uboat.net

Heinz-Wilhelm Eck

Kapitänleutnant (Crew 34)


Successes
2 ships sunk for a total of 9.972 GRT

Born  27 Mar, 1916Hamburg
Died  30 Nov, 1945Hamburg


Heinz-Wilhelm Eck as cadet of Crew 1934

Ranks

8 Apr, 1934Offiziersanwärter
1 Jul, 1935Fähnrich zur See
1 Jan, 1937Oberfähnrich zur See
1 Apr, 1937Leutnant zur See
1 Apr, 1939Oberleutnant zur See
1 Dec, 1941Kapitänleutnant

Decorations

1940Iron Cross 2nd Class
1940Minesweeper War Badge

U-boat Commands

U-85215 Jun, 1943 - 3 May, 1944  1 patrol (107 days) 

Personal information

Heinz-Wilhelm Eck was born in Hamburg on March 27, 1916, and was raised in Berlin. He joined the Kriegsmarine in April 1943 as part of Crew 34. He went through the usual training programs and then specialty schools and from 1937 he spent five years on minesweepers – commanding one from 1939.

In 1942 he volunteered for the U-boat force was accepted for training at Pillau on 8 June 1942. He took his commander-in-training patrol on the famous U-124 commanded by his class mate Johann Mohr from 28 October 1942 to 21 February 1943.

On June 15 Eck took command of the new type IXD boat U-852 and put the boat through months of training before heading out from Kiel, Germany heading for the Indian Ocean. Before departure he got a final briefing from men like Schnee and Moehle warning him that his boat was among the slowest, heaviest and easiest to hit in the German fleet. He was told to be very careful in the South Atlantic and that wreckage from sunken ships could be spotted by the strong air cover there for several days. He apparently took these warning very seriously as can be seen from his actions in the on 13 March 1944 where he ordered the machine-gunning of the wreckage of the sunken Greek ship Peleus. These actions killed some of the Greek crew and were unsuccessful and the boat continued on its patrol.

After the boat was destroyed in the Arabian Sea (having been beached on the shores of Somalia) on 3 May 1944 the crew was captured by a British landing party the next day. The British found the war diary of the boat, that Eck failed to destroy, and from it they learned of the Peleus affair and later tried Eck and his officers as war criminals. Sentencing three to death but two were later released.

On 30 Nov 1945 Heinz-Wilhelm Eck was executed along with two of his officers, August Hoffmann and Walter Weispfennig, in Hamburg following a war-crime court by the Allies for his part in the Peleus affair.

Sources

Messimer, D. R. (1998) Heinz-Wilhelm Eck: Siegerjustiz and the Peleus Affair


Patrol info


 U-boatDeparture Arrival  
1. U-852 18 Jan, 1944  Kiel3 May, 1944  SunkPatrol107 days

Ships hit by Heinz-Wilhelm Eck


DateBoatName of shipTonsNat.ConvoyFate *
13 Mar, 1944 U-852Peleus4.695 gr 
1 Apr, 1944 U-852Dahomian5.277 br 
 9.972

* Unless otherwise noted the ships listed here were sunk.



Lost Ships of Guadalcanal, The

Ballard, Robert D.

Buy this title at
amazon.co.uk
See more sellers
Books dealing with this subject include:

Argyll Shipwrecks, Moir, Peter and Crawford, Ian, 1994
Clyde Shipwrecks, Moir, Peter & Crawford, Ian, 1997
The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast, Volume 2, Young, Ron, 2000
The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast, Volume1, Young, Ron, 2000
Dive into History, Keatts, Henry C. and Farr, George C., 1994
Diving the U-85, Bunch, Jim W., 1986
Gorzki los ORP Jastrzab, Damski, Zbigniew, 1987
Heroes in Dungarees, Bunker, John, 1995
Hood and Bismarck, Mearns, David and White, Rob, 2001
Laconia, Perepeczko, Andrzej, 1963
Lobos Acosados, Tojo Ramallo, José Antonio, 2000
Lost Patrols, McCartney, Innes, 2003
The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal, Ballard, Robert D., 1993
Menschlichkeit im Seekrieg, Schmoeckel, Helmut, 1988
An Operational Necessity, Griffin, Gwyn, 1999 (transl.)
Polscy pionierzy podwodnej zeglugi, Pertek, Jerzy, 1964
Raider 16, Hoyt, Edwin, 1988 (transl.)
Scharnhorst, Jacobsen, Alfred, 2004
Der Seekrieg, Schlachtschiffe und U-Boote, N/A, 1996
Shadow Divers, Kurson, Robert, 2004
Silent Hunters, Savas, Theodore P. (editor), 1997 (transl.)
Stalin's Silver, Beasant, John, 1999
Stoker's Submarine, Brenchley, Fred and Brenchley, Elizabeth, 2001
Survival Against the Odds, MacLeod, Donald J., 2000
The Hunt for the Saboteur, Garland, Landon, 2002
Trial of Heinz Eck, August Hoffmann, Walter Weisspfennig, Hans Richard Lenz and Wolfgang Schwender (The Peleus Trial), Cameron, John (editor), 1948
U-297, Skinner, Richard W., 2002
U-boat Intelligence, 1914-1918, Grant, Robert McQueen, 1969
U-Boats of World War Two Volume 1, Stern, Robert C., 1988
U-Boot, , 1996
USS Frost, Kerrigan, Warren J., 2001
Verdammter Atlantik, Herlin, Hans, 1994 (transl.)
World War I & II American Destroyers & High Speed Transport (APD-1), Caldwell Class, Borchers, Duane D., Sr.,

Special thanks to Fernando Almeida for data on ranks and decorations.

Listing of all U-boat commanders