aircraft and joined U-boat training in April 1940, joining U-46 before commissioning U-166 in January 1941. After sea service he commanded the 3rd U-boat Flotilla and a naval regiment named after him in La Rochelle until the surrender. He was a POW until July 1947. Zapp was awarded the Knights Cross in April 1942 not long after this patrol and others to the Caribbean. Over five patrols of 264 days Zapp sank or damaged 17 ships of 118,702 tons. He lived until 1964 and the age of 60. U-66 was a highly successful U-boat, with thirty-three ships sunk worth an astounding 200,021 GRT plus another two damaged for 22,674 and two warships damaged for sixty-four tons. She would be sunk west of the Cape Verde Island by depth-charges, ramming and gunfire from aircraft flying off the USS Block Island and the US destroyer USS Buckley on 6 May, 1944 – thirty-six of her crew survived. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 3 U-130 Kals 29-Jan-1942 9 Korvettenkapitän (later Kapitän zur See) Ernst Kals led the next patrol into the area, a veteran skipper of 34 years at the time. He brought U-130 north of Bermuda from west to east, starting on the 29th of January when the boat penetrated the region to the northwest. Kals headed east until the 22nd and a point several hundred miles north of Bermuda. Then he cruised southeast until the 4th of February and eastwards out of the area on the 6th at a point northeast of the island. During this patrol U-130 joined U-66, U-109, U-123 and U-125 as part of Operation Drumbeat. The patrol begain in Lorient on the 27th of December 1941 and on the first of Janauary the boat was detected by an RAF plande but escaped two depth charges. Off Cape Breton in Canada U-130 sank the Norwegian ship Frisco of 1,582 tons and the Panamanian Friar Rock of 5,427 tons. During another attack the sub was chased off by a US destroyer. Off New York on 21 January Kals dispatched the Norwegian Alexandra Hoegh on the 21st (8,248 tons) and then the Panamanian ship Olympic of 5,335 tons off Hatteras the following day. On the 25th U-130 sank the Norwegian Veranger of 9,305 tons, then the American Francis E. Powell of 7,096 and finally the US-flagged Halo of 6,986 tons. North of Bermuda on the way bac to France U-130 refuelled U-109 on the 4th of February, just northeast of the island. In the Bay of Biscay U-130 had another rendezvous, this time with U-587 on the 18th of February to bring home five ditched German aviators rescued by U-587. She arrived in Lorient on the 25th of February 1942. Born in 1905 and a member of the Crew of 1924, Kals obtained the rank of Kapitän Zur See in 1944 and was already a Korvettenkapitän at the time of the patrol, following which he was awarded the Knights Cross. He began his career as a Sea Cadet and ending it with a tally of seventeen ships sunk for 11,249 GRT, three auxiliary warship sunk for roughly 35,000 tons, and another ship sunk for just shy of 7,000 GRT. Kals went on to command the Second Flotilla in Lorient from January 1943 to the end of the war – in retribution the French detained him for three years. He lived until age 74, dying in Emden Germany in 1979. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 4 U-107 Gelhaus 30-Jan-1942 7 U-107 under Oberleutnant zur See (soon to be Kapitänleutnant) Harald Gelhaus passed north of Bermuda heading west to the Virginia Capes and Hatteras. He also passed north of Bermuda heading eastbound about three weeks later. This was the second wave of three U-boats behind the first wave of five boats which attacked on 13 January 1942. U-107 attacked in concert with U-106 and U-103 as the first wave withdrew eastwards, to maintain a continuous presence off Hatteras. The patrol to the box north of Bermuda began on the 30th of January 1942, and resulted in the sinking of the tanker San Arcadio, a British ship of 7,419 tons, on the 31st. U-107 motored west and left the Bermuda zone on the 3rd of February, to return bound eastwards for France on the 15th. While off the US coast he followed this with the sinking of the Major Wheeler, an American vessel of 3,431 tons, on the 6th of February. On the 16th of February the boat transferred some fuel to U-564 under Teddy Suhren, north of Bermuda. When northeast of Bermuda Gelhaus and his team damaged the Edga, a Norwegian ship of 10,068 tons operating in Convoy ON-65 on the 21st of February southeast of Canada’s Sable Island. The patrol began in Lorient from the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the seventh of January 1942 and ended there on the seventh of March. Born in 1915 in Göttingen, Gelhaus began his career on the light cruiser Karlsruhe and battleship Gneisenau in 1938 before moving to U-boats the following year. He was in the class of 1935. Over ten patrols Gelhaus spent 425 patrol days and sank or damaged an impressive 19 ships of 110,411 tons. In March of 1943 he earned the Knights Cross to supplement an Iron Cross, and the U-Boat Front Clasp in October 1944. Following command of U-107, in June of 1943 he became a commander of U-Boat Operations in the Eastern Baltic, joined Naval High Command in the North Sea in April of 1945, and was detained by the Allies until August 1945. He died in December of 1997 at age 82. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 5 U-125 Folkers 30-Jan-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant Ulrich Folkers brought U-125, a Type IXC boat of the Second Flotilla in Lorient, north of Bermuda between the 30th of January 1942 and the 2nd of February. It was a straight course west to east from Hatteras back to base, passing north of Bermuda on the first of February and northeast out of the region on the 2nd. Folkers was age 27 at the time. This patrol began in Lorient for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the 18th of December 1942. On the way west Folkers chased Convoy HG 76 west of Portugal but was chased away by escorts. During this patrol Folkers fired at the grounded ship Olney, but no detonation was heard. Then it sank the US freighter West ivis of 5,666 tons east of Hatteras on the 26th, three days before transiting Bermuda. The sub returned to Lorient on the 23rd of February. Folkers other victims were the Lammot du Pont, an American steamer of 5,102 tons sunk southeast of Bermuda, San Rafael, Tuscaloosa City, Green Island, Empire Buffalo, Calgorolite, Comayagua, Mercury Sun, and William J. Salman, all sunk off the west and southwest coasts of Cuba in the Yucatan Channel. A member of the crew of 1934, Folkers obtained the Knights Cross on 27 March 1943 and was killed just over a month later, on the 6th of May in the North Atlantic, when the boat was scuttled with all crew after being hammered by British destroyers. His total tonnage was seventeen ships for a total of 82,873 gross registered tons. Along with Kals and Hardegen Folkers was one of the first wave of five U-boat skippers to attack the Americas in Operation Drumbeat (Pauchenshlag) during January 1942. He had been in the U-boat service since April 1940 and served under Nico Clausen on U-37. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 6 U-109 Bleichrodt 3-Feb-1942 6 U-109 under Kapitänleutnant Heinrich ‘Ajax’ Bleichrodt, age 32 entered the area on the third of February 1942 north-northwest of Bermuda heading southeast. On the 6th the boat turned to port and headed off in a northeasterly direction, exiting the region northeast of Bermuda on the eighth. U-109 was one of five boats in the first Drumbeat wave, and began its patrol for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla off Newfoundland. On the 19th of January Bleichrodt fired six torpedoes at a single ship but all missed and the vessel escaped. Then on the 23rd she sanke the British Thirlby of 4,887 tons of Cape Sable, Canada. Closer to Bermuda U-109 sank the British ship Tacoma Star on the first of February. Then on the 4th she was refueled by the homeward bound U-130 north of Bermuda. On the fifth, whilst north of the island, she dispatched the British tanker Montrolite of 11,309 tons and the following day the Halcyon of Panama, 3,531 tons. It took 300 rounds of gunfire to dispatch Halcyon. U-109 left the region on the eigth and returned to Lorient on the 23rd of February, having begun the patrol on the 27th of December 1941. ‘Ajax’ Bleichrodt graduated in the crew of 1933 and was a Kapitänleutnant at the time, achieving Korvettenkapitän late in 1943. His decorations include the Knights Cross early in the war – in October 1940, followed by an addition of the Oak Leaves in September 1942 and the U-boat War Badge with Diamonds a month later. In January 1945 he was given the War Merit Cross Second Class with Swords. His total tonnage was an impressive 24 ships of 151,260 tons, plus a warship of 1,060 tons and two ships damaged for 11,684 GRT. U-109, on its fifth of nine patrols, was sailing from and to Lorient for the Second Flotilla. The patrol began on the 25th of March and ended on the 3rd of June. Early in his career Bliechrodt served on both the Gorch Foch and the Admiral Hipper, moving to U-boats in October 1939. He also served as First Watch Officer (second in command) of U-564 under Teddy Suhren. In one patrol as commander of U-48 in 1940 he sank eight ships of 43,106 tons. Moving ashore in July 1943 he went on to command the 27th and 22nd training flotillas. He lived until 1977, passing away in Munich at the age of 67. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 7 U-106 Rasch 4-Feb-1942 3 Like U-107 and U-103, U-106 under Oberleutnant zur See (soon thereafter Kapitänleutnant) Hermann Rasch merely dipped into the area to the north of Bermuda while westbound back to Lorient between the fourth and sixth of February 1942. The patrol started off Newfoundland and Rasch moved south off the Chesapeake Bay area in late January. On the way south U-106 sank the Empire Wildebeeste, a British ship of 5,631 tons which had left convoy ON 53. This attack occurred northeast of Bermuda. While leaving the Bermuda area U-107 dispatched the 10,354 British ship Opawa, also northeast of Bermuda, on the sixth of February. The patrol began on 3 January 1942 with the 2nd U-boat Flotilla and ended, also in Lorient, on the 22nd of February. Rasch was a member of the Crew of 1934 and was 27 at the time of this patrol, having been born in Wilhelmshaven in 1914. He began his naval career on the sail training ship Albert Leo Schlageter in 1939 in the North Sea and moved to U-boats the following year, initially as a staff officer and then in minesweeping. As a member of the Naval High Command at the time of Germany’s surrender, he was imprisoned until July 1946. Hermann Rasch lived until the age of 59, dying in 1974. Over his career Rasch accrued 308 patrol days between October 1941 and April 1943, all of them on U-106. During that time he managed to sink or damage 14 ships of 91,438 tons. For this he was awarded the Knight’s Cross in December of 1942. One of his later victims would be the Canadian passenger liner Lady Drake, sunk in the vicinity of and bound to Bermuda. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 8 U-128 Heyse 7-Feb-1942 19 Between 24 December 1941 and January 8th, 1942 U-128 was supplied and provisioned. Her torpedoes were all offloaded, checked, and re-loaded. A lighter (barge) came along side and pumped diesel oil aboard, and provisions were loaded for an extended patrol to the Americas. On the 8th of January a minesweeper and two patrol boats escorted her into the Bay of Biscay, starting at 11 am. The crossing of the Atlantic was apparently uneventful, probably punctuated by a series of diving drills. U-128’s patrol in the greater Bahamas region lasted 24 days in sum. Beginning on the 13th of February, the submarine entered the area by crossing a line between Bermuda and Anegada. In fact Heyse came quite close to the southeast coast of Bermuda, perhaps using Saint David’s Light located there as a navigational “fix” (given his later experience of being attacked by aircraft from Bermuda he would do well to give the island a wider berth). On the 14th of February U-128 turned south for a day, then turned back east-southeast, leaving the area briefly on the 15th and performing some kind of patrol line south of Bermuda. On the 15th the boat reversed course and motored due west for th next four days, passing north of Abaco and Grand Bahama and arriving off the coast of Florida near Cape Canneveral on the 18th of February. On the following day, the 19th of February and slightly to the north of Canneveral, U-128 made the first kill of the war off the Florida coast when it sank the US tanker Pan Massachusetts. From there the boat headed southeast across the Gulf Stream, finding no targets. It returned to the coast of Florida and three days later it followed on this success by sinking the Cities Services Empire off Cannaveral. It again headed southeast, to the north of Walker’s Cay, Grand Bahama, before returning to the Florida coast. It patrolled the Florida coast fruitlessly for a week, from the 22nd of February to the third of March 1942. A week after sinking the Cities Service Empire, U-128 steamed east on the 2nd and 3rd of March north of Grand Bahama. On the third the submarine made a feint to the northeast towards Bermuda before turning south towards the Northeast Providence Channel and shipping coming out of the Straits of Florida for Europe from there. On the 4th it rounded Abaco for its fateful encounter with the O. A. Knudsen, which it took the whole day of the 5th of March to sink. Heyse had intended to utilize the Northeast and Northwest Providence channels to re-enter the Straits of Florida and essentially circumnavigate Abaco and Grand Bahama, however he used the last of his 15 torpedoes on the stubborn O. A. Knudsen, and decided instead to head back to home base in France. To do this the sub steamed northeast towards Bermuda on the 6th, and 7th, when it was attacked by aircraft. On a map the patrol looks roughly like the letter “U” turned clockwise on its side. This patrol began in Lorient on the 8th of January and ended there on the 23rd of March 1942. Kapitänleutnant Ulrich Heyse, born in Berlin-Friedenau on the 27th of September in 1906 and thus aged 34 at the time of U-128’s commissioning and 35 when he patrolled the Bahamas (he would survive the war and live to 1970 and the age of 64). A member of the Crew of 1933, he sank 12 ships for 83,639 tons over his career, which is the same tally for U-128 since he was one of only two commanders of the sub and the only one to confirm sinking enemy ships on her (Stienert was seen as much more hesitant and was, according to survivors, much less liked than Heyse). Here is a description of Heyse taken from interviews of survivors of the sub after it had been sunk by US aircraft and destroyers off Brazil in mid-1943: “He was popular with his crew; on occasion he would sit down with the kitchen detail, whip out his pocket knife and while peeling potatoes would talk about and discuss with crew members any subject which interested them. He also would now and then have several glasses of beer with his crew, when on shore. No doubt, his leadership contributed to the success of U-128 while under his command; most prisoners expressed their belief that U-128 would not have met with its fate on May 17, 1943, had Heyse been its commander. Heyse belongs to the 1930 [1933 actually] term and, prior to his entry into the German Navy, had served on merchant ships. To this background many of his men attribute the sympathetic attitude of Heyse toward crew members of torpedoed ships. Foodstuff, cigarettes, and even rum, if necessary, were supplied, and in more than one instance Heyse explained that he was sorry that his duty compelled him to sink their ships. While in the Navy, Heyse had served as executive officer on a destroyer and had made a cruise as commander pupil in another U-boat. He is now reported to be company commander at the Gotenhafen U-boat school.” (Jerry Mason, uboatarchive.net/U-128INT, pp. 3-4) …After sinking O.A. Knudsen, a prisoner reported, the U-boat commander looked up in his ship recognition book which tanker he had sunk. Finding it was O.A. Knudsen, he remarked that she had been built in Germany which “accounted for her slow sinking” (Ibid, p.11). Ulrich Heyse rose from Offiziersanwärter in 1933 to Korvettenkapitän on 1 April 1943. Having served in the merchant marine, he then went to the surface fleet of the Kreigsmarine, serving on the destroyer Theodor Riedel. During 1939 – 1940 Heyse undertook an impressive twelve patrols on the Riedel before transferring to U-Boats in July. His first U-boat was U-37, which he lead on one short (presumably non-offensive) patrol as Kommandantenschüler (commander-in-training) (Uboat.net). . Over his career he served 311 war patrol days over five war patrols, all of them in U-128. In 1940 Heyse was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, and on the day he returned from the Bahamas patrol this was increased to 1st Class. The same day (March 24, 1942) he also received the U-Boat War Badge of 1939. Roughly half a year later, based on a reported tonnage of 98,000 tons (actually it was 83,639 which is not as much of an exaggeration as some other skippers’), he received the Knights Cross, one of the highest awards of the German military, making him a Knight of the Wehrmacht. To give an idea of the rarity of this award, he was only the 143rd recipient in the Kriegsmarine and the 78th in the U-boat arm at the time he received it. A year after his return from the Bahamas, in March 1943, and after two patrols to Brazil, Heyse moved ashore to become an instructor in U-boat learning divisions called Unterseebootslehrdivision. Two years later, in March of 1945 he rose to command the 32nd (training) Flotilla. The war would end within two months and Heyse would survive it. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, 63-page report by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) at Jerry Mason’s, uboatarchive.net/U-128INT, Gudmundur Helgason, uboat.net/boats/patrols/u128 9 U-432 Schultze 8-Feb-1942 8 The patrol of U-432 under Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Otto Schultze entered the Bermuda region on the 8th of February 1942 westbound for the area of Cape Hatteras. Overall the submarine was near Bermuda for eight days – five inbound and three further north outbound. The first leg lasted from eight to 12 February, the second, eastbound, from the first of March to the third. The patrol began in La Pallice, where it sailed for the 3rd U-boat Flotilla, on the 21st of January and returned to the same base in France on the 16th of March, 1942. The submarine was part of the third wave of “Drumbeat” boats, arriving as U-106, U-107, and U-103 were heading back to Europe. Before arriving north of Bermuda U-432 escorted the German blockade-runner Doggerbank safely into the Atlantic, and then re-fueled from an inbound U-boat in early February. Initially the sub approached the Americas around Nova Scotia before heading south. While off the coast of the United States, but not in the vicinity of Bermuda, U-432 dispatched several ships: the neutral Brazilians Buarque, the Olinda, Miraflores, Norlavore, and Marore, which was sunk two days before the sub re-entered the area around Bermuda. Schultze was born in Kiel in 1915 and was part of the Crew of 1934. He joined U-boats early, in 1937 and commanded four of them: U-4, U-141, U-432, and U-849, for a total of 325 patrol days. His father Otto Schultze had sunk 52 ships of 129,540 tons with U-63 during World War I. Overall the younger Schultze sank or damaged 22 ships of 83,657 tons, for which he was awarded the Knights Cross in July of 1942. He was killed when U-849 was sunk west of the Congo River estuary, West Africa, on 25 November, 1943. Heinz-Otto Schultze was 28 at the time. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 10 U-564 Suhren 8-Feb-1942 8 Kapitänleutnant Reinhard “Teddy” Suhren (later Fregattenkapitän and holder of the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords), entered the Bermuda area on the eighth of February 1942 and sank two ships during eight days in the region. Heading west to Hatteras U-564 sank the 11,401-ton Canadian freighter Victolite northwest of Bermuda on the 11th of February, and left the region the following day. Returning on the 15th, Suhren managed to damage the tanker Opalia (British, 6,195 tons) with gunfire north of Bermuda on the 16th. The same day U-564 received fuel from U-107 north of Bermuda. Then the following day the sub left the area heading east to Brest, where it was part of the 1st U-boat Flotilla. The patrol began in La Pallice on the 18th of January and ended in Brest on the 6th of March. Suhren is the author of an autobiography named Ace of Aces, and his exploits are well documented during his other patrols to Bermuda and the Bahamas. Suffice to say that in an extraordinarily successful career he attacked 23 ships and sank or damaged 125,351 tons of Allied shipping. He served aboard U-564 from June 1941 to July 1942, for 284 patrol days. Later in the war he served as commander of U-boats in Norway and then the North Sea. Born in Taunus in 1916, he lived until 1984 and the age of 68, dying in Hamburg where he had become a businessman. Ace of Aces makes for enlightening and entertaining reading, and Suhren’s leadership style and personality could be justifiably described as “maverick.” SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 11 U-98 Gysae 8-Feb-1942 3 U-98 under Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Robert Gysae merely dipped into the region northeast of Bermuda for three days between the seventh and 9th of February, 1942. Most of the patrol was off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Sailing for the 7th U-boat Flotilla, U-98 left St. Nazaire, France on the 18th of January 1942 and returned there on the 27th of February. During that time Gysae managed to sink the British steamship Biela of 5,298 tons north of the Bermuda area. Robert Gysae was born in 1911 and had just turned 31 at the outset of the patrol. A member of the Crew of 1931, he was older than most of his contemporaries that attacked the Americas. His naval career began with the torpedo boat T-107 before he joined U-boats in 1940. From 1944 he joined a naval anti-tank regiment and then served as senior officer in minesweeping. He went on to live until 78 years, dying in 1989. Overall in his career he sank 25 ships and damaged one for a total of 149,403 tons. He was awarded the Knights Cross before this patrol, on 31 December, 1941, to which the Oak Leaves were added in May of 1943. The U-boat Front Clasp was given in October, 1944. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 12 U-103 Winter 9-Feb-1942 5 Along with U-107 and U-106, U-103 made up the second wave of Operation Drumbeat to the US east coast. Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Werner Winter led the submarine on a patrol which would take it for four days along the northeast quadrant of the Bermuda region. ON the 9th of February U-103 approached Bermuda from the north, then turned east for three days between the tenth and 12th. By the 13th the sub was leaving the area, bound back to Lorient, where it sailed for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla. It arrived back on the 1st of March. During the patrol U-103 sank the W. L. Steed and the San Gil off Delaware and Maryland on the 2nd and 4th of February respectively. Then it dispatched the India Arrow and the China Arrow, both off the US coasts of New York and Delaware. Werner Winter would go on to lead several patrols to the region. Born in Hamburg in 1912 and a member of the Crew of 1930. He joined U-boats in 1935 and skippered both U-22 and U-103 for a total of 209 days. During the period from September 1939 and July 1942 he sank 15 ships of 78,302, for which he earned the Knights Cross in June 1942. On being ordered ashore Winter served as a staff officer in Brest, France, where he was captured when that bastion surrendered in 1944. Later released, he lived until 1972 and the age of 60. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 13 U-504 Poske 13-Feb-1942 12 Korvettenkapitän Hans-Georg Friedrich “Fritz” Poske brought U-504 on a complex patrol southeast and southwest of Bermuda for 12 days beginning the 13th of Febuary 1942, thereafter patrolling off Florida and the Bahamas. Entering the area to the east-southeast of the island, U-504 headed west until the 17th, when it exited for Cape Cannaveral. Poske returned to the region on the 6th of March to the southwest of the island, initially heading east until the ninth. Then the boat reversed course, patrolling off the Gulf Stream, and doubled back westwards until the 11th. Finally U-503 dipped south and exited the region on the 12th of March, 1942. After sinking the Mamura on the 26th a US airplane from Key West prowled for the sub and attacked a target which turned out to be a whale. U-504 was mistakenly given credit for sinking the British ship Manaqui of 2,802 tons east of the Caribbean, however it actually sank the Stangarth north of the islands, and an Italian submarine sank the Manaqui on or about the 15th of March (more below). The patrol of U-504 under Poske is remarkable not only for its series of four sinkings, two of which are key to this study, but for the fact that during the week of 21st February to roughly 4th of March he and Heyse in U-128 were sharing virtually the same sea area off the Cape Canaveral / Fort Pierce region of Florida and yet seem to have had no recorded contact with each other. Poske entered the region on Valentine’s Day 1942 and proceeded in a straight line from south of Bermuda west to north of Abaco and Grand Bahama. On arrival on the east coast of Florida on the 21st of February, Poske proceeded to sink two ships in succession: the Republic and W. D. Anderson, on the 21st and 23rd respectively. Then on his return eastwards he sank the Mamura, Captain Dobenga, about 150 miles north-northeast of Abaco Island, on the 26th, killing all of the crew including over 30 Chinese nationals. Following the Mamura sinking, Poske turned south, proceeding about 100 miles or more off the coasts of Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island and San Salvador. Finding no targets on 14th of March (a month after his arrival) he headed southeast and then east, encountering the British tanker Stangarth on the 16th. There is controversy about whether U-504 or the Italian submarine Morosini sank the Stangarth – it is generally held that the Morosini sank the British ship Manaqui on a different date east of the Caribbean – see “Morosini” below. The Mamura and Stangarth’s sinkings are remarkable inasmuch as all of the crew were killed and thus there are only the log of the U-boat and the crew’s witness reports to verify it. The Stangarth sinking has been a contentious one since Jurgen Rohwer, in his classic study Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two accredited the sinking of the Stangarth to the Italian submarine Morosini. In fact the Morosini attacked the ship Manaqui several days earlier. It would have been impossible for the Morosini to have sunk Stangarth where it said it did, since the Stangarth had not yet even left New York on that date. This leftover from the “fog of war” has since been corrected by Rohwer and confirmed by the authors of Uboat.net (Rohwer and Kolbitz, correspondence with author August 2011). Furthermore, historian Eric Zimmerman analyzed the original attack reports and concluded that U-504 must have sunk the Stangarth, based in part on the U-boat discovering crates amongst the wreckage labeled “airplane parts- Bombay”. Stangarth was bound to India with military equipment, the Manaqui, a much smaller ship, was heading the opposite direction in ballast and well to the east at a different time. After sinking the Stangarth Poske headed northeast and back toward Lorient, from whence he came. Charted out, Poske’s patrol looks like a number 8 turned counterclockwise on its side, with a small head for the patrols off the Florida coast. On this patrol the four ships sunk aggregated 29,725 tons. Because he patrolled within fifty miles of Abaco, Grand Bahama, and San Salvador it was the most “Bahamian” expedition to date, though of course locals would not have known the submarine was there. The patrol began on the 25th of January 1942 in league with the third wave of Paukenschlag or Drumbeat boats. After sinking the Mamura the Allied authorities were made aware of the boat’s presence and on the 28th of February a US aircraft from Key West attacked what it thought was a sub but what was in fact a whale (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.322). Fritz Poske, a Korvettenkapitän at the time, went on to become a Kapitän zur See (Sea Captain, higher than a Fregatten or Frigate Captain), and was awarded the U-boat War Badge 1939 and the Iron Cross First Class immediately after this patrol, and the Knights Cross in November 1942. Born in October 1904, he was 37 and thus one of the older skippers of those that patrolled the Bahamian waters. His career tally over 264 patrol days on four missions was fifteen ships sunk worth 78,123 GRT and a further 7,176 ton ship damaged. Poske began his naval career in the class of 1923 before serving on cruisers and a torpedo boat, joining U-boats in 1940. At the time of his first command he (unusually) did not have command experience. He became Chief of Staff for Marine Infantry towards the end of the war, was imprisoned by the British for nearly a year, rejoined the German Navy in 1951, and lived until 1984, dying near Bonn at 79 years of age. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 14 U-108 Scholtz 15-Feb-1942 4 The patrol of U-108 through north of Bermuda was short but very busy, with a ship sunk every other day. The submarine was commanded by Korvettenkapitän (later Fregattenkapitän) Klaus Scholtz, aged 33, from Magdeburg, Germany, who had earned the Knights Cross just over a month before. U-108 was part of the second wave sent to maintain Operation Drumbeat, along with U-103, U-106 and U-107. U-108 entered the area northwest of Bermuda and heading east on the 15th of February 1942. The following day it sank the Ramapo, Panamanian flag, of 2,968 tons. After a dog-leg to the southeast, on the 17th Scholtz resumed course for Lorient and the next day sank the Somme, a British ship of 5,265 tons northeast of Bermuda. It left the region the same day – the 18th of February. This patrol for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla began in Lorient on the 8th of January and ened there on the fourth of March 1942. While off the Hatteras area Scholtz and his men sank the Ocean Venture, Tolosa and Blink, the latter ship just west of the Bermuda region. A member of the 1927 Naval Academy Crew, Scholtz entered the U-boat arm in 1939. His Knights Cross was suppliements with the Oak Leaves in December 1941. Overall Scholtz underwent eight patrols, all in U-108, between February 1941 and July 1942, for a total of 361 patrol days. Over his career he sank 25 ships worth 128,190 tons. One of them, in April 1941 was the British Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) Rajputana, in the Straits of Denmark. In September 1944 Scholtz was captured whilst commander of the 12th Flotilla in Bordeaux and held until April 1946. After the war he joined the Bundesmarine and was base commander in several locations, including Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. By 1966 he was Kapitän zur See and he passed away at age 79 in 1987. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 15 U-653 Feiler 24-Feb-1942 9 On the 24th of February 1942 U-653 under Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Gerhard Feiler arrived northeast of Bermuda heading west towards the US coast. After motoring three days west the submarine found and sank the Norwegian ship Leif of 1,582 tons at the midway point between Bermuda and Cape Hatteras. Finding no other victims along the mainland coast, the boat returned on the seventh of March heading east for three days, exiting the region on the ninth of March, 1942, having spent a total of nine days in the area. The patrol began at the 1st U-boat Flotilla base in Brest France on the 31st of January 1942 and ended there on the 30th of March. Feiler was 32 at the time, having been born in Breslau in 1909. A member of the Crew of 1934, he served on the destroyer Karl Galster between 1938 and 1940 before joining U-boats in July of that year. He commanded U-653 between 1941 and 1943. Over seven patrols in the same sub for 412 patrol days he managed to attack 5 ships worth 9,382 tons – less than stellar results when compared with his colleagues in the same timeframe (December 1941 – September 1943). He was awarded the German Cross in Gold in 1944. Gerhard Feiler lived until 1990. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 16 U-126 Bauer 26-Feb-1942 10 Though most of Kapitänleutnant Ernst Bauer’s highly successful patrol was in the Old Bahama Channel, he spent ten days in the Bermuda region both inbound and outbound, beginning on the 26th of February, 1942. The sub entered the area east-southeast of Bermuda on a southwesterly course and exited south of the island on the third of March. Coming back from its patrol it re-entered south-southwest of the island on a straight northeasterly course, passed southeast of Bermuda on the 17th and exited the following day, returning to Lorient for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the 29th of March, 1942. Following Poske in U-504 was Ernst Bauer in U-126 whose killing spree in the region exceeded even the exploits of di Cossato the Italian. Between March 1st (when he entered the area midway from Bermuda to Anegada and northeast of Cat Island) Bauer sank the Gunny, Mariana, Barbara, Cardonia, Esso Bolivar (in the Windward Passage), Hanseat, Texan Olga, and Colabee (damaged) – all within the area of the Bahamas or its border with Haiti and Cuba. This patrol yielded a highly impressive tally of seven ships sunk for 32,955 tons and two damaged for 15,907 in the space of less than two weeks – he sank or attacked ships on the 2nd, 5th, 7th (twice), 8th, 9th, 12th (twice) and 13th of March. Bauer was a highly successful commander who built on these sinkings to amass 24 ships sunk for 111,564 tons, one warship (albeit one being carried by a transport ship) of 450 tons, and five ships damaged for over 38,000 GRT (gross registered tons) in his career. The patrol began on the 2nd of February 1942 in Lorient and ended there on the 29th of March. As we shall see in survivor reports, crew of both the Cardonia and Esso Bolivar are reported to have accused the submarine of machine-gunning lifeboats as they were lowered. The Colabee was salvaged. Wynn credits the U-126 with damaging the US freighter Halo (which was originally damaged off Cape Hatteras and later sunk by U-506 south of New Orleans on the 20th of April 1942) on this patrol of Cabo Corrientes, on the western tip of Cuba. The theory that U-126 damaged Halo west of Cuba is unsubstantiated by the war log of the submarine. Also it would not have been geographically possible for the sub to motor from the northeast tip of Cuba to the southwest tip in the time period available to it between sinkings, which would have meant 12 hours or less each way. If U-126 damaged Halo on the eastern end of Cuba he did not catalogue it in his war patrol diary, or KTB. As it was, U-126 expended all of her torpedoes, or “fish” on this patrol. (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.103, Mason, UboatArchive.net) Bauer was promoted from Kapitänleutnant to Korvettenkapitän in the last weeks of the war. During his stunning patrol of the Bahamas he was awarded the Knights Cross and this was embellished in April 1945 with the War Merit Cross First Class with Swords. He began his naval career in the Crew of 1933, and after a stint on the cruiser Konigsberg joined the U-boat arm in 1938. After successes in the Caribbean and West Africa he became a training officer and survived the war, rejoining the navy in 1955 and living until 1988 at age 74 as a Kapitän Zur See. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat ServiceJerry Mason, www.uboatarchive.net, correspondence with author, Nov. 2011 17 U-502 von Rosenstiel 1-Mar-1942 2 The Type IXC submarine U-502 under Kapitänleutnant Jürgen von Rosenstiel only entered the region long enough to transit the southeast corner of the box around Bermuda. Entering on the first of March heading northeast for base, U-502 nipped the area and left the following day, returning to Lorient for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the 16th of March. U-502 was part of Operation Neuland. During this patrol it attacked the waters off Aruba and off Venezuela managed to sink three tankers: Tia Juana, Monogas and San Nicolas. Then on the 16th of February it and U-67 bombarded the refineries of Aruba with only limited success. Other victims during this patrol were the Kongsgaard, Thalia, and Sun. U-502 was to return to the Caribbean on its next patrol during which it was sunk with all hands on the fifth of July. Later, on another patrol, U-502 had the dubious distinction of being the first U-boat to fall victim to two Allied anti-submarine warfare weapons the Wellington bomber (this one commanded by Pilot Officer Howell) and the Leigh Light, which was switched on as the plane barreled in at night, blinding the gun crews on the submarine. The attack took place near La Rochelle on the 6th of July 1942 and all 52 crew were killed (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.321). A member of the Crew of 1933, von Rosenstiel was born on 23 November 1912 and was 29 at the time of these attacks. Though he probably would have received higher decorations had he survived this extraordinarily successful patrol, he perished with the U-boat War Badge of 1939. Initially serving on the training ship Schlesien, von Rosenstiel joined U-boats in 1940. His total of 179 sea days on four patrols and fourteen ships of 78,843 tons were all achieved aboard U-502. This was enough to earn him a listing as one of the “Top U-boat Aces” at Uboat.net. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 18 U-96 Lehmann-Willenbrock 1-Mar-1942 3 U-96 under Kapitänleutnant (later Fregattenkapitän) Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock merely dipped into the area north of Bermuda between the first and third of March, 1942. Sailing for the 7th U-boat Flotilla the sub patrolled mainly off Nova Scotia as far south as Cape Cod and south from there. Successes included sinking the Empire Seal, Lake Osweya, Torungen, Kars and Tyr, none of them in the Bermuda area. The patrol began in Saint Nazaire on the 31st of January and ended there on the 23rd of March. Lehmann-Willenbrock was 30 at the time and a member of the Crew of 1931. Already a holder of the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves (awarded a month before the patrol began), he commanded four submarines over his career, including U-8, U-5, and U-256. His early experience included a stint as watch officer of the Horst Wessel, a sail training ship. He entered the U-boat arm in 1940. Over his career Lehmann-Willenbrock accrued 327 patrol days in 10 patrols, sinking or damaging 27 ships of 194,989 tons up until the Tyr. After that he was assigned commander of the 9th Flotilla, then, after managing to escape the siege of Brest for Norway in a damaged U-boat, the 11th Flotilla based there. Before the surrender Lehmann-Willenbrock was a watch officer on the new boat U-3524. He was detained after the war he was freed in March 1946. He served in the merchant marine and daringly rescued 57 men from a burning Brazilian freighter. Between 1969 and 1979 he skippered the German nuclear research ship the Otto Hahn. Lehmann-Willenbrock was a consultant for the film Das Boot and lived until 1986, passing away in Bremen at the age of 74. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 19 U-155 Piening 2-Mar-1942 8 U-155 under the command of Adolf Cornelius Piening both entered and exited the area midway Bermuda-Anegada, spending a total of nineteen days in the Bahamas region. First U-155 arrived off the northeast corner of a box around Bermuda on the 2nd of March 1942 and headed west-southwest. Passing north of the island on the fourth, it left the region northwest of Bermda on the sixth. After a busy patrol U-155 re-entered eastbound on March 11th, passed north of the island the following day, and exited northeast on the 13th. The patrol originated in Kiel Germany on the 7th of February for the 10th U-boat Flotilla and ended in Lorient on the 27th of March. U-155, a Type IXC boat, began its offensive patrol off Newfoundland by attacking Convoy ONS 67 on the 22nd of February, sinking the British tanker Adellen of 7,984 tons and the Norwegian Sama of 1,799 tons. U-588, U-587, and U-158 operated in coordination against the convoy. On 7 March U-155 was further south, off Hatteras, and sank the Brazilian ship Arabutan of 7,874 tons. Three days later, and a day before enetering the Bermuda region an officer, First Watch Officer Oberleutnant zur See Gert Rentrop, was lost overboard during a storm. Accountable for 25 ships for a very impressive total of 126,664 GRT, as well as a warship (HMS Avenger) of 13,785 tons sunk and an auxiliary warship of 6,736 tons damaged, Piening had already earned the Knights Cross. He was 32 at the time of this patrol and lived until 1984 and the age of 73. During the closing weeks of World War II whilst in command of U-255, he mined the approaches to Saint Nazaire against an Allied attack and spent until 1947 in captivity. He rejoined the Bundesmarine in 1956 for thirteen years and achieved the rank of Kapitän zur See. A special route to avoid Allied aircraft in the Bay of Biscay became known as the Piening route since he is acknowledged to have perfected it. He achieved 459 days at sea on eight patrols over his career after initially serving on the cruiser Deutschland and U-48. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 20 U-156 Hartenstein 2-Mar-1942 1 Kapitänleutnant Werner Hartenstein brought U-156 for a mere brush with the Bermuda region on a patrol which was predomininantly spent in the Bahamas and Caribbean theaters. On the second of March U-156 merely skimmed the far southeastern corner of the Bermuda region on a patrol which began in Lorient for the 2nd U-boat Flotiall on the 19th of January 1942 and ended there on the 17th of March. U-156 remain in the Bahamas region for most of the remaining month, two weeks of the interval taken up with a cruise inside the Caribbean proper. By sinking the Oregon on 27 February and the MacGregor a day later, Hartenstein contributed to the first half dozen sinkings in the region, only outdone by U-128 and others who achieved success in the crowded Straits of Florida a week earlier. The MacGregor was sunk off the Dominican Republic and the Oregon between Turks & Caicos to the west and the island of Hispaniola to the south (northeast of the MacGregor, as U-156 was heading home at the time). On a chart U-156’s inward passage is shaped like the number “5” – he enters the area midway between Bermuda and Anegada (as many skippers did) heading west, then turns south, then southeast, and finally southwest into the Anegada Passage. Two weeks and five ship attacks later (on 25 February) he re-entered the area from the Mona Passage, headed northwest to the MacGregor, then in a straight line northeast towards the Oregon sinking and an exit of the region on 2 March south of Bermuda. That portion of his return looks like the letter “L” slightly tipped to the right. Overall it was a successful patrol for him, though it was not without military and diplomatic incident, as per this rendition from Uboat.net: On 16 February 1942 U-156 “began to shell the oil refinery at Aruba in the Caribbean, the gun crew forgot to remove the water plug from the barrel, causing an explosion that killed one man [Matrosengefreiter Heinrich Büssinger]. The gunnery officer [II WO Leutnant zur See Dietrich von dem Borne] lost his right leg in this incident, and so had to be put ashore into captivity at Martinique on 21 February. The commander decided to saw off the ruined portion of the gun barrel, and using this shorter barrel, on 27 February U-156 sank a 2,498 British steamer” (the MacGregor) (uboat.net/boats/u156). U-156’s patrol began in Lorient on the 19th of January and ended in the same port on the 17th of March 1942. It was part of the first wave of five U-boats in the Neuland operation, including U-67, U-129, U-161 and U-502. U-156 was the first one to return to France. On the afternoon of the 16th of February the boat withstood an attack by an American A 20 bomber off Aruba. The ships sunk in the greater Bahamas region were sunk by gunfire alone. As a result of this it was reported by some that the Oregon survivors were machine-gunned while in the water. Whether this was intentional or not – or even true – may never be verified (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.120). Indeed U-156 and its commander were famous for two crucial events in the U-boat war – the second was his sinking on 12 September 1942 of the troop ship Laconia, laden with Italian Prisoners of War off West Africa. Four days later, after sending requests for assistance in the clear, he was strafed and bombed by US aircraft while trying to rescue a deck load of Italian and British survivors, leading Admiral Dönitz to ban all such rescue attempts. This so-called “Laconia order”was to have obvious ramifications to allied merchant seamen. The shelling of the oil refinery at Aruba, Dutch West Indies, led to that island’s imminent occupation by American troops. Werner Hartenstein was 33 years of age at the time of his patrol, a member of the class of 1928 and a Korvettenkapitän. During the patrol (two days before he entered the region in fact) he was awarded the German Cross in Gold and was to earn the Knights Cross by year’s end. He was killed at age 35 on 8 March 1943 in an attack on his submarine east of Barbados, following five patrols of 294 days. Before joining the U-boat arm in March 1942 he completed 65 patrols in torpedo boats. On this patrol he additionally sank the Pedernales, Oranjestad, Arkansas, Delplata, and La Carrier, for a total patrol tonnage of 22,723 sunk (five ships) and 10,769 tons from two ships damaged. His total career loot was 20 ships for 97,504 GRT and three more damaged for 18,811 plus a 1,190-ton warship damaged. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 21 U-158 Rostin 2-Mar-1942 8 U-158 under Kapitänleutnant Erwin Rostin spent an above-average eight days in the Bermuda zone, starting on the first of March, 1942 when it sank the Finnanger between Bermuda and Nova Scotia. The Finnanger was a Norwegian tanker of 9,551 tons out of Convoy ONS 67. On the way to the US east coast U-158, which had left from Heligoland, Germany on the seventh of February, pursued convoy ONS 67 off Canada. Rostin was an aggressive commander and managed to sink the Empire Celt and Diloma on the 24th of February. After dispatching the Finnanger and transiting north and west of Bermuda from the first to the sixth of March, U-158 sank the Caribsea, John D. Gill, Olean, and Ario as far south as the Carolinas. Then the submarine returned to the waters north of Bermuda on the 16th, heading east-northeast until the 19th when it left the region. U-158 arrived in its new 4th U-boat Flotilla base of Lorient on the 31st of March, 1942. Erwin Rostin was a member of the Crew of 1933 and 34 years of age at the time. His earliest commands were of minesweepers M-98 and M-21 before he joined U-boats in March 1941. A daring and highly accomplished commander, he was awarded the Knights Cross on the 28th of June 1942, merely two days before being attacked by a Bermudian-based aircraft and sunk northwest of Bermuda. As commander of U-158 he racked up 111 patrol days in two patrols during which he attacked 19 ships of 116,585 tons. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 22 U-588 Vogel 2-Mar-1942 4 U-588 under Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Victor Vogel dipped into the area northeast of Bermuda between the second and fifth of March, 1942 enroute to patrol the Jersey Shore between New York and Delaware. Between Bermuda and Cape Sable Canada the submarine sank the British ship Carperby of 4,890 tons, from convoy ON 66 on the 1st of March. The following day it entered the Bermuda area, turned southwest, then west on the third, and on the fourth turned northwest. Off the US coast it attacked a ship believed to be the British steamer Consuelo, then sank the 6,676-ton Gulftrade near Atlantic City New Jersey on the 10th. Sailing for the 6th U-boat Flotilla from and to Lorient, the sub left on the 12th of February and returned so Saint Nazaire on the 27th of March 1942. Victor Vogel was born in 1912 and was 29 at the time. His four patrols of 130 days were all aboard U-588, which was sunk with all hands on the 31st of July 1942 off Canada. Originally he had served in anti-submarine and mine-sweeping roles before joining U-boats in March of 1941. His career total of ships sunk or damaged was 9 ships for 44,623 tons. