U-564
Reinhardt ‘Teddy’ Suhren was next to return to the region, again on U-564 for its second patrol. Like Neitzel it would be a brief incursion which occurred largely to the far eastern perimeter of the region and would involve only one incident of note. On the 3rd of August Suhren brought U-564 just within the boundaries of the area between Bermuda and Anegada, and on the 4th he turned south towards Anegada.
The following day he stopped the Swedish neutral steamer Scania on the high seas and carried out one of the rare detailed “stop and frisks” of the Second World War – it fired a shot across the clearly marked “neutral” ship, requested an officer bring the ships’ cargo manifest papers over, and then, convinced by the first Watch Officer Lund that the cargo was genuinely neutral (Scania was destined for neutral Brazil) he let the ship sail.
Suhren continued southwards and exited the area east of Anegada on the 8th of August. (The Scania was not so fortunate when encountered by Rainer Dierksen in U-176 on 13th of December the same year; she was sunk just north of the Equator carrying hides and wool from Montevideo to Philadelphia.)
This patrol began in Brest on the 9th of July. On the 18thU-564 was called to pursue convoy OS 34 north of the Azores. This resulted in Suhren sinking the Empire Hawksbillof 5,724 tons and the Lavington Courtof 5,372 tons – both British. The next day the boat resumed its patrol and in late July was refueled by U-463 west of the Azores (Wynn, Vol. 2, p. 39).
On the 19th of August Suhren came across convoy TAW (S) south of Grenada and sank the British Consul(6,940 tons) and the Empire Cloud(5,969 tons) – again both British flagged. On the 30th she sank the Norwegian tanker Vardaas of 8,176 tons north of Tobago. The submarine returned to Brest on the 18th of September 1942. The accomplishments of Suhren (twenty-three ships for over 125,351 sunk or damaged) are well documented.
SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2011m Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997