| Born | 14 May 1916 | Saarbrücken | |
| Died | 6 Apr 1943 | (26) | North Atlantic |
|
|
Ranks
Decorations |
U-boat Commands
| U-boat | From | To | |
| U-10 | 30 Nov 1941 | 22 Jun 1942 | No war patrols |
| U-632 | 23 Jul 1942 | 6 Apr 1943 (+) | 2 patrols (71 days) |
Personal information
On 18 March, 1943 Hans Karpf’s wife delivered a daughter (later named Inge) – two weeks later the boat was sunk near Iceland with all hands.
His daughter wondered about whether Karpf had known about this child before his death.
Starting in 1981 after contact from Inge archivist and author Timothy Mulligan of the US National Archives waded through loads of decoded messages sent to the boat and finally found the thrilling text “Hero daughter born on 18 March. Congratulations” sent by U-boat Control on 24 March. So for about 2 weeks Hans Karpf knew he was a father. (The Virginian-Pilot, Jan 7, 2007. Page A12)
The medals of Hans Karpf
Patrol info for Hans Karpf
| U-boat | Departure | Arrival | ||||||
| 1. | U-632 | 24 Dec 1942 | Kiel | 26 Dec 1942 | Marviken | 3 days | ||
| 2. | U-632 | 29 Dec 1942 | Marviken | 14 Feb 1943 | Brest | Patrol 1, | 48 days | |
| 3. | U-632 | 15 Mar 1943 | Brest | 6 Apr 1943 | Sunk | Patrol 2, | 23 days | |
| 2 patrols, 71 days at sea | ||||||||
Ships hit by Hans Karpf
| Date | U-boat | Name of ship | Tons | Nat. | Convoy | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb 1943 | U-632 |  | Cordelia | 8,190 |  | br | HX-224 |
| 6 Apr 1943 | U-632 | | Blitar | 7,065 |  | nl | HX-231 |
| 15,255 | |||||||
2 ships sunk (15,255 tons). Legend | |||||||
About ranks and decorations
Ranks shown in italics are our database inserts based on the rank dates of his crew comrades. The officers of each crew would normally have progressed through the lower ranks at the same rate.