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 23 Tazzoli / di Cossato 5-Mar-1942 9 The exploits of Count Carlo Fecia di Cossato aboard the submarine Enrico Tazzoli are carefully detailed in the chapters on the Cygnet, Daytonian and Athelqeen, so it will suffice to recap the salient points here. She began her patrol on the 2nd of February sailing for the Betasom Flotilla/joint venture based in Bordeaux. Her assigned area was to the east of Florida and the Bahamas – because she was so busy sinking ships she would never have the need to approach Florida directly. Tazzoli was the first Italian sub sent to the region, but not the first to arrive, as we have seen the Finzi preceded her. On the way to the patrol area, according to Cristiano D’Adamo of RegiaMarina.net, she encountered and fired three torpedoes at the 8,017-ton British tanker Rapana in daylight on March 3rd. Due to interference from the sea conditions, all missed, and the boat continued westwards. Three days later, on March 6th, the Tazzoli came upon the 1,406-ton Dutch steamer Astrea and sank her. Later on that same day (a claim which is not supported by geography – the distances between the two reported sinkings being too far apart for even a fast boat to have covered in the same day), Tazzoli destroyed the Norwegian tanker Tonsbergfjord at 31 22N by 68 05W. There is evidence of the sinking in a photo of the Tazzoli crew displaying the Tonsbergfjord’s life ring on the conning tower, as well as extensive documentation at Warsailors.com. Because the thirty-two surviving crew met survivors of the Montevideo, sunk by the same sub, and were rescued by the same ship (the Telamon) there is also ample evidence of how the Tonsbergfjord reached Haiti and then Curacao. The Montevideo was sunk on the 8th of March – she was a 5,785 steam ship from Uruguay which had been built in Italy (ironically) as the Adamello in 1920. The position of her sinking is given as 29.13 north by 69.35 west. Claims that the neutral ship was sunk by Germans inflamed anti-German nationalism in Uruguay and led to protests and that country’s eventual abandonment of its neutrality. Uruguay’s neutrality had crucially allowed the Germans to seek refuge there after the Battle of the River Plate earlier in the war on the cruiser Graf Spee. Tazzoli’s next three attacks are carefully documented and verified elsewhere in this book – the Cygnet off San Salvador on the 10th of March, the British Daytonian off Abaco on the 13th, and the Athelqueen, a large British tanker in ballast, also off Abaco on the 15th. The survivors of all three ships – over 100 in number – were landed in the Bahamas, eventually making Nassau. The Cygnet survivors were first led ashore at Dixon’s Point San Salvador by a boat skippered by the “one-legged American A.B. Narne”. They then voyaged on the Monarch of Nassau to the capital. The Daytonian crew were rescued at sea by – and travelled to the capital aboard – the Dutch ship Rotterdam, with one dead who was presumably buried at sea but possibly interred in Nassau. The Athelqueen’s crew rowed ashore at Hope Town Abaco, only to lose three members to drowning in the surf. The balance were brought to the capital in the government-chartered launch Constance S, the same ship which a week before had rescued the survivors of the O. A. Knudsen from southern Abaco (Knudsen was sunk by a German not an Italian submarine, on 5 March 1942). Because the Tazzoli had its starboard torpedo tubes damaged in the attack on the Athelqueen, it was forced to break off the patrol and make back for Bordeaux. Its arrival and passage up the Gironde estuary, with crew lining the rails, its impressive girth on display, and the damage visible, are well documented in photographs from a biography of di Cossato. She arrived on the 31st of March, culminating one of the most successful single missions to the region and of the war as a whole, with a ship attacked on average every day of the week for a period. Count Carlo Fecia di Cossato was one of the most successful submarine commanders both in the Bahamas region and worldwide during World War II. di Cossato was born in Rome on the 25th of September 1908 to Carlo and Maria Luisa Gene. His was a noble Piedmont family and he was invested with the title of Earl, part of the Savoy dynasty. He attended the Royal College at Moncalieri, run by the Barnabiti brothers. Naval service ran in di Cossato’s family: his father had lost an eye on the China station and his brother Luigi had received the silver medal for bravery for leadership during landings in Bargal, Somalia in 1925. Because Luigi had died during other exercises in Calabria, Carlo was denied his request to serve as an aircraft observer. Source: piombino-storia.blogspot.com/2010/09/capitano-carlo-fecia-di-cossato.html In 1923 he completed the equivalent of high school and entered the Naval Academy in Leghorn, graduating in 1928 with the rank first of Midshipman and then of Acting Sub-Lieutenant at the age of 19. His early assignments were aboard the submarine Bausan, a crusier named Ancona, and a destroyer named Nicotera. After further classes he was assigned to the cruiser Libia in China, where he led amphibious troops in Shanghai. In 1933 the Libia returned to Italy and di Cossato participated in the defence of Massawa, in the Italian colony of Abyssinia. After a brief staff asignment under Admiral De Feo in East Africa, Di Cossato’s next assignments were all in Libya – on the torpedo boat San Martino, Pollux and Alcione. During the Spanish Civil War he served on submarines, taking part in two special missions to the coast of Iberia. In 1939 he enrolled in submarine school. He became a Lieutenant aboard the submarine Menotti of the 34th Squadron in Messina. Then in the fall of 1940 he was transferred to Bordeaux France to join the Betasom flotilla, the joint venture between the Regia Marina and the German Kriegsmarine. Di Cossato served as second in command to Victor Raccanelli on the Enrico Tazzoli. Together they sank the Yugoslav steamer Orao off Scotland, and the British Ardanhan on 14 January. Then in early 1941 he was promoted from Tenente di Vascello (Lieutenant), then to Capitano di Corvetta (Lieutenant Commander). The next promotion, all going well, would be Capitano di Fregata (Commander). Then on 5 April 1941 Raccanelli was removed from command and di Cossato was promoted and given his own command. After vigorous testing the boat began its first patrol just two days later. A week later they found and sank the British ship Aurillac. The Norwegian ships Fernlane Alfred Olsen followed. Di Cossato was establishing a level of success for himself in submarines. On July 15th di Cossato and crew began another cruise from Bordeaux, this time to Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. He attacked a convoy on 10th August without success. On the 12th of August di Cassato was given unconfirmed credit for damaging a ship called either the Sangara or Zangara of British registry. On the 19th of August he sank the Norwegian tanker Sildra. Later in the year, just before Christmas, the British cruisers HMS Devonshire and HMS Dorsetshire used Allied Enigma code-breaking to intercept and ship two of the most active German raiders of either world war: the Atlantis under Bernard Rogge, and the Python, in the southern Central Atlantic. This left over 414 men in need of rescue. As a result Admiral Donitz activated all the larger Italian submarines they could spare, reducing their manning to a minimum to make room for the passengers. In an extraordinary rescue, Tazolli and other Italian and German submarines managed to load 254 men on their deck casings and in a slow convoy proceed back to Saint Nazaire France by Christmas. On a macro level, D’Adamo witeses that Donitz, “attempted to integrate the Italian forces in the Wolf-pack strategy, but the Italian boats were technically poor, slow to dive and possessed a large and easily detectable profile. As a result, most Italian submarines operated in the Central and Southern Atlantic in solitary missions.” Indeed it is precisely these kind of missions which the Finzi, Tazzoli, Morosini and Calvi undertook to the Bahamas area – lone wolves supported above all else by each other in the transfer of fuel and torpedoes in the operational area. Enrico Tazzoli began her patrol on the 2nd of February 1942, sailing from Bordeaux. Her assigned area was to the east of Florida and the Bahamas – because she was so busy sinking ships she would never have the need to approach Florida directly. Tazzoli was the first Italian sub sent to the region, but not the first to arrive, as the Finzi preceded her. On the way to the patrol area she encountered and fired three torpedoes at the British tanker Rapana in daylight on March 3rd. Due to interference from the sea conditions, all missed, and the boat continued westwards. Three days later, on March 6th, the Tazzoli came upon the Dutch steamer Astrea and sank her. Later on that same day (a claim which is not supported by geography – the distances between the two reported sinkings being too far apart for even a fast boat to have covered in the same day), Tazzoli destroyed the Norwegian tanker Tonsbergfjord. Because the 32surviving crew met survivors of the Montevideo, sunk by the same sub, and were rescued by the same ship (the Telamon) the story of how the Tonsbergfjord reached Haiti and then Curacao makes for colorful reading. The Montevideo was sunk on the 8th of March – she was a steam ship from Uruguay which had been built in Italy (ironically) as the Adamello in 1920. Claims that the neutral ship was sunk by Germans inflamed anti-German nationalism in Uruguay and led to protests and that country’s eventual abandonment of its neutrality. Uruguay’s neutrality had crucially allowed the German cruiser Graf Spee to seek refuge there after the Battle of the River Plate earlier in the war. Enrico Tazzoli was forced to break off the patrol and make back for Bordeaux. She arrived on the 31st of March, culminating one of the most successful single missions to the region and of the war as a whole, with a ship attacked on the average every day of the week for a period of six days. Tazzoli spent April and May undergoing maintenance and repairs, and the crew rested. Her next patrol would be to the Caribbean, but the submarine would access that area by a more southern route and bypass the Bahamas. She left port on the 18th of June and by the 2nd of August intercepted and sank the Greek Kastor near the equator. On the 6th of August, Tazzoli sank the Norwegian ship Havsten. Two men were taken prisoner. Following this success, the boat returned to France on the 5th of September. Again, two months of repairs in the naval yard were required, having motored 10,348 miles over 71 days. Di Cossato began his last patrol on the Tazzoli on the 14th of November, 1942, bound for the coast of Brazil. On the 12th of December, they intercepted and sank the British ship Empire Hawk and apparently, on the same day, – though it is not confirmed – the Dutch ship Ombilin (named by others as the Sumatra). On the 21st of December, the boat is credited with attacking and sinking the British Queen City. On Christmas Day 1942, the crew found and sank the American Dona Aurora. Again, two of the crew were taken prisoner, and though seven died, 62 survived. It was to be the last ship sunk by Tazzoli under di Cossato’s command. The submarine returned to base in Bordeaux, on the 2nd of February 1943. After roughly four years in submarines, di Cossato was transferred back to torpedo boats. He assumed command of the Aliseo in the Mediterranean. The Tazzoli, meanwhile, was stripped of its armament to enable it to serve as a supply boat to Japan. It left Bordeaux on the 16th of May 1943 loaded with 165 tons of materials. The following day, communication with the submarine was lost. According to Cristiano D’Adamo, it is likely that the USS Mackenzie sank the submarine by a depth-charge attack on either the 16th or the 22nd of May. As a result, all the officers and crew of the Enrico Tazzoli remain on “eternal patrol.” The loss of his former crew mates, so soon after he left them, made di Cossato distraught. He suffered severely from what might today be called “survivor’s guilt.” Nevertheless, he again proved himself a dashing and capable commander when aboard the Aliseo, in an extremely fluid situation; in September 1943 he sank a number of German ships escaping the port of Bastia on the island of Corsica. However, he was overtaken by events larger than himself. The Italian navy surrendered, and as a consequence, officers were no longer required to swear allegiance to the King, but rather to the new government. Di Cossato could not accept those terms, and refused to serve. For this he was imprisoned and ignored. Then the royal court would not receive him in Naples. To a man, whose family for generations had fought for noble causes, and whose busy life had been devoted to the same goals, it was too much for him. Unable to reunite with his family in the north due to the fighting there, and unwilling to take up arms with the Allies, he became deeply depressed. The authorities were unsure exactly what to do with di Cossato. From Naples, in the last letter to his mother, dated August 21st 1944, he wrote: “For months I have been thinking about my sailors of the Tazzoli who are honorably on the bottom of the sea, and I think that my place is with them.” Carlo Fecia di Cossato took his own life the day he wrote his final letter, which he ended with the instructions: “Hug Father and sisters, and to you, Mother, all of my deep, untouched love. In this moment, I feel very close to you and you all and I am sure that you will not condemn me.” SOURCES: Cristiano D’Adamo, www.regiamarina.net, 2011, Sir Holm Lawson, www.warsailors.com, 2011, Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Antonio Maronari, “The Submarine Which Didn’t Return” 24 U-332 Liebe 8-Mar-1942 10 U-332 under Kapitänleutnant Johannes Liebe patrolled north of Bermuda for ten days, not sinking anything in the Bermuda region but doing better of the US coast. Originally the patrol began in the waters of Newfoundland before Liebe headed south across the Gulf Stream. The Bermuda waters incursion began on the eighth of March 1942 to the northeast. U-332 headed southwest to a point northwest of Bermuda on the 11th then motored away to the north on the 12th. Off the US it sank the US schooner Albert F. Paul east of Hatteras killing all the men onboard as well as the ship’s dog, on the 13th. That evening U-332 dispatched the Trepca, a Yugoslavian freighter, off Cape Henry. By this point the boat was very low on diesel and had only six days to attack the area off US capes. On the 16th of March Liebe attacked the large tanker Australia and while waiting to finish it off was detected by the USCG Dione, a Coast Guard cutter, which attacked with depth charges. U-332 managed to escape, returning to the Bermuda area on the 23rd after sinking the Liberator on the 19th east of Hatteras. On the 25th of March the sub took a dog-leg southeast to the northeast of Bermuda before resuming its course homeward for La Pallice. The submarine was part of the 3rd U-boat Flotilla and began its patrol on the 17th of February, ending it on the 10th of April 1942. Born in Saxony in 1913, Liebe was a member of the Crew of 1933. His first assignment was on a naval airfield before he gained command of the school boat U-6 in 1940, having joined U-boats late in 1939. Then he served aboard U-48 under Schultze, a renowned skipper. Liebe served 277 patrol days on 5 patrols, all of them aboard U-332. Over his career he managed to sink eight ships of 46,729 tons. He was detained for several months in 1945 and passed away in 1982 at the age of 69. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 25 U-124 Mohr 12-Mar-1942 8 Kapitänleutnant Johann “Jochen” Mohr took U-124 westbound and eastbound for Hatteras via Bermuda between the 12th and 27th of March. Starting well to the northeast U-124 headed west from the 12th to 14th March, 1942, and on that day, north-northwest of Bermuda it sank the British 7,209-ton tanker British Resource. Then two days later it exited the area bound for Hatteras. Off Hatteras U-124 sank the Honduran banana ship Ceiba of ,698 tons on the 17th. Mohr returned on the 24th, this time eastbound, and also north of Bermuda. Starting on the 24th the boat headed first northeast then east, passing north of the island on the 26th and out of the region on the 27th. The patrol began in Lorient on the 21st of February for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla and ended there on the 10th of April. On 22 March Johann “Jochen” Mohr in U-124 dipped a figurative toe into the region from the Carolinas to the coast off Georgia, USA for one day only, making it the shortest visit of any submarine during the war. He was patrolling on a highly successful tour which amounted to seven ships sunk for 42,048 tons and three damaged for 26,167. His victims included the British Resource, Ceiba, Acme, Kassandra Louloudis, E. M. Clark, Papoose, W. E. Hutton, all sunk, and damage to the Esso Nashville, Atlantic Sun (11,355 tons damaged) and Naeco, which he sank the day following leaving the Bahamas area. This patrol began on the 21st of February 1942 in Lorient and ended in the same port. Mohr returned to base on the 10th of April and so was on the outward extent of the voyage on 22 March. Aged 25 at the time, he was awarded the Knights Cross during the patrol, less than a week later, on 27 March. Eight or so months later the Oak Leaves would be added. His career total included 27 ships sunk for 129,976 GRT, two warships sunk for 5,775 tons and the three aforementioned ships damaged on this patrol. The Atlantic Sun was ultimately sunk by U-607 in the central North Atlantic on the 15th of February 1943 – nearly a full year later (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.101). At the time Mohr was Kapitänleutnant sailing out of Lorient. In April 1943 he was promoted to Kovettenkapitän and the following day he was killed in the central Atlantic when the British corvette HSM Stonecrop and sloop HMS Black Swan attacked west of Oporto Portugal, destroying the sub with all hands. His other great success was against a convoy, ONS 92, Mohr began and ended his career on a single boat, U-124, on which he served under Georg-Wilhelm Schulz. During his return voyage he reported his success to Admiral Dönitz in verse, expressing the giddy sentiment of the “second happy time” which U-boat skippers found to their disbelief on attacking the largely undefended US east coast in early 1942. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 26 U-94 Ites 16-Mar-1942 3 U-94 under Oberleutnant zur See (later Kapitänleutnant) Otto Ites only crossed north of Bermuda from west to east for three days between the 16th and 18th of March 1942. The sub came down from waters of Canada and transited Bermuda between the US east coast and Canada. It was sailing with the 7th U-boat Flotilla and left Saint Nazaire on the 12th of February. En route to Canada it encountered convoy ON 67, and was directed to the location with several other boats. On the way U-94 sank the Empire Hail, a British ship. After patrolling off Nova Scotia Ites moved to the US east coast, sinking the trawler HMS Northern Princess, on loan to the Americans, off New Jersey on the 7th of February. On the 9th she sank the Cayru of Brazil and two days later the Norwegian Hvosleff east of New York and Chesapeake respectively. After passing north of Bermuda homebound U-94 was vectored by U-203 towards convoy ON 77 east of Newfoundland. U-94 damaged the Imperial Transport, a British tanker, which was towed to Saint John’s. The sub returned to Saint Nazaire on the second of April 1942. During this patrol Otto Ites was awarded the Knights Cross. Born in 1918, he was in the Crew of 1936 and was turned 24 a week before the patrol began. Initially he served aboard torpedo boats Kondor and Albatross, joining U-boats in October, 1938. He went on to command U-146 as well as U-94, from which he was captured in the Windward Passage off Haiti on 28 August 1942 when the HMCS Oakville rammed her. He was released in May 1946. Over seven patrols Ites served for 235 patrol days and managed to attack or sink 16 ships of 84,904 tons. Ites became a dentist after the war, then returned to the navy where he led the destroyer Z-2. When he retired in 1977 his rank was Konteradmiral. He passed away where he was born, in Norden, Ostfriesland in 1982 at the age of 63. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 27 U-105 Schuch 21-Mar-1942 12 U-105 under (later Fregattenkapitän) Heinrich Schuch patrolled north of Bermuda for 12 days between the 21st of March 1942 and the 1st of April. It was one of eleven subs assigned to the fourth wave of Operation Drumbeat. It left Lorient as part of the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the 25th of February and entered the region northeast of Bermuda westbound on the 21st of March. It proceeded west then southwest, performed a dog-leg and sank the British tanker Narragansett of 10,389 tons on the 25th. Then it proceeded northwest until the 27th, when it sank the Norwegian ship Svenør northwest of Bermuda. Earlier that day it attacked a ship with a torpedo and heard a detonation, however no confirmed damage or sinking has been attributed to this attack and the Eastern Sea Frontier Enemy Action Diary (US) is silent as to ships reporting an attack in this location. U-105 then headed east until the first of April, exiting just north of where it had entered the area. It returned to Lorient on the 15th of April. Schuch was born in 1906 and a member of the Crew of 1925, making him 35 years of age at the time. From 1938 to September 1939 he commanded U-37 without sinking enemy ships. His other command aside from U-105 was U-154. He moved ashore in 1945 a Head of the Weapons Division until the surrender. Overall he was responsible for sinking seven ships of 39,187 tons, three of them from U-154. Schuch received no decorations. He died in 1968 at the age of 61. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 28 U-123 Hardegen 21-Mar-1942 13 On the 6th of April Reinhard Hardegen on the famous “one two three” boat, U-123 returned for one devastating week. After skirting Newfoundland and Cape Hatteras the boat entered the region to the north of Bermuda both eastbound and westbound. Northeast of Bermuda on the 21st of March 1942 U-123 entered the area heading west. On the 22nd he sank the US tanker Muskogee of 7,034 tons and two days later, on the 24th followed with the British ship Empire Steel of 8,138. Captain Arthur Moore in his book “Careless Word, Needless Sinking,” tells the story of a photo of the Muskogee survivors on liferafts pleading the U-boat crew for help and how merchant mariners saw the photo in German magazine and recognized crewmates. Sadly the men were never seen again. On the 26th U-123 was inititally surprised by the US decoy ship USS Atik aka the Carolyn, and lost one man to a counter-attack before sinking the ship with the loss of all hands in a subsequent storm. Two days after coming south from the Carolinas to off the Georgia coast he damaged the 7,989-ton tanker Esso Baton Rouge and the 9,264-ton Oklahoma. Proceeding south along the eastern coast of Florida to a position some thirty miles off West End Grand Bahama he sank in quick succession the Esparta on the following day (9th April), then two days later the tanker Gulfamerica off Jacksonville. Immediately following this attack the boat was pinned down by an Allied plane and ships in an attack which would have led to the destruction of the U-boat by more persistent foes in almost any other theater at the time: “After sinking Gulfamerica the boat was located in shallow waters by an aircraft which directed a destroyer to the position. At 09.17 hours six depth-charges were dropped on U-123 moving over the bottom at a depth of twenty meters and badly damaged her. The boat played ‘dead man’ and despite air bubbles escaping from damaged valves, no more depth-charges were dropped by the destroyer which left after one hour. Most of the damages could be repaired by the crew and the boat continued the patrol.” To these successes he added the American-flagged Leslie, and the Korlsholm, a Swedish ship which began the war detained off Morocco. Given that Hardegen dispatched the Alcoa Guide en route home and the Liebre to and off Hatteras, his total bag for one patrol was eight ships sunk for 39,917 and three damaged for 24,310 tons. On the way home U-123 again transitted Bermuda, this time eastbound from the 16th of April until the 20th, beginning to the northwest, going north of the island on the 18th, and exiting to the northeast. In the Bay of Biscay U-123 met with U-107 which was outbond to exchange a code book and information. U-123 returned to Lorient on the 2nd of May 1942. (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.99). Hardegen, who is still alive, achieved the rank of Korvettenkapitän, though at the time he was Kapitänleutnant. Over his career he sank 21 ships for a total of 112,447 GRT and damaged four others for 32,516 GRT – he also sank one warship and damaged another. On 23 April 1942, following this patrol he was awarded the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, and later the U-boat badge with Diamonds. A member of the crew of 1933 at the Naval Academy (Marineschule) in Mürwik, eastern Germany, he was only 30 at the time. Hardegen actually began his career in the naval air force, but injuries sustained when he crashed as a pilot brought him to the U-boat arm in November 1939, at the outset of the war. His total command experience of five patrols of 240 days at sea on two submarines plus his longevity and accessibility have made Hardegen somewhat of a “darling” of U-boat research into attacks on the Americas, or at least the United States. Hardagen’s patrols feature prominently in books such as Operation Drumbeat by Michael Gannon and Torpedo Junction by Homer Hickham, and The Fuhrer’s U-boats in American Waters by Gary Gentile (who accused Hardegen of doctoring his log). His feats are extolled on websites such as Sharkhunters of which he is a member. By all accounts Hardegen is a personable and likeable commander and veteran – he was said to have tied the shoe laces of an old merchant mariner who visited him to meet the man who sank him. Hardegen corresponded with his victims, and took part in two particularly tragic sinkings – that of the only battle-tested armed merchant cruiser which the Americans put forth (the Atik, AK 101 aka the Caroline, in which all members of the US Navy crew and one of Hardegen’s crew perished on a stormy night) and the Muskogee, whose desperate survivors were photographed by Hardegen’s crew but never seen alive again (photos from a German magazine surfaced in a POW camp for allies and survived the war) (Moore). In short Hardegen came to symbolize the opening attack on the Americas in the way that Werner Hartenstein and Albrecht Achilles symbolized the daring attacks in the Caribbean theater, and that Carlo Fecia di Cossato would represent the ravaging of ships off the Bahamas. He would have to be included in the iconic skippers such as Herbert Werner in his autobiographical Iron Coffins and the skipper in the fictional film Das Boot, which was loosely based on the patrols observed by a war correspondent. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2011, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat, Homer Hickham, Torpedo Junction, Gary Gentile, The Fuhrer’s U-boats in American Waters, Moore, Arthur, A Careless Word…a Needless Sinking: a History of the Staggering Losses Suffered By the U. S. Merchant Marine, Both in Ships and Personnel, During World War II, 1998 29 U-160 Lassen 21-Mar-1942 10 Oberleutnant zur See (later Korvettenkapitän) Georg Lassen entered the area north of Bermuda on the 21st of March 1942 heading southwest. Overall the submarine was in the area for 10 days, transiting westbound and eastbound. On the first leg the sub spent five days, exiting northwest of Bermuda towards Hatteras on the 26th. On the return patrol U-160 re-entered the region on the 12th of April and motored on a straight course northeast, exiting northeast of Bermuda on the 15th of April. The patrol for the 10th U-boat Flotilla began in Heligoland, Germany on the 1st of March and ended in its new base in Lorient on the 28th of April 1942. The patrol began off Newfoundland but pushed south to the US capes. The day after leaving Bermuda astern, on the 27th of March, Lassen found and sank the Equipoise. Off Hatteras U-160 then sank City of New York on the 29th and the Rio Blanco on the first of April. Five days later she damaged the Bidwell. On the 9th the Malchace was sunk, followed by the Ulysses on the 11th – the ship was en route from Australia, carrying evacuees from Japanese attacks in southeast Asia. A day later U-160 re-entered the area around Bermuda in a straight trajectory to Lorient. Born in 1915, Lassen was a member of the Crew of 1935. He began U-boat training in April 1939 and went on to command U-29, without conducting war patrols on it. After 328 patrol days on four war patrols he sank or damaged 31 ships of 190,501 tons. For this he was awarded the Knights Cross in August 1942, the Oak Leaves in March 1942 and the U-boat War Badge with Diamonds in October 1944. He passed away in 2012 on Mallorca, Spain, at the age of 96. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 30 U-202 Linder 1-Apr-1942 10 U-202 under Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Hans-Heinz Linder entered the area north of Bermuda on the first of April 1942, heading west and southwest by increments until the 6th. At that point the sub turned south, then east from the 7th to the 10th of April, when it exited the region. Sailing for the 1st U-boat Flotilla U-202 left on the first of March 1942 as part of the fourth wave of Operation Drumbeat boats aimed at Cape Hatteras and surrounding targets. On the 22nd of March she encountered and sank the Athelviscount, a British ship of 8.882 tons northeast of Bermuda and some 700 miles southeast of Sable Island, Canada. Moving west the boat sank the British ship Loch Don of 5,249 tons roughly 500 miles north-northeast of Bermuda. On returning towards Europe after the sixth the submarine was refueled by the U-tanker U-A west of the Azores. Linder was born in 1913 and turned 29 during this patrol. Part of the Crew of 1933, he served as on U-18 and U-96 under Lehmann-Willenbrock. In March 1941 he took command of U-202, on which he served for six patrols and 236 patrol days up to September 1942. His total tally was seven ships sunk, for 33,693 tons in aggregate, including the City of Birmingham near Bermuda. In late fall 1942 he moved ashore to naval staff duties, and he died on the 10th of September 1944 at age 31. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 31 U-71 Flaschenberg 2-Apr-1942 6 U-71 under Kapitänleutnant Walter Flachsenberg (soon to be promoted to Korvettenkapitän) entered the area northwest of Bermuda heading east on the 2nd of April. The day before the sub had sunk the Eastmoor, a British ship of 5,812 tons. While patrolling the east coast of the US from Hatteras to New York U-71 sank the Ranja on 17 March followed by the Oakmar on the 20th. Dixie Arrow followed but the sub was chased off by the USS Tarbell, resulting in a depth charge attack. On the 31st Flachsenberg found and sank the British ship San Gerardo between New York and Bermuda. U-71 sailed with the 7th U-boat Flotilla from Saint Nazaire on the 23rd of February and returned to La Pallice France on the 20th of April 1942. Walter Flachsenberg was born in 1908 and a member of the Crew of 1929, making him 33 years of age at the time of the patrol. He served with naval artillery from 1939 to 1940, when he joined the U-boat arm. After six patrols of 191 days in U-71, in late 1942 he moved to torpedo testing command until the surrender. Between March and April 1942 he sank 5 ships of 38,894 tons – all on this patrol, and he received no decorations. Flachsenberg lived until 1994 and age 86. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 32 U-572 Hirsacker 3-Apr-1942 15 Kapitänleutnant Heinz Hirsacker brought is command, U-572 on a relatively long patrol north of Bermuda between the 3rd and 26th of April, 1942 – totaling 15 days. The patrol entered the Bermuda area on the third of April, and the following day the British tanker Ensis of 6,207 tons, which was just damaged by gunfire and 20 millimeter shells. The patrol started off of Newfoundland then went south between Bermuda and the mainland. For over two weeks the submarine patrolled northwest of Bermuda. During that time she sank the Panamanian Desert Light of 2,368 tons on the 16th, off Virginia, followed by the British Empire Dryden of 7,164 tons north northwest of Bermuda on the 20th. The U-tanker U-459 refueled U-572, according to Wynn on the 23rd of April, but realistically more like the first week of May, as it occurred 500 miles northeast of the island and on the 23rd the sub was just north of Bermuda. This patrol began for the 3rd U-boat Flotilla on the 14th of March 1942 in Brest and ended there on the 14th of May. Hirsacker was born in 1914 and was a member of the Crew of 1934. He received the U-boat War Badge of 1939. In his early career he served aboard U-36 in 1937 and then U-64 under Schulz and later aboard U-124 under the same command. He took over U-572 in May 1941. Following a number of lackluster patrols and one in which he fabricated the log and remained submerged most of the time, Hirsacker was court-martialed in Paris while being re-assigned to destroyers Hans Lody and Z-33. Found guilty of cowardice and sentenced to death, Hirsacker chose to take his own life instead, which he did on April 24, 1943. Over six patrols and 267 patrol days he sank 3 ships of 14,813 tons and damaged another of 6,207 for a total of 21,020 tons, all of them in early to mid 1942 and three of them on this patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 33 U-571 Möhlmann 5-Apr-1942 7 U-571 under Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Helmut Möhlmann entered the area north of Bermuda on the 5th of April 1942 for a three-day incursion in which it sank the Norwegian tanker Koll on the sixth north northwest of Bermuda. This was followed by a return voyage across the north of Bermuda from west to east, between the 19th and 22nd of April. The boat sailed for the 3rd U-boat Flotilla on the 10th of March from La Pallice and returned there on the 7th of May 1942. Originally Möhlmann headed for the waters of Newfoundland before heading south to the area off Cape Hatteras, which she reached about the 26th of March. On the 29th the sub dispatched the British ship Hertford of 10,932 tons, then the Koll of 10,044 tons on the 6th of April, and the Margaret, 3,352 tons off Hatteras. Wynn says that U-571 rendezvoused with U-459 on the 21st of April, which would have placed it north of Bermuda at the time – it is more likely that the refueling took place about the 25th of April and closer to 500 miles northeast of Bermuda. Born in Kiel in 1913, Helmut Möhlmann was a member of the Crew of 1933. Early in his career which began as a cadet, her served aboard the light cruiser Nurnberg and later torpedo boat Luchs, joining U-boats in 1940. In that capacity he served on U-143, a training boat, and U-52 before commissioning U-571. Möhlmann’s tally was 344 patrol days in 8 patrols, all of them on U-571. Between August 1941 and July 1942 he sank or damaged eight ships of 58,563 tons. After his seagoing career he moved to the U-boat headquarters staff, and the Naval Academy in Berlin. This was followed by command of the 14th Flotilla in Narvik Norway from 1944 to war’s end, after which he was imprisoned for four months. He was awarded the Knights Cross in April 1943 and the U-boat Front Clasp in September 1944. He died in 1977 at the age of 63. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 34 U-754 Oestermann 5-Apr-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant Hans Ostermann brought his submarine U-754 briefly into the Bermuda area between the fifth and eighth of April, 1942 – just long enough to sink the Norwegian tanker Kollskegg of 9,858 tons on the sixth. Aside from this it was a highly successful patrol in which he also sank the British tanker British Prudence off Newfoundland and Saint Pierre. Following his Canada foray the sub moved off the Hatteras area in the end of March. There it attacked three barges and their tug with gunfire before sinking the barges Barnegat and Alleghany and the tug Menominee and damaging the barge Ontario. Thereafter on the first of April Oestermann sank the tanker Tiger off Virginia, followed two days later by the Otho. After sinking the Kollskegg U-754 returned for Brest, where it was based for the 5th U-boat Flotilla. The patrol bgan there on the seventh of March and ended in Brest on the 25th of April 1942. Born in 1913, Oestermann was a member of the Crew of 1933 and turned 29 during this patrol. He would drown within the year, the victim of Allied anti-submarine efforts north-east of Boston. Early in his career Oestermann served aboard the destroyer Hermann Shoemann before joining U-boats in July 1940. His only boat before commissioning U-754 was U-151. Overall he accrued 135 patrol days in three war-going patrols and sank or damaged 14 ships of 56,149 tons. He received no decorations before being sunk by a Royal Canadian Air Force Hudson on 31 July 1942. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 35 U-85 Greger 6-Apr-1942 4 Oberleutnant zur See Eberhard Greger brought his command, U-85 into the Bermuda area on the sixth of April, on route to being sunk off Cape Hatteras a week or so later. The incursion began northeast of Bermuda up to the seventh, then there is a dog-leg south towards Bermuda, a change of course westward on the eighth, and then more westward progress to the ninth, when the boat exited the theater for the US coast. U-85 sailed for the 3rd U-boat Flotilla in La Pallice on the 21st of March 1942. On 10th April U-85 is believed to have sunk the Christian Knudsen, a Norwegian tanker of 4,904 tons near the US coast. Then USS Roper made radar contact with U-85 east of Roanoke Island, Virginia and the destroyer went in for an attack. The submarine’s torpedo attack missed the mark and the Roper caught the surfaced sub in a searchlight and heavy gunfire which killed the sub’s gun crew. Jittery US crew depth-charged the waters around 31 survivors, and some of the bodies were too badly maimed by machine gun fire to be retrieved. Sixteen of the sub’s crew went down with their boat – the first U-boat sunk by a US Navy ship in World War II. Greger was born in 1915 in the Netherlands and joined the Crew of 1935. After serving aboard destroyer Wolfgang Zenker he moved to U-boats in October 1939 and served aboard U-110 and U-30. Between August 1941 and March 1942 he served 137 days on four patrols aboard U-85. His total tally was three ships sunk for 15,060. Greger received no decorations. He was 26 years of age when killed. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 36 U-552 Topp 11-Apr-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant (later Fregattenkapitän) Erich Topp brought U-552 into the Bermuda region on a straight line of four days north of the island. During the sub’s return from the US coast off Hatteras U-552 entered the area northwest of Bermuda on the 11th of April and motored northeast until leaving the sphere on the 14th April, 1942. While he did not sink vessels during his tangent north of Bermuda, Topp managed to attack seven ships during this patrol: Ocana, David H. Atwater, Byron D. Benson, British Splendour, the whale factory ship Lancing, Atlas, and Tamaulipas. Except for the Ocana sinking which occurred outbound, these attacks occurred off Hatteras between the 25th of March and the 10th of April, 1942 – the last the Tamaulipas occurred a day before his voyage back to France for the 7th U-boat Flotilla out of Saint Nazaire. The patrol began on seven March as one of 11 u-boats comprising the fourth wave of Operation Drumbeat. It ended on the 27th of April 1942. Born in Hannover in 1914, Topp was a member of the Crew of 1934. After a stint on the light cruiser Karlsruhe before he joined U-boats in October 1937. He joined U-46, then U-57 and finally U-552 which was known as the “Red Devil Boat.” He accrued 352 patrol days between July 1940 and July 1942, sinking a highly impressive 36 ships of 198,650 tons and a further four ships damaged for 32,317 tons. Topp is, along with Hardegen and Suhren, one of the better known u-boat commanders. He moved ashore as commander of the 27th U-boat Flotilla and wrote battle instructions for novel u-boats. At war’s end he was in command of U-2513 off Horten Norway (he also commanded the XXI Elektro boat U-3010). After a stint as an architect following the war he rejoined the navy and served with NATO, retiring in 1969 as a Konteradmiral. He passed away the day after Christmas in 2005 at the age of 91. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 37 U-575 Heydemann 11-Apr-1942 20 Kapitänleutnant Günther Heydemann spent nearly three weeks between the 11th of April and the 30th of April 1942 in the area north and northwest of Bermuda. The only result of this patrol was the sinking of the American ship Robin Hood of 6,887 tons by combined torpedo and gunfire on the 16th Northwest of Bermuda at the outside of the sub’s patrol area. Starting on the 11th Heydemann moved southwest until the 15th, then north, then west, south, and southeast, reaching its closest point to Bermuda on the 24th of April. From there the boat proceeded north and northeast along a similar track it had arrived with. U-575 sailed for the 7th U-boat Flotilla out of Saint Nazaire on the 24th of March and returned there on the 14th of May 1942. Heydemann was born in 1914 and was a Crew of 1933. His first stints were aboard the Schlesien and the Schleswig-Holstein, then he joined u-boats in April 1940. After serving on the U-69 under Metzler he commissioned U-575 in mid 1941. Over eight patrols he accrued 395 patrol days and sank or damaged eight ships of 48,920 tons. He received the Knights Cross in July of 1943, after which he moved ashore to command the 23rd and 25th training flotillas until the war’s end. Günther Heydemann died in 1986 at age 71. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 38 U-654 Forster 11-Apr-1942 19 Oberleutnant zur See Ludwig Forster brought U-654 on a complicated 19-day patrol literally around Bermuda, passing so close to the island on the 29th of April 1942 that it must have seen Saint David’s or Gibbs Hill lights. On April 10th U-654 entered northeast of the island and headed west for five days until the 14th of April. Less than a week later, on the 20th the boat approached from the west going northeast and sank the Steel Maker (US flagged, 6,176 tons) and then the same day the Agra (Swedish, 4,569 tons) Before leaving the Steel Maker Forster promised the merchant skipper the sub would radio the survivors’ position, however he failed to do so and two men died in the lifeboat voyage. The following day Forster changed course heading south until the 22nd to a point just west-northwest of Bermuda. Then he headed west for two days, south until the 25th, and due east until the 28th of April. At that point U-654 turned north to pass very close to the east of Bermuda, and then north-northwest until the 1st of May. Thereafter Forster opted to head northeast until the 3rd of May at which point it exited the region to the northeast of the island. The next patrol into the greater Bahamas area was also conducted to and from Brest and was similar to Schnee’s in that it was a dip south from Hatteras, crossing an imaginary line between Bermuda and Savannah for a few days before exiting home bound. The commander of this type VIIC boat on its third of four patrols was Ludwig Forster, aged 26, in U-654. On the 24th of April, 1942 roughly a third of the distance between Savannah and Bermuda the boat entered the area heading straight south, which it did for one day. The boat headed directly east towards Bermuda between the 25th and 28th of April, at which point another 90-degree turn saw her head northwards and skirt the west coast of Bermuda homeward bound on the 29th of April. No ships were sunk during this entry, however he had destroyed three ships of 17,755 tons between the 10th and 20th of April (they were the Empire Prairie, Steel Maker, and Agra). Wynn notes that Forster is said to have promised the survivors of the Steel Maker that he would radio their position in order to accelerate or assure their rescue and that he did not do so (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.111). Having left there on the 21st of March, U-654 returned to Brest on 19 May 1942. At the time and for the balance of his career Ludwig Forster’s rank was Oberleutnant zur See. He achieved the Iron Cross Second Class on the first month of the war, and was killed on 22 August 1942 in the Caribbean Sea north of Colon, Panama. All 44 men were killed when a US B-18 Digby aircraft attacked the submarine. Aside from the successes on this patrol he sank a 900-ton Allied warship in a total of four patrols of 162 sea days. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 39 U-582 Schulte 13-Apr-1942 20 The Type VIIC boat U-582 was only brought into the region for a near-record 20 days by its commander, Kapitänleutnant Werner Schulte. The sub patrolled to the northeast of Bermuda from the 13th of April until the 26th, then went southeast of the island, southwest, and finally wast on the 2nd of May. There were several sharp changes of course which look like zig-zags which are better potrayed on a chart than described in print. U-582 headed west-northwest from the 13th to the 19th, passing close north of Bermda on the 17th. Then it turned east from the 20th to the 23rd, then soiuthewest to a point east of Bermuda on the 27th. For two days it motored southeast, then west to the 30th, then northeast to pass again close to the east of the island. Thereafter it turned west and exited the region heading towards Hatteras on the 2nd of May 1942. Having begun its patrol on the 19th of March intending to escort the German blockade-runner Rio Grande from Japan into Europe, the boat instead patrolled to the west. Towards the end of April U-582 was refueled by U-459 roughly 500 miles northeast of Bermuda, which would explain its proximity to that island. There were no ships struck by Schulte on this patrol, which ended in Brest on the 24th of May 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.54). U-582 sailed from and two Brest, where it was based with the First Flotilla. Its only commander was Korvettenkapitän Schulte, whose career total was six ships sunk for 38,826 GRT and one 46-ton warship lost aboard a transport ship sunk. Schulte was not able to engage any Allied ships during this 67-day patrol, which ranged from off Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras south to Bermuda. Werner Schulte was born in Kiel on 7 November 1912 and joined the Kriegsmaine in 1937 as the A Crew of that year. After serving on the Köningsberg he moved ashore to a staff position in Norway. He joined U-boats in October 1940. As part of his training he served under Robert Gysae on U-98. He took the sub on four patrols and sank six ships with her. His promotion from Kapitänleutnant to Korvettenkapitän was posthumous, as Schulte was killed with 46 others when U-582 was found and sunk by Catalina aircraft on the 5th of October 1942 off the southwest of Iceland (Niestle, 1988). SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 40 U-203 Mützelburg 15-Apr-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant Rolf Mützelburg brought U-203 across the northern portion of Bermuda homeward bound between the 15th and 18th of April 1942. It was a straight line from southwest to northeast. The boat sailed for the 1st U-boat Flotilla in Brest on the 12th of March and returned there on the 30th of April. It was in the fourth wave of Drumbeat boats. Along the way to the Cape Hatteras area U-203 was refueled by the u-boat tanker U-A on about the 23rd of March in the vicinity of the Azores. Along the US seaboard U-203 had four successes: the San Delfino on the 10th of April, the harry F. Sinclair Jr. the following day (it was repaired), then the Stanvac Melbourne the day after that and finally the Empire Thrush off Cape Hatteras on the 14th, the day before it returned via northern Bermuda. Mützelburg was born in 1913 in Kiel and was 28 at the time of this patrol. He served on minesweepers for two years and joined u-boats in October 1939. Early experience was obtained on U-10 and U-100 under Schepke before he commissioned U-203 in February 1941. In July 1942 he earned the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves. Aboard U-203 he served 242 days on eight patrols and managed to sink or damage 22 ships worth 99,013 tons. His life was cut short on 11 September 1942 when he took a recreational dive from the conning tower west of the Azores and hit either the deck or the saddle tanks, fatally striking his head on the hull. