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Born	24 Oct 1913		Berlin-Grunewald
Died	5 Aug 2010	(96)

Kptlt. Jürgen Oesten

Ranks 1 Apr 1933 Offiziersanwärter 1 Jul 1934 Fähnrich zur See 1 Apr 1936 Oberfähnrich zur See 1 Oct 1936 Leutnant zur See 1 Jun 1938 Oberleutnant zur See 1 Mar 1941 Kapitänleutnant 1 Dec 1944 Korvettenkapitän Decorations 6 Jun 1939 Spanish Cross in Bronze without Swords 3 Dec 1939 Iron Cross 2nd Class 27 Feb 1940 Iron Cross 1st Class 26 Mar 1941 Knights Cross

Jürgen Oesten on patrol. The uniform is slightly contrary to regulations.

Jürgen Oesten began his naval career in April 1933. After the usual training he spent more than a year on the great ships Admiral Graf Spee and Karlsruhe. In May 1937 he transferred to the U-boat arm, and thus received a solid pre-war training. In October 1937 he became a watch officer on U-20.

On 12 August, 1939 he commissioned U-61. The boat was on its first patrol, after two months of training, during the last days of October 1939. As a result of a few mine-laying patrols Oblt. Jürgen Oesten sank six ships with a total of 20,754 tons.

After his eighth patrol he left the boat and one month later commissioned the larger Type IXB boat U-106.

Jürgen Oesten

During her maiden patrol from Germany to her new base at Lorient, U-106 sank two ships with a total of 13,640 tons. Oesten won the Knights Cross on her second patrol in African waters, where he sank eight ships with a total of 44,820 tons. His attack on one vessel during the battle against convoy SL-68 was unintended but effective: he fired at the shadow of a recognized merchant ship in bad light conditions and did not realize that the torpedo hit and damaged the the British battleship HMS Malaya.

Kptlt. Oesten left U-106 in October 1941 and became the commander of the 9th Flotilla in Brest (France).

In March 1942 Jürgen Oesten became U-Boot-Admiralstabsoffizier with the Admiral Nordmeer and directed the U-boat war in Arctic waters. In July 1943 he left Norway and on 2 September, 1943 commissioned the Type IX D2 boat U-861.

Korvkpt. Jürgen Oesten in Trondheim in April 1945 with the commander of the 13th Flotilla Fregkpt. Rolf Rüggeberg

U-861 left Kiel on 20 April, 1944 as a so-called Monsun-boat because her destination was to be the Far East. But at first the boat operated in Brazilian waters, sinking two ships. The boat found her next victim south of Madagascar, and before she reached Penang on 23 September, 1944 she sank a ship near the Somalian coast. The boat had spent five months at sea.

U-861 left Soerabaya (Indonesia) on 15 January, 1945 with a load of vital goods and only equipped with two torpedoes for self-defense. During the return journey the boat struck an iceberg south of Greenland, but Oesten, through good luck and seamanship, reached Trondheim, Norway on 19 April, 1945 with only five barrels of fuel remaining in the tanks.

According to his family he passed peacefully away on 5 Aug 2010.

Sources

Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II.
Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1997). Der U-Bootkrieg 1939-1945 (Band 2).

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.

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