U-594 Hoffmann 2-May-1942 9 days
Dietrich Hoffmann, later Korvettenkapitän, spent nine days transiting around Bermuda without having sunk any ships. He entered the region on the second of May 1942 to the northeast of Bermuda and headed southwest towards the Bahamas until exiting on the sixth. Then a month later, on the sixth of June he came back empty handed from a patrol to the Caribbean.
From the sixth to the ninth of June U-594 headed from a position due southwest of Bermuda on a northeast heading, exiting the area to the east of the island on the ninth. U-594 sailed for the 7thU-boat Flotilla in Stain Nazaire on the 11th of April 1942 and returned to the same base on the 25th of June.
On the way to the Bermuda/Bahamas area Hoffmann refueled at the end of April from U-459 to the northeast of Bermuda. On the 25th of May U-594 engaged a tanker and lost one its crew over the side during the action. They were not recovered. On the way back to Europe the sub was again refueled by U-459, this time west of the Azores Islands.
Dietrich Hoffmann was born in 1912 and is believed to be still alive as at end 2013. He began his naval career in the Crew of 1932 and served as watch officer on the cruiser Emden and the light cruiser Leipzig. He moved to staff positions (advisor to the OKM) from 1940 to 1941, and joined U-boats in March of 1940.
Hoffmann commanded U-594 only from October 1941 to July 1942, when he was replaced by Friedrich Mumm. After U-boats he served as First Officer of the destroyer Z-30 and later her caretaker commander until the end of hostilities. Over two patrols of 93 days he neither damaged nor sank any Allied ships. He was promoted to Korvettenkapitän in July 1944 and received no decorations.
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