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 41 U-109 Bleichrodt 17-Apr-1942 10 Kapitänleutnant Heinrich ‘Ajax’ Bleichrodt brought U-109 on its second patrol to Bermuda for 10 days total starting on the 17th of April and ending the 17th of May. First U-109 headed west, starting at a point northeast of Bermuda, until the 19th and 20th, when it turned south. Then it continued west until the 21st of May when it exited the area for Hatteras. On his voyage inbound Bleichrodt sank the Harpagon north of Bermuda on the 20th of April – she was a British ship of 5,719 tons. On the very same day as Schacht, U-109 under Heinrich ‘Ajax’ Bleichrodt, age 32 headed from Savannah to Bermuda on 26th April and exiting the same way on the 30th of May 1942. His track looks like a < tilted counter clockwise – like the open moth of a crocodile, converging on a point off Miami where he sank two ships – the La Paz of British registry and the Laertes of Dutch flag, on the 1st and 3rd of May respectively. Bliechrodt’s total for this patrol was three ships of 18,092 tons. The La Paz, however was merely damaged for 6,548 tons. The submarine is often credited with sinking a Nicaraguan fruit carrier named the Worden of 555 tons, however this is a result of confusion over radio transmissions. Worden was simply responding “in the clear” via short wave radio to distress calls from La Paz. Photos available to the public at the National Archives of the US (NARA2) clearly show the Worden, with its name in huge letters on its side, in fine condition standing by to assist the stricken ship. ‘Ajax’ Bleichrodt graduated in the crew of 1933 and was a Kapitänleutnant at the time, achieving Korvettenkapitän late in 1943. His decorations include the Knights Cross early in the war – in October 1940, followed by an addition of the Oak Leaves in September 1942 and the U-boat War Badge with Diamonds a month later. In January 1945 he was given the War Merit Cross Second Class with Swords. His total tonnage was an impressive 24 ships of 151,260 tons, plus a warship of 1,060 tons and two ships damaged for 11,684 GRT. U-109, on its fifth of nine patrols, was sailing from and to Lorient for the Second Flotilla. The patrol began on the 25th of March and ended on the 3rd of June. Early in his career Bliechrodt served on both the Gorch Foch and the Admiral Hipper, moving to U-boats in October 1939. He also served as First Watch Officer (second in command) of U-564 under Teddy Suhren. In one patrol as commander of U-48 in 1940 he sank eight ships of 43,106 tons. Moving ashore in July 1943 he went on to command the 27th and 22nd training flotillas. He lived until 1977, passing away in Munich at the age of 67. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 42 U-201 Schnee 17-Apr-1942 18 Adalbert ‘Adi’ Schnee led the next patrol into the region on 17 April 1942, remaining between Hatteras and Bermuda for most of 18 days. The day after arriving northeast of Bermuda U-201 torpedoed the neutral Argentinian ship Victoria, a tanker of 7,417 tons. The ship didn’t sink and her crew reboarded her and took it to New York, where the US authorities eventually requisitioned it. On the 21st of April Schnee sank the Norwegian ship Bris of 2,027 tons east of Bermuda and two days later the British-flagged Derryheen of 7,217 tons as well as the US-flagged San Jacinto of 6,069 tons following day. For the next four days the sub headed north then west towards Hatteras, leaving the region on the 27th of April. The San Jacinto was noteworthy in that it was a steam passenger ship carrying 183 persons (104 of them passengers), of whom fourteen were killed. The 169 survivors included 32 women and children huddled together on rafts and boats and sent an SOS via portable radio the following day. They were picked up on 23 April and landed on the next day in Norfolk, Virginia. The Derryheen sinking was remarkable inasmuch as the gun crew of the merchant ship managed to fire back at the submarine, though it might be a stretch to call it a duel. Both sinkings occurred well to the northeast of Abaco’s Elbow Cay Light, about two thirds of the way to Bermuda. U-201, a Type IXC boat sailing in the First Flotilla out of Brest France, was on its sixth of nine war patrols. On the 23rd of April Schnee left the region with a patrol total of three ships sunk for 5,313 and one of 7,417 damaged in this patrol. However the Victoria was towed into port by destroyers which rescued the crew. The patrol began in Brest on the 24th of March 1942 and ended there on the 21st of May. On the way home U-201 again transitted north of Bermuda, this time without sinking any ships. On the third of May Schnee came east from Hatteras and then northeast, all to the northwest of Bermuda. Heading north until the fifth he then turned east until the seventh of May, when it left the area to the northeast of the island. Schnee was a member of Crew 34 – 28 years of age at the time, he survived the war, dying in Hamburg in 1982 at age 68. At the time of the attack he was Kapitänleutnant (recently promoted) and at the end of 1944 he achieved Korvettenkapitän rank. Following this patrol he was awarded Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, a rare distinction. His total tally was twenty-one ships for 90,189 GRT, two auxiliary war ships for 5,700 tons and three ships damaged for nearly 29,000 tons. He had begun his U-boat career in May 1937 and served under “Silent Otto” Kretschmer on (one of the war’s greatest aces) aboard U-23. Moving ashore after his seventh patrol he led operations against convoys. The symbol for his boat was a snow man with a Knights Cross around its neck which was painted on the conning tower – this is because “Schnee” means “snow” in German. Following retirement from a commercial job in Germany, he directed a sailing school on the Mediterranean island of Elba, where Napoleon had been incarcerated in a previous war. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 43 U-402 von Forstner 17-Apr-1942 15 Kapitänleutnant Freiherr Sigfried von Forstner entered the region on the Type VIIC boat U-402 for a short incursion in the northwest quadrant on the 25th of April, 1942. He was cruising off the Carolinas, actually closer to Bermuda, when he turned south for a day until the 26th. At that point he was over 700 miles northeast of Abaco, before turning west towards the coast. He steamed in that direction, finding no Allied ships in a sweep across the Gulf Stream and the coastwise route from Panama and the US Gulf to New York and Halifax. On the 28th of April he ran out of ocean and turned northeast when still just east of Savannah, Georgia. That evening he ducked out of the region after just four days, heading back to the Cape Hatteras area. The following day U-402 was sighted by Lieutenant (junior grade) Robert A. Proctor roughly twenty miles south of Cape Lookout, in the Carolinas. Having been vectored to the submarine by radar, the US Navy PBY Catalina aircraft swooped in to drop four depth charges, but the submarine escaped. Two days after that U-402 located and sank the Soviet ship Ashkhabad of 5,284 tons, followed on the 2nd of May by sinking the USS Cythera, a yacht converted to patrol duties by the Americans and named PY-26 for Patrol Yacht. She was 602 tons, and von Forstner imprisoned two captives from her. Before entering the greater Bahamas region U-402 had sunk the Empire Progress of the UK on the 13th of April. She was 5,249 tons and contributed to von Forstner’s overall career total of fourteen ships sunk of 70,434 tons, not including the Cythera. U-402’s patrol began on the 26th of March and ended in Saint Nazaire, where it was based with the Third Flotilla, on the 29th of May 1942. U-402’s only commander was von Forstner, who took her on eight patrol of 349 days, right up to her demise on 13 October 1943 when she was destroyed with all hands by aircraft from the escort carrier USS Card in the Central Atlantic. Von Forstner was promoted to Korvettenkapitän a year after his incursion into the Bahamas (1st April 1943) and earned the Knights Cross in February of that year. He was a member of the Crew of 1930 before serving on the Nürnberg during the first year of the war. He joined U-boats in April 1940 and served under the ace Kretschmer on U-99 before commissioning his own boat, U-402. Thirty one years of age when he dipped into the area, he was 33 when killed, having been born in Hannover on 19 September 1910. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 44 U-576 Heinicke 19-Apr-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant Hans-Dieter Heinicke brought his command U-576 northeast of Bermuda starting on the 19th of April 1942 for four days. During that time he managed to sink the US freighter Pipestone County of 5,102 tons north of Bermuda on the 21st of April. U-576’s patrol into the region looks like a horseshoe, as the sub motored southwest, then west, then northwest out of the area on the 22nd of April. U-576 sailed from the 7th U-boat Flotilla in Saint Nazaire on the 29th of March. It was acting in concert with a group of at least eight (Wynn says 12) u-boats whose purpose it was to determine if ships were using routes away from the US mainland, catch, intercept and sink them. The other boats in the group were U-135, U-213, U-404, U-432, U-455, U-566, and U-653, all of them also covered herein. After waiting several days most boats moved closer to the coast, however Heinicke stuck further out and damaged the Tropic Star, which was ironically carrying survivors of his earlier attack on the Pipestone County who had been picked up from lifeboats by the captain of the Tropic Star. The latter attack occurred on the 24th of April south of Nantucket and the Tropic Star managed to make it to Boston despite the torpedo hit, which was a dud, saving the survivors the ignomy of being torpedoed twice by the same submarine. Several days later U-576 struck for a third time, this time sinking the Norwegian ship Taborfjell of 1,339 tons east of Cape Cod on the 30th of April. On the first of May the sub tried to attack a troop convoy but Allied aircraft protected the precious shipment 80 miles from Cape Sable, Canada, so U-576 resumed its course back to France, where it arrived on the 16th of May 1942. Hans-Dieter Heinicke was born in 1913 and celebrated his 29th birthday two days after his return to France. It was to be his last, as U-576 was caught by USS Unicoi and two Kingfisher aircraft off Cape Hatteras on the 15th of July that summer and all 45 men on board the submarine perished. Heinicke was a member of the Crew of 1933 and served as watch officer of the u-boat tender Wiechsel in 1939 and 1940, at which point he began u-boat training. He served on U-73 and helped commission U-576, the only boat he served on and on which he accrued 163 patrol days over five missions. His career tally was six ships sunk or damaged for 34,907 ton. Hienicke received no decorations over his career. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 45 U-136 Zimmermann 21-Apr-1942 3 Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Zimmermann in command of U-136 entered the area only briefly from off the US coast near Cape Hatteras on the 21st of April, 1942. On the 22nd the boat penetrated to within a few hundred miles of Bermuda to the northwest, then returned west and then north, exiting the area the following day. The submarine sailed for the 6th U-boat Flotilla and left Saint Nazaire on the 24th of March 1942. U-136’s patrol began off Newfoundland before continuing on the Hatteras, where the sub sank the US tanker Axtell J. Byles of 8,955 tons on the 19th of April off Hatteras. Zimmermann had actually been aiming for the USCG cutter Dione but hit the tanker instead. Both the Dione and US Navy aircraft counterattacked to no effect. While northwest of Bermuda U-136 sank the British motor ship Empire Drum of 7,244 tons on the 24th of April. Closer to shore on the 28th she sank the Dutch steamer Arundo of 5,163 tons south of New York. On the way home, also via Canada, U-136 dispatched the 300-ton Canadian schooner Mildred Pauline off Nova Scotia. Zimmermann and his men returned to Saint Nazaire on the 20th of May, 1942. Zimmermann was born in 1907 and was a member of the Crew of 1933. His early responsibilities included command of the 7th Minesweeping Flotilla in 1939-40. He joined u-boats in 1941 and took command of U-136 in August of that year. On the 11th of June 1942 the sub was caught by the Free French destroyer Leopard and HMS Sprey and HMS Pelican and sunk with all 45 hands off Madeira Islands. Over three patrols Zimmermann accrued 108 sea days and accounted for eight ships sunk or damaged of 34,454 tons. He received no decorations. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 46 U-86 Schug 21-Apr-1942 5 Kapitänleutnant Walter Schug brought U-86 into the area northwest of Bermuda for a five-day incursion starting on the 21st of April. Motoring due southwest he left the region the following day, only to return from the Hatteras area on the 28th of April, 1942. He motored east for a day, turned north on the 29th, and exited the region northwest of Bermuda en route to base on the 30th. U-86 sailed for the 1st U-boat Flotilla out of Brest on the 25th of March 1942 as part of the fifth wave of Operation Drumbeat U-boats to attack the US. All attacks made by the submarine on this mission failed, and Schug returned to base without having sunk or damaged any ships. They returned to France on the 26th of May, 1942. Walter Schug was born in 1910 and was a member of the Crew of 1934. Originally he served in the Naval Artillery Division and then with Naval Assault Troops before joining u-boat training in April 1940. He served as watch officer of U-74 before commissioning U-86 in July of 1941. Over eight patrols he accrued 415 days and sank or damaged 4 ships worth 18,241 tons. Walter Schug and his entire compliment of 50 men were killed by HMS Tumult and HMS rocket east of the Azores Islands on the 29th of November, 1943. Schug received no decorations in his career. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 47 U-108 Scholtz 23-Apr-1942 12 Korvettenkapitän Klaus Scholtz brought his sub U-108 into the area northeast of Bermuda for a deadly 12-day transit starting the 22nd of April, 1942. Three days later he dispatched the Modesta, noteworthy as the ship sunk closer to Bermuda in WWII than any other. Modesta was British and 9,925 tons and dispatched by both torpedo and gunfire. A day after Schacht and Bleichrodt came Klaus Scholtz in U-108 – he entered just east of Saint David’s Light (famous in the Peter Benchley book The Deep) on 27 April 1942, heading south-southwest as far as a point of Anegada, essentially skimming the eastern fringe of the are before turning north-northwest on the 30th and heading into the Turks & Caicos Passage. On the 29th he sank the US tanker Mobiloil halfway between Puerto Rico and Bermuda. He went on to patrol the area around Inagua and Caicos for over a week (4th to 13th May) during which he sank the Abgara, on 6th May. Abgara was one of seven out of eight Latvian ships which chose to fight the war against the Soviet demand they surrender, and ended up sunk. Off the extreme northwest coast of Haiti – between Cape Mole and Inagua – he sank the Afoundria, chasing it towards the shore. Her survivors were landed in Haiti and taken to Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Photographs of them survive in the US National Archives in College Park Maryland. It is fair to call his week of 4th to 13th May an “Inagua patrol” as Scholtz crisscrossed a box between Cape Mole, Matthew Town Inagua, Cape Maysi Cuba and the southern Turks & Caicos island looking for prey following his two successes in the area. Clearly he was hunting for traffic out of the Windward Passage, but perhaps he was a victim of his success. Usually there would be no shortage of ships forced to transit north from Aruba to Halifax or points north like New York from Panama, Trinidad etcetera, however it is possible that word of his activities spread through the Eastern Sea Frontier (ESF) which was monitoring and publicizing such activity through naval and merchant channels, scaring them into port until the threat passed. On this patrol Scholtz would add the British ship Modesta and the Norwegian Norland from convoy ON 93 for a total tonnage sunk of 31,340 on one patrol in five ships. The patrol began on the 30th of March 1942 and ended also in Lorient on the 1st of June. Thirty four years of age at the time, Scholtz sailed in the Second Flotilla to and from Lorient France and was ranked Korvettenkapitän at the time (a promotion to Fregattenkapitän arriving in July 1944). During this patrol he was holder of the Knights Cross in recognition of his career total of 24 ships for 111,546 GRT plus an impressively large auxiliary warship – the Armed Merchant Cruiser Rajputana of 16,644 tons in the Straits of Denmark. The patrol began on the 30th of March in Lorient, where U-108 sailed for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla, On the way it was refueled by U-459 between Azores and Bermuda on the 22nd of April (northeast of Bermuda). The sub returned to Lorient on the 1st of June 1942. In September 1942, a few months after returning from his patrol to the Inagua area, he was granted the prestigious Knights Cross with Oak Leaves. A member of the crew of 1927, Scholtz began his career on torpedo boats and joined U-boats in April 1940. In October 1942 he moved ashore to command the Twelfth Flotilla in Bordeaux, where the Italian flotilla Betasom was based. When Bordeaux fell, Scholtz and 220 men tried to literally walk to Germany but were captured and held by Americans for one and a half years. He rejoined the first the Naval Armed Guard (Bundesgrenzschutz, or Federal Frontier Guard) and then in 1956 the German navy (Bundesmarine) between 1953 and 1966 when he retired as Kapitän Zur See. Klaus Scholtz lived until the age of 79, passing in 1987. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 48 U-154 Kolle 23-Apr-1942 4 The next patrol to the region was led by Walther Kölle, whose submarine, the U-154 was to return to the area several times in the course of the war. In the Bermuda theater U-154 merely transited between the 23rd and 26th of April, 1942, without sinking any ships. From a point southwest of the island the sub headed northeast and bound for base, and exited east of the island on the 26th. The submarine left Loriend, where it sailed for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the 11th of March and returned there on the 9th of May 1942. The bulk of Kolle’s patrol was in the Bahamas, area starting by heading from north of Anegada into the Mona Passage, during which he sank two Allied ships, the Puerto Rican tanker Comol Rico and the US-flagged Catahoula on the 4th and 5th respectively. On the 6th of April Kölle entered the Mona Passage and left the region for nine days, returning through the narrow passage east of Puerto Rico (between there and the Virgin Islands) for a cruise north of the Turks & Caicos Islands and east of Acklins and Crooked Island. Kölle’s patrol back to Lorient through the eastern Bahamas looks like the number “5” tilted to the left – he proceeded to a point roughly 300 miles north of the Mona Passage, doubled back to off the Silver and Mouchior Banks, steamed along westwards to the north of the Turks & Caicos, and on the 20th sank the Canadian dry bulk ship Vineland. This ship was the only Canadian sunk in the region during the conflict. On the 21st Kölle was just east of Crooked and Acklins Islands when he turned northeast and made a bee-line back to France, passing just south of Bermuda and exiting the area on 24th of April. On this patrol U-154 sank five ships (including the Delvalle and Empire Amethyst in the Caribbean) worth 28,715 tons – an impressive bag and in some ways close to his last. Aged 34 at the time (he would live to 1992 and the age of 84), Kölle’s career total included only two other ships (Tillie Lykes and Lalita) bringing his total to seven ships for 31,352. It is safe to say he “made his career” in a single patrol through the Bahamas. He achieved Fregattenkapitän in March 1945 (right before the fall of the Reich) and was not decorated. His three patrols for 164 days were all on U-154. This patrol began in Lorient on the 11th of March 1942 and ended there on the 9th of May. Kölle had earlier survived the scuttling of the Graf Spee off Uruguay and rose to senior naval officer of the Flushing base before joining U-boats in November 1940. His patrols to the region lasted 60 and 80 days respectively – the following patrol being to Mexico and the Caribbean. He surrendered command of U-154 to Heinrich Shuch after his third patrol and moved ashore to staff positions. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 49 U-564 Suhren 24-Apr-1942 9 Kapitänleutnant Reinhardt “Teddy” Suhren led a patrol north of Bermuda lasting nine days in U-564, starting on the 24th of April, 1942. He patrolled west for five days until the 29th then exited northwest of the island. Then, after a highly successful mission to the Florida Straits he returned on the 23rd of May also northwest of Bermuda, heading northeast and leaving on the 26th. The patrol lasted between the 4th of April and the 6th of June 1942. The following patrol into the area was mounted two days after the simultaneous arrival of three boats. It was led by the indefatigable Suhren, an undisputed (and self-described) Ace of Aces who would accrue 284 days on six war patrols over his career. His career total of eighteen merchant ships sunk for 95,544 tons, four more damaged for 28,907 tons and a warship sunk for 900 tons would earn him the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves on the last day of 1941 and the ultimate accolade, the Crossed Swords in Fall of 1942, followed by the War Merit Cross Second Class with Swords in January 1944. Suhren’s autobiography Ace of Aces is highly readable and his post-war business career (starting with running a beer garden in the ruins of Hamburg) makes him a memorable commander. A Kapitänleutnant on his first voyage to the Bahamas, he would end the war as a Fregattenkapitän in command of all U-boats in Norwegian waters and later the head of the North Sea region for the Führer der Unterseeboote (FdU, or Karl Dönitz). He served on U-564 between April and October 1941 – the boat was subsequently lost in the Bay of Biscay under a different commander. All of Suhren’s six successes on this patrol occurred on the northern Florida coast west and northwest of Grand Bahama. U-564 was able to replenish her fuel from U-459 outbound 500 miles northeast of Bermuda on or around the 27th of April (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.39). Entering the region east of Savannah Georgia on the 30th of April from Brest in the First Flotilla, he steamed southwest for a point south of Cape Canaveral Florida. On the 3rd of May he sank the Ocean Venus, 7,174 tons, of British registry, and the following day dispatched her compatriot the Eclipse of 9,767 tons. Sailing in convoy ON 87, the ship was only damaged and returned to service. The following day Suhren also damaged the Delisle, an American freighter of 3,478 tons, also off Florida. On the 8th of May her compatriot Ohioan steamed its last mile before encountering U-564 and the next day the Lubrafol of Panama registry and 7,138 tons was sunk in the region. Commenting on the absence of anti-submarine-warfare (ASW) defenses and the lights not only of Miami but Great Isaac in the Bahamas, Suhren proceeded south in the Straits of Florida until he encountered the and sank the Potrero del Llano, a Mexican tanker of 4,000 tons whose flag he claims to have mistaken for the Italian. This sinking pushed Mexico considerably closer to declaring war against Germany, which it did mere weeks later. Suhren’s patrol has two unique features to it – he is the first to utilize the Santarem channel east of the Cay Sal Bank and west of the Great Bahama Bank (this channel connects with both the Saint Nicholas Channel to the west and the Old Bahama Channel to the south). U-564 made two probes into Bahamian waters – to the Old Bahama Channel, from which he turned around 180 degrees on the 13th of May, and the Northwest Providence Channel which he explored as far as the north of the Berry Islands on the 17th and 18th of May but did not actually transit to the Northeast Providence Channel. It appears that following his success off Florida Suhren spent the week of 13th to 21st May dipping into and out of Bahamian waters between Bimini, Grand Bahama and Florida, seeking to recapture some of the glory of his success earlier in the patrol. On the 21st, whether from lack of prey or fuel, he turned due east from a point north of Grand Bahama and, skirting the Grand Bahama Bank and Walker’s Cay as well as the northern tip of Abaco he headed gradually northeast. On the 22nd of May he exited the area just west of Bermuda and returned to Brest, France, one of the early commanders to be based from that port. Later in the war he served as commander of U-boats in Norway and then the North Sea. Born in Taunus in 1916, he lived until 1984 and the age of 68, dying in Hamburg where he had become a businessman. Ace of Aces makes for enlightening and entertaining reading, and Suhren’s leadership style and personality could be justifiably described as “maverick.” SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 50 U-84 Uphoff 25-Apr-1942 5 Oberleutnant zur See (later Kapitänleutnant) Horst Uphoff brought his command U-84 into the area north of Bermuda from northwest to northeast between the 25th and the 29th of April, 1942. He was only on the fringe of the region for five days before heading northeast back to Europe. The boat sailed for the 1st U-boat Flotilla in Brest on the 16th of March for US waters as part of Operation Drumbeat. On the 2nd of April U-84 had a rendezvous with the milk cow U-A east of Newfoundland, Canada. Proceeding to the waters east of New York U-86 managed to sink the Yugoslavian steam ship Nemanza of 5,226 tons, then went further south to Hatteras. On May 21st U-84 sank the Panamanian steamer Chenango of 3,014 tons before moving east to an area off Bermuda. The submarine arrived back in Brest on the 14th of May 1942. Horst Uphoff was born in 1916 and a member of the Crew of 1935. Early in his naval career he was watch officer of the u-boat depot ship Donau up to 1939, when he enrolled in u-boat courses. Uphoff served as a watch officer of U-46 under Sohler and Endrass. Commissioning U-84 in April 1941, he led that sub until both were destroyed south of Bermuda on 7 August 1943, by aircraft from Bermuda. He was 26 at the time (see later patrol info for details). Over nine patrols Uphoff accrued 461 days and sank or damaged seven ships of 37,081 tons. he was awarded the German Cross in Gold posthumously in 1944, having received the Iron Cross First Class while alive. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 51 U-98 Schulze 25-Apr-1942 9 Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Schulze in U-98 entered the area north of Bermuda on the 25th of April to contribute nine days of patrols to that area before leaving on the 22nd of May 1942. On the 25th he entered east-northeast of the island, patrolling west for four days until the 28th, when he exited northwest of the island bound for Hatteras. Then on the 18th of May U-98 returned, heading southest towards the island until the following day, when he changed course and motored northeast for France until the 22nd, when the submarine exited the area northeast of Bermuda. U-98 was refueled by U-459 northeast of Bermuda according to Wynn on the 27th of April, but on that date the sub was very near the island, so it was probably northeast of Bermuda on about 23-24 April. The patrol lasted from 31 March to 6 June, beginning and ending in Saint Nazaire, where U-98 was based for the 7th U-boat Flotilla. Three German U-boats entered the Bahamas region on 28th April 1942: U-333, U-98 under Schulze, and U-506 under Würdemann, and all entered from either south or west of Bermuda and made for the east coast of Florida before returning. Next across the imaginary line was Schulze in U-98, a VIIC type U-boat on its seventh of nine patrols for the Seventh Flotilla out of St. Nazaire, France; it was the first boat in the region to sail out of and back to St. Nazaire. The trajectory of this patrol indicates a skipper who is fastidious about following his cruising orders: from a point roughly midway between the Carolinas and Bermuda the boat made a bee-line for Cape Canaveral, then made a 90-degree turn to the north, sailing past Jacksonville and Savannah before taking another such turn, and then another, with the effect that a box is drawn off those ports. On his return to the north end of Grand Bahama Schulze turned west 90 degrees to the Florida coast, turned hard to port and proceeded against the Gulf Stream in the Straits of Florida, where ships would be likely to be riding the current northwards. Reaching a point off West End Grand Bahamas on May 10th, he turned 180 degrees and began heading northeast and in the general direction of home. Though on the 14th and 15th the boat headed due north, on the 16th it turned due east and steamed towards an exit from the region west of Bermuda on the 18th of May. Aside from an attack in the Bay of Biscay while outbound on the 2nd of April, U-98 saw no enemy action during this patrol and returned after 68 days. This patrol began in St. Nazaire on the 31st of March 1942 and ended there on the 6th of June. U-98 was refueled by U-459 around the 27th of April roughly 500 miles northeast of Bermuda, making her one of the first boats to utilize this novel means of extending patrols. Readers will note however that this made the patrol neither more successful nor any longer than those of its contemporaries (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.79). Wilhelm Schultze was ranked Korvettenkapitän in September 1942 and retired without decorations after two patrols of 130 days. Born in July 1909 he was a member of the crew of 1928. His career total was the damage of the US Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) Bold by mines on 10 August 1942 – she was 185 tons. Contrasted with the long list of kills which some submarine commanders achieved, Schultze’s career demonstrates that success was by no means a given. For a large number of U-boat commanders’ patrols consisted of staring at a hard grey horizon wishing for an enemy ship to sail across it, and hearing of the accolades pouring upon more successful colleagues. This patrol is also a harbinger of things to come, as the only enemy sighted in over two months was the attacker, in the form of British aircraft, and not an Allied merchant marine victim. Schulze may have had the last laugh, however: as of end-2011 he was still alive at age 102. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 52 U-333 Cremer 26-Apr-1942 7 Kapitänleutnant Peter-Erich Cremer brought U-333 to the Bermuda area a day after its predecessor U-98 – on the 26th of April 1942 for a patrol of seven days ending the 12th of May. In that time U-33 entered to the northeast of the island, headed west for a day until the 27th, then southeast till the 28th, then due west to the 29th, at which point it exited the region. On the 10th of May the sub returned homeward bound, from the same position, and headed northeast, passing north of Bermuda the following day. Then it motored northeast and out of the earea on the 12th of May. The patrol begagn on the 30th of March and ended in La Pallice also on the 26th of May 1942. Early in the patrol the sub was bombed from the air and badly shaken but escaped. On or about the 22nd of April U-333 was refueled by U-459 northeast of Bermuda. On the 28th of April U-333 under Peter-Erich “Ali” Cremer, age 31, entered the Bahamas region just south of Bermuda and heading west in a straight line for the coast of Florida north of Miami and south of Cape Canaveral – just west-northwest of West End Grand Bahama. Cremer’s patrol looks on paper like a pair of tweezers lying on its side – narrow, long and nearly symmetrical. The boat left La Pallice (near La Rochelle) in France on the 30th of March 1942 and was refueled by U-459, like U-98 before it, about 500 miles northeast of Bermuda, on the 22nd of April. Two days into the patrol the boat was caught on the surface by an Allied aircraft whose depth charges damaged the submarine. A week after refueling U-333 sighted the tanker British Prestige, of 7,106 tons and pursued her into the evening of the 30th of April. Cremer fired a salvo of two torpedoes which missed. While the U-boat crew were preparing a second spread, the tanker turned hard upon her and ran over U-333, badly damaging the sub’s bridge casing, bow, and conning tower (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.222). On the 1st of May the crew undertook what damage repairs they could and continued the patrol heading southwards to Florida. Cremer spent thirteen days in the region and exited several hundred miles west of Bermuda on the 10th of May, leaving in his wake the hulks of four victims: the Java Arrow, Amazone and Halsey (all sunk on the same day – the 6th of May off the coast of Florida) and the Clan Skene, sunk offshore on the 10th. Cremer’s total tonnage for this patrol was 21,923 of which the Java Arrow of 8,327 tons was only damaged. Of the four ships, half of them American, the Amazone being Dutch and the Clan Skene British. The patrol ended on the 26th of May in La Pallice. Ali Cremer, a member of the class of 1932 was one of the more memorable of the U-boat skippers, in part because he penned a readable book about his career exploits entitled U-boat Commander, and he lived until the age of 81, dying in 1992 in Hamburg. Immediately following this patrol he was awarded the Knights Cross, going on to win the Wounded Badge in Silver and the U-boat front clasp. His total bag was six ships sunk for 26,873, one warship damaged for 925 tons and the Java Arrow damaged for 8,327 GRT off Florida. At the time of his raid on the US he was a Kapitänleutnant, being promoted to Korvettenkapitän in July 1944. He served in command of U-333 for five patrols between 25 August 1941 and 19 July 1944. Cremer had studied law for roughly three years at the time he joined the Navy in 1932, and his admission was accelerated by the loss of the school training ship Niobe that year. He served aboard the cruiser Deutschland until the rank of Leutnant and in 1940 transferred to U-boats. The boat’s symbol was three fishes (for the three threes in its number) and Cremer’s fist command was accomplished without prior combat experience. Amongst notable incidents in Cremer’s career were the sinking of the German blockade runner Spreewald due to a miscommunications and an injury off West Africa which necessitated a replacement skipper for the boat and three months of hospitalization for Cremer. His crew considered him their “best life insurance”. After over a year on Dönitz’s staff, in late 1944 Cremer took command of U-2519, a Type-XXI electric U-boat, in an effort to regain supremacy in the face of decimation of the U-boats by Allies. A personal account of Cremer and the Florida man who helped rescue survivors of the Java Arrow of Jacksonville and the friendship between them that developed after war is recounted in the book Different Battles by Rody Johnson. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Rody Johnson, Different Battles 53 U-352 Rathke 27-Apr-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Hellmut Rathke motored on his final war patrol just north of Bermuda, from east to west, starting on the 27th of April, 1942. He sailed for the 3rd U-boat Flotilla in Saint Nazaire on the seventh of April. Later that month the boat was refueled by U-459 to the northeast of Bermuda. U-352 then motored for Hatteras, passing north of Bermuda on the 28th, 29th and 30th of April. Many sources, including Wynn, Gentile and Hickham discredit U-352 and Rathke with the botched attack on the Swedish freighter Freden on the 5th of May 1942 off Hatteras. However closer examination of the KTB or war diary of the submarine U-202 under Adalbert Schnee confirms that from location and precise attack details, the attack could only have been by Schnee, who was convinced that the Freden was a decoy ship or Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC), such as the Germans deployed in great numbers (the British and Americans called them Q-Ships). Wynn writes that the attack was “an amazing story of ineptitude on both sides” since the Swedes repeatedly abandoned and reboarded their ship before it was even struck. The KTB of U-352 did not survive, as the u-boat was detected and sunk by the US Coast Guard cutter Icarus on the seventh of May off Hatteras in shallow water. Sixteen of the Germans were killed in the attack, 33 were imprisoned in Charleston after a delay in pulling them from the water, and one of those subsequently died. Rathke was made a Prisoner of War until the 17th of May 1946. Perhaps surprisingly he was not successful in convincing the Allies that he had not indeed attacked the Freden, perhaps because he had tried to sink several ships – including the Icarus, without success on the same patrol. Rathke was born in East Prussia in 1910 and was 32 at the time of this patrol. He served in the Crew of 1930 and became leader of the Torpedo School in Murwik, leading to a staff officer role. He began training for u-boats in April 1941 and commissioned U-352 in August 1941. Over two patrols he accrued 76 patrol days and did not sink any ships. His sole decoration was an Iron Cross 2nd Class. Hellmut Rathke died in October 2001 at the age of 70 in Flensburg. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 54 U-558 Krech 1-May-1942 13 Kapitänleutnant Günther Krech brought U-558 on a complex 13-day patrol around Bermuda commencing May first and ending on the third of June 1942. Starting to the east-northeast of Bermuda Krech motored west for three days, then exited the area on the 5th heading for Hatteras. On the 13th he returned, headed southeast from a point northwest of the island, then turned south to exit the region on the 17th of May southwest of Bermuda. Finally his third incursion began on the first of June and lasted until the third, all well southeast of the island on the sub’s return leg. During that part of his mission Krech managed to sink the Dutch ship Triton on the second of June. Having left Brest on the 12th of April U-558 refueled from U-459 on the 29th northeast of Bermuda. On the return trip U-558 again refueled from U-459, this time in mid-June west of the Azores. It returned to Brest on the 21st of June 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.33). Krech began his first patrol into the Bahamas area aboard the U-558 on the 15th of May, a mere day after Bigalk and Von Mannstein. Like Bigalk he opted for a straight line from Hatteras to the Windward Passage, and like his colleague he sank a steamer – the Dutch Fauna – en route along the islands. The Fauna, of 1,254 tons, was struck off the Turks & Caicos Islands in a channel so narrow – only ten miles wide – that the survivors supposed that the sub must have been waiting there for resupply. They made a harrowing week-long rowing and sailing voyage along the coast of several settlements in the Turks & Caicos Islands before finally making it a coastal village in Haiti and that country’s capital, in a saga recounted in more detail herein. Two of her crew were killed in the attack and 27 survived. U-558 followed a pattern of light success in its eight-day transit of the Bahamas area followed by heavy losses inflicted in a different zone (in this case the Caribbean) and a further ship bagged on the return voyage. The submarine also attacked and sank the HMS Bedfordshire (FY 141) on 12 May, off Cape Hatteras, then after the Fauna the Canadian Troisdoc, damaged to the William Boyce Thompson, and the sinking of the Beatrice and Jack in the Caribbean and the Triton on the way home – northeast of the Caribbean on 2nd June. The total tonnage for the patrol was 19,301 in seven ships. Krech was amongst the first U-boat skippers to utilize the Mona Passage between Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic) and Puerto Rico, which he did on 29th May. Over the next four days he steamed northeast until the sub left the region north of St. Martin on the 1st of June 1942 bound for Brest where the boat was based with the First Flotilla. Günther Krech, 27 at the time, became one of the better known U-boat skippers of the war, made famous in part by his over twenty ships and over 100,000 tons sunk and his activity off the American coast. He is also remarkable for his youth and early recognition: he earned the Knights Cross shortly after this patrol four days before his 28th Birthday on 17 September 1942. In April 1941 he had achieved the rank of Kapitänleutnant. On 20 July 1943 U-558 was sunk by Allied aircraft in the Bay of Biscay, with Krech and four others surviving and being kept in captivity by the Allies during the balance of the war and sometime thereafter. Günther Krech survived and lived until age 85, not passing away until June 2000. A member of the crew of 1933, he had served in the Luftwaffe for four years before returning to the U-boat arm in November 1939 and serving under Schepke in U-100. He was the officer to commission U-558. Over ten patrols of 437 days Krech sank seventeen ships of 93,186 tons, the HMS Bedfordshire (the British officers and crew of which are buried on Cape Hatteras) and damaged two others for 15,070 as well as effectively destroying a further ship of 6,672. This was a ship deemed a constructive total loss, which means that while the ship might have been salved and scrapped, it was taken out of the war. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 55 U-69 Gräf 1-May-1942 7 Oberleutnant zur See Ulrich Gräf took U-69 on a virtually straight line southwest from the day he sank the Canadian schooner James E. Newsom northeast of the island on the first of May 1942 to when he exited a week laer to the south of Bermuda on the seventh. It appears that east of the island Gräf patrolled in a dog-leg or ziz-zag looking for prey starting on the thirds of May southbound, then northbound till the fifth and south again during the sixth and seventh. Later Graf took his boat on a conventional transit of the Bahamas region starting on the 3rd of May, 1942 just southeast of Bermuda. The boat made a straight bee-line for the Mona Passage, which it transited, thus exiting the area, five days later, on the 8th. During that time no ships were encountered or sunk, however the Type VIIC sub was highly active both before and after its transit. As soon as it entered the Mona Passage on the 9th it attacked a US Coast Guard cutter. There was a counter attack by the cutter reinforced by USAF B 18s from the 45 Squadron and the boat retreated deeper into the Caribbean (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.52). On the way to the Bahamas area U-69 rendezvoused with U-459 in order to refuel, like several of its predecessors, 500 miles northeast of Bermuda on the 1st of May. Later on the same day, but two days before entering the area, U-69 sank the 671-ton Canadian schooner James E. Newsom. Once inside the Caribbean, Gräf sank three ships in just over a week: the Norwegian Lise of 6,826 tons, on 12 May, the American Norlantic of 2,606 tons the following day, and another Canadian, the Torondoc, of 1,927 tons on the 21st of May. On the 5th of June, while northeast of Anegada and east of the Bahamas area the submarine made an unusual discovery: an abandoned tug drifting on the open sea. Though the attack report does not record the name of this vessel, it was sunk by gunfire (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.52, Mason, UboatArchive.net). At the time Gräf, who was 26, was Oberleutnant zur See, being promoted to Kapitänleutnant in January of 1943. He received no decorations over a career which was to see him sink six ships of 16,627 tons. Born on 15 December 1915 in Dresden, he was killed in the North Atlantic on 17 February 1943 east of Newfoundland when caught by the destroyer HMS Fame, also reported to have been the HMS Viscount (Ibid). Gräf was the commander who sent the escorted railway passenger ferry Caribou (2,222 tons) to the bottom in the Cabot Strait, Canada. The old ship was carrying hundreds of civilians to Newfoundland, of whom 105 of them, including women and children, and 31 crew were drowned, forming the basis of the book The Night of the Caribou (Ibid.) It seems symmetrical that the sub was sunk so close to where the Caribou went down that horrible night of 13 October 1942. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Jerry Mason, www.uboatarchive.net, 2011, Douglas How, Night of the Caribou, 1988 56 U-594 Hoffmann 2-May-1942 9 Dietrich Hoffmann, later Korvettenkapitän, spent nine days transiting around Bermuda without having sunk any ships. He entered the region on the second of May 1942 to the northeast of Bermuda and headed southwest towards the Bahamas until exiting on the sixth. Then a month later, on the sixth of June he came back empty handed from a patrol to the Caribbean. From the sixth to the ninth of June U-594 headed from a position due southwest of Bermuda on a northeast heading, exiting the area to the east of the island on the ninth. U-594 sailed for the 7th U-boat Flotilla in Stain Nazaire on the 11th of April 1942 and returned to the same base on the 25th of June. On the way to the Bermuda/Bahamas area Hoffmann refueled at the end of April from U-459 to the northeast of Bermuda. On the 25th of May U-594 engaged a tanker and lost one its crew over the side during the action. They were not recovered. On the way back to Europe the sub was again refueled by U-459, this time west of the Azores Islands. Dietrich Hoffmann was born in 1912 and is believed to be still alive as at end 2013. He began his naval career in the Crew of 1932 and served as watch officer on the cruiser Emden and the light cruiser Leipzig. He moved to staff positions (advisor to the OKM) from 1940 to 1941, and joined U-boats in March of 1940. Hoffmann commanded U-594 only from October 1941 to July 1942, when he was replaced by Friedrich Mumm. After U-boats he served as First Officer of the destroyer Z-30 and later her caretaker commander until the end of hostilities. Over two patrols of 93 days he neither damaged nor sank any Allied ships. He was promoted to Korvettenkapitän in July 1944 and received no decorations. