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Born	26 Jun 1914		Babziens, Rastenburg
Died	18 Mar 1997	(82)

Ranks 8 Apr 1934 Offiziersanwärter 1 Jul 1935 Fähnrich zur See 1 Jan 1937 Oberfähnrich zur See 1 Apr 1937 Leutnant zur See 1 Apr 1939 Oberleutnant zur See 1 Feb 1942 Kapitänleutnant Decorations

Helmuth Pich joined the Reichsmarine in 1934. From Sept 1939 to Sept 1941 he was seconded to the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force. He was a flight captain of the 2. Seeaufklärergruppe 126 (naval recon) from 1 April 1941 (Busch & Röll, 1999).

He went through U-boat training from Oct 1941 to March 1942. From March to June 1942 Kplt. Pich served as a supernumerary Watch Officer (WO) on the U-103 (Kptlt. Werner Winter) (Busch & Röll, 1999). Pich went out on one 69 day patrol with the boat where they sank 9 ships for over 42,000 tons (Rohwer, 1998).

Pich went through U-boat familiarization (Baubelehrung) program from June to Sept 1942 to prepare for his next command. On 10 Sept 1942 he commissioned the new type IXC/40 boat U-168 at Bremen (Busch & Röll, 1999). During the winter he trained boat boat and men in the Baltic before leaving for his first patrol as Commander from Kiel on 9 March 1943 (Busch & Röll, 1997).

Operations in the Indian Ocean

On 3 July 1943 Kptlt. Pich took the U-180 out on a very long patrol to the Indian Ocean as part of the Monsun boats. He arrived at Penang 132 days later on 11 Nov. He sank the British ship Haiching (2,183 tons) enroute on 2 Oct (Rohwer, 1998).

In the Indian Ocean Pich next sailed from Penang on 7 Feb 1944 and returned 47 days later at Batavia having sunk 2 ships (5,825 tons) and damaged the large Norwegian Fenris (Rohwer, 1998).

Kptlt. sailed from Batavia on 5 Oct 1944 but the boat was ambushed by the Dutch submarine HrMs Zwaardvisch in the Java Sea the next day (Niestlé, 1998). 23 men died and 27 men survived, including the Commander Pich.

Kptlt. Helmut Pich was captured with the rest of the survivors and was in captivity until March 1947 (Busch & Röll, 1999).

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).
Niestlé, A. (1998). German U-boat losses during World War II.
Rohwer, J. (1998). Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two.

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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