U-588 Vogel 23-May-1942 3 days
Kapitänleutnant (later Korvettenkapitän) Victor Vogel brought U-588 for a brief incursion into the area north northwest of Bermuda between the 23rd and 25thof May, 1942. The submarine sailed for the 6th U-boat Flotilla in Saint Nazaire on the 19th of April and returned on the seventh of June. While enroute to its primary patrol area off Canada U-588 operated briefly in conjunction with U-455, U-553 and U-593 but were not successful in tracking a convoy.
While off Halifax on the 9thof May Vogel damaged the Greylock, US of 7,460 tons, which was later sunk by U-255. The following day U-588 sank the Kitty’s Brook, a British ship of 4,031 tons and on the 17th sent the steamer Skottland, Norwegian, 2,117 tons, to the bottom of Cape Sable. Off Yarmouth the next day she attacked the Fort Bringer but the torpedoes did not explode.
Further south Vogel dispatched the US steamer Plow City of 3,282 tons off Rhode Island. At the time the ship was engaged in retrieving survivors of the Peisander (sunk by U-653 on the 17th) from their lifeboat. Vogel then sank the British steamer Margot on May 23rdoff Nantucket before heading back to Europe, which it reached on June 7th
Victor Vogel was born in 1912 and was 29 at the time. His four patrols of 130 days were all aboard U-588, which was sunk with all hands on the 31st of July 1942 off Canada. Originally he had served in anti-submarine and mine-sweeping roles before joining U-boats in March of 1941. His career total of ships sunk or damaged was 9 ships for 44,623 tons. He received no decorations during his career.
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