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 57 U-103 Winter 3-May-1942 6 The patrol of U-103 under Kapitänleutnant Werner Winter lasted for six days in the area, all of it inbound. Starting after being refueled in early May, Winter headed southeast from a position north of the island. On the fifth of May, on entering the area, he sank the Stanbank with a rich cargo of military supplies destined to fight Rommel in North Africa via Suez was sunk northeast of Bermuda. Then the sub turned southwest for a day, then west across the north of Bermuda until turning southwest on the 8th and exiting the area for the Bahamas theater between Bermuda and Hatteras. Having left Saint Nazaire on the 15th of April, the boat was refueled by U-459 500 miles northeast of Bermuda in early May. After entering the Bahamas area midway between Bermuda and Savannah on the seventh, U-103 headed first southwest in the direction of the Straits of Florida and then south along the eastern Bahamas – Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Acklins, and through the Crooked Island Passage north and west of Inagua to exit the region via the Windward Passage on the thirteenth of May. Winter would return two weeks later after devastating attacks on eight other ships, mostly in the Yucatan Channel and the western and southwestern tips of Cuba. U-103’s victims included the Ruth Lykes on the 17th, Ogontz two days later, both Clare and Elizabeth two days after that and on the 23rd and 24th the Samuel Q. Brown and Hector. On the 26th he dispatched the Alcoa Carrier and on the 28th the New Jersey, for total tonnage (including Stanbank) of 42,169 tons sunk. All but the British Stanbank and the Dutch Hector were American ships. On the return voyage Winter again transited the Windward Passage – this time on the 31st of May – and opted to steam east of Inagua and through the Caicos Channel on the first of June. For the next four days he steamed northeast, exiting the area south of Bermuda on the 5th of June and heading for Biscay, which he had left on the 15th of April. The trajectory of his patrol looks like a large V with Bermuda equidistant between the two pinchers in the middle, and the apex lying in the Windward Passage. On the very day that he passed south of Bermuda Winter was awarded the Knights Cross via radio for an exceptionally successful patrol. Before that his highest award was the Iron Cross First Class. Winter’s career haul amounted to fifteen ships sunk for 79,302 tons – he appears to have been a thorough skipper, as none of his victims escaped merely damaged: all were finished off. The boat returned to Lorient (having left St. Nazaire) on the 22nd of June 1942. This is also a reflection that allied counter-attacks must have been either non-existent or less threatening than, say in a convoy action in the North Atlantic, providing the U-boat with critical time to complete the job rather than just submerging and running as soon as the torpedoes left the tube. Winter would be promoted to Korvettenkapitän in March of 1943. His total of five war patrols amounted to 209 sea days. A member of the crew of 1930, Winter had served on the light cruiser Emden before joining U-boats in 1935. The previous skipper of U-103 was the ace skipper Viktor Schutze. Winter had been in a staff position between command of U-22 and U-103 and returned in July 1942 (following this patrol) to that role, in command of the First Flotilla in Brest. In that capacity he would have sent out and welcomed home many of the patrols of his Flotilla from the Bahamas area, and been intimately involved in both instructing and debriefing the skippers, and reporting to Admiral Dönitz. Captured in Brest in 1944, he was released in 1947. After a few years in the Bundesmarine he retired as a Kapitän zur See, and lived a further two years until 1972 when he passed away in Kiel. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 58 U-751 Bigalk 3-May-1942 5 Kapitänleutnant Gerhard Bigalk brought U-751 to the north of Bermuda for five days inbound starting the 3rd of May 1942. Starting to the northeast of the island the sub turned southwest for two days, then west until the seventh, when it exited the area. Having set off for the 7th U-boat Flotilla in Saint Nazaire on the 15th of April and been refueled by U-459 northeast of Bermuda in early May, U-751 returned to Saint Nazaire on the 15th of June 1942. The large type VIIC boat U-751 (commissioned in October 1939) arrived in the Bahamas region for the Seventh Flotilla from Saint Nazaire France on the 14th of May 1942. Proceeding south from Hatteras the boat headed in a straight line for the Caicos Channel and the Windward Passage, pausing on the 16th long enough to send the US fruit carrier Nicarao to the bottom just east of the central eastern coast of Eleuthera. Nicarao was to be the only ship sunk so close to that island of the war. The 31 survivors of the Nicarao (eight were killed in the attack) observed so many sailing schooners and local craft on their voyage around the Bahamas (she was bound from Kingston Jamaica to Jacksonville via the Windward Passage), that they suspected that the sailing craft must have vectored the U-boat to its position. Given that schooners at the time (as we shall see with the Vivian P. Smith, Wawaloam, Cheerio, Sande, James E. Newsom and Helen Forsey) were rarely equipped with radio equipment, this conspiracy theory can be discounted as baseless. The Nicarao survivors were rescued by the US-flagged tanker Esso Augusta the following day and landed at Norfolk Virginia on the 20th of May. On the 19th of May Bigalk dispatched the 3,110-ton American freighter Isabela of Point Gravois, the southwestern tip of Haiti, for a total patrol tonnage of 4,555 GRT. After ten days in the Caribbean proper U-751 exited the region via the Anegada Passage on the night of the 28th and 29th of May and began the trans-Atlantic voyage back to France. Born in 1908, Gerhard Bigalk was a member of the crew of 1933 who joined the navy from the Merchant navy of Germany. He then joined the naval air force, fighting over Spain in its civil war before joining the U-boats in November 1939, commissioning U-751 in January 1941. He was awarded the Knights Cross in December 1941 after sinking the British escort carrier HMS Audacity of 11,000 tons. Bigalk was killed at age 33 on 17th July 1942 by British aircraft which sank U-751 off the northwest coast of Spain’s Cape Ortegal – there were no survivors. His total over seven patrols of 218 days was five ships destroyed for 21,412 GRT, the Audacity, and a ship damaged for 8,096 tons. The Audacity had an interesting history inasmuch as it began the war as the German merchant ship Hannover. It was captured in the Mona Passage by the Canadian destroyer Assiniboine and boarded by crew of the HMS Dunedin on 7th March 1940 to prevent its being scuttled like the Columbus before it (see Otto Giese’s Shooting the War for a first-hand account of this colorful story). These German ships were trying to make it back to their homeland through Allied blockades at the outset of war. The Hannover was renamed Audacity after being named Sinbad, and converted to an auxiliary aircraft carrier. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Otto Giese, Shooting the War: The Memoir and Photographs of a U-Boat Officer in World War II, 1994 59 U-106 Rasch 4-May-1942 9 Kapitänleutnant Hermann Rasch brought his command U-106 on its second patrol to the Bermuda area for nine days starting the 4th of May 1942 and ending on the 12th of June. The day after he arrived Rasch had a remarkable sinking northeast of Bermuda, sinking the 7,985-ton “Lady Boat” the Canadian passenger ship Lady Drake with a complement of 141 passengers and 115 crew, all of whom survived and were taken to Bermuda by the USS Owl (AM 2). Steaming west for two more days U-106 left the theater for the Hatteras region. On the seventh of June U-106 returned, this time southwest of Bermuda and heading homeward on an east-northeasterly course. On the tenth the sub jogged north for a day, then resumed a course northeastwards, exiting the box around Bermuda on the 12th of June. U-106 under Hermann Rasch entered the Bahamas area a week after Winter in U-103, just off the coast of Georgia southbound from Hatteras on the 13th of May 1942. He proceeded determinedly into the ground covered by Teddy Suhren just days before: the Straits of Florida from Jacksonville down to Key West, which he rounded on the 20th of May westbound into the US Gulf. On the way to the patrol area, having left Lorient on the 15th of April, U-106 was attacked by a US destroyer, named by Wynn as the USS Broome on the 2nd of May (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.87). Rasch would return exactly a month later, on the 21st of June and ride the Gulf Stream up the same Straits as far as Grand Bahama, after which he rounded Memory Rock north of that island and headed east-northeast for the full distance to just south of Bermuda, where he left the area on the 9th of June. U-106’s patrols north of Grand Bahama look like the letter L, with the corner lying in the vicinity of West End. Rasch’s next victim was as controversial as Suhren’s sinking of the Potrero del Lano at the same rough time: he kicked a hornets’ nest and brought Mexico into the war against Germany by sinking the 6,067-ton Mexican tanker Faja de Oro between Key West and Havana on the 21st of May, killing ten of her crew of 37. His other victims on this patrol were the Carrabulle, the Atenas (of 4,639 GRT, damaged and managed to escape off New Orleans after a valiant counter attack by her Naval Armed Guard), the Mentor and Hampton Roads (on 1st June), for a total tonnage sunk and damaged of 33,793 on one patrol. Three weeks later he rounded Key West eastbound. Rasch was 27 at the time, his boat was the IXB type sailing from and to Lorient for the Second Flotilla. He would spend a total of sixteen days in the area on the sixth of ten war patrols for this battle-hardened submarine. Rasch had left Lorient on the same day as Winter in U-103 but arrived in the area by a less direct route and subsequently returned a week or so later. The return voyage home was eventful – U-106 was refueled by U-459 west of the Azores on a date indeterminate. On the 24th of June, less than a week from home base, the U-boat stopped to pick up a survivor from sunken steamer Etrib which had been sunk by U-552 on the 15th of June east-northeast of the Azores (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.87). The boat returned to Lorient, with its grateful prisoner, on the 29th of June 1942. Kapitänleutnant Hermann Rasch was a member of the crew of 1934 and joined U-boats in 1940. His staff positions after leaving U-106 in April 1943 concluded with command of midget U-boats, which lasted up to his captivity until 1946. He practiced journalism in Germany until his death in 1974 at age 59. Rasch’s total bag over six patrols of 308 sea days was twelve ships for 78,553 confirmed sunk, one ship damaged (Atenas), and an auxiliary warship of 8,246 tons damaged. In June 1939 he had been awarded the Spanish Cross in Bronze with Swords. He received the coveted Knights Cross a few months after returning from the captioned patrol, in the final days of 1942. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 60 U-130 Kals 8-May-1942 16 Korvettenkapitän Ernst Kals spent 16 days in the Bermuda area in May of 1942, seeking targets – fruitlessly it turned out. Starting on May eighth and homeward bound U-130 entered south of Bermuda heading northeast for four days. Then it jogged south for a day, then northwest, then southwest and west, until the 16th of May, which found it southwest of and within 200 miles of Bermuda. After that Kals headed due north till the 19th, and finally northeast until the 23rd, when U-130 exited the area northeasat of the island, heading for France. Kals led his patrol into the Bahamas and Caribbean area, starting with a brief sortie by U-130 through the Anegada Passage inbound from 14th to the 15th of April 1942. On his way inbound he achieved the boat’s only successes of the patrol, sinking the Norwegian Grenanger and US-flagged Esso Boston for a combined tonnage of 13,092. Actually the Esso Boston beached on Barbuda while still on fire and was declared a total loss (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.106). Once in the Caribbean Kals acted with daring when “he attacked the oil depot at Bullenbay (Curacao) with gunfire.” However only twelve rounds were fired from over two miles away before counter-measures took effect. After returning to the region from the Caribbean the boat headed from the Mona Passage to a point midway between Bermuda and Savannah Georgia between the 4th and 18th of May. The track of this patrol looks more like an imperfect > as he proceeded north-northwest to a point off the Turks & Caicos Islands before veering northeast to a point between Bermuda and Puerto Rico, and then back west for three days before resuming a northward track to Cape Hatteras. Having set off from Lorient on its second patrol to the Americas on 24 March 1942, U-130 returned there on the 6th of June. It appears from looking at the track and at least one inquisitive double-back track, that Kals, a veteran skipper of 34 years at the time, was “hunting” and looking for prey. It must have been a frustrating two weeks, to have sunk two large ships on back-to-back days on the way into the region yet come up empty handed on the way out. Without radar, unless allies broke radio silence it was just pure luck to sight a steamer on the horizon and be able to go in for the kill. Kals’ patrol is one of the first to reverse the trend of the Operation Drumbeat boats by proceeding from the Caribbean up to the US east coast versus Hardegen, Heyse, Poske and others who dipped south on their returns from Hatteras. Born in 1905 and a member of the Crew of 1924, Kals obtained the rank of Kapitän Zur See in 1944 and was already a Korvettenkapitän at the time of the patrol, following which he was awarded the Knights Cross. Kals began his career as a Sea Cadet and ending it with a tally of seventeen ships sunk for 11,249 GRT, three auxiliary warship sunk for roughly 35,000 tons, and another ship sunk for just shy of 7,000 GRT. Kals went on to command the Second Flotilla in Lorient from January 1943 to the end of the war – in retribution the French detained him for three years. He lived until age 74, dying in Emden Germany in 1979. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 61 U-753 von Mannstien 11-May-1942 8 Korvettenkapitän Alfred Manhardt von Mannstein conned the Type VIIC U-753 into the region for eight days both inbound and outbound between the tenth of Ma 1942 and the 9th of June. To start with, from the northeast U-753 headed southwest, passing quite close to the island on the 13th. The sub exited the region west of Bermuda on the 15th of May, the day after Bigalk entered just west of him on U-751. After an active patrol in the Bahamas and Caribbean U-753 returned to the region around Bermuda when it skimmed the southeast corner of the box between the 8th and 9th of June homeward bound Unlike Bigalk, von Mannstein opted to utilize the Straits of Florida and proceed into the US Gulf, which he did by rounding Grand Bahama southbound on the 17th of May 1942 and leaving Key West Florida astern on the 20th. Having left La Pallice on the 22nd of April the boat refueled from U-459 500 miles northeast of Bermuda in early May. In the US Gulf U-753 sank two allied ships and damaged another two for a total of 20,677 GRT. Attacking every two days from 20th May it struck the George Calvert (sunk), damaged the British schooner E. P. Theriault of 326 tons with gunfire and charges (requiring the sub crew to board the ship), damaged the Haakon Hauan and sank the Hamlet on the 27th. Von Mannstein returned to the Bahamas area by passing Havana to starboard eastbound on the 31st of May and steaming along the entire length of the north coast of Cuba until Cape Maysi and Inagua between the 1st of May and the 4th. An interesting incident occurred on 2nd June off Nuevitas, Cuba when the U-boat attacked a mid-size sugar carrier but was driven off by the merchant ship’s deck guns. The ship was the Domino, which returned the submarine’s anti-aircraft fire with a four-inch gun at least three times and claiming one hit at the base of the conning tower (not confirmed). Reading the survivors’ report from the Domino, it would appear that because the merchant ship was drifting without her engines on, the U-boat could not detect the motionless and silent ship on its sonar sound-detection equipment and came upon her by surprise. Further didn’t see the darkened ship in the moonless night until only a few hundred yards away. It appears that the vessels were equally surprised at each other’s sudden presence. Because the U-boat’s gun jammed in the middle of the attack (not surprising given that it was submerged in salt water much of the time), the boat was fortunate to dive and escape damage from the feisty old sugar carrier. The Domino was condemned as an artificial breakwater in the Pacific later in the war, reprieved, and scrapped on the US west coast in the late 1940s. The incident on the Domino is almost as little reported as the sinking of the Sande, because neither the ship nor the sub were seriously damaged, and no one was injured. After the chastising Domino incident U-753 continued unmolested down the Old Bahama Channel as far as the southeast coast of Inagua near Matthew Town, at which point it turned north-northeast for home, utilizing the Caicos Channel to head northeast. Transiting between the 5th and 8th of June, it exited the patrol region on that day south of Bermuda, bound for La Pallice France, the first boat to head to and from that port for the Third Flotilla of which it was a member. U-753 was caught by a Whitley bomber in the Bay of Biscay which damaged the boat on the 23rd of June. It returned to La Pallice two days later (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.150). A member of the crew of 1928 and aged 33 at the time, Von Mannstein was promoted to Fregattenkapitän in May of 1943 just prior to his death on the 13th of that month at the hands of the HMCS Drumheller and HMS Lagan and a Canadian Sunderland aircraft in the North Atlantic. The entire crew of 47 were killed during the “Black May” of 1943 – a period during which the Allies counter-attacked the U-boats so decisively as to turn the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic in their favor. Von Mannstein had commissioned the U-753 in June of 1941. Over a career of seven patrols and 252 days he was responsible for sinking or damaging five ships for over 30,000 tons (three sunk for 23,117 and two others damaged for 6,908 tons). He was not decorated during his career or posthumously. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 62 U-653 Feiler 16-May-1942 20 Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Gerhard Feiler initiated an intense patrol of nearly three weeks in the Bermuda area on the 16th of May, 1942 and didn’t exit the area eastbound until the 17th of June, including a foray off Cape Hatteras. During that time of crisscrossing the region to the northwest of Bermuda U-653 sank the merchant ship Peisander on the 17th of May (the day after arriving) and then the US Navy converted yacht USS Gannett on the 6th of June. The submarine left the Bermuda region westwards between the 19th of May and the 6th of June. U-653 was one of seven U-boats in the Padfinder group operating 3-400 miles off the US coast looking for offshore prey. The Peisander which Feiler sank was a British motor ship of 6,225 tons, and was sunk between Bermuda and Nantucket. The USS Gannett was a converted aircraft tender engaged in escorting a British warship, which subsequently abandoned its escort and fled for the safety of Bermuda. Feiler’s efforts off the US coast returned no results, and so he moved the sub further east towards Bermuda, where he encountered the Gannett. Moving northeast he was able to refuel from U-459 about 500 miles northeast of Bermuda before returning to Brest, where it was based with the 1st U-boat Flotilla. The patrol had begun on the 25th of April and ended on the sixth of July, 1942. Feiler was 32 at the time, having been born in Breslau in 1909. A member of the Crew of 1934, he served on the destroyer Karl Galster between 1938 and 1940 before joining U-boats in July of that year. He commanded U-653 between 1941 and 1943. Over seven patrols in the same sub for 412 patrol days he managed to attack five ships worth 9,382 tons – less than stellar results when compared with his colleagues in the same timeframe (December 1941 – September 1943). He was awarded the German Cross in Gold in 1944. Gerhard Feiler lived until 1990. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 63 U-504 Poske 19-May-1942 6 Korvettenkapitän U-boat ace “Fritz” Poske returned to the area on for six days inbound, taking a course from east of Bermuda on the 19th of May 1942 to the southwest and exiting on the 24th. The patrol in the region basically looks like a straight line with a short jog to the west on the 21st. Thereafter Poske took U-504 from a point midway between Bermuda and Anegada and steamed straight for the Windward Passage, passing south of the Turks & Caicos Islands and north of the Mouchior Bank on the 25th and 26th and out of the area and into the Caribbean on the 27th of May 1942. Outside the Bahamas area he then sank six ships of 19,418 tons, all off the southwest coast of Cuba and in the Yucatan Channel: Allister on 29 May, Rosenborg, the Dutch passenger ship Crijnssen, freighter American, and the Latvian Regent between the 8th and 14th of June. Thereafter he proceeded to the Anegada Passage, leaving the area via that route between the 20th and 21st of May after a highly effective patrol, which lasted from 2 May to 7 July, 1942. As mentioned earlier Poske was highly rewarded U-boat commander and was awarded the Knights Cross on 6th November 1942, less than four months following the conclusion of this patrol. Fritz Poske, a Korvettenkapitän at the time, went on to become a Kapitän zur See (Sea Captain, higher than a Fregatten or Frigate Captain), and was awarded the U-boat War Badge 1939 and the Iron Cross First Class immediately after this patrol, and the Knights Cross in November 1942. Born in October 1904, he was 37 and thus one of the older skippers of those that patrolled the Bahamian waters. His career tally over 264 patrol days on four missions was fifteen ships sunk worth 78,123 GRT and a further 7,176 ton ship damaged. Poske began his naval career in the class of 1923 before serving on cruisers and a torpedo boat, joining U-boats in 1940. At the time of his first command he (unusually) did not have command experience. He became Chief of Staff for Marine Infantry towards the end of the war, was imprisoned by the British for nearly a year, rejoined the German Navy in 1951, and lived until 1984, dying near Bonn at 79 years of age. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 64 U-507 Schacht 21-May-1942 4 Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht utilized the area around Bermuda to head back to base for four days between the 21st and the 24th of May 1942. The patrol takes a straight line from northwest of Bermuda to northeast over four days and is uncomplicated. Prior to that Schacht experienced a busy patrol in the Bahamas area, detailed below. U-507 then spent fourteen days transiting the Bahamas and was the first to utilize the Old Bahama Channel along the north coast of Cuba. His sinking of the Federal, an American ship of 2,881 tons off Gibara Cuba was to lead to the rescue of the majority of her crew by a Bahamian vessel – the schooner Ival – under peculiar circumstances (commandeered as it was by Cubans but flying the Union Jack of the colony). Aside from the Federal, Schacht’s patrol on U-507 (note the higher number of this type IXC boat) stands out for the impressive array of Allied ships – mostly American – which he destroyed in the US Gulf off New Orleans: the Norlindo, Munger T. Ball, Joseph T. Cudahy, Alcoa Puritan, Ontario (Honduran), Torny (Norwegian), Virginia, Gulfprince and Amapala (damaged and salvaged after an Allied plane surprised the Germans preparing to scuttle the ship) for a total bag of nine ships sunk for 44,782 tons and one ship damaged (the Gulfprince) for 6,561 tons. The Norlindo was actually sunk northwest of Key West Florida, outside the Bahamas area, whereas the other vessels met their fate deeper inside the Gulf (for details of US Gulf operations by U-boats, aside from dedicated websites the authoritative book is Torpedoes in the Gulf by Melanie Wiggins). U-507 entered the area on a typical trajectory from midway between Bermuda and Anegada heading southwest in the direction of the Windward Passage. Rather than exit the area that way, though, her commander opted (or was ordered) to skirt the northwest coast of Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos islands, pass north of Inagua, and enter the Old Bahama Channel, where it sank the Federal on the 30th of April. After exiting the Old Bahama Channel via the San Nicholas Channel south of the Cay Sal Bank (controlled then, as now, by the Bahamas), U-507 left the region on the 4th of May, only to return via Key West two weeks later, on the 18th. At that point Schacht initiated another first: the first German U-boat to transit the entire Straits of Florida from Key West to off Grand Bahama, which he did on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of May. Thereafter the boat headed back to Lorient France, opting to exit the area on the 22nd of May not far from the west coast of Bermuda. It was a patrol of firsts, beginning on the 4th of April in Lorient and ending there on the 4th of June 1942. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Wiggins, Melanie, Torpedoes in the Gulf, 1995 65 U-404 von Bülow 22-May-1942 13 Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Otto von Bülow brought U-404 for two incursions into the Bermuda area in May and June 1942 as part of a highly successful patrol in which he sank seven ships of 31,061 tons. Initially U-404 just dipped into the northeast corner of the Bermuda area between the 22nd and 25th of May. Then the sub returned, this time from the north northwest, on the 30th during which it sank the US ship Alcoa Shipper of 5,491 tons. U-404 then motored southwest until the 1st of June, when it intercepted and sank the US steam ship West Notus of 5,492 tons west northwest of Bermuda. For nearly a week U-404 zig-zagged northwest of Bermuda, sinking the Swedish steam ship Anna of 1,345 tons on the 3rd of June. von Bülow then took is command east till the 7th, south till the 8th, and west towards Hatteras on the 9th of June. Off the US coast from Hatteras to the Delaware Capes U-404 sank the 3,289-ton Yugoslavian steamship Ljubica Matkovic off Cape Lookout on the 24th of June, then the steamship Manuala, US flagged and 4,772 tons, and the Nordal, Panamanian of 3,485 tons. On the 27th U-404 dispatched the Moldanger, 6,827 tons of Norway, but was counter-attacked by aircraft. The obliged von Bülow to head back to France, where it reached Saint Nazaire on the 14th of July 1942. U-404 sailed for the 6th U-boat Flotilla of Saint Nazaire on the 6th of May as part of the Padfinder group, which was active with seven submarines on the 23rd to 27th of May before they split off to hunt independently. On the way out to the US coast U-404 also participated in the Hecht group from the 8th to the 11th of May. Otto von Bülow was born in 1911 and a member of the Crew of 1930. Early in his naval career he served on the Duetschland and Schleswig-Holstein and with naval flak units. He joined U-boats in April 1940 and commanded U-3, a training boat. He commissioned U-404 in August 1941 and went on to accrue 280 patrol days in six missions. His total tally of ships sunk and damaged was 17 vessels of 89,259 tons, though he had to retract a claim of sinking the USS Ranger as it was a misunderstanding (he had hit HMS Biter instead). In 1945 von Bülow commanded U-2545 and then a Naval Assault Battalion. Joining the Bundesmarine in 1956 he took over a former US Navy destroyer and re-commissioned it Z-6 in Charleston, South Carolina in 1960. His later responsibilities were as base commander in the Hamburg area (Uboat.net). Among his many accolades he received the Knights Cross in October 1942 following this patrol, supplemented by the Oak Leaves in April 1943. To this the U-Boat War Badge with Diamonds was added a month later and the War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Sword in April 1944. von Bülow lived until January 2006 and the age of 94. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 66 U-455 Giessler 23-May-1942 8 Kapitänluetnant Hans-Heinrich Giessler brought U-455 on a zig-zag course to the north and west of Bermuda for eight days starting the 23rd of May 1942 and ending the 30th. At first the sub headed southeast, then it dog-legged to the west, back towards Hattears until the 27th, at which point it headed northeast of France, exiting north of Bermuda on the 30th. Earlier in the same patrol Giessler had entered the region just off Savannah Georgia on the 20th of September 1942 for a brief three-day incursion into the Bahamas area. After reaching a point north of Jacksonville Florida he took U-455 due east across the Gulf Stream, then headed east-northeast out of the area roughly midway between the US coast and Bermuda. He sighted no Allied ships during this dip south from Cape Hatteras. U-455 left Saint Nazaire on the 22nd of August to lay mines of Charleston, South Carolina. After investigating the waters of Newfoundland it moved south and completed its mine laying mission on the 18th of September. No ships were reported to have hit any of the mines laid by Giessler. After its incursion south of the Carolinas the boat called at the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Cape Race, Canada – again without encountering Allied shipping. She arrived in Saint Nazaire on the 28th of October 1942. Giessler was born in January 1911 and is over 100 years of age at the time of this writing. His career total was two ships sunk for 13,908 tons. Promoted to Korvettenkapitän in October of 1943, he earned the Iron Cross First Class. Over four patrols he served 185 days at sea, following which he was moved to the Torpedo Inspectorate. This was a crucially important role at the outset of the war, when many of the German torpedoes malfunctioned to the great frustration of many an accomplished U-boat skipper, with concomitant erosion of morale amongst entire crews. After a stint at the Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Giessler ended the war as First Watch Officer of the destroyer Z 20 Karl Galster. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 67 U-588 Vogel 23-May-1942 3 Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Victor Vogel brought U-588 for a brief incursion into the area north northwest of Bermuda between the 23rd and 25th of May, 1942. The submarine sailed for the 6th U-boat Flotilla in Saint Nazaire on the 19th of April and returned on the seventh of June. While enroute to its primary patrol area off Canada U-588 operated briefly in conjunction with U-455, U-553 and U-593 but were not successful in tracking a convoy. While off Halifax on the 9th of May Vogel damaged the Greylock, US of 7,460 tons, which was later sunk by U-255. The following day U-588 sank the Kitty’s Brook, a British ship of 4,031 tons and on the 17th sent the steamer Skottland, Norwegian, 2,117 tons, to the bottom of Cape Sable. Off Yarmouth the next day she attacked the Fort Bringer but the torpedoes did not explode. Further south Vogel dispatched the US steamer Plow City of 3,282 tons off Rhode Island. At the time the ship was engaged in retrieving survivors of the Peisander (sunk by U-653 on the 17th) from their lifeboat. Vogel then sank the British steamer Margot on May 23rd off Nantucket before heading back to Europe, which it reached on June 7th Victor Vogel was born in 1912 and was 29 at the time. His four patrols of 130 days were all aboard U-588, which was sunk with all hands on the 31st of July 1942 off Canada. Originally he had served in anti-submarine and mine-sweeping roles before joining U-boats in March of 1941. His career total of ships sunk or damaged was 9 ships for 44,623 tons. He received no decorations during his career. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 68 U-578 Rehwinkel 25-May-1942 14 Korvettenkapitän (later Fregattenkapitän) Ernst-August Rehwinkel entered the region around Bermuda on the 25th of May 1942 and would spend an aggregate of 14 days there. Two days after his entry Rehwinkel dispatched the Dutch motor vessel Polyphemus of 6,269 tons north of Bermuda on the 27th. (The Polyphemus survivors would have a series of eventful voyages in lifeboats after two of the ships that rescued them were attacked by u-boats, as detailed elsewhere in this research). The following day he exited the area northbound towards New York. Off Nantucket he was able to sink the Norwegian motor ship Berganger of 6,826 tons, after U-213 failed to sink her the same day. U-578 returned to the Bermuda region on the 10th of June for an intense patrol north of the island which lasted from the 11th of June for a week until the 18th, when it peeled away for the northeast, leaving the area on the 19th of June, 1942. During the second incursion no ships were attacked or sunk. The sub sailed for the 7th U-boat Flotilla of Saint Nazaire, and left that port on the seventh of May, returning to it on the third of July. Originally it was part of the seven-boat Padfinder group some 400 miles east of New York. After trying the northeast the u-boat dipped down towards Hatteras before retracing its route north of Bermuda and then east. This was U-578’s second patrol to the northeast US coast, however on the previous patrol, in which he sank the tanker R. P. Resor and the USS Jacob Jones off Atlantic City, the sub did not come within 400 miles of Bermuda. Ernst-August Rehwinkel was born in 1901, making him one of the oldest commanders to patrol the Bermuda area in WWII. He was a member of the Crew of 1923. From 1937 to when he joined U-boats in the fall of 1940 he was an instructor in the Naval Gunnery School. He commissioned U-584 in July of 1941 and lead her on five patrols for 133 patrol days. Overall he managed to sink five ships of 24,725 tons. Promoted to Fregattenkapitän on 1 August, 1942, his submarine lost in the Bay of Biscay to unknown causes four days later. Rehwinkel, aged 40 at the time, and his entire crew perished. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 69 U-213 von Varendorff 26-May-1942 12 Oberleutnant zur See Amelung von Varendorff patrolled intensely north and northwest of Bermuda between 26 May and sixth June 1942 without sinking any ships. Earlier in the patrol von Varendorff had managed to insert a German espionage agent into the Bay of Fundy, on the 15th of May near Saint John, New Brunswick (the spy spent the money given him and surrendered when it was done). U-213 was one of the seven Padfinder boats operating east of New York. Wynn says that von Varendorff attempted to sink the Norwegian motor ship Berganger of 6,826 tons on the 27th of May, between Bermuda and Nantucket, and that the ship was sunk later that day by Rehwinkel in U-584. The track of U-213’s patrol leads from north of Bermuda to a box to the northwest of the island as the sub circled around looking for prey, then a leg east as the boat returned towards France. U-213 sailed for the 7th U-boat Flotilla of Brest, which it originally left on the 23rd of April, only to return two days later to retrieve its secret agent. The patrol ended in Brest on the 21st of May 1942. Von Varendorff was born in Kiel in 1913 and was a member of the Crew of 1935. He was a Second Watch Officer on U-47 during Prein’s famous raid on Scapa Flow. He was an instructor until taking command of U-213 in August 1941. On the 31st of July 1942 U-213 was caught and depth-charged by HMS Erne, HMS Sandwich, and HMS Rochester and sunk with all hands west of Punta Delgada, in the Azores Islands. He was 28. Overall von Varendorff accrued 120 patrol days on 3 missions. He did not manage to sink any ships of his own and was awarded the U-boat War Badge of 1939. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 70 U-593 Kelbling 27-May-1942 7 Kapitänleutnant Gerd Kelbling took his command U-593 across the northern sector of Bermuda from west to east between the 27th of May and the 2nd of June, 1942. He sank no ships in the region, however was returning from moderate success off the US coast, where he had sunk the 8,426-ton Panamanian motor ship Persephone on the 25th of May, two days before arriving off Bermuda. The boat had experienced a counter-attack from the navy ships escorting Persephone’s convoy, but was undamaged. This had followed a partially successful attack on the Greek steamer Stavros, 4,853 tons, on the 14th of May off Atlantic City (the ship was on charter to Swiss interests, and made it to New York where it was repaired). U-593 sailed for the 7th U-boat Flotilla of Saint Nazaire on the 20th of April and initially participated in an attempted wolfpack action against a convoy off Cape Sable, Canada on the first of May. The convoy hugged the coast, contact was lost, and the pack dispersed. U-593 patrolled southwards. The patrol ended on the 18th of June in Saint Nazaire. Gerd Kelbling had a very active naval career which he was fortunate to survive (he lived until 2005 and the age of 89). Born in 1915 he was a member of the Crew of 1934, following which he joined minesweepers. Early in 1941 he joined U-boats and sailed on U-557 as commander-in-training (sea training). He commissioned U-593 in March of 1942 in Kiel and sailed for Saint Nazaire, where front-line boats were based, that same month. Overall Kelbling accrued 17 patrols and 338 days at sea. In that time he sank or damaged 16 ships of 57,721 tons, up to December 1943. On the 12th of that month, having been patrolling in the Mediteranean since October 1942, his boat was attacked by two Allied destroyers – USS Wainwright and HMS Calpe. All of the men on board, including Kelbling were captured and imprisoned when the boat was scuttled. Kelbling was sent to Canada (fortunate not to be torpedoed en route) until September 1947. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 71 U-506 Würdemann 28-May-1942 5 Kapitänleutnant Erich Würdemann spent only five days in the southern Bermuda area, but in that time he dispatched two ships: the Fred W. Green and the Yorkmoor. His patrol began southwest of Bermuda on the 28th of May (the day he sank the Yorkmoor) and proceeded in a line straight east. Then on the 31st Würdemann encountered and dispatched the Fred W. Green and took a course change to the northeast until it exited the region to the east-southeast of Bermuda the following day. Earlier on the patrol Würdemann was the first of over a dozen German or Italian submarine commanders to sail right past the capital of the Bahamas, Nassau on New Providence Island, in U-506. Between the 1st and 2nd of May 1942 he transited first the Northeast and then the Northwest Providence channels inbound. To do this he would have used Hole in the Wall light at the southern extreme of Abaco as a waypoint, keeping Harbour Island, North Eleuthera and Spanish Wells off to port on the inbound leg, turned northwest at the Berry Islands north of Nassau, and exited into the Straits of Florida and the Gulf Stream at Great Isaac Light north of Bimini and south of Grand Bahama (the city of Freeport had not been founded yet). The following day, the 3rd of May, he sank the former Estonian sailing schooner Sama (ex-Hajumaa) in the Gulf Stream not far from Orange Cay and the Bimini Islands. Built in Reval Estonia in 1922 and renamed Louis Geraci when converted from a four-masted schooner to a motorized merchant ship in 1927, she was renamed Sama in 1932. At the time of her last voyage she was en route from Boracao Cuba to Jacksonville Florida with a cargo of Bananas – all 14 members of her crew survived. Weighing 567 tons, Sama was controlled and owned by the Bahama Shipping Co. Ltd. of Bluefields, Nicaragua, whose flag she flew. Clearly there was a Bahamas nexus with the ship, like the Western Head, sunk of Guantanamo later, however that connection is difficult to ascertain beyond the conspicuous ownership name, the shipping industry being known for being opaque. Aside from Sama the seven other victims of Würdemann’s patrol were all American and accounted for a highly impressive 63,264 tons damaged or lost (the William C. McTarnahan, the Sun and the Aurora were all damaged and the David McKelvy was declared a constructive total loss. The ships sunk following Sama were the Gulfpenn, Gulfoil Heredia, Halo, Yorkmoor, and Fred W. Green, most of them lost near the mouth of the Mississippi River in the US Gulf. The British-flagged Yorkmoor (4,457 GRT) was the only other ship attacked in the greater Bahamas region on this patrol, and she met her end northeast of Abaco on 28 May 1942 while U-506 was homeward bound. The submarine left the area on the 30th of May two days later, having spent fifteen days patrolling the region. A member of the Tenth Flotilla of Lorient, it returned to that port on the 15th of June 1942, having set out on the 6th of April. Erich Würdemann was a member of the crew of 1933 and racked up a significant portion of his career totals of 69,893 GRT sunk in fourteen ships and three ships damaged for 23,358 tons on this one patrol. A Kapitänleutnant from November 1940 until he was killed at sea on 12 July 1943 at the age of 29, he made nearly a dozen war patrols on destroyers before transferring to the U-boats in 1940. His early training included a patrol under Wolfgang Lüth on U-43. U-506 was involved in both Hartenstein’s Laconia incident and a long-range patrol into the Indian Ocean called “Monsun boats” after the Monsoon. The boat was sunk with all hands but six while on the first week of its fifth patrol west of Spain by a US Air Force aircraft. Würdemann was not among the survivors. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 72 U-566 Borchert 30-May-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Dietrich Borchert brought U-566 briefly into the area north of Bermuda on the 30th of May, 1942. Two days later, on the first of June, he sank the British 8,967-ton steamer Westmoreland north-northeast of Bermuda. On the way back to Brest U-566 was refueled by U-459 west of the Azores in mid-June and made it back to base on the 30th of June 1942. Sailing for the 1st U-boat Flotilla, U-566 joined six other boats as part of the Padfinder line east of the US coast, looking for offshore prey. The patrol began in Brest on the 8th of April and in the middle of the month U-469 resupplied the boat. After unsuccessfully probing New York Borchert tried the Gulf of Maine north of Boston with similar results – none – until it dipped south of the Gulf Stream towards Bermuda. Dietrich Borchert was born in 1909 and is believed to be still living in late 2013. Early in his naval career he was involved with naval aircraft weaponry in a leadership capacity up to November 1939, when he joined the U-boat arm. He began as an instruction commander and from August 1940 lead U-24. He commissioned U-566 in April 1941 and led her on this patrol a year later. After July 1942 he moved to various shore roles and received the Iron Cross First Class. Over five patrols Borchert accrued 196 patrol days and accounted for two ships sunk of 13,148 tons. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 73 U-157 Henne 5-Jun-1942 4 Next into the region was Wolf Henne in command of U-157. He entered the area in a line going west-southwest on the fifth of June 1942, and exited the region four days later on the 13th. U-157 was on a death march withouth knowing it. The sub rounded Turks & Caicos on the 10th and transited the Caicos Passage just east of Inagua that day for the Old Bahama Channel. U-157 proceeded up the coast of Cuba for three days, its progress being tracked by US and Cuban forces via radio and from volunteer Pan American and a US Navy aircraft on the 10th of June. On the 11th it sank the 6,401 US molasses tanker Hagan five miles north of Cuba near Cape Roman and Cayo Verde (Green Cay). It was to be the only tanker sunken by either the skipper or the boat in their respectively “green” careers. Later on the same day a US B 18 bomber spotted the boat and dropped four depth charges (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.121). As a result of the Hagan sinking and other tracking inputs, by the time the submarine reached the new US anti-submarine base off Key West Florida on the 13th it was attacked and sunk by seven depth charges from the USS Thetis, a destroyer under Lt. N. C. McCormick, and a pack of other Allied vessels in a determined and systematic attack. It was the second U-boat sunk on a patrol to the region after Rostin in U-158 met its demise off Bermuda some weeks before. Wolf Henne sailed to the Bahamas as an officer in the German merchant marine before the war. Born in Futschau, China (where Germany maintained a colony and naval base in Tsingtao) in 1905, he was 36 years of age when killed by the Allied hunter-killer group hastily organized for the task. A member of the Crew of 1924, in 1939 Henne had been given the rank Korvettenkapitän – he received no promotions or decorations in the intervening three years of his life. The sinking of U-157 underscores the stark fact that most U-boats or their commanders were lost on first or early patrols. Unlike the vast majority of U-boats which attacked the region that were on their third, fourth of fifth war patrols, U-157 and her commander were relatively untested in combat, having experienced only a short eleven-day patrol before its final one, which only lasted 27 days. Normally a submarine would go on several forays into convoys in the North Atlantic or the region west of Biscay before setting off on trans-Atlantic missions of long duration. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 74 U-373 Loeser 6-Jun-1942 8 Oberleutnant zur See (later Kapitänleutnant) Paul-Karl Loeser brought U-373 westward north of Bermuda in a straight line from the sixth of June 1942 to the ninth. Returning from the US eastern seaboard, he proceeded in another straight line, this one west to east between the 16th and 19th of June. One of the reasons that the courses were so straight and the sinkings so few is that the submarine was on a mission to lay 15 TMB-type mines off the Delaware Bay, which it accomplished on the 11th of June. Loeser claimed hits on the 14th off the US coast but the torpedo did not explode. The following day he claimed to have hit a steamer, but it apparently caused no damage. The submarine’s only confirmed victim was the US tug John R. Williams, of 396 tons, which struck one of U-373’s mines and sank, taking 14 of her crew with it. U-373 was a member of the 3rd U-boat Flotilla out of La Pallice, France, from which it sailed on the 18th of May 1942 and to which it returned from this patrol on the 8th of July. Born in Berlin in 1915, Loeser was a member of the Crew of 1935. In 1938 he was Second Watch Officer of U-33 and then U-40, followed by First Watch Officer of U-43 in 1939. He commissioned U-373 in May of 1941 and went on nine patrols of 367 days aboard her until August, 1943. In 1943 Loeser became a training officer in the 20th U-boat Flotilla, followed by an anti-aircraft officer, and finally a member of the Donitz Guard Battalion until the capitulation. He was captured in the spring of 1945 and released in August of that year. Loeser’s total tally was 3 ships sunk for 10,263 tons. He received no decorations and lived until 1987 and the age of 71. