U-432 Schultze 8-Feb-1942 8 days
The patrol of U-432 under Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Otto Schultze entered the Bermuda region on the 8thof 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 21stof 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.