U-437 Schulz 28-Jun-1942 8 days
U-437 under KapitänleutnantWerner-Karl Schulz entered the region between Bermuda and Anegada on the 28thof June inbound and spent eight days total transiting the southeast corner of the box both inbound and outbound. From the 28th of June to the 1stof 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 Korvettenkapitänin March 1945, and he was Kapitänleutnantat 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