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 75 U-135 Praetorius 6-Jun-1942 11 Kapitänleutnant Friedrich-Hermann Praetorius brought U-135 to the region west-northwest of Bermuda on the 6th of June, 1942. Motoring east he managed to sink the Norwegian motor ship Pleasantville of 4,549 tons northwest of Bermuda. From there he proceeded northeast and patrolled in zig-zag pattern for roughly a week north-northwest of Bermuda between the 11th and 17th of June. After that he headed due east, exiting the region on the 18th of June for France. U-135 sailed from Brest on the 26th of April 1942 for the 7th U-boat Flotilla. The U-boat was part of the sixth wave of boats to attack the US coast in Operation Drumbeat. There were thirteen boats in that particular wave. After sinking the British steam ship Fort Qu’Appelle east of New York U-135 contributed to forming the line of seven boats in the Padfinder Group east of New York, looking for offshore prey. U-135 then proceeded to the area off Cape Hatteras, where it sank no victims until finding Pleaseantville en route home. She was refueled by U-459 west of the Azores on the 16th of June according to Wynn, however in reality it must have been several days later, as U-135 was still north of Bermuda on the 16th. On the 5th of July U-135 arrived back in Saint Nazaire, a different base from that which she had departed (Brest). Friedrich-Hermann Praetorius was born in Kolberg in 1904, making him one of the older skippers to patrol the Bermuda region. He was a member of the Crew of 1934 and joined U-boats in April 1940. After serving as First Watch Officer on U-98 until May of 1941 he began commissioning U-135, in which he led four patrols of 208 days up until November, 1942. He then became a training officer in the 27th U-boat Flotilla and then the 25th U-boat Flotilla until the surrender. According to Rust (Naval Officers Under Hitler, 2009), he was a master in the merchant marine following the war. He lived until 1956 and the age of 52. Aside from the Iron Cross First Class and the 1940 Destroyer War Badge (suggesting that he served in destroyers before joining U-boats), Praetorius was awarded the U-boat War Badge of 1939. His total tally was three ships of 21,302 tons, most of them sunk during this patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 76 U-129 Witt 8-Jun-1942 11 Kapitänleutnant Hans-Ludwig Witt in U-129 transited the region for 11 days south of Bermuda starting on the 8th of June 1942 and ending on the 1st of August. Entering east-southeast of the island Witt patrolled west-southwest until the 10th when it sank the Norwegian ship L. A. Christensen. Then two days later, on the same southewest course, it found and sank the British Harwicke Grange over 400 miles south of the island. Witt exited the area southbound on the 13th of June. On the 28th of July U-129 returned, this time homeward bound. It motored generally east until the first of August, again well south of Bermuda and out of the area to the south-southeast. Overall Witt’s U-129 patrol lasted over three months (94 days) with refueling en route. During it he achieved a tonnage cache of 41,570 by sinking eleven ships, four of them in the Bermuda or Bahamas sphere. They were the Norwegian L. A. Christensen of 4,362 tons, the large British steamer Hardwicke Grange of 9,005 GRT, two days later on the 12th of June, and the Millinocket, a 3,274-ton American freighter. Witt took a similar track as U-67 and U-157 before it. In fact it entered the area on the very same day as Müller-Stöckheim in U-67 and proceeded on the same course: off Turks & Caicos on the 14th of June to enter the Old Bahama Channel on the 15th, up the coast of Cuba until the 19th, at which point it opted to round Cuba heading southwest. On the 22nd of July (a few days after U-67) Witt took the boat through the Saint Nicholas Channel south of the Cay Sal Bank, back down the Old Bahama Channel and out past Inagua, passing just west of Mayaguana in the Crooked Island Channel on the 26th of July 1942. With a short dog-leg on the 28th to the southeast, he left the region heading eastbound on the 31st after a total patrol in the Bahamas area of a significant 27 days. On his way back from the US Gulf (where he dispatched the Tuxpam and Las Choapas of Mexico, the Cadmus and Gundersen of Norway, the Soviet motor tanker Tuapse, Tachira of the US and Port Antonio of Norway), he sank the Onondaga of 2,309 tons in the Old Bahama Channel. This sinking occurred on the 23rd of July and resulted in the death of not only nineteen of her crew but the ship’s only passenger, Captain Mellin Edwin Respess, who had been sunk only weeks before by U-505 under Axel-Olaf Löwe while master of the Thomas McKean east of the region. On U-129’s return trip across the Atlantic she was refueled by U-463 west of the Azores. She returned to Lorient on the 21st of August 1942. A member of the Class of 1929, Hans-Ludwig Witt was Kapitänleutnant at the time of this patrol, obtaining Kovettenkapitän less than a year later. A few months after this patrol he was awarded the Knights Cross, amassing over his career 100,773 GRT of confirmed tonnage sunk in nineteen ships. Like others before him he served in the school ship Gorch Foch and entered U-boat school in October 1940. Like Ali Cremer, Witt returned to the new electric U-boats towards the end of the war. Overall he experience three patrols of 275 sea days before moving ashore to join the BdU (headquarters) staff under Dönitz. He lived until 1980 and age 70. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 77 U-584 Deecke 11-Jun-1942 7 Oberleutnant zur See Joachim Deeke spent a week in the Bermuda area in aggregate, simply transiting east and west bound from dropping of saboteurs in Florida. U-584 entere the area on the 11th of June 1942 and motored west for three days before exiting northwest of Bermuda on the 13th. Then on the fourth of July it returned, from the same area, this time heading eastbound, which it did for three days, exiting the region northeast of the island on the seventh of July. U-584’s unique short mission into the region was for the purpose of landing enemy saboteurs on the Florida coast, an achievement the submarine pulled off on the 17th of June (German time), 1942 as part of Operation Pastorius (in conjunction with U-202 landing saboteurs on Amagansett beach, New York on the 13th of June). As with U-98 which mined nearby Jacksonville earlier, this was a one-off type of raid, but the patrol did not result in sinkings. On a patrol of 89 days out of Brest in which the submarine made its way safely back to Brest, U-584 spent more days off Cape Hatteras than the four days devoted to the region north of the Bahamas. On a singular and focused patrol in the region, the submarine entered several hundred miles east of the Georgia/South Carolina border on the 16th of June, deposited the team via small boats as well as their sabotage equipment on the night of the 16th/17th, and was heading northbound out of the area on the night of the 19th June. The boat was refueled by U-460 west of the Azores in early July and returned to Brest on the 22nd of July. Kapitänleutnant Joachim Deecke turned 30 years of age ten days after leaving the region, on the 29th of June. This would have made the rendezvous with fellow-U-boat U-460 more celebratory. A member of the crew of 1933, he was promoted from Oberleutnant zur See in April, 1941 and a year later earned the Iron Cross First Class (an award of the German Cross in Gold was given posthumously). Deecke accrued an impressive 328 days at sea on nine patrols, all of the in U-584 which he commissioned at the end of 1941 (U-9, on which he served, did not go on war patrols). Deecke’s career total was 18,684 tons for four ships sunk, including a Soviet ship of 206 tons and the American West Madaket in convoy ONS-5. U-584 was lost in the North Atlantic during an attack from US Avenger aircraft armed with homing torpedoes which launched from the USS Card on 31 October, 1943. All hands – including Deecke, by then 31 years old – were lost. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 78 U-432 Schultze 13-Jun-1942 5 Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Otto Schultze brought U-432 on its second patrol to the Bermuda region starting on the 13th of June, 1942. Entering the area to the north-northwest of the island, Schultze headed southeast until the 14th then turned eastwards. For the next four days U-432 patrolled in an east-northeast direction, leaving the region on the 17th of June without having struck any Allied ships on the sphere. The patrol began with the 3rd U-boat Flotilla on the 30th of April in La Pallice France and eneded there on the 2nd of July. It began south of Nova Scotia, where she destroyed the US fishing vessel Foam of 324 tons on the 17th of May. U-432 then participated in the Padfinder group east of New York on the 21st of May, disbanding several days later. On the 23rd of May Schultze encountered and sank the British steam ship Zurichmoor of 4,455 tons east of New York. While many of the Padfinder goup moved to the New York and Hatteras areas, Schultze went north to the Gulf of Maine, where she sank the British steam ship Liverpool Packet of 1,180 tons on the 31st. On the 3rd of June U-432 dispatched the fishing vessels Ben and Josephine of 102 tons and US-flag, and the Aeolus, of 41 tons, also American, off Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. By 9th of June U-432 overtook and sank the Norwegian motor ship Kronprinsen of 7,073 tons off Cape Sable. According to Wynn it is possible Schultze damaged another ship at the same time. The submarine then moved south, where it dipped into the area north of Bermuda before making course east for Europe. Late in June U-432 received extra fuel from U-459 between Bermuda and the Azores. Schultze was born in Kiel in 1915 and was part of the Crew of 1934. He joined U-boats early, in 1937 and commanded four of them: U-4, U-141, U-432, and U-849, for a total of 325 patrol days. His father Otto Schultze had sunk 52 ships of 129,540 tons with U-63 during World War I. Overall the younger Schultze sank or damaged 22 ships of 83,657 tons, for which he was awarded the Knights Cross in July of 1942. He was killed when U-849 was sunk west of the Congo River estuary, West Africa, on 25 November, 1943. Heinz-Otto Schultze was 28 at the time. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 79 U-332 Liebe 24-Jun-1942 13 Kapitänleutnant Johannes Liebe brought U-332 on a circumnavigation of Bermuda of 13 days starting on the 24th of June 1942 and endig on the 16th of July. Liebe began to the northwest of Bermuda and headed southeast until the 26th of June. Then he turned southwest whilst he was due east of Bermuda and headed south. On the 28th he attacked and sank the US freighter Raphael (also known as Ralph) Semmes before turning west to keep his boat in a circular pattern. By the second of July U-332 was west-southwest of Bermuda and exxtited the area towards Hatteras. Coming back to the region from the same spot on the 12th of July Liebe opted to motor northeast in a straight line, intersecting his earlier course north-northeast of Bermuda and exiting the region on the 16th northeast of the island. The next incursion into the Bahamas region was led by Johannes Liebe in U-332, a Type VIIC boat out of the Third flotilla. He sailed to and from La Pallice, France, on the 24th of May, entering the area just southeast of Bermuda on the 27th of June 1942. The following day he dispatched the 6,027-ton Raphael Semmes, an American steamer named after the Civil War hero for the South who made his name on the famous raider CSS Alabama and which was sunk in a long battle off the coast of France. The Semmes was bound from Bombay India to New York via Trinidad with manganese ore, licorice, wool, rugs and tobacco. Nineteen were lost, the balance being picked up the Explorer on 16 July and landed in New Jersey (photographs or the rafts and the survivors at the time of rescue are stark). Liebe assisted ten of the survivors, dressing their wounds and giving them water and food. On this 70-day patrol Liebe would sink two ships, including the Greek steamer Leonidas M. which he sank on 19 July on his way home from a patrol along the coasts of Cape Hatteras and Long Island, New York. Two officers from the Leonidas M. were taken prisoner aboard the submarine and taken to France – a fate marginally better than being cast adrift in an open boat. U-332 was refueled by U-461 in end July west of the Azores. She returned to La Pallice on the 1st of August 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.221). Liebe’s total tonnage for the patrol was 10,600. His patrol in the area was short-lived, of six days’ duration. From near Bermuda he headed west for three days then northwest for Hatteras, exiting the region east of Savannah on the 2nd of July. A member of the crew of 1933, Kapitänleutnant Johannes Liebe began U-boat training after a stint at the Naval Airfield Headquarters. His first boat was U-48 under Schultze, sinking four ships on their first patrol. On his first patrol off Hatteras he sank four ships of 25,000 tons despite being low on fuel. Liebe moved ashore in January 1943 and after a brief detention following the war was released in July 1945. His decorations included Iron Cross First Class based on total tonnage 46,729 tons from eight ships sunk. Liebe lived until the age of 69, dying in late 1982. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 80 U-156 Hartenstein 26-Jun-1942 3 Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein (he was promoted during this patrol), merely dipped into the area east-southeast of Bermuda between the 26th and 28th of June, 1942 on its way back to base. Two days before the submarine had sunk the British steam ship Willimantic, of 4,558 tons by gunfire well southeast of Bermuda (the captain was taken prisoner on U-156). Hartenstein was at the center of two major episodes of WWII naval warfare – the shelling of Aruba refineries and the sinking of the ship Laconia and was one of the most recognized U-boat skippers of the era. The active patrol began on the 22nd of April, from where Hartenstein sailed for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla. On the 13th of May U-156 sank the Dutch motor ship Koenjit and later the same day the City of Melbourne, a British ship of 6,630 tons. Off the Windward islands and at times very close to Vichy-France-held Martinique U-156 sank a succession of ships in the following weeks: Norwegian Siljestad, Yugoslavian Kupa, British Barrdale, US Quaker City, and the British San Eliseo (damaged). Off Martinique Hartenstein sank the steam ship Presidente Trujillo and then the US destroyer USS Blakely on the 25th of May. The sub was counterattacked for a week, then managed to sink the British steamer Norman Prince. On the way back U-156 dispatched the Brazilian steamer Allegrete and the 80-ton British sailing schooner Lilian. U-156 and its commander were famous for two crucial events in the U-boat war – the second was his sinking on 12 September 1942 of the troop ship Laconia, laden with Italian Prisoners of War off West Africa. Four days later, after sending requests for assistance in the clear, he was strafed and bombed by US aircraft while trying to rescue a deck load of Italian and British survivors, leading Admiral Dönitz to ban all such rescue attempts. This so-called “Laconia order”was to have obvious ramifications to allied merchant seamen. The shelling of the oil refinery at Aruba, Dutch West Indies, led to that island’s imminent occupation by American troops. Werner Hartenstein was 33 years of age at the time of his patrol, a member of the class of 1928 and a Korvettenkapitän. During the patrol (two days before he entered the region in fact) he was awarded the German Cross in Gold and was to earn the Knights Cross by year’s end. He was killed at age 35 on 8 March 1943 in an attack on his submarine east of Barbados, following five patrols of 294 days. Before joining the U-boat arm in March 1942 he completed 65 patrols in torpedo boats. His total career loot was 20 ships for 97,504 GRT and three more damaged for 18,811 plus a 1,190-ton warship damaged. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 81 U-571 Möhlmann 26-Jun-1942 8 Kapitänleutnant Helmut Möhlmann in the Type VIIC boat U-571 arrived on the 26th of June 1942 northeast of Bermuda and spent eight days transiting to the southwest, exiting on the third of July. By the 29th the boat was only 100 or so miles southeast of Bermuda, then it jogged closer to the west on the 30th before heading southeast for a day. Between the first and third of the month U-571 headed due west and out of the area, to the southwest of the island. Thereafter U-571 proceeded west-southwest towards the north of Grand Bahama, where it arrived on the 5th of July. At that point the boat turned sharply to port and entered the Gulf Stream in the Straits of Florida, bucking the current for several days until the 7th. On 7 July U-571 sank the Umtata. This ship had been badly damaged by U-161 (under Achilles) earlier in the war in a daring attack on Castries harbor, St. Lucia in the Caribbean, only to be sunk while under tow and near its final repair yard. The day later the U-boat encountered and sank the J. A. Moffett, also off southeastern Florida. On the 9th the boat rounded Key West inbound to the US Gulf, and the following day sank the Honduran freighter Nicholas Cuneo. On the return trip Möhlmann doubled Key West on the 16th of July and opted for a different course homeward: this time he sailed down the length of the Old Bahama Channel, utilizing the Saint Nicholas Channel between the Cay Sal Bank and the north coast of Cuba. After four days he reached the northwest coast of Inagua, which he left to starboard and headed back into the open Atlantic via the Caicos Passage. U-571 exited the area mid-way between Bermuda and Anegada on the 23rd of July, making for La Pallice again where it was based with the Third Flotilla. The other victim of this patrol was the impressive tanker Pennsylvania Sun (damaged), of 11,394, bringing total tonnage lost or damaged (the Moffett was a constructive total loss, meaning it would cost more to repair her than she was worth), was 30,374 GRT. On the way to the patrol area U-571 took part in a patrol line, called Endrass, initially against convoy HG 84 along with five other boats. When the patrol line was disbanded U-571 was refueled west of the Azores by U-459 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.47). The patrol began in La Pallice / La Rochelle on the 11th of June and ended there on the 7th of August 1942. A member of the Class of 1933, Kapitänleutnant Helmut Möhlmann was promoted to Korvettenkapitän in the last weeks of the war. He joined U-boats in April 1940 and sailed in eight patrols of 344 days before joining the BdU staff, eventually commanding the 14th Flotilla in Narvik, Norway. In April 1943 he received the Knights Cross and a year later the U-boat Front Clasp. His awards began in June 1939 with the Spanish Cross in Bronze without swords. Over his career Möhlmann sank five ships for 33,511 including the Koll (sister ship to the Kollskegg whose survivors were landed in Nassau) and the Margaret off the US coast, plus the Pennsylvania Sun damaged, the Moffet a loss, and an auxiliary warship also a total loss for 3,870 tons. Möhlmann lived until 1977, passing away at age 63. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 82 U-437 Schulz 28-Jun-1942 8 U-437 under Kapitänleutnant Werner-Karl Schulz entered the region between Bermuda and Anegada on the 28th of June inbound and and spent eight days total transiting the southeast corner of the box both inbound and outbound. From the 28th of June to the 1st of July U-437 patrolled southwest and then out of the area. It returned three weeks later, on the 25th of July for four days, heading northeast. Ultimately Schulz took the boat out of the area on the 27th of July and homeward for France. After his inbound transit past Bermuda Schulz headed for the Windward Passage then a fruitless cruise south of Cuba to the entrance to the Yucatan Channel. He utilized the Windward Passage on the return leg as well and hunted on the north coast of Cuba for several days – again without tangible result, but not for lack of effort, as we shall see. Wynn writes that “in the early hours of 18.7.42 [U-437/Schulz] made an unsuccessful attack on two ships just north of Haiti, hearing one detonation and what were claimed to be sinking noises, but there is no report of damage to any vessel in the area.” “In the evening of the 20th U-437 made another unsuccessful attack on a large vessel in the same area. From a three-torpedo spread two detonations were heard but the ship is unidentified” (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.289). The Sande was sunk in the same general area, but a month later with no known details… Like U-571, U-575, U-134 and U-84 before it, on the way to the patrol area U-437 took part in a patrol line, called Endrass, initially against convoy HG 84 along with five other boats. The boat was then refueled west of the Azores by U-459 late in June. The patrol began in Saint Nazaire on the 6th of June and ended there on the 12th August 1942. A member of the crew of 1934, Werner-Karl Schulz was only made Korvettenkapitän in March 1945, and he was Kapitänleutnant at the time of this patrol. Born in October 1910, he was 31 during this patrol and lived until 1960 and the age of 50. He received no decorations during his naval career and neither sank nor damaged any Allied vessels over four patrols in command of U-437 lasting 161 days in aggregate. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 83 U-575 Heydemann 28-Jun-1942 4 On the same day and in roughly the same position as Loewe in U-505, U-575 under Kapitänleutnant Günther Heydemann in the Type VIIC boat U-575 entered the region on a similar course: from east and south of Bermuda south-southwest to the Mona Passage, which he entered and cleared into the Caribbean on the 5th of July. Overall Hedyemann spent just four days on an inbound transit heading southwest from a point east of Bermuda starting the 28th of June 1942. By the 1st of July the boat was out of the region and heading for the Caribbean. Whilst off the northeast tip of the Dominican Republic the submarine encountered and sank the Norlandia on the 4th of July. She was a US freighter of 2,689 tons en route Antigua – San Juan, Puerto Rico – Nuevitas, Cuba in ballast when struck at 3:38 in the morning near Cape Samana, where the two lifeboats landed. The other ships hit by U-575 on this patrol included the Empire Explorer, Comrade and Glacier (both schooners), and San Gaspar (damaged) – all in the southern Caribbean in the vicinity of Trinidad & Tobago. The total tonnage his during this patrol was 21,088, all victims aside from the Norlandia being of British registry. Like U-571 before it, on the way to the patrol area U-575 took part in a patrol line, called Endrass, initially against convoy HG 84 along with five other boats. U-575 was then refueled west of the Azores by U-459 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.51). The patrol began in Saint Nazaire on the 10th of June and ended there on the 7th of August 1942. A member of the Class of 1933, Kapitänleutnant Günther Heydemann achieved that rank in April of 1941 while serving in the Seventh Flotilla out of St. Nazaire France, from which the boat sailed on this patrol. He joined U-boats in April 1940 after serving in line-of-battle ships before commissioning U-575 in the spring of 1941. Altogether Heydemann spent eight patrols and 395 sea days on this boat before becoming an instructor based on shore. His total career catch of eight ships sunk for 36,010 and one ship damaged for 12,910 earned him the Knights Cross in July 1943. He was to live until 1986 and the age of 71, passing away in Hamburg. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 84 U-158 Rostin 29-Jun-1942 2 Kapitänleutnant Irwin Rostin only spent two fateful – and final – days in the Bermuda region before being sunk by Bermuda-based aircraft on the 30th of July west-northwest of the island. Though he entered on the 29th it was a busy patrol leading up to the boats demise. Since the events of the patrol are linked directly to the Allies tracking and destroying the boat they bear recounting and summarizing here. The IXC boat U-158’s track shows the boat transiting the Northeast and Northwest Providence channels, making its commander Erwin Rostin the second U-boat skipper to pass close by the Bahamian capital Nassau. Having entered the area on the 24th of May, U-158 proceeded due west as far as the Bimini islands, then headed south on the 28th of May around Key West and into the US Gulf on the 31st. After nearly a month and a record number of attacks in the waters off Cuba, Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, U-158 returned via a similar route, past Havana, up the Gulf Stream and Straits of Florida, to West End Grand Bahama between 26 and 29 June. At that point U-158 did three fateful things: he stopped the Latvian ship Everalda, took her commander aboard as a neutral captive, managed to secure vitally important allied signals and codes and routing instructions, and then he transmitted to Germany repeatedly about his exploits. This would be fatal, as the US sent an aircraft over the submarine’s projected position and on the 30th of June that airplane (a USN Mariner piloted by Lt. R. E. Schreder) succeeded in surprising the submarine on the surface and sinking it with an amazingly well-aimed depth charge which actually lodged in its deck plating. The list of an astounding dozen ships worth 62,536 GRT sunk by U-158 on this patrol is as diverse as it is long: Darina of Britain, the Canadian Frank B. Baird sunk north and east of Bermuda on the way in in May, the Knoxville City (US), Nidarnes (Norway), Velma Lykes, Hermis and Scheherazade (both Panamanian), Cities Service Toledo, San Blas (Panamanian), Moira (Norway), and American Major Henry Gibbins – all sunk in the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent waters. The Scheherazade alone was an impressive 13,467 tons and the Darina a further 8,113 GRT. These accomplishments earned Rostin, at age 34, a ranking amongst the “Top U-boat Aces” on Uboat.net. One of the crew of 1933, Rostin joined U-boats from minesweepers in March 1941. On his first war patrol, without battle experience he sank five ships of over 38,000 tons. Ironically Kapitänleutnant Rostin was awarded the Knights Cross two days before the air attack which killed all aboard on 30 June 1942. The extensive radio communication between the boat and base is what enabled the allies to track the U-boat and accurately predict its position as it approached Bermuda, precipitating its doom. The Allied expression “loose lips sink ships” was turned on the enemy. Rostin was given the U-boat war badge posthumously on the 1st of July. He had sailed in the Tenth Flotilla out of Lorient, to which of course the boat was never to return. In the parlance of submariners around the world, the boat and its crew are “on eternal patrol”. Had the submarine managed to reach German-occupied France with the Allied convoy signals and the Everalda’s confidential papers – which the Allies were aware, from survivors, were taken, the results would have been highly disruptive to the Allies and potentially highly effective for the Axis. This is another of history’s many “what if” scenarios. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 85 U-84 Uphoff 29-Jun-1942 11 U-84 under Oberleutnant zur See Horst Uphoff spent 11 days patrolling in the Bermuda box, first west-bound for the Straits of Florida and then eastbound homeward, beginning the 29th of June 1942 and ending on July 31st. Starting on the 29th of June 1942 U-84 steamed west, south of Bermuda on its way toward the Straits of Florida via Grand Bahama. It left the region on the third of July. Then on the 26th of July the boat returned, this time heading east-northeast and passing quite close to Bermda on the 28th. Proceeding eastbound it exited the area east of the island on July 31st. After its initital incursion, on the 6th of July, while poised to enter the Straits of Florida, the boat effected a nearly 180 degree turn and Uphoff opted instead to head east until the 8th. At that point, just northeast of Elbow Cay Light Abaco, the boat turned right nearly 90 degrees and steamed towards the Crooked Island Passage. After passing over 100 miles east of Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island and San Salvador the submarine transited the Crooked Island Passage between the 10th and 11th of July. From there U-84 headed northwest up the Old Bahama Channel between the 11th and 13th of July, when it encountered the Andrew Jackson, an American steamer of 5,990 tons, which it sank west of the Cay Sal Bank. Leaving the region briefly to patrol north of Havana and west of Key West, the sub sank the 1,648-ton Honduran ship Baja California in the US Gulf northwest of Key West on the 19th and two days later damaged the William Cullen Bryant, an American ship of 7,176 tons, out of convoy TAW 4J in a position west of Cay Sal Bank. After these three successes (on top of an earlier sinking of the Torvanger outside the area, for a patrol total of 21,382 tons), Uphoff headed home via the Straits of Florida. Re-entering the region on the 21st of July the boat headed north until the 24th, at which point it passed West End Grand Bahama and turned 90 degrees eastward for Bermuda. On the 29th it passed just south of St. David’s Light, Bermuda and headed back to Brest, France, where it was based with the First Flotilla. It was the boat’s fifth of eight patrols. Like U-571 and U-575 before it, on the way to the patrol area U-84 took part in a patrol line, called Endrass, initially against convoy HG 84 along with five other boats. The boat was then refueled west of the Azores by U-459 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.63). The patrol ended in Brest on the 13th of August 1942. It had begun on the 10th of June. On the return voyage U-84 was again refueled, this time by U-463 west of the Azores for its return trip across Biscay (Ibid.). The submarine was to leave its bones and those of its crew east of the Bahamas within a year. Horst Uphoff was only 25 at the time of this patrol. A member of the crew of 1935 his rank at the time was Kapitänleutnant, having been promoted from Oberleutnant zur See on the very day that he entered the region. Joining U-boats in October 1939, he served under Endrass in U-46 for four patrols, sinking seventeen ships of 90,000 tons plus two others for 15,000 GRT. Uphoff commissioned the new VIIB boat U-84 in April of 1941, leaving on its first patrol from Bergen Norway. Over a year and half Uphoff would lead U-84 on eight patrols for 461 sea days. His total bag was six ships sunk for 29,905 and one damaged for 7,176 GRT, which earned him the Iron Cross First Class while alive and the German Cross in Gold posthumously, in January 1944. He was killed well inside the region on the 7th of August 1943 by Allied aircraft according to submarine loss expert Axel Niestle (see entry for U-84’s final patrol to Bermuda in 1943). SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 86 U-134 Schendel 30-Jun-1942 4 Commander Rudolf Schendel contributed four patrol days to the southern area of the box around Bermuda, between the 30th of June and the 3rd of July. During that time the boat’s progress was due west and Schendel exited the region for a long and fruitless patrol of the Bahamas. U-134 spent an impressive 28 days out of an 83-day patrol in the area as he circled the Bahamas en route to other attacks in the US Gulf in July and August 1942. Schendel took U-134, a Type VIIC boat, westward from a point south of Bermuda on the 1st of July, steaming straight west for a point north of Grand Bahama. At that point, on the 9th of July the boat turned left and into the Straits of Florida, west of West End Grand Bahama, where it remained on patrol for the better part of a week, until the 16th. On that date it resumed its course southwards and motored against the Gulf Stream southwards and around Key West and out of the region on the 19th of July. After an extensive but fruitless patrol into the US Gulf (no ships were attacked or sunk during this long effort), the submarine re-entered the region on the 26th of July, by heading east from north of Havana into the Saint Nicholas Channel. From there Schendel opted to take the Old Bahama Channel homewards – probably hoping to have better luck than that experienced off Grand Bahama earlier. Having found no prey in the Old Bahama Channel, U-134 then crossed the opening of the Windward Passage to a point on the northwest coast of Haiti, where it arrived on the 2nd of August. Probably reckoning that nothing ventured is nothing gained, Schendel then penetrated the Windward Passage for several days (the 3rd and 4rth of August) before leaving Guantanamo and these usually rich hunting grounds astern. On the 4th U-134 rounded the southwest coast of Inagua near Matthew Town and proceded through the Crooked Island and then Caicos passages around Providenciales on the 5th. After breaking out into the open Atlantic the boat headed northeast for four days until the 9th, closing the loop on a circumnavigation of the entire Bahamas chain. On the 10th the boat turned due east for La Pallice and the Third Flotilla and returned empty handed, all its torpedoes still in their tubes. Like U-571, U-575, and U-84 before it, on the way to the patrol area U-134 took part in a patrol line, called Endrass, initially against convoy HG 84 along with five other boats. The boat was then refueled west of the Azores by U-459 late in June (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.63). The patrol began on 11 June in La Pallice and ended there on the 1st of September, 1942. On the return voyage U-134 was again refueled for its return trip across Biscay, this time by U-463 west of the Azores (Ibid.). Though he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän in late 1944, it is perhaps not surprising given the results of this patrol that Rudolf Schendel was not a decorated officer, though clearly from the track of his voyage this was not for lack of effort, but rather the lack of opportunity. U-134 would be taken over by Hans-Günther Brosin, whose patrols in the region were only marginally more successful and included the downing of a US Navy airship. A member of the crew of 1932 Schendel and his boat survived their patrols and he lived until age 56 in 1970. His total tonnage sank over seven patrols and 271 days at sea was 12,147 GRT in Dutch, British and Panamanian registries. Unlike most U-boat skippers which are tracked on Uboat.net and whose feats are detailed in Busch and Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II(1998), and Franz Kurowski’s Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, there is no photograph of Schendel on uboat.net. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 87 U-202 Linder 5-Jul-1942 3 Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Hans-Heinz Linder brought U-202 in a straight line north of Bermuda from west to east on between the 5th and 7th of July, 1942. He was en route back to base in Brest, which the sub reached on the 25th of July, 1942, having set off on the 27th of May. It had nevertheless been a highly eventful patrol for U-202: on the 1st of July, four days before entering the Bermuda region, Linder cut the island off from an essential supply mission when it sank the US passenger and cargo ship City of Birmingham, 5,861 tons, between Norfolk Virginia and Hamilton Bermuda. Ultimately 372 passengers were landed in Bermuda, but not of course the cargo. Interestingly, the City of Birmingham had earlier rescued survivors of the ship Empire Dryden, which had also been sunk in the area, by U-572 under Hirsaker on 20 April 1942. On the 22nd of June, off New York Linder also sank the Argentinian steamer Rio Tercero of 4,864 tons. The neutral ship’s captain was taken aboard the submarine but released to the lifeboats when US aircraft and a blimp attacked. The most notorious act of this patrol was the landing of four saboteurs at Amagansett, Long Island, which Linder and his crew successfully effectuated on the 13th of June. This was no small task considering the submarine touched bottom on a sand bank and its engine maneuvers were so loud that they were heard from shore, imperiling the ultra-secret mission. Much has been written about his landing and another off Punta Vedra beach near Jacksonville by U-584 as part of Operation Pastorius. Much has been written about this operation which is not relevant here. Suffice to say that one of the leaders, George Dasch, betrayed all of his colleagues although they initially managed to slip past the Americans and infiltrate the country as far west as Chicago. They were all rounded up and executed with the exception of two of them, who survived the war and were deported back to Germany following in 1948. Linder was born in 1913 and turned 29 during this patrol. Part of the Crew of 1933, he served on U-18 and U-96 under Lehmann-Willenbrock. In March 1941 he took command of U-202, on which he served for six patrols and 236 patrol days up to September 1942. His total tally was seven ships sunk, for 33,693 tons in aggregate, including the City of Birmingham near Bermuda. In late fall 1942 he moved ashore to naval staff duties, and he died on the 10th of September 1944 at age 31. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 88 U-166 Kuhlmann 6-Jul-1942 4 Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Gunther Kühlmann committed only four days of his final patrol to the region in U-166. It began southeast of Bermuda on the 6th of June and by the 8th the sub was only a few hundred miles southwest of the island. Then Kühlmann changed course for the south and destiny, leaving the area on the 9th southwest of the island to be sunk in the US Gulf on the 30th of July 1942. The next patrol into the region, beginning south of Bermuda on the 6th of July 1942, was remarkable both for its success (three Allied sinkings) and its failure south of New Orleans. The boat was sunk there, the only U-boat to leave its hull in the US Gulf during the war, and the sub was discovered by a BP drilling survey team over fifty years later. In the evening of the 8th of July U-166 under Hans-Günther Kühlmann changed its westward course (it was heading towards the Straits of Florida until then) to a 90-degree turn southwards. U-166 steamed in that direction until the 11th, when it reached a point just north of the Mona Passage separating Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Taking another sharp turn, this time to the right, it proceeded westwards up the coast of the Dominican Republic, where it encountered and sank the 84-ton Dominican schooner Carmen on the 11th. Two days later, while steaming up the Old Bahama Channel and after passing Inagua on the starboard beam, U-166 sank the 2,309-ton American freighter Oneida. Proceeding northwest and leaving the Old Bahama for the Saint Nicholas Channel, Kühlmann came upon a small fishing boat of sixteen tons loaded with onions that shared the name of his wife – the American boat Gertrude. The survivors (a small crew of three under Walter Broward Crosland) transferred to an even smaller boat – this one a motorboat of fourteen feet, which ran out of fuel, causing them to drift for 78 hours until rescued off Alligator Reef, Florida. U-166 left this trail of destruction for the Allies to follow, and on the 30th of July, after the boat had left the area on the 16th, it caught up with him. In a pitched battle with the 5,184 passenger ship Robert E. Lee (which carried survivors of earlier U-boat sinkings) and her escorts off New Orleans U-166 was sunk on 30 July by a US Coast Guard plane under H. C. White (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.127). The Robert E. Lee went down – as mentioned the wrecks of both ships were recently discovered and have been extensively documented with photographs and sub-sea imagery. The patrol had begun in Lorient on only its second patrol on the 17th of June 1942. Hans-Gunther Kühlmann was only 28 years of age and an Oberleutnant zur See when he was lost off the coast of Louisiana, far from his birthplace of Cologne-Sulz. In two patrols of 54 days at sea he sank a total of 7,593 tons including the small coastwise ships Carmen and Gertrude – all tonnage being those lost in the greater Bahamas region with the exception of the Robert E. Lee. He won no decorations. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Melanie Wiggins, Torpedoes in the Gulf, 1995 89 U-576 Heinicke 6-Jul-1942 4 Kapitänleutnant Hans-Dieter Heinicke began his second and final incursion into the waters of Bermuda by entering to the northeast on the 6th of July 1942 and proceeding west. He exited the area to the northwest of the island on the 9th and was sunk by US forced off Hatteras on the 15th of July, 1942. U-576 sailed for the 7th U-boat Flotilla out of Saint Nazaire on the 16th of June. She was refueled by U-460 north of the Azores later that month before proceeding westwards. After transiting Bermuda, on the 14th the submarine was detected while surfaced by two US Navy OS2U-3 airplanes and quickly submerged, however several depth charges forced the boat to re-emerge. It was again depth-charged and sank in a swirl of oil. Under most circumstances that would have been the end of the U-boat. Apparently Heinicke was cut from different cloth. Effecting repairs on the sea bottom, he determined that one of his main ballast tanks was irreparably damaged, and a great deal of fuel had been lost. He opted to head back to base. However the sight of an Allied convoy the following day proved too much for him, and Heinicke moved into attack. He successfully dispatched the Panamanian motor ship J A Mowinckel of 1,114 tons, the Nicaraguan steamer Bluefield of 2,063 tons, and the US Chilore of 8,301 tons. Alas it was to be the last stand of U-576. Two other US Navy aircraft, of the Kingfisher type, were escorting the convoy and dove in to attack the submarine. It is also possible that the steam ship Unico rammed the submarine. In any event Heinicke’s sub was no mortally damaged and forced to the surface, where her men fell victim to Naval Armed Guard gunners. Overwhelmed, the boat submerged, taking all 45 German sailors with it, including Heinicke, who was 29. Hans-Dieter Heinicke was born in 1913. Heinicke was a member of the Crew of 1933 and served as watch officer of the u-boat tender Wiechsel in 1939 and 1940, at which point he began u-boat training. He served on U-73 and helped commission U-576, the only boat he served on and on which he accrued 163 patrol days over five missions. His career tally was six ships sunk or damaged for 34,907 ton. Hienicke received no decorations over his career. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 90 U-173 Beucke 9-Jul-1942 6 Kapitän zur See Heinz-Ehler Beucke brought U-173 on a 6-day patrol of the area around Bermuda inbound starting on the 9th of July 1942 and ending on the 14th. From a position east-northeast of Bermuda the boat proceeded southwest in a straight line and exited on the 14th. Beucke, age 38 at the time, sailed from Kiel on the Type IXC boat U-173. Sailing on a 98-day patrol (its first of two), the boat left Lorient for the Second Flotilla and arrived south of Bermuda on the 9th of July 1942. From there it proceeded rapidly southwest for the Windward Passage, entering the Caicos Passage between Mayaguana and Providenciales on the 16th of July. On the 17th U-173 rounded the northwest tip of Inagua and entered the Windward Passage on the 18th, exiting the region for the Caribbean Sea. The boat was to spend ten days in the region, and returned on the 3rd of August. From the Windward Passage it transited the area from Cape Mole off Haiti east along the north coast of the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico and then out of the region north of Anegada on the 6th of August. No tonnage was struck or sunk during this patrol. On the 16th of August U-173 was sighted by an American Hudson aircraft under Pilot Officer Kennard, who dropped four depth charges. These damaged the boat, but it managed to escape. Twelve days later, on the 28th, another Hudson under Sillcock dropped four more depth charges on her, which damaged the boat heavily. The same day a USAF B 18 attacked U-173, and she was ordered to return to base. Before she could do so a Hudson under Badger attacked her on the 29th. Having left Kiel on the 15th of June to reposition to Lorient following the patrol, the submarine was refueled by U-460 in the central North Atlantic in mid-July (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.131). Over his career since joining the navy in the Crew of 1922 Kapitän zur See Heinz-Ehler Beucke was not able to achieve any ships sunk or damaged. He only ever went on this one patrol in command of a submarine. He received no decorations and lived until the age of 75 in 1979. Little more is known of him, for example whether he was stripped of his command immediately on return from an unsuccessful patrol or whether his assignment ashore was incremental. In contrast, the skipper after Beucke, Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Adolf Schweichel managed to sink or damage four US destroyers of 29,274 tons (Joseph Hewes, Winooski, Hambleton and Electra) in the first sixteen days of its next patrol starting on the 1st of November, however the boat itself was sunk off Casablanca on the 16th of November 1942 by depth charges from the US destroyers Woolsey, Swanson, and Quick. All 57 on board were killed. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 91 U-402 von Forstner 9-Jul-1942 10 Kapitänleutnant Freiherr Sigfried von Forstner entered the region on the Type VIIC boat U-402 on the 9th of July for what would be a ten-day incursion in three portions. First he entered northeast of Bermuda and motored weast until the 12th when he exited for Hatteras. Then on the 16th of July he returned briefly west of the island, headed north and then exited again on the 18th. Finally, while homebound, U-402 reappeared northwest of the island and moroted east for three days, from the 22nd to the 24th of July 1942 back to France. On the way to the Bermuda region U-402 received fuel from U-460 in the central Atlantic. The boat had no success against more organized Allied defences, including convoys. In fact on 14 July U-402 escaped destruction by a US Coast Guard aircraft which damaged the U-boat. According to Wynn U-402 was the last wave of seven U-boats ordered to patrol the Hatteras area – thereafter they were pulled back to other more profitable zones such as South America and the Caribbean. Sailing from Saint Nazaire with the Third Flotilla, U-402’s only commander was von Forstner, who took her on eight patrol of 349 days, right up to her demise on 13 October 1943. She was destroyed with all hands by aircraft from the escort carrier USS Card in the Central Atlantic. Von Forstner was promoted to Korvettenkapitän a year after his incursion into Bermuda and earned the Knights Cross in February of that year. He was a member of the Crew of 1930 before serving on the Nürnberg during the first year of the war. He joined U-boats in April 1940 and served under the ace Kretschmer on U-99 before commissioning his own boat, U-402. Thirty one years of age when he patrolled the area, he was 33 when killed, having been born in Hannover on 19 September 1910. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 92 U-754 Oestermann 9-Jul-1942 3 Kapitänleutnant Hans Oestermann began his second and final patrol to the Bermuda area on the ninth of July 1942 to the northeast and departed heading northwest two days later, on the 11th of July. U-754 sailed for the 1st U-boat Flotilla in Brest on the 19th of June. It was refueled by U-459 west of the Azores early in July. On the 29th of June it had managed to intercept and sink the British motor ship Waiwera north-northwest of the Azores. After refueling U-754 headed off Hatteras, where it was one of the last seven U-boats to do so. It found few targets and headed north to Canadian waters. On July 19th the submarine and three others (U-89, U-132 and U-458) were moved near Nova Scotia. ON the 28th U-754 sank the trawler Ebb off Halifax. Then on the 31st the boat was caught on the surface a Royal Canadian Air Force Hudson aircraft and inexplicably failed to submerge. It was a fatal mistake, and the boat was bombed into submission and sank with all 43 hands, Oestermann, aged 29, among them. Born in 1913, Oestermann was a member of the Crew of 1933 and turned 29 during this patrol. He would drown within the year, the victim of Allied anti-submarine efforts north-east of Boston. Early in his career Oestermann served aboard the destroyer Hermann Shoemann before joining U-boats in July 1940. His only boat before commissioning U-754 was U-151. Overall he accrued 135 patrol days in three war-going patrols and sank or damaged 14 ships of 56,149 tons. He received no decorations. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 93 U-171 Pfeffer 11-Jul-1942 5 Kapitänleutnant Günther Pfeffer, aged 27 led the next mission into the area, arriving on the Type IXC boat U-171 south of Bermuda on 11th July 1942. It was to be the boat’s first and final patrol, as it was sunk on the return voyage after 15 days in the Bermuda and Bahamas area. After heading southwest for five days southeast of Bermuda the boat exited the zone on the 15th of July, 1942. Then it took the conventional track for the Windward Passage – a straight line to a point between Mayaguana and Providenciales, from where it transited the Caicos passage to round Inagua from the northeast. From there U-171 entered the Windward Passage on the 18th of July and exited the region. The boat proceeded to the Yucatan Channel and US Gulf where it was able to sink the Mexican tankers Oaxaca and Amatlan on the 26th of July and 4th of September. On the 13th of August it dispatched the US freighter R. M. Parker in the US Gulf for a patrol tonnage of 17,641. It was to be almost two months before Pfeffer returned via the Windward Passage, on the 12th of September. Rounding Cape Mole in Haiti the boat opted to go east and south of the Turks & Caicos, then northeast until the 17th of September. At that point the sub took a 150-degree turn for the northeast tip of Puerto Rico for a day before resuming a course northeastwards on the 19th of September. On the way from Kiel U-171 was refueled by U-460 in the central North Atlantic in mid-July. On the return voyage she was also refueled, this time by U-462 on around the 20th of September northwest of the Azores. It would meet its end on the 9th of October in the Bay of Biscay near Lorient. U-171 was sunk by mines with 30 surviving and 22 perishing – Allies at that point were able to sow mines from the air (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.129). Pfeffer would return to the region in command of a different submarine, U-170 in March of 1944. Kapitänleutnant Günther Pfeffer survived the mining of his boat. A member of the Crew of 1934 went on to sink only one more ship aside from this patrol, for a career total of 22,304. He was the commissioning officer of U-171 at Bremen in October 1941. He also commissioned U-170. Pfeffer was awarded the U-boat War Badge in 1939. In 1944 he moved the U-548 from France to Norway to Germany. Pfeffer lived until the age of 51, passing in Bonn in 1966 after attaining the rank of Fregattenkapitän in the Bundesmarine. