General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: SS 'Umvuma' Sunk 7 August 1943 out of Durban,
Posted by:
Mike South
()
Date: November 07, 2001 03:55PM
<HTML>My sincere thanks to those who have already (most helpfully and so promptly!) replied to my initial enquiry. Any additional information will always be welcome.
By one of those strange twists of fate, I now discover that both Wolfgang Lüth, commander of U-181 which sank the SS ‘Umvuma’ (in which my paternal uncle was lost), and I both spent time aboard the German sailing school ship ‘Gorch Fock’, he in 1933 and I in 1962. As to whether Lüth would have been incarcerated or embraced after the war’s end, who can tell. After all, under the Americans Werner von Braun and his team of rocket scientists were essentialy placed in competition with the rest of the ex-Peenemunde rocketeers under the Russians, accelerated military ascendancy being deemed more important than ideological ‘purity’. Admiral Rickover was notably independent in the way he ramrodded through the entire American nuclear submarine program. Who knows, perhaps Lüth might have contributed valuable insights into keeping crews sane and ‘fighting fit’ on extended voyages.
Mike South</HTML>
By one of those strange twists of fate, I now discover that both Wolfgang Lüth, commander of U-181 which sank the SS ‘Umvuma’ (in which my paternal uncle was lost), and I both spent time aboard the German sailing school ship ‘Gorch Fock’, he in 1933 and I in 1962. As to whether Lüth would have been incarcerated or embraced after the war’s end, who can tell. After all, under the Americans Werner von Braun and his team of rocket scientists were essentialy placed in competition with the rest of the ex-Peenemunde rocketeers under the Russians, accelerated military ascendancy being deemed more important than ideological ‘purity’. Admiral Rickover was notably independent in the way he ramrodded through the entire American nuclear submarine program. Who knows, perhaps Lüth might have contributed valuable insights into keeping crews sane and ‘fighting fit’ on extended voyages.
Mike South</HTML>
