U-125 Folkers 30-Jan-1942
KapitänleutnantUlrich 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 2ndof 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 2ndU-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 tonssunk 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