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 94 U-458 Diggins 13-Jul-1942 11 Kapitänleutnant Kurt Diggins brought his submarine U-458 patrolling north and northwest of Bermuda for 11 days in July of 1942. The incursion began to the northeast of the island on the 13th of July, with U-458 on a southwest course. Then Diggins turned west for three days and exited the area on the 17th of July to the now fruitless and well protected coast off Hatteras. On the 22nd of July U-458 returned northwest of Bermuda, this time heading east, until the 24th. By the 25th the sub was heading north, which it continued to due until it left the area north of Bermuda on the 27th of July. This was the first of U-458’s seven war patrols. It began for the 3rd U-boat Flotilla on the 21st of June in Kiel, Germany and ended in Saint Nazaire France on the 27th of August, 1942. Just over a week into the patrol Diggins sank the Norwegian motor ship Mosfruit of 2,714 tons in the Central North Atlantic. U-460 refueled U-458 shortly thereafter. While Diggins was off Hatteras as one of the last seven U-boats to patrol that area, the submarine was ordered withdrawn from the region by headquarters. This order resulted in part from the recent losses of U-214 and U-576 in the area. U-458 headed north to the waters off Nova Scotia. After chasing a convoy in conjunction with U-754, that submarine was sunk and U-458 was attacked and damaged by Canadian Hudsons on the 31st of July. Despite these countermeasures Diggins managed to sink the British tanker Arletta of 4,870 tons off Newfoundland. She set off back to France on in the middle of August and returned on the 27th of the month. Kurt Diggins was born in 1913 and was a member of the Crew of 1934. Originally he served as an Aide-de-Camp aboard the Admiral Graf Spee, and was subsequently interned when the ship was scuttled in a famous naval action off Uruguay. He made it back to Germany by stowing away on a steamer and pretending to be Romanian, and enrolled with a minesweeping flotilla until joining U-boats in April 1941. He commissioned U-458 in December 1941 and led her on seven patrols of 170 days, many of them in the Mediterranean. U-458 was sunk by MS Easton and the Greek escort destroyer Pindos on the 22nd of August, 1943 off Pantelleria Italy. Though eight men were killed, 39 survived and Diggins was amongst them. He was taken Prisoner of War between until September 1947. Over his career all of Diggins’ sinkings were achieved on this patrol – two ships of 7,584 tons. He was awarded the Iron Cross First Class as well as the Italian Bronze Medal for Valor. Kurt Diggins lived until March, 2007 and the age of 94. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 95 U-161 Achilles 16-Jul-1942 5 On the 11th of July Kapitänleutnant Albrecht Achilles brought the boat synonymous with his name, the Type IXC U-161, back into the region for his second patrol around Bermuda. Coming from the Caribbean U-161 headed steadily northeast from a position south of Bermuda, between when it sank the US steamer Fairport on the 16th of July 1942 to the 20th, when it exited just east of Bermuda northbound for France. Earlier in this patrol the boat had entered in the Windward Passage and chose to go past the southeast coast of Inagua and along the Turks & Caicos Islands and the Caicos Passage to break back out into the Atlantic. On her way into the region U-161 was reported (by Cressman, Kelshall, and Wynn, Vol. 1, pp.124-125) to have dispatched the small American 35-ton schooner Cheerio in the Mona Passage off Puerto Rico on the 20th of July, however this is incorrect, as the U-107 sank the Cheerio. On that day U-161 rendezvoused with U-159 well south of the Mona Passage and received fuel and food for torpedoes. For the next few days the boat steamed steadily northeastwards, pausing only long enough to dispatch the US ship Fairport, part of convoy AS 4, loaded with supplies for the North Africa campaign against General Irwin Rommel. The sinking took place on the 17th of July, and by the following day U-161 exited the region south of Bermuda and homeward bound for Lorient, where it returned to the Second Flotilla. It was the boat’s third of six patrols and was extraordinary for its length: 102 days from April 28th to August 7th. At the outset, having left Lorient on the 28th of April, U-161 shadowed the SL 109 convoy off the Cape Verde Islands, then went to patrol the coast of Brazil, followed by Trinidad. Later in the patrol U-161 performed one of its characteristically daring probes into the port of Porto Limon, Costa Rica, where it sank the San Pablo. The return on this patrol was about 100 GRT a day, or a total of 9,500 including the two other ships hit: the Dominican Nueva Altagracia of 30 tons struck on 16th June and the Panamanian San Pablo of 3,305 tons on the 3rd of July. She was a total constructive loss. On the return voyage U-161 refueled from U-461 west of the Azores and made Lorient on the 7th of August 1942. Albrecht Achilles was born in 1914 and a member of the Crew of 1934. After serving aboard the school ship Schleswig-Holstein he became signals officer on board the Gneisenau, a battleship. He joined U-boats from the Murwik academy in April 1940. Then he made three patrols under Zapp in U-66 until November 1941. He assumed command of U-161 in January 1942 and was very active in the Caribbean. Achilles was Kapitänleutnant at the time but promoted posthumously in April 1945 to Korvettenkapitän. Over six patrols in U-161 he accrued 435 days and daringly penetrated the defenses of both Port-of-Spain Trinidad and Castries Saint Lucia, utilizing his watch officer’s experience as a merchant marine officer. His career total was an impressive 20 ships sunk or damaged (6 damaged), for 105,664 tons. For this he was awarded the Knights Cross in January 1943. On 27 September 1943 U-161 was caught by a US Navy Mariner aircraft off Bahia, Brazil and sunk with all hands, Achilles amongst them. He was 29 years of age. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Robert J. Cressman, The Official Chronology of the US Navy in World War II, 2000, Gaylord Kelshall, The U-Boat War in the Caribbean, 1994 96 U-509 Wolff 20-Jul-1942 1 Fregattenkapitän Karl-Heinz Wolff only dipped off the southeast corner of the Bermuda box for a day, on the 20th of July 1942. Overall on this patrol no ships were sighted or sunk by Type IXC U-509. Like Beucke he too was replaced on arrival, in his case by Werner Witte, about whom we will see more later. It was the boat’’s first patrol of four – in the other patrols she would accumulate 56,234 tons of Allied shipping before her demise after 276 patrol days in July 1943. Wolff’s patrol to the area began roughly halfway between Bermuda and Anegada and was a straight course to the Mona Passage lasting only five days, from the 21st to the 25th of July. Once inside the Caribbean the boat made for the Yucatan, patrolled north of Havana, and then swung east to patrol off the northeastern Caribbean near Guadeloupe before returning to Lorient for the Tenth Flotilla after a patrol of 80 days. Leaving Kiel on the 25th of June, U-509 refueled from U-460 north of the Azores in early July. On the 2nd of August the boat was attacked by a Catalina from Guantanamo and damaged by depth charges. She returned to base on the 12th of September having not struck any ships (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.327). Fregattenkapitän Karl-Heinz Wolff (he was promoted in April 1944) led only one patrol in U-boats. A member of the Crew of 1928 he received no decorations. He lived until age 60, passing away in June 1970. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 97 U-508 Staats 21-Jul-1942 8 Kapitänleutnant Georg Staats brought U-508 to the Bermuda region for eight days between the 21st of July 1942 and the 28th, gradually making his way southwest from northeast. For the first four days the sub back-tracked roughly 300 miles northeast of the island, going west, east and back again. Then it headed southweast to exit the region south-southwest of the island on the 28th of July. This patrol was a first for U-508 and its commander George Staats, only with slightly more positive outcome: two ships were sunk on the patrol and the commander was able to keep the submarine for the ensuring five patrols until both of their demise at the hand of the Allies. U-508, a Type IXC out of the Tenth Flotilla in Lorient arrived in the region south of Bermuda on the 26th of July and took the familiar route to the Crooked Island Passage by heading southwest for the next five days. On the 31st the sub rounded Acklins Island between there and Mayaguana, leaving the Plana Cays also to starboard. Then, leaving Inagua well off to port, it rounded the Ragged Island chain and proceeded up the Old Bahama Channel on the 1st of August. After heading up that narrow funnel of water for three days Staats encountered the Special Convoy SC 12 off Key West Florida, between there, the Cay Sal Bank and Cuba. It sank two Cuban vessels from the convoy, the Santiago de Cuba of 1,685 tons and the Manzanillo of 1,025 tons before escaping off to the US Gulf to the west. Tweaking the nose of the nearby American Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW) forces in Key West, U-508 continue to patrol the area roughly between Havana and Key West for the next two weeks, from the 4rth to 18th of August, before returning to the zone around the Bahamas on the 19th. Again it proceeded along the length of the Old Bahama Channel, this time southbound from the Saint Nicholas Channel. When the sub reached Inagua again on the 23rd it did not transit the Crooked Island Passage as it had at the outset – rather Staats opted to sail along the north coast of Haiti and Hispaniola and egress the region east of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Between the 24th and 27th the sub headed northeast out of the area and back to Lorient. Like U-509 on a maiden voyage before it, the patrol had originated in Kiel Germany. Having left Kiel on the 25th of June (the same day as U-509), U-508 also received fuel from U-460 north of the Azores in early July. She attacked a ship without damaging it north of Cuba on the 6th of August. She returned to her new base in Lorient on the 15th of September 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.326). Kapitänleutnant Georg Staats had attained that rank only in April of the same year, three months before beginning the patrol. He would go on to command U-508 exclusively for six patrols of 294 days, sinking fourteen ships for 74,087 GRT. In July of 1943 Staats was awarded the Knights Cross. As alluded to, they both went to the bottom of the Bay of Biscay on the 12th of November 1943 with all crew, victim of bombs from an American Liberator aircraft north of Cape Ortegal Spain. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 98 U-658 Senkel 28-Jul-1942 10 Kapitänleutnant Hans Senkel of U-658 spent ten days south-southeast of Bermuda basically waiting to refuel from U-463 between the 28th of July and the 7th of August. Its refueling complete, U-658 headed for a successful patrol off the Windward Passage, exiting the Bermuda area. The next boat into the area would linger in the Bahamas for a total of 30 days, mostly in and around the Crooked Island Passage. Like those subs which immediately preceded it, the VIIC boat U-658 was on its first patrol (of two) and sailed to the Bahamas directly from Kiel Germany. Her commander was Hans Senkel and based on the two sinkings of 18,612 tons on this 68-day patrol for the Sixth Flotilla he would be allowed to keep the boat at least until its next, fatal patrol. Retracing U-658’s patrol in the area is rather complex due to sudden turns and an intense crisscrossing patrols of the Crooked Island Passage. On the 29th of July the sub entered the region on a customary track to the southwest and the Windward Passage. Between the 1st of August and the 4th the skipper painted a rough rectangle north of Puerto Rico and south of Bermuda in which he was obviously making a “box”-type patrol in the open sea. Resuming its course the sub then went northwest towards Hatterass until the 6th, at which point Senkel turned south for Haiti, where it arrived on the 10th, having passed to the east of the Turks & Caicos. On the 15th the sub touched the entrance to the Old Bahama Channel before doubling back for the Windward Passage, where it sank one ship on the 13th (the Medea, near Cape Maysi Cuba and not far from Inagua) and attacked three others on the 17th. All of the ships sunk on this patrol – Medea, Laguna (damaged), Fort la Riene, and Samir – were sunk in the Windward Passage between Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti and were thus outside the immediate area covered. The return trip of U-658 to Saint Nazaire via the Bahamas is no less complex, but is much more interesting since Senkel seems to have made a very determined effort to flush prey out of the islands and their channels. On the 18th of August U-658 rounded Inagua to the west of Matthew Town and headed northeast out of the Crooked Island Passage. The following day he turned 90 degrees east to a point off Acklins, where on the 20th the boat turned southeast to a point off Little Inagua on the 21st. Then the sub turned southwest again for a day to a point south of Castle Island Light. On the evening of the same day Senkel headed northeast and out of the channel, to the northwest of Mayaguana. From here a sharp turn to the southeast brought the sub to a point off Anegada on the 26th of August. Not to rest on his laurels, Senkel then doubled back to the northwest to a point off the Mona Passage where finally on the 27th of August he turned northeast for home. He exited the area on the 28th of August roughly midway Bermuda and Anegada, bound for St. Nazaire. This patrol was also the first for U-558, though it was more successful than those of U-508 and U-509. Having left Kiel on the 7th of July, the boat was refueled by U-463 west of the Azores late the same month. On the return leg U-658 refueled, supposedly by U-462, west of the Azores. She arrived in her new base at Saint Nazaire on the 12th of September 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.112). A member of the Crew of 33, Kapitänleutnant Hans Senkel’s only successes against the enemy were during this patrol. He received no decorations and a promotion to Korvettenkapitän was posthumous, as he and the entire crew were killed by a Canadian Hudson aircraft east of Newfoundland on 30 October 1942 – the month after they returned from the Bahama patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 99 U-510 Neitzel 29-Jul-1942 9 Fregattenkapitän Karl Neitzel led the next patrol to the southeastern fringe of the area between 29 July and 6 August, 1942. During this time the sub managed, during complex maneuvers over nine days, to sink the Argentinian ship Maldonado on the 2nd of August. From the 29th to the 1st the boat proceeded southwest roughly 400 miles southeast of Bermuda. Then it turned north to intercept the Maldonado, then east till the 3rd, then west, and finally south on the 6th of August, on which day it left the area to enter the Bahamas and Caribbean theaters. Nietzel was commander in charge of the IXC-type boat U-510 which entered the area westbound from Lorient on the 29th of July. Like Senkel before him, at first the boat’s trajectory was the normal southwest route to the Windward Passage, then Neitzel doubled back the following day and painted a box on the sea surface, the northwest corner of which was the sinking of the Maldonado, a neutral from Uruguay of 5,285 which was dispatched on the 2nd of August. Like the sinking of the Montevideo by the Tazzoli earlier, this incident inflamed Uruguayan sentiment against the Germans and pried that country and others further away from neutrality in the conflict. In fact Neitzel opted to take the master of the Maldonado captive, which could not have further endeared him to Uruguay’s public. After that U-510 steamed east until the 4th of August, then back west to just east of the line between Bermuda and Anegada, and finally on the 5th Neitzel set a straight course south- southeast to a point just east of Anegada. His other victims on this patrol (out of the area) were the Alexia, damaged on the 10th of August (and towed to Puerto Rico) and the Cressington Court nine days later – both British-flagged, and 8,016 and 4,971 tons respectively. This was U-510’s first patrol, originating in Kiel on the 7th of July. She was refueled later that month by U-463 west of the Azores. On the 18th of August Nietzel claimed to have attacked a steamer east of the Caribbean. On the 20th U-510 made a rendezvous with U-155, which had been damaged in an attack and could not dive. The two boats moved eastwards together. Despite another rendezvous with U-460, U-155 still could not submerge and so U-510 escorted the boat most of the way home, arriving in Lorient on the 13th of September 1942 with no further attacks (Wynn, Vol. 1, p. 327). Of the boat’s following seven patrols before her surrender in France, Neitzel would command three of them and Alfred Eick the balance. The boat would go on to become a “Monsun Boat” and be taken to Penang, Malaysia, Singapore, Kobe Japan and Batavia (now Jakarta) Indonesia before returning to France in 1945. She would accrue 574 patrol days and 148,976 tons of Allied shipping attacked. Nietzel began in the King’s Navy in 1917 on torpedo boats. Born on 30 January 1901 he was the oldest skipper of any commanded in the Bahamas and was 41 years of age on the patrol in question. He gave up command of the First Minesweeper Flotilla to join U-boats in February 1941 and commissioned U-510 in November of that year. On one attack on a convoy he sank three ships and damaged five for over 54,000 tons in just three hours. Neitzel’s total tonnage including damaged ships would reach over 75,000 tons. He was promoted to Fregattenkapitän and then Kapitän zur See in 1943, and was awarded the Knights Cross in March of 1943. He moved back to shore command in May 1943 and was in command of a Marine – Grenadier regiment (number seven) at the end of the war, at which point he spent seven months in captivity. He was to live until the age of 65 in 1966. His patrol would be the last to enter in the busy months of June and July. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 100 U-598 Holtorf 29-Jul-1942 12 Korvettenkapitän Gottfried Holtorff led the next incursion into the area aboard the Type VIIC U-598. There were two legs to Hotlotff’s patrol around Bermuda. The first portion lasted from 29 July to 5 August and involved refueling from U-463 southeast of the island. U-598’s course was generally southwest during this time, though there were jogs to the south in order to keep the rendezvous. Having attacked ships in the Windward Passage and Old Bahama Channel the sub then returned on the 25th of August on its homeward bound leg, heading northeast from a position southwest of Bermuda, and exiting on the 28th of August 1942 for France. Like most boats he entered the area midway between Bermuda and Anegada, bound southwest towards the Windward Passage, and like other recent submarines he had sailed directly from Kiel on the boat’s first of four patrols. Two days before entering the area it met with U-463, a Milch Cow, or floating gas station, in the mid-Atlantic at 28.03N / 58.54W. During the fueling operations machinist Willi Bredereck was diving on the hydroplanes and propellers and was drowned. Entering on the 7th of August U-598 steamed for the northwest of Mayaguana, at which point, on the 10th of August, turned south sharply and entered the Crooked Island Passage. Reaching Cape Maysi Cuba south of Inagua the following day, Holtorff made a 90 degree turn to the right, or west, and proceeded up (and later down) the Old Bahama Channel. While there, on the 14th of August he engaged in one of the most successful single-handed attacks on a convoy in the region when he sank or badly damaged three ships in the space of an hour or so in Convoy TAW (Trinidad – Aruba – Key West) 123. Holtorff was apparently so brazen that he carried out his attacks on the flagship of the convoy not only at dawn but audaciously on the surface as well. In what could be called the Battle of Ragged Island, U-598 pinned the Empire Corporal, Standella, and Michael Jebsen up against the back end of the Ragged Island chain on the northern (or Bahamas) end of the channel, and picked off the three ships one by one. Even though one of the vessels (the Standella) was repaired and put back in service it was an impressive series of attacks. Total tonnage was 15,492: for the damage to Standella of 6,197 tons, and the destruction of the Empire Corporal of 6,972 tons and Michael Jebsen of 2,223 tons respectively. All ships were British and the flagship was intentionally hit, meaning the convoy became in effect rudderless. The convoy scattered in confusion, eventually repairing to Guantanamo. Showing his apparent contempt for the Allied defenses in nearby Guantanamo, Holtorff turned around at the end of his run up the Old Bahama Channel and in the Saint Nicholas channel on the 16th he proceded back to the site of his earlier sinkings, arriving there on the 21st of August after a leisurely cruise in the passages adjacent to the Bahamas of nearly a week. Returning to the waters of Inagua on the 22nd, U-598 kept going as far as Cape Mole, the northwest tip of Haiti, before backtracking to the Crooked Island Passage, which it transited on the 23rd of August. For the next five days he motored northeast back towards Saint Nazaire, exiting the area south of Bermuda on the 28th of August. This was the boat’s first patrol, having left Kiel on the 7th of July. U-598 was again refueled, this time by U-462 west of the Azores. She arrived at her new base of Saint Nazaire on the 13th of December, 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.68). A member of the Crew of 1936, Gottfried Holtorff was promoted to Kapitänleutnant during this patrol – on the 1st of September 1942 – and Korvettenkapitän less than a year later. He was aged 30 at the time of this patrol. Over his naval career the three ships he sank or damaged off Ragged Island Bahamas accounted for his career total of Allied tonnage. He led four patrols of 211 days before being caught by two Allied Liberator aircraft off Natal Brazil and sunk on the 23rd of July 1943. There were two survivors – Holtorff was not among them. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 101 U-463 Wolfbauer 31-Jul-1942 20 Korvettenkapitän Leo Wolfbauer commanded one of Germany’s innovations – the refueling tanker submarine U-463 which was also known as a “milch-kuh” or “milk cow” as it provided liquid sustenance to other U-boats in faraway battle zones. On this particular patrol – Wolfbauer’s first one in command of this vessel – the submarine refueled a number of colleagues southeast of Bermuda. Because the rendezvous’ were essential to so many U-boats which patrolled around Bermuda, the tanker is included here although it was not actively pursuing Allied ships – much as other subs which deposited saboteurs and mined US ports are included. The patrol began in Kiel Germany for the 10th U-boat Flotilla on the 11th of July 1942. U-463 entered the Bermuda area on the 31st of July east of the island and made steady progress southwest. It reached and area between 400 and 500 miles south-southeast of Bermuda and remained there for over a week, between the 3rd of August and the 13th, refueling U-boats. In the course of this one patrol U-463 provided fuel, medical treatment, fresh food, and other equipment to the following dozen U-boats: U-164, U-217, U-510, U-564, U-598, U-600, U-654, U-658 (all to continue their patrols) and for their returns to Europe U-84, U-129, U-134 and U-154. Her job complete and the tanks most likely empty, U-463 commenced her own return voyage about the 16th of August, leaving the Bermuda region to the southeast of the island on the 29th of August. She made it back to her new base in Saint Nazaire on the third of September 1942. Wolfbauer was the only submarine commander in this study to have been born in the 1800’s, making him the oldest skipper out of 143 patrols. At the time he took U-463 on this patrol he was 46 years of age, and turned 47 on 21 July, ten days before his tanker, or “milk cow” entered the region on the 31st of July. Starting in 1913 Wolfbauer originally served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy as a Korvettenkapitän. He served in the First World War as a Third Officer of the submarine U-29 in 1917, then as Second Officer until the Armstice. He joined German U-boats in March 1940 and commissioned U-463 in February 1942. He and the entire crew of 57 men were lost when surprised by a British Handley Page airplane in the Bay of Biscay south of the Scilly Islands in western England on the 16th of May 1943. Since his submarine was a supply tanker there were no ships hit by Wolfbauer in his career during WWII which covered five patrols and 204 days from July 1942 to May 1943. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 102 U-98 Schulze 1-Aug-1942 9 U-98 under Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Schulze returned to the region for a unique mine-laying operation on the 5th of August. The sub transited the north of Bermuda twice – both inbound and outbound – for a total of nine days. First U-98 headed west from August 1, 1942 until the 5th and exited in the direction of Hatteras on that day. Then on the 27th of the same month Schulze returned, reaching a point north of the island on the 28th before heading northeast until the 30th, when it again exited, this time northeast of Bermuada. After transiting north of Bermuda U-98 entered the Bahamas and Florida areas between Bermuda and Savannah on a course southwest for the Jacksonville, Florida area. Crucially, U-98 laid twelve mines off Jacksonville, Florida on the 9th of August. The delicate mine-laying operation might explain the dearth of other targets the submarine attacked, as the safety of the mines from depth charging would have been paramount in the captain’s mind. On the 10th of August – just one day after the mine field was laid – it claimed its first and only victim: the US armed merchant cruiser Bold (AMC 97) which struck a mine off Jacksonville and necessitated a shutdown of the river until the mines could be cleared some time later. The USS Bold was 185 tons and was repaired and returned to service. U-98 continued back from whence it came, crossing into the waters off South Carolina on the 11th of August and out of the area after a patrol in the region of just six days. Unlike some mine fields which never sank any ships, that laid by Schulze was effective inasmuch as the enemy learned of it immediately and was forced to take costly counter-measures. Mines were effectively a tool of terror and confusion rather than of a strict tonnage war. When the Allies used them – off Hatteras and off Key West as we shall see – mines often claimed more “friendly victims” than the enemy (the US destroyer Sturtevant sunk in an Allied minefield off Key West being a prime example). At least half a dozen ships were lost to Allied mines off the eastern and US Gulf seaboards and no Axis submarines were sunk or damaged by them there. It would not be the only mining operation of any port in the Bahamas “rectangle”, as San Juan Puerto Rico was mined by U-218 in 1944, to no effect. U-98 began its patrol in St. Nazaire on the 14th of July. On her return from her second patrol to Florida the boat was refueled by U-462 late in August west of the Azores. She returned to France on the 16th of September, 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.79). Born in 1909 and possibly still alive in 2013, Wilhelm Schulze received no decorations during his career. He was a member of the Crew of 1928 and accrued 133 patrol days on U-177 and U-98. The USS Bold is his only confirmed enemy damage inflicted, achieved via mines. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 103 U-564 Suhren 2-Aug-1942 4 Reinhardt ‘Teddy’ Suhren was next to return to the region, again on U-564 for its second patrol. It lasted only four days, from the 2nd of August until the 5th. All days were in the southeast corner of the box around Bermuda, first going west, then southwest, and finally south until it encountered a Swedish neutral and left the region the same day. Like Neitzel it would be a brief incursion which occurred largely to the far eastern perimeter of the region and would involve only one incident of note. On the 3rd of August Suhren brought U-564 just within the boundaries of the area between Bermuda and Anegada, and on the 4th he turned south towards Anegada. The following day he stopped the Swedish neutral steamer Scania on the high seas and carried out one of the rare detailed “stop and frisks” of the Second World War – it fired a shot across the clearly marked “neutral” ship, requested an officer bring the ships’ cargo manifest papers over, and then, convinced by the first Watch Officer Lund that the cargo was genuinely neutral (Scania was destined for neutral Brazil) he let the ship sail. Suhren continued southwards and exited the area east of Anegada on the 8th of August. (The Scania was not so fortunate when encountered by Rainer Dierksen in U-176 on 13th of December the same year; she was sunk just north of the Equator carrying hides and wool from Montevideo to Philadelphia). This patrol began in Brest on the 9th of July. On the 18th U-564 was called to pursue convoy OS 34 north of the Azores. This resulted in Suhren sinking the Empire Hawksbill of 5,724 tons and the Lavington Court of 5,372 tons – both British. The next day the boat resumed its patrol and in late July was refueled by U-463 west of the Azores (Wynn, Vol. 2, p. 39). On the 19th of August Suhren came across convoy TAW (S) south of Grenada and sank the British Consul (6,940 tons) and the Empire Cloud (5,969 tons) – again both British flagged. On the 30th she sank the Norwegian tanker Vardaas of 8,176 tons north of Tobago. The submarine returned to Brest on the 18th of September 1942. The accomplishments of Suhren (twenty-three ships for over 125,351 sunk or damaged) are well documented. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 104 U-654 Forster 4-Aug-1942 6 U-654 under Oberleutnant zur See Ludwig Forster led a patrol of six days into the Bermuda region between the 4tth of August and the 10th, following which the boat was lost off Panama. This is one of the few patrols where the boat came right up against Saint David’s Light, Bermuda – probably to obtain a navigational fix – on the eight of August 1942. Originally Forster entered southeast of the island, headed west, then southwest, then north. After a fly-by of southeast Bermuda the boat headed south-southwest for two days ad exited towards the Caribbean on the tenth of August. The sub took the conventional route from Lorient to Panama via the Windward Passage. On the 10th of August U-654 rounded the southern end of the Turks & Caicos Islands and the following day passed the northwest coast of Haiti to port and entered the Windward Passage southbound. There were no Allied ships sunk on this patrol, which began on the 11th of July 1942 and was the 8th by U-654. While en route away from Europe the boat was vectored to convoy OS 34 along with other boats, but only U-564 succeeded in sinking ships before the subs were chased away by escorting aircraft. U-654 was refueled west of the Azores by U-463 in late July. There would be no return voyage as the sub was sunk off Panama north of Colon on 22nd August by depth charges from a US B 18 bomber piloted by Lt. P. A. Koenig. All 44 hands were lost (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.111). Oberleutnant zur See Ludwig Forster was a member of the Crew of 1936 who earned the Iron Cross Second Class in September 1939. Hit total tally was three ships sunk for 17,755 GRT and one warship sunk for 900 tons. He effected four war patrols in command of U-654 over 162 days in the First Flotilla out of Brest. He was 26 years of age when killed of Panama on 22 August 1942 in the Caribbean Sea north of Colon. All 44 men perished when a US B-18 Digby aircraft attacked the submarine. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 105 U-600 Zurmuhlen 5-Aug-1942 9 Kapitänleutnant Bernhard Zurmühlen in the Type VIIC boat U-600 led the next attack on the region, spending a total of nine days transiting the box around Bermuda both inbound and outbound. He entered the area on the 5th until the 8th of August 1942 southeast of Bermuda and headed southwest for the Windward Passage. After circumnavigating the island of Cuba Zurmühlen returned on the sub’s homeward leg on the first of September for five days heading northeast. By the fifth U-600 was clear of the region, also southeast of the island, and bound back to France. U-600 then took the southern route between the Turks & Caicos Islands and the Dominican Republic. On the 10th of August he paused long enough to dispatch the Barbadian schooner Vivian P. Smith, built in Canada, about which the author has dug up a trove of information. The sinking – by gunfire northeast of Grand Turk – did not take long and the sub proceeded inwards. The crew of the Vivian made it to the Turks & Caicos, where fishermen aided them. Meanwhile, Zurmühlen arrived off the mouth of the passage on the 12th of August. U-600 was called to convoy TAW 12 by U-658 under Holtorff and attacked in league with U-598. This resulted indirectly in the sinking of the Delmundo and Everelza just on the border with the Bahamas area. The following day just inside the Windward Passage between Haiti and Guantanamo U-600 sank the American passenger ship Delmundo and Latvian freighter Everleza in an attack on their convoy. Though the Everleza was blown sky-high when her cargo ignited, several crew survived, and though the master of the Delmundo made it to shore, he later died. For the next week U-600 began a circumnavigation of the large island of Cuba – the bedrock of the Greater Antilles. The boat then cruised up the Old Bahama channel until the 21st of August, at which point it exited the Bahamas area between Key West and Havana. Continuing onward Zurmühlen’s chart of his patrol (retrieved from the archives) shows that he rounded the western point of the island, cruised south of the Isle of Pines, and re-entered the Windward Passage between Guantanamo and Jamaica on the 28th of August. As to the question of whether or not U-600 could have – or actually did – sink the schooner Sande on the north coast of Cuba near Nuevitas on or about the 30th of August, this seems doubtful from the submarine’s track, as by that time it had rounded Inagua (on the 29th) and transited the Crooked Island Passage. On the 30th the boat emerged from the channels and made northeast for La Pallice (she had originally left from Kiel and this was the first of six patrols like others preceding her). On the 3rd of September U-600 exited the area homeward bound. The patrol had begun on the 14th of July and ended on the 22nd of September, 1942. En route to the Caribbean U-600 was refueled by U-463 west of the Azores in early August. By way of punishment, on the 23rd of August the submarine was sighted in the Windward Passage by an American Catalina and depth-charged and damaged. U-600 was refueled again on the way home by U-462 west of the Azores in early September (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.69). Kapitänleutnant Zurmühlen was a member of the Class of 1933 and worked with radios on a battleship and in signals on shore before joining U-boats in March 1941. He was serving under von Tiesenhausen on U-331 when the boat sank the British battleship HMS Barham in the Mediterranean in November 1941. He commissioned U-600 as its first (and only) commander in December 1941. The patrol to the Bahamas was its first patrol and the Vivian P Smith the boat and commander’s first Allied sinking. Zurmühlen’s total tonnage sunk amounted to five ships of 28,600 tons and a further three ships damaged for 19,230 tons. He was 32 years of age at the time of this patrol. His highest decoration, the following year was the German Cross in Gold. He was promoted Korvettenkapitän three weeks before his death in November 1943. U-600 was sunk near Ponta Delgada, Azores by the British destroyers Bazley and Blackwood on the 25th of November, 1943. The boat took all 54 hands with it to the bottom. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 106 U-505 Löwe 7-Aug-1942 3 Korvettenkapitän Axel-Olaf Löwe utilized the area southeat of Bermuda to refuel from U-463 between the 7th and 9th of August, 1942. During these three days the boat simply nipped the southeast corner of the box around the island before proceeding homeward to France. U-505 was later to become famous for its capture whole by the Americans and for spending years in Bermuda as a highly prized secret during the war. It is now on display in the Museum of Science in Chicago. U-505 under Alex-Olaf Löwe (also spelt Loewe), a Type IXC boat, entered the Bahamas region between Bermuda and Anegada on the 30th of June 1942 and proceeded on a southwesterly course for three days, as though headed for the Windward Passage. However on the 2nd of July U-505 took a sharp left turn and steamed instead for the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, which it reached and transited inward for the Caribbean on the 3rd. It sank two ships of note on its brief incursion: the Thomas McKean and the Sea Thrush – both of them just to the east of the border with the area. On the 28th of July the 5,447 ton Sea Thrush was sunk by torpedo, with the Thomas McKean following her the next day – she was 7,191. Both were American flagged, and the Thomas McKean, loaded as she was with planes and tanks on deck, made for extraordinary photographs by the U-boat crew as she burned and sank. U-505 also sank the Urious (ex-Mayflower), a Colombian schooner of 153 tons, off the Panama Canal on the 22nd of July, bringing total tonnage for the eighty-day patrol of and for Lorient to 12,791. The Urious was variously reported as the Roamar of 110 tons – Wynn, Vol. 1, p.323. Hans Goebeler in his memoir Steel Boats and Iron Hearts calls the victim Roamar and details the captain’s reservations about having to sink the neutral schooner. The solution to the riddle is simple. The owners of the boat were Eladio Rodriguez, Pablo Arango and Señor Martinez of Barranquilla. By putting the first letter or two of their last names together they came up with the name of the company which operated the three-masted schooner: ROAMAR. Evidently, though the lifeboat managed to get away all thirteen were killed. Dönitz did not approve of the attack on a harmless neutral. Shortly after the attack on the schooner, Löwe requested permission to return to base due to acute pain. On the return to base on the 25th of August the commander had his apendix removed (Ibid.). On the way to Biscay U-505 met with U-214 under Günther Reeder and gave the outgoing boat her surplus fuel and supplies. Wynn reports that in the Caribbean the sub was forced to dive due to aircraft 30 times, though these aircraft actually attacked only once. Only 498 hours were spent under water, the overwhelming balance of 12,842 hours were spent motoring on the surface, indicating a general lack of fear of Allied attack (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.323). A member of the Crew of 1928, Korvettenkapitän Axel-Olaf Löwe joined the Reichsmarine in 1928 and after staff positions joined the U-boat arm in November 1940, starting with a patrol under Kentrat on U-74. He commissioned U-505 in August 1941 and during over one year of command sank seven ships of nearly 38,000 tons. This patrol was the third of twelve patrols for the boat in the Second Flotilla. Löwe’s successor Harald Lange was in command when she was captured by the Allies in the Central Atlantic and towed to Bermuda in mid-1944. From 1944 to April 1945 he served under Albert Speer in the ministry for armament and production before being detained and released by the Allies. Löwe survived the war to live until 1984 and the age of 75. He received no decorations or promotions. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Hans Goebeler, Steel Boats and Iron Hearts: A U-Boat Crewman’s Life Aboard U-505, 2008, Theodore P. Savas, Hunt and Kill: U-505 and the U-boat War in the Atlantic, 2004, squidoo.com/U-for-U-505. 107 U-164 Fechner 8-Aug-1942 6 U-164 under Korvettenkapitän Otto Fechner took a customary course from south of Bermuda to the Mona Passage in just four days, starting on the 8th August 1942 and exiting on the 13th. The entire time the sub took a southwesterly course, from east-northeast of the island to east-southeast. Around the 12th of August U-164 refuelled from U-653 before continuing its patrol. Shortly after exiting the Bermuda and Bahamas area for the Caribbean two ships were encountered: the John A. Holloway, Canadian of 1,745 tons, and Stad Amsterdam, Dutch of 3,780 tons. The third victim, the Swedish Brageland of 2,608 tons, he sank later on New Year’s Day 1943, which was to be the week of his and the boat’s demise. The patrol began in Kiel on the 18th of July, 1942. On the way out U-164 stumbled upon convoy ON 115 off Greenland. Along with U-210, U-217, U-511 and U-553, U-164 took part in the Pirat patrol line. Then she broke off to be refueled by U-463 west of the Azores. On the 19th of August U-164 made contact with convoy TAW (S) north of Trinidad but to no effect. Ten days later it was attacked by a Hudson and escaped with minor bruising. A depth-charge attack by a USAF bomber on the 13th of September resulted in ruptured fuel tanks. As a result the boat was refueled again by U-461 northwest of the Azores, and arrived in its new base of Lorient on the 7th of October, 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.126). A member of the Crew of 1924, Fechner completed two patrols of 121 days before being sunk. The boat was assigned the Tenth Flotilla of Lorient, where this patrol ended, however it originated in Kiel, Germany so can be viewed as an extended positioning patrol from the Baltic to the Atlantic. Otto Fechner was Korvettenkapitän at the time of this patrol and almost as old as Nietzel inasmuch as he was 37 year of age. His decorations culminated with the U-boat War Badge of 1939. His total sinkings were three ships of 8,133 tons. Thirty-nine days into his next and final patrol, U-164 was surprised by a US Catalina airplane off the coast of South America and sunk on the 6th of January 1943. Only two out of a crew of 54 survived, and Fechner was not one of them. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 108 U-217 Reichenbach-Klinke 8-Aug-1942 6 U-217 under Oberleutnant zur See Kurt Reichenbach-Klinke was the next to enter the region on the 8th of August 1942. His tracke was basically identical to that of U-164 before him. On the 8th of August the sub passed east-northeast of Bermuda heading southwest for six days until the 13th, when it exited toewards the Caribbean. Like its predecessor the submarine also refueled from U-463 to the south-southeast of Bermuda. As mentioned, U-217 took the most-traveled route, from south of Bermuda and north of Anegada southwest. Instead of opting for the Windward Passage Reichenbach-Klinke entered the Caribbean through the Mona Passage three days later, on the 16th of August. U-217’s patrol in the Caribbean was unsuccessful insomuch as its only contact with the enemy was to be attacked by Allied aircraft. The U-boat was in the midst of attacking the schooner Sea Gull D. off Venezuela at the time. Two more aircraft succeeding in dropping more depth-charges on the 19th of August which damaged the boat. She was able to carry out repairs and continued an unsuccessful patrol back to Brest. This long patrol began in Kiel on the 14th of July and would include not one but two re-fuelings. In order to chase convoy ON 115 south of Greenland U-217 formed a patrol line with other boats which was named Pirat, for pirate. The submarine entered the Caribbean region in league with U-164, U-511, and U-553, and obtained fuel from U-463 west of the Azores in early August (Wynn, Vol.1, p.159). After transiting into the Caribbean U-217 entered the harbor at Willemstad Curacao on a daring but unsuccessful attack on the tanker Esso Concord. On her way back from a patrol off Trinidad the boat received fuel from U-461 northwest of the Azores. She arrived at her new base in Brest for the first time on the 16th of October, 1942. Oberleutnant zur See Reichenbach-Klinke was a member of the Crew of 1935 and was aged 25 at the time of this patrol. Later in the year he would achieve the rank of Kapitänleutnant. His total bag of enemy ships was three sunk for 10,651 over 235 patrol days. He received no decorations. U-217 was sunk in the mid-Atlantic on 5th June 1943 after being depth-charged by an American Avenger aircraft from the USS Card. All 50 hands including Reichenbach-Klinke were killed. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 109 U-511 Steinhoff 9-Aug-1942 6 Kapitänleutnant Freidrich Steinhoff of U-511 was a talented former merchant marine officer, in command of U-511. Entering the area south of Bermuda on the 9th of August he motored west for four days until the 12th. Then the sub jogged east until the 13th in order to rendezvous with U-463 for fuel. By the 14th of August 1942 U-511 was on its way for a busy patrol in the Caribbean. It headed for the Caicos Passage and the Windward Passage, transiting the former south of Inagua on the 18th, and the latter on the 19th and 20th. Steinhoff is buried in a military cemetery in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, on a US government facility that also houses notorious criminals and terrosists today. Though he made no kills whilst in the immediate area, in the Windward Passage Steinhoff dispatched the San Fabian, Esso Aruba, and Rotterdam – the same ship which had rescued the survivors of the Daytonian some five months before. They were all sailing in Convoy TAW 15 from Trinidad to Aruba and Key West via Guantanamo, Cuba and were caught off the southwest tip of Haiti – Point Gravois. After this tactical convoy attack on the 27th, U-511 headed southeast and out of the Caribbean Sea by a different channel. Though it, too was on its first (of four) patrols direct from Kiel Germany, U-511 was heading back to Lorient and the Tenth Flotilla there. On the way back the submarine made an inquisitive detour back into the region when, on the 8th of September it steamed northwest above Anegada briefly before resuming a northeast trajectory back “to the barnyard”. This patrol was the first for U-511 and began on the 16th of July. On the way out U-511 was vectored towards convoy ON 115 south of Greenland. Then the boat took part in the patrol line Pirat on the 1st of August – others included U-164, U-210, U-217 and U-553. On the 16th of August while north of Puerto Rico U-511 was sighted by a Hudson aircraft under Flight Sargeant Henderson. Even though the aft end of the submarine stuck out of the ocean, making a seemingly easy target, the boat managed to escape. The sub refueled from U-460 southwest of the Azores in mid-September and arrived at her new base in Lorient on the 29th of September 1942 (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.3). Steinhoff would end the war by surrendering his U-boat, as he was ordered to, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His treatment as a Prisoner of War by the Americans was so shabby that he killed himself in the common goal at Charles Street jail in Boston on May 19th May 1945. He is buried in Fort Devens, Massachusetts with two dozen or so other German and Italian dead POWs. Kapitänleutnant Steinhoff was a member of the Crew of 1934 and was 33 years of age at the time of this patrol. His brother researched the latest rocket technology at Peenemünde and therefore U-511 and Steinhoff were involved in highly secretive tests sending rockets from submarines. Steinhoff commissioned U-873 later in the war, in March 1944. Over his career he sank two ships of 21,999 tons and another damaged for 8,773 tons – all from his action in the Windward Passage on this patrol. He was awarded the U-boat War Badge 1939. As mentioned, after the captain and crew surrendered according to the rules of war on the 16th of May 1945, the Geneva Conventions were overlooked by their captors. Instead of being placed in the ample brig at Portsmouth, the officers and crew were dumped in the common goal at Charles Street Jail, downtown Boston where “stories that some crew members were mistreated are often told” according to Uboat.net. It would be hard to imagine that the crew was not mistreated in the euphoria following Victory in Europe (VE) Day in the US and by criminals with nothing to lose. It is equally hard to believe that his captors could not have anticipated his violent treatment. Apparently Steinhoff used the glass from his sunglasses to open his arteries, and even the ship’s doctor, Karl Steinke, could not revive him. The author has visited Steinhoff’s grave, which is open to the public. