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 22ndof 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 Deutschlandand 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
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