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 11ththen 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 23rdafter sinking the Liberator on the 19th east of Hatteras. On the 25thof 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 3rdU-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