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 110 U-553 Thurmann 10-Aug-1942 4 Korvettenkapitän Karl Thurmann, a veteran on the boat’s eigth patrol out of ten, arrived next, transiting inwards for four days between the 10th and 13th of August. Simply clipping the southeast corner of the box whilst inbound heading southwest. It appears the sub passed the area of subs refueling from U-463 without joining the fray, according to Wynn, however the duration of the patrol – from 19 July to 17 September – as well as the distance – from St. John’s Newfoundland to the Caribbean – suggests that it was refueled at some point. U-553 then passed south of Turks & Caicos on the 15th and 16th. This placed his Type VIIC boat U-553 in the Windward Passage on the 17th, and enabled Thurmann to sink the Blankaholm (Swedish, 2,845 tons) and the John Hancock (American, 7,176 tons) and damage the Empire Beede (British, 6,959 tons) at the doorstep of Guantanamo Bay on the 18th of August. Following these successes the submarine was itself attacked by HMS Pimpernel and kept on the defensive. The Pimpernel eventually sank the Empire Beede as a hazard to navigation (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.31). On a patrol to and from Saint Nazaire for the Third Flotilla, U-552 spent a total of nine patrol days in the area, and re-entered on the 26th of August via the Mona Passage. From there the boat headed due east over the north coast of Puerto Rico and east of Anegada on the 28th. Interestingly, on the way to the patrol area via the northern route off Newfoundland, U-553 damaged the Belgian Soldier, of 7,167 tons. The harrowing tale of this ship’s rescue in the North Atlantic is ably told by raconteur Farley Mowat in Gray Seas Under. This patrol began on the 19th of July in Saint Nazaire. U-553 participated in the pursuit of convoy ON 115 off Greenland and the Pirat patrol line. This resulted in the sinking of the British Lochkatrine east of St. John’s Newfoundland on the 3rd of August. The patrol ended on the 17th of September, 1942 in Saint Nazaire. A member of the Crew of 1928, Thurmann worked his way up from Seekadett (cadet) serving on light cruisers Emden and Köln to Korvettenkapitän in August 1942 – the promotion was awarded during this patrol. The same month, also during the patrol, he was awarded the Knights Cross. Judging from the account of Teddy Suhren receiving an award while on patrol, there would have been some kind of ceremony on board to celebrate this high honor – when conditions permitted of course (U-boat War Patrol – The Hidden Photographic Diary of U-564, by Lawrence Paterson). Thurmann joined U-boats in April 1940 and he commissioned U-553 three days before Christmas the same year. Thurmann would live until January 20, 1943 – he was 30 at the time of his patrol. His total tonnage was 61,390 tons sunk plus a warship of 925 tons destroyed and two ships damaged for 15,273 tons. His final patrol began on the 16th of January 1943 from La Pallice, France. A week later his enigmatic final radio message was “periscope not clear” from the mid-Atlantic. The submarine and its 47 crew were never heard from again. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Lawrence Paterson, U-boat War Patrol – The Hidden Photographic Diary of U-564, 2004. 111 U-86 Schug 10-Aug-1942 15 U-86 under Kapitänleutnant Walther Schug was next into the region, to and from Brest on its fourth of eight patrols for the First Flotilla based there. It would be a roughly 15-day incursion into the region, with two weeks of intense back-and-forth patrols to the northwest of the island between the 12th and 2th of August, 1942. The patrol to the Bermuda area began on the 10th of August then quickly morphed into a ziz-zag course between the island and Hateras as Schug no doubt hoped to catch ships heading offshore to avoid being sunk off Hatteras. His strategy does not appear to have succeeded as he bagged no ships there. Then on the 26th the sub headed south for two days, then, whilst southwest of Bermuda, headed east and finally south on the 31st of August, exiting the area. On the the 6th of August Schug had come across and sank the 342-ton Barbadian schooner Wawaloam under the indefatigable Captain Luis Kenedy. It would take three futile torpedoes and many rounds from the deck gun to sink the stately schooner. After abandoning in dories with six other men and a German Shepherd, Kenedy held his crew together until they were rescued five days later off Sable Island, southeast of Nova Scotia. From there the survivors were transferred to HMS Camapanula (K-18) and landed in Argentia, Newfoundland (The Last Schoonerman). Kenedy would plant his and his family’s roots in the Bahamas. Schug was courteous – even humorous – with Kenedy, who spoke disparagingly of his antagonist’s torpedo aim. Of course a schooner draws a lot less water – provides less of a target to hit – than a large freighter. Unlike Kenedy, who lived into his 90’s, Schug was killed in November 1943 when U-86 was attacked and sunk by HMS Tumult and HMS Rocket east of the Azores on the 29th – she had survived seven previous war patrols. Schug’s total tonnage was three ships of 9,614 tons. A member of the Crew of 1934, he also damaged one ship of 8,627 tons. Promoted to Kapitänleutnant in October 1941, Schug received no decorations. In eight patrols he accrued 415 days. This patrol began on the 2nd of July and took the sub by Newfoundland. Following its transit of Bermuda the boat entered the Bahamas area midway between Savannah, Georgia and Bermuda and popped out nearly a week later midway between Bermuda and Anegada. The dates were August 27th to September 1st 1942, and no ships were struck. The boat participated in two patrol lines, both named Wolf, and went after convoy ON 113. U-86 was provided fuel from U-461 on the 29th and 30th of July. On her way back to Brest the boat may have been attacked and damaged by an Allied aircraft (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.65). SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Joe Russel, The Last Schoonerman, 2006 112 U-163 Engelmann 12-Aug-1942 3 Korvettenkapitän Kurt-Eduard Engelmann took his charge, U-163 through the Windward Passage and back in the next incursion into the area. The submarine entered south of Bermuda for thre short days, between the 12th and 14th of August. It does not appears to have refueled from U-463 like so many of its sister ships, however it utilized U-462 for fuel on the way home in late August. The patrol is unique in that it began in Norway. After skimming Bermuda U-163 steamed south-southwest towards Mona between the 13th and 16th of August 1942. Then Engelmann swung west and south of the Turks & Caicos, along the north coast of the Dominican Republic. On the 18th of August the boat was through the Windward Passage and exited the region, only to return in four days’ time. On the 22nd of August U-163 re-entered the area via a similar but different route. Entering via the Windward Passage, Engelmann opted to utilize the Caicos Passage by heading east of Great and Little Inagua on the 23rd. Emerging into the North Atlantic from between Crooked Island, the Plana Cays and Providenciales, the U-boat headed east-northeast and back to Lorient. It exited the region for the final time on the 27th of August 1942, having crossed its original track into the area on the same day. Its total patrol into the greater Bahamas area lasted twelve days. U-163’s patrol began in Kristiansand Norway on 23 July 1942 and ended in Lorient on the 16th of September. Originally the voyage had begun in Kiel on the 21st. On the 17th of August, while north of the Dominican Republic she came across the westbound convoys PG 6 and TAW 13 (Panama Guantanamo and Trinidad-Aruba-Key West). She was apparently unable to attack (Wynn, Vol. 1, p. 126). On her return to Europe U-163 was refueled by U-462 west of the Azores. Overall the submarine achieved no sinkings or even attacks during this patrol. Engelmann’s career total was three ships sunk for 15,011 tons and one warship of 2,000 tons. Born in 1903, he was 29 at the time of this patrol. He achieved the rank of Fregattenkapitän posthumously, after U-163 was attacked and sunk northwest of Spain’s Cape Finisterre by the Canadian corvette HMCS Prescott on March 13th, 1943. There were no survivors of the crew of 57 men. A member of the Crew of 1923, Engelmann was awarded the U-boat War Badge of 1939. His next patrol was more successful inasmuch as he sank four ships of 17,011 (his total career tonnage) east of the Caribbean in November of the same year, thus exonerating himself somewhat from the failures of his first and later his final and fatal patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 113 U-462 Vowe 15-Aug-1942 6 Kapitänleutnant Bruno Vowe brought U-462 into the Bermuda area for six days starting the 15th of August 1942. Arriving from the east-northeast the boat motored southwest for a day, headed due east from Bermuda on the 17th, then returned westwards before heading south then southeast out of the area on the 20th. U-462 was a refueling sub, or milk cow, operating as part of the 10th U-boat Flotilla out of St. Nazaire. The sub left Kiel on its first war patrol o the 23rd of July. Between mid August and early September the boat zig-zagged west of the Azores as far as the eastern fringe of Bermuda. During that time U-462 supplied 14 U-boats, nine of them for outward operations and five for the return to base. The outbound boats were U-94, U-135, U-176, U-373, U-512, U-516, U-558, U-569, and U-755 and the inbound ones were U-66, U-98, U-163, U-173, and U-600. Not all of these submarines were resupplied in the Bermuda area. U-462 itself repositioned itself to Saint Nazaire France on the 21st of September, 1942. Bruno Vowe was born in 1904 – like Wolfbauer, another U-tanker skipper, he was one of the older commanders. Vowe was a member of the Crew of 1923 and by May 1940 was involved in the U-boat arm. By December of that year he was Watch Officer of U-107 until March 1941. He commissioned U-462 in March of 1942 after a year of work-up. Overall Vowe was to invest 180 patrol days over eight patrols in the boat before they were captured on the 30th of July 1943. On that day in the Bay of Biscay the boat was attacked from many angles: a Halifax bomber aircraft and HMS Wren, HMS Kite, HMS Woodpecker, HMS Wild Goose, and HMS Woodcok. He received no decorations and sank no ships. Vowe was held prisoner until July 1943 and lived until 1978 and the age of 74. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 114 U-558 Krech 15-Aug-1942 5 Günther Krech returned to the region on the 15th of August 1942. From just southeast of Bermuda he and U-558 headed straight for the Caicos Passage, which it transited on the 24th. The five-day patrol line is steady and straight until the 19th of August when the sub left the Bermuda zone. Krech exited the area on the 25th via the Windward Passage, having not sunk ships during his week in the area. However soon after entering the Windward Passage Krech encountered and sank the 1,987-ton British ship Amakura from convoy TAW 15 in the Windward Passage, but outside the area covered. During the same patrol and roughly two weeks later Krech put himself in the thick of a convoy action on the 13th of September. He sank the 7,915-ton Surinam of Holland, the British Empire Lugard of similar tonnage, and damaged the Norwegian Vilja so that it would never sail again. All were sailing with the TAG 5 convoy from Trinidad to Aruba and Guantanamo. Three days later U-558 also came across the American 2,606-ton Commercial Trader and sank her. All attacks occurred northwest of Trinidad and of the northeast coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea. Sailing for the First Flotilla, U-558 sailed both to and from Brest France, on its 8th of ten patrols. This highly successful mission lasted 80 days. The patrol began on the 29th of July in Brest. In mid-August U-558 received fuel from U-462 west of the Azores. On the return leg the boat was also refueled, this time by U-461 northwest of the Azores in late September. The boat returned to Brest on the 16th of October 1942. Overall Krech was to spend 437 days on patrol and sink 115,841 tons in the course of earning his Knights Cross. This was Krech’s second patrol in the region, so his biography is covered above. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 115 U-94 Ites 21-Aug-1942 5 Uberleutnant zur See Otto Ites brought U-94 on its first patrol into the area which would also prove to be the boat and commander’s tenth and last. Beginning southeast of Bermuda on the 20th of August the boat spent five days in the area, first heading southewest, then deviating to the north and a position to the east-northeast of the island on the 22nd, about 250 miles away. Ites then resumed a southwesterly course, exiting the area on the 24eth of August, 1942.U-94 had left Saint Nazaire as part of the Seventh Flotilla on the 3rd of August and refueled on the 21st from U-462 west of the Azores. (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.74). After transiting Bermuda sthe boat went around the south end of Turks & Caicos on the 25th and 26th, and entered the Windward Passage late on the 26th. Two days later it was caught on the surface and sunk by a coordinated Allied attack (an American Catalina and the HMCS Oakville which went in to successfully ram the U-boat) off Point Gravois, the southwest tip of Haiti. A number of the crew would be rescued by the Canadian destroyer HMCS Oakville, including Ites, who would go on to live until February 1982 (he was 24 at the time of the boat’s loss). Nineteen crew were killed in the sinking but twenty-six survived. Ites had already earned the prestigious Knights Cross on the back of fifteen sinkings for 76,882 GRT and another Allied vessels of 8,022 tons damaged. The boat itself was credited with 27 ships over ten war patrols. A member of the Crew of 1936 – the so-called Olympia Crew because the Olympic Games were held in Germany that year – Ites began his naval career in torpedo boats. Joining U-boats in October 1938, he served aboard U-51 and U-41 before commanding U-146. He took over command of U-94 from Herbert Kuppisch in August 1941. During and after the war Ites was held captive until May 1946, going on to first become a dentist than rejoin the Bundesmarine in 1956, where he commanded a destroyer for two years. On his retirement in 1977 Ites was a Konter, or vice, Admiral. Over seven patrols he underwent 235 sea days and became Kapitänleutnant in April of 1943. He was awarded his Knights Cross in March 1942 before this patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 116 U-514 Auffermann 3-Sep-1942 5 Kapitänleutnant Hans-Jürgen Auffermann brought U-514 into the area northeast of Bermuda on the 3rd of September 1942 on a north-south patrol leg which would last five days. The boat headed south-southwest until the 5th, when it turned due south, east of Bermuda, and motored in that direction until the 7th of September, when it left the area. On the sixth Auffermann sank the British 167-ton schooner Helen Forsey using gunfire alone. Later during the patrol, off Barbados on the 11th of September he damaged the British steamer Cornwallis of 5,458 tons. On the 15th Auffermann sank the British ship Kioto of 3,297 tons off Tobago Island and was conter-attacked by a US Mariner aircraft. A US destroyer then damaged the submarine, necessitating four days of repairs. U-514 then motored south to the delta of the Amazon River in Brazil. During that tour it penetrated the defenses of USS Roe to sink the steamers Ozorio (2,730 tons) and Lages (also Brazilian, 5,472 tons) on the 28th of September. On 11 October Auffermann sank the US steamer Steel Scientist of 5,688 tons off South America. Two days later she was attacked without damage by a US B-18 bomber. She arrived in her new base at Lorient on the 9th of November, 1942. Hans-Jürgen Auffermann was born in 1914 and turned 28 years of age during this patrol on the first of October. He was a member of the Crew of 1934 and joined U-boat training in January 1941. This led to a role as First Watch Officers of U-69 in April of that year, from which he was given command when the skipper, Metzler, was incapacitated by illness. Then Auffermann commissioned U-514 in January 1942. Auffermann was to serve four patrols aboard U-514, accruing 199 sea days. Overall he sank or damaged eight ships of 13,551 tons. On the 8th of July 1943 U-514 was attacked by rockets fired from the air by a British Liberator near Cape Finisterre, Spain. The boat and its full complement were killed. In 1942 Auffermann was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, and in 1944 he was posthumously awarded the German Cross in Gold. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 117 U-455 Giessler 12-Sep-1942 8 Kapitänluetnant Hans-Heinrich Giessler brought U-455 both east and westbound across northern Bermuda en route to and from layig mines off Charleston. The first leg began on the 12th of September, 1942 heading westbound, and exited the area on the 15th at a point northwest of the island. On the return voyage U-455 entered the area at the same point on the 26th of September 1942, then headed northeast in a series of “steps” altering course to the north and east. This lasted four days until the 29th, when Giessler and his men exited the region homeward bound. On the inward bound leg U-455 entered the Bahamas region just off Savannah Georgia on the 20th of September 1942 for an eight-day incursion into the area. After reaching a point north of Jacksonville Florida he took U-455 due east across the Gulf Stream, then headed east-northeast out of the area roughly midway between the US coast and Bermuda. He sighted no Allied ships during this dip south from Cape Hatteras. U-455 left Saint Nazaire on the 22nd of August to lay mines of Charleston, South Carolina. After investigating the waters of Newfoundland it moved south and completed its mine laying mission on the 18th of September. No ships were reported to have hit any of the mines laid by Giessler. After its incursion south of the Carolinas the boat called at the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Cape Race, Canada – again without encountering Allied shipping. She arrived in Saint Nazaire on the 28th of October 1942. Giessler was born in January 1911 and is over 100 years of age at the time of this writing. His career total was two ships sunk for 13,908 tons. Promoted to Korvettenkapitän in October of 1943, he earned the Iron Cross First Class. Over four patrols he served 185 days at sea, following which he was moved to the Torpedo Inspectorate. This was a crucially important role at the outset of the war, when many of the German torpedoes malfunctioned to the great frustration of many an accomplished U-boat skipper, with concomitant erosion of morale amongst entire crews. After a stint at the Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Giessler ended the war as First Watch Officer of the destroyer Z 20 Karl Galster. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 118 U-69 Gräf 21-Sep-1942 4 Oberleutnant zur See (later Kapitänleutnant) Ulrich Gräf brought U-69 on its second incursion into Bermuda waters on the 21st of September, 1942. He was heading back to base and simply headed northeast for four days, exiting the area north of the island on the 24th. The patrol began in Saint Nazaire on the 15th of August as a mine-laying operation for the 7th U-boat Flotilla. U-69 successfully laid its mines off the Chesapeake Bay on the ninth and tenth of August then went to Hatteras on patrol. Finding few pickings off Hatteras, Gräf opted to head for Canada, where it entered the Saint Lawrence River and sank the British steam ship Carolus of 2,375 tons. Constantly under threat of Canadian aircraft, the submarine retreated. Despite damage, U-69 was able to sink the railway ferry Caribou, despite depth charge counterattack by its escort, the Grandmere. Sadly in the disorder that ensued 136 passengers and crew – including many women and children, drowned or died of hypothermia. U-69 managed to escape and even attacked the steamer Rose Castle, however the torpedo didn’t detonate. The submarine arrived in Lorient on the 1th of November, 1942 having been refueled by U-463 on the 28th of October presumably west of the Azores. Born on 15 December 1915 in Dresden, he served aboard the light cruiser Nurnberg in January 1940 and then was Second Watch Officer of the Iltis until October. He joined U-boats in November of 1941 and was First Watch Officer of U-74 before commanding U-23 and then U-69. Gräf, received no decorations over a career which was to see him sink six ships of 16,627 tons. He was killed in the North Atlantic on 17 February 1943 east of Newfoundland when caught by the destroyer HMS Fame, also reported to have been the HMS Viscount. He was 27 years of age. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 119 U-185 Maus 28-Feb-1943 6 The next boat into the area was the Type IXC4 boat U-185 under Kapitänluetnant August Maus, ailing to and from Lorient in the Tenth Flotilla. This patrol is remarkable for how close Maus steered quite close to Bermuda on the 3rd of March 1943. The incursion began on the 28th of February northeast of the island and proceeded southwest until the third, when U-185 passed along the north coast of Bermuda. Rounding the northwest tip of the reefs, the sub then headed due south for two days until the fifth. Then it proceeded west and out of the region on the following day. From there the boat followed a conventional trajectory due south then southwest for the Caicos Passage between Mayaguana and Caicos, then north of Inagua into the Crooked Island Passage. Turning south on the 9th of March U-185 entered the Windward Passage and steamed west, sinking the American Virginia Sinclair on the 10th of March off Guantanamo. The Sinclair was part of Key-West to Guantanamo convoy KG 123 and U-185 was understandably counter-attacked and forced to call off a second anticipated attack (Blair Vol. 2, p.219). Over three weeks later U-185 returned via the Windward Passage and again found success in the area, sinking the John Sevier off the very southwestern tip of Inagua on the 6th of April two days after its transit of the Windward Passage. The Sevier was part of the GTMO or Guantanamo convoy 83. On the 7th of April Maus opted against re-entering the Crooked Island Passage and instead patrolled along the north coast of the Dominican Republic to the Mona Passage. At that point, on the 9th of April the boat swung to the northeast and homewards to Bordeaux, exiting the region on the 12th of April. This patrol began on the 8th of February 1943 in Lorient and ended in Bordeaux on the 3rd of May. During the passage home U-185 was refueled by U-117 south of the Azores in mid-April (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.138). In a period of less than a month in a region where the defenders were highly organized and arguably dominant in such chokepoints as the Windward Passage, U-185 and Maus had extracted the sinking of three Allied vessels of 20,504 tons, a statistic made more impressive when one compares other, longer, empty-handed U-boat patrols to the area. Overall Maus accrued 229 days at sea on three patrols before being captured. Twenty eight years old at the time of the two sinkings, Kapitänleutnant Maus achieved a total bag of nine ships of 62,761 tons plus one ship damaged for 6,840 tons. Later that year – in September – he was awarded the Knights Cross. Instead of returning to Lorient he must have been ordered to Bordeaux. Maus was a member of the Crew of 1934 and joined U-boats from cruisers and school ships in April 1940. He served under Merten in U-68 like Schäfer before him. Maus commissioned U-185 in June of 1942 and served on her until his capture. On the 24th of August 1943 U-185 was caught and sunk in the Central Atlantic by three aircraft from the US escort carrier USS Core. During the next three years he moved from Tennessee to Arizona then the British Zone in Germany, after he succeeded in escaping in February 1944, only to be captured along with Friedrich Guggenberger in Tuscon Arizona. Becoming a successful businessman in Hamburg, he was to live until September of 1996 and the age of 81. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunters, 1939-1942, and Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunted, 1942-1945, 2000 120 U-129 Witt 2-Apr-1943 24 The type IXC U-129 under recently promoted KorvettenkapitänHans-Ludwig Witt began its seventh of nine patrols in Lorient with the Second Flotilla. It was a complicated 24-day mission around Bermuda, making it the longest such patrol to the area. It can be broken into three legs: 1 – from April 2nd to the 11th the boat passed from southeast of Bermuda to northwest, spending five days close to the eastern shore of the island. In transit northwest from the 2nd to the 5th, the boat then slowed down and patrolled off Saint Davids until the 8th, then sped up again, changed course from north to northwest, and exited the area on the 11th to the northwest of Bermuda. 2 – During this 9-day mission from east of Hatteras the bus managed to sink the American liner Santa Catalina on the 24th of April 1943. The incursion began the day before heading southeast from a point roughly 400 miles west of Bermuda. On the 25th the boat turned east until the 27th, then north-northwest until the 1st of May, when it returned to the Hatteras region. 3 – This was a straight “homeward bound” eastward trajectory of five days. Entering the area on the 8th of May U-129 headed straight east until the 12th when it exited the area eastbound, well northeast of Bermuda. This was the boat’s third patrol to the area (starting with Nico Clausen) and Witte’s second. On the 16th of April 1943 it left is patrol area of Hatteras for a fifteen-day, U-shaped incursion into the area of ocean between the Bahamas and Bermuda and east of Georgia and Florida. Heading south for four days to a point about 300 miles East of Hope Town Abaco, it doubled back and slowly retraced its route for two days. Just before entering the greater Bahamas area (on the 21st and 22nd of April) U-129 was chased away from a New York to Guantanamo convoy by the destroyer USS Swanson off Hatteras. Aside from sinking the Santa Catalina, U-129 experienced a busy patrol. On the 26th of April, in the western Atlantic it encountered what Witt described as an enemy submarine and fired three torpedoes, all of which missed (it is not known which submarine this was). On the way back to France on 21 May, whilst refueling from U-459 two members of U-129’s crew were washed overboard by a large wave, and only one of them was recovered. On the return voyage she was refueled by U-459 in the central North Atlantic one month later (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.106). This patrol began in Lorient on the 11th of March 1943 and ended there on the 29th of May. Witt sank two allied ships on either side of the date of the Santa Catalina – the Melbourne Star of an impressive 12,806 tons and British registry on 2 April, and the Panama-flagged Panam, 7,277 tons, on the 4th of May – both off Cape Hatteras, the site of early “happy times” during Operation Drumbeat. Witt’s total bag for this patrol was 26,590. His biography was covered in the treatment of his earlier patrol to the region in which he sank the Millinocket, Hardwicke Grange, L.A. Christensen and Onondaga amongst eleven ships of 41,570 tons – a highly successful earlier patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 121 U-155 Piening 11-Apr-1943 2 U-155 under the command of recently promoted Korvettenkapitän Adolf Cornelius Piening U-155 merely dipped into the southwest cornder of the imaginary 400-mile-radius box around Bermuda on the 11th and 12th of April 1943. This two-day incursion was part of a larger patrol spent largely in the Bahamas area. Piening both entered and exited the Bahamas area midway Bermuda-Anegada, spending a total of nineteen days in that region. On the way in U-155, a Type IXC boat, entered the Windward Passage on the 5th of March, having entered the area on the 27th of February. Piening opted to shave close to the northwest coast of Providenciales and the east coasts of both Little Inagua and Great Inagua with no ships sunk. Piening exited the area south of Cuba on the 6th of March, rounded that island westbound, and re-entered after sinking the Lysefjord off the Yucatan Channel on the 2nd of April. The following day U-155 sank the Gulfstate east of Key West Florida, just inside the southwestern boundary of the area. From there Piening opted against the Old Bahama Channel in favor or riding the Gulf Stream up the Straits of Florida during the 4th and 5th. On that day he back-tracked briefly towards Grand Bahama, cleared close to Walker’s Cay, then shaved close to the northeast coasts of Abaco, most likely taking a bearing off the Elbow Cay lighthouse on the 7th of April before taking an easterly course. Unlike Ulrich Heyse in U-128 ten months before, Piening ignored the entrance to the Northeast Providence Channel and instead turned eastwards and then southeaSaint On the13th of April U-155 exited the area south of Bermuda home bound to Lorient. She returned on the 30th of April, having set out on the 8th of February, 1943. In 82 days of patrolling the boat had accounted for a respectable (for the time) 7,973 tons. U-155 also fended off an attack during its return voyage when on the 27th of April, inbound to France it was attacked by an unknown Allied aircraft (Blair Vol. 2, p.219). It was the boats’ fifth of ten patrols but its only into the region. Accountable for 25 ships for a very impressive total of 126,664 GRT, as well as a warship (HMS Avenger) of 13,785 tons sunk and an auxiliary warship of 6,736 tons damaged, Piening had already earned the Knights Cross. He was 32 at the time of this patrol and lived until 1984 and the age of 73. During the closing weeks of World War II whilst in command of U-255, he mined the approaches to Saint Nazaire against an Allied attack and spent until 1947 in captivity. He rejoined the Bundesmarine in 1956 for thirteen years and achieved the rank of Kapitän zur See. A special route to avoid Allied aircraft in the Bay of Biscay became known as the Piening route since he is acknowledged to have perfected it. He achieved 459 days at sea on eight patrols over his career after initially serving on the cruiser Deutschland and U-48. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 122 U-176 Dierksen 28-Apr-1943 4 U-176, a Type IXC under Rainer Dierksen entered the area on the 28th of April 1943 on the by-now familiar trajectory from south of Bermuda, this patrol aimed for the Mona Passage instead of the Windward Passage. It was an unusual incursion inasmuch as the sub changed directions twice. On the 28th of April Dierksen headed west-southwest from a point southeast of Bermuda. Then on the 30th it turned sharply southeast, exiting the area on the 1st of May heading east. Aged 35, Dierksen and the boat were on their third and final patrol together – a cruel fate awaited them at the hands of the Cubans on the border with Bahamian territorial waters a fortnight into the future. For one week U-176 headed almost due south, ending off the mouth of the Mona Pass on the 8th of May. On that day instead of entering the Mona Passage, Dierksen opted to head due west along the coast of Hispaniola, also bypassing the Windward Passage on the 11th in favor of a cruise up the Old Bahama Channel. When the submarine sank the Mambi and the ammonia tanker Nickeliner (one of the only such ships of its kind) on the 13th of May south of Andros Island, the activity did not go unnoticed. In fact both US and Cuban Naval forces picked up on the Mayday messages, and began tracking the course of the sub up the channel. By the time U-176 reached the Saint Nicholas Channel a convoy with Cuban escorts was awaiting to attack and destroy the boat on the 15th of May. In an attack which was so efficient its success was not believed by the Americans for decades (in fact until a film crew confirmed the location of the submarine in 2002), a small Cuban patrol boat depth-charged the submarine into submission and, having sunk its prey, proceeded in an almost cavalier way to have lunch in a nearby port. This U-boat, aside from U-84 which was hundreds of miles from land, is the closest of any sunken enemy submarine to the Bahamas inasmuch as it lies some twenty miles or less from the Bahamian side of the Saint Nicholas Channel and the Bahamian territory of Cay Sal Bank. More on this incident later. Dierksen was a Korvettenkapitän with eleven sinkings of 45,870 tons and one ship damaged for 7,457 tons in 216 sea days during three patrols. Known for his dogged pursuit (he once spent 48 hours and eight torpedoes sinking the Dutch freighter Polydorus), Dierksen was no greenhorn, sailing with the Tenth Flotilla out of Lorient. The submarine’s loss can be attributed as much to the efficient skill of the Cuban attackers as well as a bit of luck and the aggression of Dierksen in going after an escorted convoy in daylight. The formerly American Cuban patrol boat CS 13 sank U-176 in deep water with a three-charge pattern of depth-charges with the result that four of them exploded on the submarine. Also a US Navy patrol plane – an American Vought-Sikorsky OS2U 3 Kingfisher aircraft out of the VS-62/1 Squadron assisted in vectoring the attackers to the U-boat. Rainer Dierksen had been promoted to Korvettenkapitän only two weeks before his death, and during the same patrol. The recipient of the U-boat War Badge of 1939 in February of 1943, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold in January of 1944 – posthumously. He joined the Reichsmarine in 1933 and started off in minesweeping flotillas, taking command of the 32nd Flotilla until March of 1941, when he joined the U-boat arm. In December 1941 he commissioned the Type IXC U-176 in Bremen. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 123 U-161 Achilles 8-May-1943 3 U-161 under the daring Kapitänleutnant Albrecht Achilles dipped southwards towards Bermuda for only three days from the 8th to the 10th of April, 1943. Aside from sinking the British 255-foot schooner Angelus 700 miles east of New York on the 19th of May little was achieved offensively on this patrol, primarily because U-161 was ordered mostly to resupply blockade running ships, several of them captured by German raiders. These included the Regensberg of Germany on 23 March, the Italien Pietro Orseolo the following day and then the Irene (ex-Norwegian Silvaplana). After these operations both U-161 and U-174 moved west towards New York, however U-161 was attacked two days after leaving the Bermuda area by a US Navy Kinfisher out of Quonset Rhode Island off Nantucket Shoals. On 25 May U-161 was fruitlessly chasing a convoy off Cape Sable, Canada, and U-174 was sunk by Allied aircraft two days later. On the return voyage to Lorient U-161 was refueled, probably by another patrolling U-boat and arrived in Lorient on the seventh of June, 1943. Albrecht Achilles was born in 1914 and a member of the Crew of 1934. After serving aboard the school ship Schleswig-Holstein he became signals officer on board the Gneisenau, a battleship. He joined U-boats from the Murwik academy in April 1940. Then he made three patrols under Zapp in U-66 until November 1941. He assumed command of U-161 in January 1942 and was very active in the Caribbean. Achilles was Kapitänleutnant at the time but promoted posthumously in April 1945 to Korvettenkapitän. Over six patrols in U-161 he accrued 435 days and daringly penetrated the defenses of both Port-of-Spain Trinidad and Castries Saint Lucia, utilizing his watch officer’s experience as a merchant marine officer. His career total was an impressive 20 ships sunk or damaged (6 damaged), for 105,664 tons. For this he was awarded the Knights Cross in January 1943. On 27 September 1943 U-161 was caught by a US Navy Mariner aircraft off Bahia, Brazil and sunk with all hands, Achilles amongst them. He was 29 years of age. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 124 U-190 Wintermeyer 24-May-1943 9 U-190 under Kapitänleutnant Max Wintermeyer spent 9 days patrolling the region mostly north of Bermuda, starting on the 27th of May and ending two months later on the 26th of July 1943 (a long patrol though Wynn does not record that the boat refueled on this mission). The boat transited Bermuda both inbound and outbound. On the 23rd of May U-190 entered the area northeast of Bermuda and headed west. Then it dipped south to the north of Bermuda and finally due west, to exit the region on the 27th. Wintermeyer returned on the 23rd of July and passed quite close to the western tip of Bermuda the following day, evading detection from the Allied aircraft, submarines, and surface ships based there. On the 25th the sub turned east-northeast and exited the region northeast of Bermuda the following day. Wintermeyer later spent nearly a week patrolling the area northeast of Abaco and Eleuthera in July 1943, without result. The submarine entered the region east of Savannah and headed southeast for three days until the 21st of July. Then for two days it motored east before turning northeast towards Bermuda on the 23rd of July. On the 24th the U-boat passed just to the west of Bermuda and out of the area. U-190 left Lorient on the 1st of May 1942 and aside from being attacked by a USAF Liberator off Cape Henry, Delaware, did not encounter other Allies. To quote Wynn, this patrol was typical because “a marked increase in American air activity made U-boat operations extremely difficult and ship-sinkings were few.” Wintermeyer brought his charge back to Lorient on the 19th of August 1943. A member of the Crew of 1934, Wintermeyer was promoted to Kapitänleutnant in April of 1942. Born in February 1914, he was age 29 during this patrol and is still living in end 2011. He was awarded the U-boat War Badge 1939 on the back of four patrols of 348 total sea days. Having begun his naval career on U-105 and U-62, he commissioned U-190 and survived several patrols on her to move ashore in July 1944, after which he held staff positions on land. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 125 U-521 Bargsten 27-May-1943 2 Kapitänleutnant Klaus Bargsten nipped the area northwest of Bermuda between May 27 and May 29th 1943 en route to being caught and sunk on the second of June. U-521 sailed from Lorient for the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on the fifth of May. After transiting off Bermuda having not sunk any ships, it was detected on May 31st off Hatteras by a US Navy aircraft based in Norfolk Virginia. On June first Bargsten trailed a convoy bound from New York to Guantanamo, Cuba. The next day an escort patrol craft, PC 565, managed to attack the submarine undetected until it was too late. The sub was badly damaged by five depth charges. The only survivor was Bargsten when he ordered abandon ship and raced up the conning tower. The boat sank too quickly for the rest of the 51 men, and was further pounded into submission by other depth charges. Klaus Bargsten was born in 1911 and began his nautical career in the German merchant marine. A member of the Crew of 1936, he joined U-boats in April 1939 and initially served on both U-6 and then U-99 under Otto Kretschmer. He commissioned U-563 in March of 1941 until February 1942. Then he joined U-521 in October 1942, accruing 262 patrol days over seven missions. Bargsten’s total tally was five ships sunk for 22,171 tons, including HMS Cossack in October 1941 and HMS Bredon in February 1943. He received the Knights Cross in April 1943 less than a week before the commencement of his final patrol. He was held captive by the Allies until the end of November, 1946 and went on to live until August 2000 and the age of 88. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 126 U-66 Markworth 28-May-1943 3 Kapitänleutnant Freidrich Markworth in U-66 spent only three days in the Bermuda area in May of 1943, however he went on to devote two months (60 days) to patrolling the Bahamas area. The Bermuda incursion consisted of an entry to the southeast of the island on the 28th of May 1943, followed by one day of westing to the 29th, then a northwest course, providing for an exit of the area the following day, on the 30th. Thereafter Markwoth went on to qualify with the longest single enemy patrol in the Bahamas area during either war. It began where it ended – one third of the way from Bermuda to Anegada, on the 29th of May 1943 and would last just shy of two months – to the 25th of July at almost exactly the same spot. In that time the boat, on its eighth of nine patrols, with a Knights Cross holder at the periscope patrolled northwest for five days until it arrived off the Savannah-Georgia-to-Jacksonville-Florida cruising ground, where it was to remain for the better part of six weeks. From 31 May to 21 July the boat crisscrossed the Gulf Stream where it stretched from the American mainland east 100 to 150 miles, back and forth repetitively looking for prey. On the 10th of June U-66’s torpedoes found and sank the large US tanker Esso Gettysburg, setting the naval establishment as well as the tanker alight. The loss of life from the inferno (fifty-seven men were killed) was sobering to all who were made aware of it. Roughly three weeks later Markworth found the similarly large US tanker Bloody Marsh (10,195 GRT) in the same general area southeast of Savannah and northeast of Jacksonville, and sent her to the bottom on the 2nd of July 1943. Nearing the end of its precious fuel supply the boat turned slowly homeward, striking off to the southeast and past the exit for the Northeast Providence Channel before encountering the US tanker Cherry Valley, which put up a valiant fight on the 22nd of July roughly 300 miles east of San Salvador and escaped without being sunk. Having begun its patrol in Lorient on the 27th of April, U-66 was able to refuel from U-847 on the 19th of August 1943. She returned to base on the 1st of September. After this lively battle U-66 turned east and made its way back to Lorient, crossing its inbound track and exiting the area south of Bermuda on the 25th of July. To have attacked three large American tankers and sunk two of them in highly contested waters and with the Banana River, Florida Naval Air Station so close was surely an impressive accomplishment. U-66 was a highly successful U-boat, with thirty-three ships sunk worth an astounding 200,021 GRT plus another two damaged for 22,674 and two warships damaged for sixty-four tons. She would be sunk west of the Cape Verde Island by depth-charges, ramming and gunfire from aircraft flying off the USS Block Island and the US destroyer USS Buckley on 6 May, 1944 – thirty-six of her crew survived. Kapitänluetnant Friedrich Markworth of the Crew of 1934 amassed an impressive tally during his career: thirteen ships sunk for 74,067 tons, the Cherry Valley damaged, and two warships damaged as well. During this patrol – in fact barely a week after sinking the Bloody Marsh – Markworth was awarded the Knights Cross on the 8th of July. He joined U-boats from cruisers in July 1940 and served as First Watch Officer (1WO) on U-103. Korvettenkapitän Richard Zapp had led U-66 before Markworth took over. On Markworth’s first patrol to the southern Caribbean he sank nine ships for 48,896 tons and mined Castries, Saint Lucia. On the way back from the patrol, however, whilst refueling from U-117 Markworth was so severely wounded by aircraft from USS Card that he relinquished command to Paul Frerks. U-117 was sunk. In October 1943 Markworth moved ashore to the 23rd (training) Flotilla, on the eve of defeat switching to the 25th Flotilla. Gerhard Seehausen assumed command of U-66 until her destruction some months later. Having served 325 patrol days on three missions, Markworth would go on to live until age 78, passing away in 1994. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 127 U-527 Uhlig 5-Jul-1943 2 Kapitänleutnant Herbert Uhlig on the Type IXC boat U-527 spent three days south of Bermuda heading east back to Lorient France, however the boat was intercepted two weeks later in mid-Atlantic and sunk on July 23, 1943. The Bermuda portion of the patrol consisted of an entry point south of the island on the 5th of July, a jog to the north, putting the boat about 350 miles south of Bermuda, then a southeasterly course out of the area the following day. During his earlier patrol Uhlig opted to utilize the long-dormant Northeast and Northwest Providence channels when he proceeded inbound south of Bermuda starting June 1st 1943. He arrived off Abaco on the 5th of June and over the following 24 or so hours steamed around Hole in the Wall Light, past Nassau to the South, Bimini and Hard Bargain, Moore’s Island to the left and right respectively, and then between Great Isaacs Light and Grand Bahama before breaking into the Straits of Florida and heading south. U-527 sailed south against the Gulf Stream for two days before exiting the region to prowl in the US Gulf on the 8th of June. On the way out the submarine had encountered a storm-damaged Allied ship which was being towed to the UK, but was chased away by escorts (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.15). Uhlig was to return on the last day of the month for the boat’s final passage, back towards Europe. Going up the Straits of Florida Uhlig again chose the Northwest and Northeast Providence channels, and again passed the colony’s capital – this voyage through the area just as fruitless as the last. On the 3rd of July the boat and its commander burst free of the channels, gulfs and islands and headed into the open Atlantic and its destiny off the Azores Islands where it was sunk by combined Allied efforts. U-527’s last day in the larger Bahamas territory was to be the 7th of July 1943. West of the Azores U-527 was surprised by an aircraft which bombed the sub twice and damaged its fuel tanks. This is a near-fatal blow since the oil leaking from the tanks gives the boat’s position away to following Allies. This damage resulted in a nineteen-hour attack by destroyers, however Uhlig managed to escape. U-648 was ordered to assist the damaged U-boat and they met on the 23rd of July. While they were sharing equipment and fuel an Allied Avenger aircraft captained by Lt. R. L. Stearns from the USS Bogue attacked. Uhlig dashed to a nearby fog bank and determined to fight it out on the surface, while U-648 managed to escape. The Avenger dropped six depth-charges on the boat, whose anti-aircraft gun had jammed. U-527 began to sink, with the spot marked by smoke floats. Only thirteen men, Uhlig among them, managed to escape and were picked up by the USS Clemson and later landed in Casablanca by the Bogue. Forty men drowned (Wynn, Vol. 2, pp.15-16). Accountable for sinking one ship of 5,242 tons, plus a warship of 291 tons and another ship damaged for 5,848 tons, Herbert Uhlig was 27 years of age at the time of this patrol which he undertook in the Tenth Flotilla of Lorient. A member of the Crew of 1935, he achieved Kapitänleutnant in June of 1943. Uhlig underwent 138 patrol days on just two patrols. During his career he received no decorations. He went on to live 81 years, passing in 1997, having served the balance of the war as a captive of the Americans. