Hi Joe,

There were no U-boat pens on Bear Island. These are all of the cases where a U-boat had anything to do with Bear Island during the war:

U-212 VIIC Helmut Vogler. Landed reconnaissance troops on Bear Island to destroy the remains of an Allied weather station in June 1943. (Note that the Luftwaffe bombed the island before this operation and that there was no active weather station there when the U-boat men got there. KD)

U-629 VIIC Hans-Helmuth Bugs. Set up an automatic weather station on Bear Island on 6 July 1943.

U-657 VIIC Heinrich Gö1lnitz. Set up an automatic weather station on Bear Island 30 November-2 December 1942.

U-668 VIIC Wolfgang von Eickstedt. Evacuated one man from a weather detachment on Bear Island on 10 April 1945. The other member of this two-man team failed to return from a hunting trip on the island and was presumed to have died.

U-737 VIIC Paul Brasack. Set up a weather station on Bear Island during August 1943. Carried out a general reconnaissance of Spitzbergen in October 1943. Set up an automatic weather station on Bear Island on 17 June 1944. Evacuated a weather team from Spitzbergen on 30 June 1944 and set up an automatic weather station at around the same time. The leader of the team, which had over-wintered, H. R. Knoespel, was killed by a mine explosion shortly before the pick-up. Landed on Bear Island on 6 July 1944 to check an automatic weather station already installed there.

U-992 VIIC Hans Falke. Set up an automatic weather station on Jan Mayen and later supplied a weather station on Bear Island. It is possible that the boat called twice at Jan Mayen, on 17 July 1944 and on 25 September 1944.

U-994 VIIC Volker MeLzer Was due to have established an automatic weather station on Bear Island in April 1945, but the war ended before these plans could be put into operation.

U-l163 VIIC Ernst-Ludwig Balduhn. Set up a weather station in northern Norway on 11 November 1944 and another on Bear Island 16-20 November 1944.

Source: Showell, Jak P. Mallmann. U-boats at War Landings on Hostile Shores. Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing Ltd., 2000. ISBN: 1-55750-864-X. Copyright: Jak P. Mallmann Showell, 2000.

I haven’t seen the movie so I have no idea what the plot is but anything about U-boat pens on Bear Island is pure fantasy.

Regards,

Ken Dunn