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 128 U-134 Brosin 9-Jul-1943 4 Recently promoted Kapitänleutnant Hans-Günther Brosin in U-134 spent four days transiting Bermuda inbound. Starting to the southeast of the island on the 9th of July 1943, the boat proceeded westerly until the 12th, then exited heading west. Perhaps learning from his predecessor’s poor pickings near the Windward Passage, Brosin opted for a three-week patrol in the Bahamas area by utilizing the Northeast and Northwest Providence channels both for inward and outward passages. On the way U-134 was refueled by U-170 west of the Azores, followed by an attack from a Bermuda-based Mariner aircraft (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.110). The boat was to be attacked no fewer than four times by Allied forces, the final attack being fatal to the boat. Fortunes had indeed changed for the U-boats by mid-1943, however Brosin was to achieve the unique feat of bringing down a US Navy airship during this patrol, exacting what might appear a pyric revenge. Two days before it entered the area U-134 was placed on the defensive when a Bermuda-based naval aircraft under command of John T. Hitchcock dropped six to eight depth-charges, though the boat was able to survive (Blair Vol. 2, p.364). Entering the area on the 10th of July, Brosin steamed due west for Hole in the Wall Abaco, arriving on the 15th. By the following day U-134 was in the Gulf Stream heading south in the Straits of Florida. Two days later, while off the northwest tip of the Cay Sal Bank, the U-boat was spotted and (in-advisedly) attacked by the US naval airship K-74. Contrary to standing orders, the observation blimp dove in for the attack but the little-used release mechanism for the depth-charges failed to work, and Brosin’s deck crew were able to shoot down the dirigible. Afraid that the charges would explode when they sank, the crew swam for their lives towards nearby Elbow Cay, Cay Sal Bank. Some claimed to see the U-boat approach the blimp to cut away samples of the material for analysis back in Germany, though this seems doubtful, given the danger this would have placed the submarine in, presuming that their position would have been radioed in to the Allies in nearby Key WeSaint In any event, this was the only known case of an Axis submarine bringing down a Navy blimp during the war, and when he drowned on the cusp of rescue US Navy seaman Isadore Stassel became the only Allied personnel so lost during the conflict. Harried by both Allied attacks and concomitant technical problems, U-134 was again attacked the following day, this time by US Ventura aircraft piloted by John C. Lawrence. Three depth-charges found their mark, severely damaging the forward battery compartment. After this Brosin performed a box maneuver southeast of the Florida Keys without approaching Key West or the US Gulf directly, and turned back towards the relative safety of the Northwest and Northeast Providence channels. On the 22nd of August the submarine doubled Great Isaacss Light heading east past Nassau, and emerged over the north coast of Eleuthera on the following day. For the next week U-134 steamed eastwards and exited the region on the 1st of August at a point south of Bermuda and south of its point of entry. Three weeks later the U-boat escaped a fourth close call when Wildcat and Avenger aircraft from the USS Croatan (engaged in escorting a convoy off Europe) attacked the submarine – however Brosin was able to escape once again. Ultimately, U-134 was sunk four days later, on the 24th of August off Vigo, Cape Finisterre, Spain, at the entrance to the Bay of Biscay. A Gibraltar-based Leigh Light Wellington bomber led by D. F McRae attacked during the night (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.110). All 48 crew were killed. A Type VIIC boat sailing in the Third Flotilla out of La Pallice France, the U-134 was launched in September 1940 and commissioned in July 1941. Hans-Günther Brosin began his final patrol as an Oberleutnant zur See and ended it – and his life – as a Kapitänleutnant, having been promoted on the first of July 1943. He was 26 years of age. Aside from the U-boat War Badge of 1939 this member of the Crew of 1936 achieved no ships sunk or damaged except, of course, the airship K-74 off Cay Sal. The fact that he was on war patrol for an impressive 134 days (twenty-one of them in the Bahama area) speaks to the challenges facing U-boat commanders in the later years of the war in the Caribbean area, as contrasted with the successes of his predecessors. Whereas a study of a typical patrol in mid-1942 would include roughly four attacks on Allied shipping, by mid-to-end 1943 the patrols like Brosin’s were a catalogue of nearly half a dozen Allied attacks on submarines on a single patrol, with no effective retribution achieved to tip the balance. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunters, 1939-1942, and Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunted, 1942-1945, 2000 129 U-566 Hornkohl 23-Jul-1943 5 Kapitänleutnant Hans Hornkohl brought U-566 on its second patrol into the Bermuda region on the 23rd of July 1943 – the first patrol to the area had been skippered by Dietrich Borchert. This patrol was a mission to the US coast to lay mines and sink shipping. For that reason the track is a more or less straight line from northeast of Bermuda going west and southwest to a point north of Bermuda on the 25th. On the 27th Hornkohl left Bermuda for the US. Two days later U-566 was believed to have deposited a dozen MTB mines off Norfolk, however they claimed no victims. On the second of August a US Mariner spotted the U-boat off Cape Henry, but it escaped. From then on the Allies were on U-566’s trail, and she was tracked by USS Plymouth. However U-566 was able to turn the tables and attacked and sank the US navy boat off Cape Hatteras on the fifth of August. Two days later a USS Ventura attacked the boat off Cape Charles, but U-566 fought it off and it crashed after bombs it dropped failed to detonate – Liuetenant F. C. Cross and his crew were killed. Another Ventura attacked and was also shot down with the loss of its crew. A third aircraft, a Mariner, appeared and forced U-566 to the surface with bombs. Into the dusk the sub fought off this aircraft as well as two others and two blimps until it escaped in the dark. A Mariner found her in the moonlight but she again escaped, proving itself a charmed boat. On the 8th of August a Catalina from Halifax found U-566 off Nantucket Shoals and vectored in three US Navy destroyer escorts which the submarine managed to evade with the assistance of an innovative radar decoy device named Aphrodite. U-566 had sailed for the 1st U-boat Flotilla on the fifth of July and returned to Brest on the first of September 1943. Hans Hornkohl was born in 1917 and appears to be still alive at the time of writing in end-2013. He served in the Crew of 1936. Between 1939 and August 1941 he was assigned to the Luftwaffe’s long-range naval reconnaissance unit. The he joined U-boat training and served aboard U-753. He took over command of U-566 in January until October 1943. Hornkohl’s later commands included U-3509 which was bombed and mined during trials in Danzig, in the Baltic. He transferred to U-3512. In the waning days of the war he commanded U-2502 and U-3041 on no war patrols in April 1945 until the capitulation. He was imprisoned but freed in August 1945. The only Allied vessel he sank in his career was USS Plymouth of 2,265 tons on this patrol. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 130 U-230 Siegmann 24-Jul-1943 6 Kapitänleutnant Paul Siegmann brought his submarine U-230 to the north of Bermuda both westbound and eastbound starting on the 24th of July 1943. The first leg cut due west from northeast of the island to the northwest, exiting on the 26th. The return leg led from northwest of Bermuda starting on the second of August and lasted just three days, until the fourth. U-230 sailed for the 9th U-boat Flotilla from Brest on the fifth of July, 1943. Its primary mission was to lay TMC mine off the US. The Siegmann did on the 31st of July off Norfolk Virginia. He then patrolled off the coast near Hatteras until early August, when he backtracked north of Bermuda. On the 13th he was east of Bermuda and supposed to rendezvous with U-117 east of Bermuda and southwest of the Azores, however U-117 did not keep the meeting. On the 17th U-230 was able to rendezvous instead with U-634 and then both boats were told to proceed to U-847 some 800 miles southwest of the Azores for more fuel. They arrived on the 27th to find three other submarines there. After refueling them U-847 radioed to headquarters in France that her job had been completed, in reward for which she was tracked, discovered and destroyed by the Allies within three hours. U-230 meanwhile managed to return to Brest on the 8th of September 1943. Paul Siegmann was born in Munich in 1913 and was a member of the Crew of 1935. He first served as the First Watch Officer of the torpedo boat Greif from 1940 to 1941. He commissioned U-612 from March to August 1942, when it was sunk in a collision with U-444 in August. In October 1942 he commissioned U-230 and stayed with her until August 1944, for seven war patrols of 253 days. Overall Seigmann tallied four ships sunk for 6,453 tons, including two Royal Navy LSTs and one US Navy Patrol Craft, all in 1944. That year he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. At the time of writing in end 2013 Seigmann is believed to still be alive. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 131 U-84 Uphoff 7-Aug-1943 1 Like Rostin in U-158, Kapitänleutnant Horst Uphoff and his men in U-84 entered the Bermuda region only to be caught by Allied air patrols from that island and destroyed a day later. In this case the submarine entered the region southwest of Bermuda on the 6th of August 1943 and was sunk the following day, the 7th. Though it was believed for many years that U-84 was sunk in mid-Atlantic by a carrier-based hunter-killer group, close analysis by expert Dr. Axle Niestle confirms that U-84 and her men actually perished south of Bermuda on this date. Uphoff began his second and final patrol to the Bahamas region on the 6th of July 1943, entering in a line to the west from midway Bermuda-Anegada. To leave Biscay U-84 sailed in company with U-306 and U-732. The boat was refueled by U-536 late in June west of the Azores (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.64). Like Carlsen’s before it, this fifteen-day incursion was to bear no fruit for the Axis – only for the Allied defenders. It appears from the chart of the boat’s war log (KTB) that the submarine entered the Windward Passage on the 12th of July, by-passing the Turks and Caicos in favor of the route along the south of those islands, however the data is ambiguous. Whether Uphoff utilized the Caicos Passage or not, it left the area on or about the 12th of July. On the 16th of July Uphoff reported torpedoing a ship in the Yucatan Channel and leaving it burning, however this is unsubstantiated. Continuing on a patrol unmarked by attacks, U-84 passed Guantanamo, by now a formidable Allied fortress, albeit one crammed with targets awaiting convoy deployments. Uphoff headed west to a point in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico after transiting the Yucatan Channel and on the 30th of July he re-entered the Bahamas region to the south of Key West and west of Cay Sal, Bahamas. Opting for the Straits of Florida over the Old Bahama Channel, the boat proceeded in the Gulf Stream to Great Isaacs’s Light north of Bimini, rounding it to starboard on the 2nd of AuguSaint During that evening U-84 steamed passed the Berry Islands and Nassau, emerging from the Northeast Providence Channel on the 3rd. The 4th, 5th 6th, and 7th of August would be the last days of life for U-84’s entire crew. Two reasons for the uncertainty of U-84’s route home are starkly simple: in order to avoid attracting the kind of attention to itself that saw the demise of Rostin in U-158 off Bermuda earlier in the war and others after him, Uphoff would have transmitted his daily position to home base (BdU) as rarely as possible in order to avoid radio-direction-finding (RDF) detection by the enemy. Secondly, the submarine was sunk during the patrol northeast of Bahamas on its return leg, and thus there will never be an opportunity for historians and naval officers to study the actual log books of the patrol. Even the dilemma of where and by whom the sub was sunk remained murky and erroneous until expert Dr. Axle Niestlé solved the riddle less than a decade ago. We know that the boat was supposed to rendezvous for fuel from U-760 some 750 miles southwest of the Azores, and Wynn gives credit to the USS Core’s aircraft for a fatal attack on U-84 on the 24th. Specifically a US Avenger flown by Lt. W. A. Felter is given credit (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.64). In fact, on the 7th of August, while still a day’s steaming from the eastern border of the Bahamas region, the boat was detected and attacked by an American B 4 Liberator aircraft, from the VB-105 squadron, of the US Navy. An Mk 24 homing torpedo sent U-84 to the bottom of the Atlantic with all hands in a position of 27.55 degrees north and 68.03 degrees west, roughly midway between Bermuda and the Turks & Caicos Islands. Since U-84 and Kapitänleutnant Uphoff had already patrolled the region, his exploits have been catalogued above. Aged 26 at the time of his death, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold in January 1944 once it was clear that he and his crew were on what is euphemistically called in the submarine service an “eternal patrol”. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunters, 1939-1942, and Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunted, 1942-1945, 2000 132 U-732 Carlsen 9-Aug-1943 4 U-732 under Oberleutnant zur See Claus-Peter Carlsen, one of the commanders covered herein who is still alive, began its four-day patrol into the area on the 9th of July 1943. The boat entered the region southwest of Bermuda homeward bound and proceeded east-northeast until the 12th, when it exited the sphere towards France. It had not been a successful patrol. To get there it had crossed Biscay with U-84 and U-306. Following that the boat was refueled by U-488 west of the Azores. On entering the greater Bahamas area U-732 steamed southwest towards Cape Mole Haiti, utilizing the north coast of Hispaniola rather than attempting either the Caicos or Crooked Island passages. Carlsen had good reason to avoid fortified Allied channels – he would be attacked twice in or near the Windward Passage. Rounding the northwest tip of Haiti on the 11th of July, the following day two US OS2U Kingfisher scout aircraft surprised the Type VIIC boat on the surface, damaging it slightly but not injuring any of the crew (Blair Vol. 2, p.364). Having exited the area, Carlsen took the boat on a short box-grid search southeast of Jamaica before returning to the Windward Passage on the 27th of July. Then, while between Inagua and Cape Maysi Cuba the following day Carlsen initiated an attack on a convoy of repair ships and destroyers, only to be depth-charged into retreat after being forced beneath the surface. The convoy was ON 376 southbound, only 30 miles west of Great Inagua Island, Bahamas. The corvette USS Brisk depth-charged the sub. Carlsen made the unsubstantiated claim that he had hit two of the ships in this convoy and sank one of them (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.140). The patrol began on the 10th of June and ended in Brest on the 31st of August 1943. It would prove a far cry from the days of Holtorf’s brazen attack on the Standella, Empire Corporal, and Michael Jebsen in the same area some months before. Despite a transit of the Crooked Island Passage between Long Island and Bird Rock, Landrail Point Crooked Island, no ships were sunk or even damaged during this 83-day patrol. According to the KTB or war diary (Krieg Tag’s Buch / War Day Book), U-732 spent a week between the 28th of July and 6th of August lingering and patrolling off the west coast of Inagua in the entrance to the Crooked Island Passage. Whether the intent was defensive or offensive (the boat was in main shipping channels but had been attacked twice in the area) is not known, but no further attacks are recorded despite the presence of convoys to and from Guantanamo and Key West and Aruba and Halifax on a nearly twice-weekly basis. On the 7th of August the boat bent a course for home, transiting out of the region south of Bermuda and bound for the First Flotilla in BreSaint It departed the region on the 11th of August, five weeks after its arrival on this fruitless patrol. Oberleutnant zur See Claus-Peter Carlsen, a member of the B Crew of 1937, was 23 at the time of this patrol and achieved no allied sinkings during his three patrols of 136 days (the next patrol was to be the boat’s final one). In 1942 he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Over his U-boat career he served 136 patrol days over three patrols. U-732 was sunk off Tangier, Africa on the 31st of October, 1943 by HMS Imperialist and the British destroyers HMS Douglas. Though 31 crew were killed, 18 survived, including Claus-Peter Carlsen. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunters, 1939-1942, and Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunted, 1942-1945, 2000 133 U-518 Wissman 22-Oct-1943 10 U-518 next patrolled the region under Kapitänleutnant Friedrich-WilhelmWissman for ten days, starting the 22nd of September, 1943. U-518 was leaving the Savannah-Hatteras area and headed southeast for several days, until the 25th of September. Then the sub headed east, to a point south of Bermuda before jogging north to about 200 miles southeast of Bermuda on the 28th. Finally on the 29th the boat resumed heading northeast, leaving the region on the last day of September, the 31st, bound back to France. U-518 entered the Bahamas region midway Bermuda-Anegada on the 16th of September 1943 and proceeding due west for Abaco and Eleuthera. On the 24th of September U-518 entered the Northeast Providence Channel, and a day later rounded the Great Isaacs Light southbound into the US Gulf by rounding Key West westbound on the 29th. The boat, under Friedrich-Wilhelm Wissman on its first of several patrols to the region, returned via Key West on the 14th of October, roughly two weeks later. Steaming up the Gulf Stream for the next few days, it rounded West End Grand Bahama on the 16th and was in the open North Atlantic by the following day. Continuing northeast until the 19th to a point roughly a third of the way between Savannah and Bermuda, the boat then turned southeast and motored until the 24th of October. At that point it turned due east and exited the area at the same position it had arrived, on the 26th of October. On this 106-day patrol out of Lorient and into Bordeaux for the Second Flotilla, U-518 neither attacked nor sank any ships. The patrol lasted from 18th August to 1 December 1943. Kapitänleutnant Wissman was a member of the Crew of 1935. After serving in minesweepers he was First Watch Officer on U-109 under Heinrich Bleichrodt. Over four patrols of 304 days he sank eight ships for 52,346 tons and damaged two others for 15,440 GRT. Wissman was selected for the secret mission to land a special agent on the North American mainland in 1942. Not only did U-518 succeed in the mission, landing a saboteur in Chaleur Bay Canada on the 9th of November 1942, but Wissman managed to sink four ships and damage two in the vicinity as well. Not decorated during the war, he lived until the age of 47, passing in 1963. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 134 U-214 Stock 23-Oct-1943 2 Oberleutnant zur See Rupprecht Stock brought U-214 for a brief two-day incursion of the area far southeast of Bermuda in order to refuel from U-488. The sub simply skimmed the imaginary box around Bermuda on the 23rd and 24th of October 1943 heading northeast for its rendezvous with its comrades on the refueling tanker near the Azores early in November. The boat returned to Brest on the 39th of November, 1943. U-214, on its second patrol to the Bahamas region under Rupprecht Stock, was another veteran which would put ten war patrols under its keel. A Type VIID out of Brest and the Ninth Flotilla, its patrol in the Bahamas region was limited to essentially two one-day transits of either the Anegada or the Guadeloupe passages. These transits occurred on the 26th of September 1943 and a return voyage on the 18th of October. The boat sewed a field of mines of the Panama port of Colon which may have claimed the US submarine Dorado (SS 248) on the 14th of October though this is not confirmed. Dorado is widely believed to have been sunk by friendly fire by US Mariner aircraft piloted by Daniel T. Felix Jr. from Guantanamo Naval Air Station whilst the sub was in the Straits of Florida on the 12th of October 1943, though the subject is widely debated. The patrol began on the 22nd of August and the sub was attacked by an Avenger aircraft from the USS Croatan when only 90 miles southwest of the Azores. U-214 badly damaged the aircraft and would probably have been sunk by the nine aircraft sent to destroy it, had not darkness intervened. On the 22nd of November Stock claimed to have struck a ship northeast of the Caribbean, however that claim has not been verified. On the way home the sub was refueled by U-488 near the Azores in end-November. The patrol ended in Brest on the 30th of November 1943 (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.158). A member of the Crew of 37A, Oberleutnant zur See Rupprecht Stock became Kapitänleutnant in mid-1944. Awarded the German Cross in Gold a month later, he sank one ship of 200 GRT, is credited with sinking the Dorado, and damaged another for 6,507 tons. Over a career he embarked on six patrols and accumulated an impressive 333 days of war patrols. He was to live until December 2002 and the age of 86. The boat was sunk by HMS Cooke with all 48 crew in the English Channel on 26 July 1944 – Stock was not on board. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 135 U-530 Lange 9-Nov-1943 5 Kapitänleutnant Kurt Lange brought his sub U-530 to the southeast of Bermuda for five days in order to refuel from U-488, starting on the 9th of November 1943. Entering the region to the east southeast of Bermuda the sub headed southwest until the 11th of November, where it rendezvoused with the U-tanker or milk cow U-488. On the 12th the boat headed south, leaving the region on the 13th of November. U-530 sailed for the 10th U-boat Flotilla out of Lorient on the 17th of October, for the Caribbean. After refueling from U-488 she entered the Caribbean Sea near Martinique and made it as far as Panama. Off that coast on the day after Christmas she damaged the tanker Chapultepec of 10,195 tons. On the 29th of December another tanker, the Esso Buffalo rammed the U-boat, however U-530 made good its escape. The submarine returned to Lorient on the 22nd of February 1944. Kurt Lange was born in August 1903 and was a member of the Crew of 1922. In his early naval career he served in a VP-boat flotilla before joining U-boats starting in September 1941. Over six patrols in U-530 starting in February 1943 (he commissioned her in October, 1942), Lange accrued 369 days on patrol. During that time he sank or attacked three ships of 22,258 tons. He was awarded the German Cross in gold and lived until 1995. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 136 U-488 Bartke 11-Nov-1943 5 Oberleutnant zur See Erwin Bartke brought his milk cow tanker submarine to a region to the far southeast of the Bermuda zone for five days in November 1943, with the primary task of providing fuel to U-530 and other subs including U-129, U-193, and U-214. U-488 arrived in the area on the 11th of November 1943, lingered in the same spot to the far southeast of Bermuda on the 12th and 13th, and then tracked off eastwards and out of the zone on the 14th. U-488 sailed for the 12th U-boat Flotilla in Bordeaux on the 7th of September, 1943. Between the 28th of September and the fourth of October she supplied U-68, U-103 and U-155, all of them outbound west of the Azores Islands. On or near the 11th she met with U-402, U-584, and U-731 in the same region. The group was under surveillance by a hunter-killer group lead by USS Card the following day. This was a defensive patrol – and the group had to find a new area to replenish fuel. Under the protection of flak boats U-256 and U-271 U-488 was able to refuel U-402 north of the Azores, however that boat was sunk the following day and U-488 possibly damaged. Wynn says that the replenishment of U-378, U-641, U-731 and U-758 took place between the 15th and 17th of October. U-488 then moved further southwest and into the region southeast of Bermuda. There it managed to supply U-129, U-193, and U-530 to continue their patrols plus U-214 for the homeward voyage in end October and early November. Then the boat returned to base, arriving in Bordeaux on the 12 of December 1943. On this patrol Lange lost two of his crew, one from sickness, another from cardiac arrest. Erwin Bartke was born in 1909 and only joined the U-boat arm and possibly the navy at the age of 33 or so, presumably from another branch of the service, as there is no record of which Crew he graduated with. In 1931 he was Second Watch Officer of U-403 and he commissioned U-488 in January 1943. After leaving U-488 he took command of U-1106 and was lost when that boat was destroyed less than a year later, on 29 March 1945 in the North Atlantic. Overall Lange accrued 160 days aboard both subs in three patrols. He was awarded the U-boat Front Clasp in October 1944. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 137 U-193 Pauckstadt 15-Nov-1943 10 Fregattenkapitän Hans Pauckstadt brought U-193 for a ten-day patrol south of Bermuda starting on the 15th of November, 1943 and ending on the 11th of January, 1944. First U-193 entered southeast of the island on 15 November and motored to the northwest, in a generally straight line. The sub exited the area on the 20th in the direction of Savannah and Hatteras. Whilst returning to Europe over a month later the boat returned, this time from south of Bermuda on a northeasterly heading, starting on the 8th of January. This leg lasted only four days and ended on the 11th when Pauckstadt and his crew headed northeast out of the region, to the southeast of the island. The Type IXC/40 boat U-193 entered the Bahamas south of Bermuda on the 17th of November and then motored west then west-southwest for the Northeast Providence Channel, which it obtained on the 22nd of November. Motoring south of Abaco and north of Nassau, the boat emerged into the Gulf Stream on the night of 23rd November and turned to port around Great Isaacs Light. Proceeding down the Gulf Stream in the Straits of Florida, it cleared Key West on the 26th and exited the region into the US Gulf on that date. In a 122-day patrol the boat’s only victim was the US-flagged tanker Touchet of 10,172 tons, sunk in the US Gulf. From Key West the boat rounded Cuba via the Yucatan Channel and re-entered the greater Bahamas region via the Windward Passage on the 29th of December. The thirtieth found U-193 south of Inagua, but instead of going through the Caicos or Crooked Island Passage Pauckstadt opted to turn east along the north coast of Hispaniola and then turn northeast, having passed to the south and east of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Motoring northeast between the 1st and 6th of January 1944, the boat exited the area on that day south of Bermuda. However rather than return to La Pallice, where it as based with the Second Flotilla, the boat was forced to duck into El Ferrol, Spain due to urgent repairs after it was attacked by Allied aircraft on the 9th of February. The re-positioning patrol from El Ferrol in neutral Spain (which required permission from the Spanish government to undertake) took five days for the submarine to arrive in Lorient, France. This patrol began on the 12th of October and U-193 refueled from U-488 east of Bermuda in late October. U-193 was attacked twice while in the Caribbean by USN aircraft. The Touchet was to be the only ship sunk by Fregattenkapitän Pauckstadt. A member of the Crew of 1926, he survived the collision and sinking of U-18 ten years later. At the time of outbreak of war in 1939 he was an officer on the training ship Gorch Foch. After that he led the Fifth U-boat Flotilla. He commissioned U-193 in Bremen at the end of 1942. At the time of the German surrender Pauckstadt was in command of the Eighth Flotilla (training) and another training flotilla. In total he acquired 185 patrol days at sea in two war patrols. Hans Pauckstadt lived until 1984 and the age of 77. U-193 was posted as missing from the Bay of Biscay on the 23rd of April 1944 without him – no precise explanation was been given for its loss. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 138 U-129 von Harpe 16-Nov-1943 19 U-129 began its next patrol the region under Oberleutnant zur See Richard von Harpe on the 16th of November 1943. There were three components to this long 19-day incursion: 1 – Between the 16th and 21st of November 1943 U-129 entered southeast of Bermuda inbound and motored west for thre days, until the 18th. Then it turned northwest until the 21st, exiting the area for the Savannah – Hatteras area on that date. 2 – Roughly three weeks later U-129 returned, this time west of Bermuda and heading southeast from the 6th of December to the 11th. At that point von Harpe turned west and out of the region on the 13th of December, again towards Hatteras and Savannah. 3 – on the last da of 1943 von Harpe utilized the waters north of Bermuda for the submarine’s homeward patrol. Entering northwest of Bermuda on the 31st of December the sub headed east until the 3rd of January, 1944. Then it jogged to the northeast well northeast of Bermuda, heading out of the region and back to Europe on the 4th of January. On the way to Bermuda and Bahamas U-129 refueled from U-488 east of Bermuda. Entering westbound south of Bermuda the boat headed to a complex patrol area north and east of Grand Bahama and Abaco. On the 25th of November the boat entered the Gulf Stream off Walker’s Cay and sailed to a point off Jacksonville. Thereafter it zigzagged northeast towards Cape Hatteras and exited the area on the 1st of December. A week later, on the 8th of December von Harpe returned, this time heading southeast for two days before turning west towards Abaco. On the 13th the boat turned due south to a point not far from San Salvador on the 15th, turned back north towards Hatteras, and left the region for the second time three days before Christmas, though this second incursion to San Salvador may have been the result of a clerical error (the skipper wrote the wrong geographical grid box coordinates in his log) and it is likely the sub actually remained off Hatteras and patrolled Bahamas only once on this voyage. During this patrol U-129 was credited with sinking the 5,441-ton Cuban freighter Libertad off San Salvador on the 4th of December, however this misunderstanding was spawned by an erroneous log entry by von Harpe. Libertad was actually sunk off Hatteras and the rescue of her crew (and damage to US Coast Guard ships which went to their aid) is well documented by photographs in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Working with the author, the creators of Uboat.net changed the entry for this patrol accordingly. On the way back to France U-129 and U-516 were to obtain fuel from U-544 on the 16th of January 1944 northwest of the Azores. When the mother ship did not appear U-516 sought fuel elsewhere and U-129 made Lorient on the 31st of January without it. On the way the boat sadly lost a crewman overboard on the 21st of January (Wynn, Vol. 1, p.106). Von Harpe’s career total was three ships sunk for a total of 17,362 of which the Libertad was his first sinking. These successes earned him the German Cross in Gold in 1944. Over his career von Harpe embarked on three patrols of 276 days. The boat sailed for the Second Flotilla out of Lorient. Oberleutnant zur See Richard von Harpe was 26 at the time of this patrol and would be promoted to Kapitänleutnant in January 1945 before taking U-3519 on its only and final mission – it was sink with its commander in the Baltic Sea on the 2nd of March 1945, a mere six weeks before the end of the war. Born in Estonia, von Harpe was an AuslanderDeutsche, or overseas German, for whom Hitler justified the first phase of the war (reclaiming lands lived on by German-speaking peoples). SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 139 U-170 Pfeffer 16-Mar-1944 9 Kapitänleutnant Günther Pfeffer returned to his second patrol to the region having survived the sinking of his previous command, U-171, by a mine at the entrance to the port of Lorient on October 10th 1942. This patrol began on the 9th of February 1944. On the 16th of March U-170 entered the region midway between Bermuda and Anegada and motored west for a week, passing out of the Bermuda region on the 20th of March at a point southwest of the island. Leg two of this patrol to the Bermuda area was begun on the 26th of March 1944 and lasted for just four days, until the 29th. The boat arrived southwest of Bermuda, headed northeast for a day, then north, and finally northwest on the 29th at a point west of the island. The submarine was heading back to patrol the Hatteras and Savannah region. For the balance of the patrol in the Bahamas area U-170 reached a point only several hundred miles northeast of Eleuthera. The boat patrolled this area, east of the Northeast Providence Channel, between the 22nd and 25th of March without result. For the next three days Pfeffer motored north, passing to the east of Great Abaco Island and out of the region on the 29th of March, about 150 miles east of Savannah. Several days later, on the 3rd of April, U-170 returned to the region by coming south from near the coast of Georgia and heading southeast for several days. On the 6th of April the boat made a turn to the west, placing itself northeast of Abaco. The following day Pfeffer reported that he had attacked a ship north of the Bahamas. A study of the KTB reveals that the shot was fired from so far away – about two and a half miles – that to have struck the ship would have been luck. Interestingly, Pfeffer opted to spend ten days patrolling off the northeast Bahamas, just as he had done on his way inbound. As a result the total patrol days in the area amounted to over a month, or 33 days. The 16th of April found U-170 northeast of Harbour Island, Eleuthera, and heading southeast along the island chain about 200 miles offshore. After passing San Salvador on the 17th the boat turned gradually east, and aside from a dog-leg on the 29th and 20th proceeded due east On the 23rd of April U-170 exited the region, again midway between Bermuda and Anegada. The boat returned to Lorient on the 27th of May 1944. Despite the longevity of the patrol, there is no record of the Type IX/40 submarine, which was commissioned in 1943 with a range of 13,850 kilometers, having refueled en route. Pfeffer’s career is covered earlier in this study, during his patrol to the region in September, 1942. He was 29 years of age at the time of this patrol and lived until 1966. The photographs of him during the war show a young man with a rakish tilt to his cap, a jagged front right tooth, and an infectious smile framed by large ears. Another photo of him during refueling operations in Norway shows a bearded man with a more serious, inquisitive look. Probably it was taken by a crewman and Pfeffer seems to be inquiring why the photographer was thus engaged during operations. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 140 U-541 Petersen 4-Apr-1944 14 Kapitänleutnant Kurt Petersen spent 14 fruitless days in U-541 criss-crossing the waters south of Bermuda between the fourth of April and the 23rd of May 1944. Leg one was inbound and began well southeast of Bermuda. Going southwest until the 5th of April the boat then assumed a straight westerly heading until the 9th. Then U-541 turned northwest and out of the area, in the southwest corner of the 400-mile radius around the island. On his return voyage Petersen arrived southwest of Bermuda on the 15th of May 1944 and first motored southeast for a day. Then the boat turned east towards Europe tunil the 20th, with a jog to the south on the 18th. From the 20th to when it exited the region southeast of Bermuda on the 23rd of May U-541 headed northeast in a trajectory back to base. This 22-day patrol of the northeast Bahamas is remarkable for its duration, the comparatively late-in-the-war patrol, and its ineffectiveness. U-541 entered the area south of Bermuda on the 6th of April by motoring due west for four days. Then on the 11th, while northeast of Abaco by about 300 miles, the boat turned north and exited the area for the Cape Hatteras region on the 12th of April. Ten days later Petersen returned, this time midway between Bermuda and Savannah, to patrol well to the northeast of Abaco and Eleuthera. This lasted for 17 days, until the 8th of May and no ships were sighted or sunk. The closest the sub came to the Bahamas was roughly 100 miles north of Walker’s Cay, Grand Bahama, east of Cape Canaveral on the 24th and 25th of April. On the 8th of May U-541 again left the region in favor of the Carolinas, returning for the final time a week later, on the 14th of May. This time the course was quite clear – Petersen steamed south from a point midway to Bermuda, then southeast, and final east, exiting the area south of Bermuda on the 19th of May. Certainly Petersen was trying with gusto. On the 14th of May while offshore from the border between South Carolina and Georgia (east of Savannah), Petersen reported attacking an unescorted tanker with six torpedoes and observing only two detonations at the end of their runs (Wynn Vol.2, p.22). His return home was more interesting but no less frustrating: On the 26th of May, less than a week after exiting the area, U-541 stopped and searched two neutral ships: the Portuguese Serpa Pinto and the Greek ship Thetis, which was carrying 200 passengers including Jewish refugees. Because the Thetis was chartered to a neutral Swiss party, and Portugal was not a neutral that Germany wished to incite (thereby making the transit to and from Biscay by U-boats even more dangerous, should that country side with the Allies), both ships were allowed to proceed after consultation with Berlin. Petersen did however imprison two US citizens aboard his submarine for the return voyage to Lorient, which was reached on the 22nd of June 1942 (Wynn Vol. 1, p.23). Twenty-seven at the time of this patrol, Kurt Petersen was awarded the German Cross in Gold in 1944 six weeks before setting off from Lorient on 29 February. Kapitänleutnant Petersen was a member of the Crew of 1936 whose second rank, in 1938, was Sea Cadet. Over his career of 316 days on four patrols he sank one ship of 2,140 tons. On the down side he took command at a time when Allied ships were harder to find and glory immeasurably more difficult to obtain. On the up side, Pedersen survived the war and is alive today. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 141 U-505 US Navy 14-Jun-1944 6 U-505’s voyage to Bermuda was unique in that it was not a patrol at all, rather the submarine had been captured off West Africa and was towed by US Navy vessels to the island. Daniel Gallery led the overall carrier task force responsible for the capture of the boat intact. Though U-505 does not fall under the category of enemy patrols around Bermuda, since it remained on the island until after the war and its contribution to US intelligence understanding of German U-boats, their machinery, manning, torpedoes, codes, and other technologies was inestimable, it is included here in passing only. The previous commander Axel-Olaf Löwe’s successor Harald Lange was in command when she was captured by the Allies in the Central Atlantic and towed to Bermuda in mid-1944. U-505 was later to become famous for its capture whole by the Americans and for spending years in Bermuda as a highly prized secret during the war. It is now on display in the Museum of Science in Chicago. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service 142 U-539 Lauterbach-Emden 26-Jul-1944 3 Recently promoted Kapitänleutnant Hans-Jürgen Lauterbach-Emden in U-539 spent only three days in the Bermuda area between the 26th and 28th of July, 1944 before proceeding to Puerto Rico for one of the last successes of the German campaign against the Caribbean area. The boat was home-bound in late July when it skimmed the southeast area around Bermuda and exited on the 28th heading northeast for Europe. U-539 under Hans-Jürgen Lauterbach-Emden would sink the last ship of the war in this region during a patrol the the Bahamas area of 15 days there, starting on the 1st of June 1944, when the sub entered from south of Bermuda and motored for the Mona Passage. U-539 was a large Type IXC/40 boat based out of Lorient with the Tenth Flotilla. However on this 145-day patrol it left from St Nazaire and returned to Flensburg, Germany, via Bergen, Norway. North of Puerto Rico on the 2nd of June U-539 was attacked by a USN Mariner piloted by Lt. J. G. Tomkins but managed to evade damage (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.21). On its arrival off Puerto Rico on the 5th of June, Lauterbach-Emden detected a small convoy and several other ships coasting along the shore and moved in for an audacious daytime attack. The Panamanian-flagged, US-manned tanker Pillory of 1,517 tons was the U-boat’s first of three victims on this patrol. Though several were killed when the bridge was blown into the sea and the tanks exploded, the US Coast Guard was able to rescue many survivors (see details of the attack in the Allies section). The Allies counter-attacked with both surface and air attacks but the damage inflicted was not severe. U-539 then proceeded through the Mona Passage undetected and went on to damage the Dutch Casandra (2,701 tons) and the US Kittanning (10,195 tons) in the Caribbean for a patrol total of 14,413 tons – an impressive tally considering the allied counter-measures in effect at the time. Near Panama Lauterbach-Emden’s boat was attacked by the deck gun of the Cassandra, causing minor damage and forcing the U-boat to break off the attack before the tanker could be sunk. And the following day, on the 12th of June 1944, a US Mariner aircraft attacked the submarine but once again escaped, this time unscathed (Blair, Vol. 2, p.564). On the way back to Germany Lauterbach-Emden opted to utilize the Mona Passage again, entering on the 17th of July. Hugging the eastern coast of the Dominican Republic, the boat headed northwest past the Silver Banks at first, east of the Turks & Caicos, and then on the 19th turned east-northeast for a point north of Puerto Rico. On the 22nd of July U-539 turned more northerly and eventually exited the region south of Bermuda on the 26th. The route home was uncertain and circuitous, given that the Allies were blockading the Bay of Biscay. As a result U-539 had to obtain its precious fuel for the return leg from U-858 roughly 400 miles southwest of Iceland. Though bound for Flensburg after a patrol of extraordinary length – nearly five months – U-539 was forced to call first at Bergen on the 17th of September. This makes it the only submarine covered in this study which began or ended a patrol in that port. It made Flensburg, Germany on the 22nd of September 1944. The three vessels of this patrol would amount to all ships attacked or damaged by Lauterbach-Emden over a career total of three patrols and 267 days at sea which he spent on U-539, which he commissioned. As alluded to above, the boat was surrendered in Bergen Norway at the end of the war and destroyed by scuttling in Operation Deadlight by the British. Though the boat was scuttled by the British after the war, its commander is still alive. Hans-Jurgen Lauterbach-Emden joined the Navy as a member of the Crew B of 1937 and made Kapitänleutnant in March of 1944. He was 24 years of age when he sank the Pillory. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service, Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-boat War, The Hunted, 1942-1945, 2000 143 U-518 Offermann 24-Aug-1944 6 Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Werner Offermann brought U-518 into the Bermuda area for six days inward bound between the 24th and 29th of August 1944. It was the last boat patrolling the Bermuda and Hatteras areas of the war, though some still probed the New York – New England and Canadian waters and the bauxite route from Trinidad southwards yet later in the conflict. U-518’s patrol around Bermuda began to the northeast on August 24th and proceded in south and west steps to an area roughly 200 miles north-northwest of the island on the 27th. Then Offermann turned due west and exited the area towards the US coast on the 29th of August. Thus ended two years and eight months of enemy incursions into the area, which had been begun by Hardegen in U-123 in January 1942. The final patrol by a German submarine into the Bermuda and Bahamas areas was initiated by U-518, this time under a new commander, Offermann. It was a brief dip into the area from Hatteras made notable not only because the boat rode out a hurricane (easier to do under water admittedly than on the surface) but also because it was in the vicinity of the USS Warrington, the destroyer which was sunk by weather with heavy loss of life northeast of Abaco on the 14th of September. Though the Warrington was in a naval convoy and dozens of ships were sent to comb the seas for Warrington survivors, none of them detected U-518, patrolling in the same general area at the same time. In fact they tragically could not even detect each other. U-518’s dip south from Hatteras occurred between the 4th and 6th of September 1944. East of Savannah on the line to Bermuda the submarine steamed south for a day, then due west towards the coast until the 6th of September, then returned to the area off South Carolina to patrol. Interestingly, though U-518 sailed out of Lorient with the Second Flotilla, it returned to Kristiansand, Norway – the only U-boat of those covered that ended its patrol in that port. The 102-day patrol of U-518 was punctuated not just by storms but by two attacks, one defensive and the other offensive. On the 8th of August, while proceeding westwards for the Americas the boat was attacked by Allied escorts but escaped undamaged. On the 12th of September, as the hurricane brewed up, Offermann was able to attack and damage the American ship George Ade of 7,176 tons off Cape Hatteras. The counter-measures from the ship and from the minesweeper USS Project were considerable and drove the sub off. The Ade was salvaged by Escape, but sank while under town in the hurricane on the 13th. Aside from this vessel, Offermann sank one ship for 3,401 tons over his career. This patrol was the second to the region undertaken by a submarine with the new schnorkel equipment which enabled the boat to remain underwater, ventilate the boat, and charge the batteries all from beneath the ways – a game-changing modification which arrived too late in the game. The boat had left on another back-to-back patrol to the region on the 15th of July and return to Norway (after the Allied blockade of the Bay of Biscay) on the 24th of October. Taking up the duties which U-858 had been engaged in off Iceland when it refueled U-539 weeks before, U-518 was assigned weather-reporting duties for roughly a month from mid-September through mid-October (Wynn, Vol. 2, p.10). A member of the Crew X of 1939, Offermann was 23 at the time of the patrol and would only live for less than a year and go down as “one of the youngest commanders during WWII.” He was killed on 22 April 1945 north-west of the Azores, sunk with all hands by the US destroyer escorts Carter and Neal A. Scott. He was 42 days into his third patrol at the time. Ranked Oberleutnant zur See, Offermann received the German Cross in Gold at the end of 1943. SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service