General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: U-Boat code names and sponsoring cities
Posted by:
Ken Dunn
()
Date: April 13, 2001 12:13PM
<HTML>Hi Steven,
Some U-boats were sponsored by cities & towns. I am not sure if this always included taking up a collection to help pay for the boat to be built or if it was sometimes just an honorary sponsorship. These boats usually carried the crest of the town sponsoring them as their conning tower emblem (or at least part of their conning tower emblem). For example, U-352 had the crest of their sponsoring city as its emblem. There is an explanation of this in “U-Boat Emblems of World War II 1939 – 1945†by Georg Hogel (ISBN 0-76430-724-X).
As to code names for U-boats, I have not heard of any (which doesn’t mean they didn’t exist). A number of boats had nicknames given to them by their crews, and some types of boats had generic nicknames like the Milch Cows (designed to resupply other U-boats at sea). Based on the KTBs I have seen, at sea, their radio transmissions were usually addressed to their commanders at the time. For example radio transmissions for U-126 were addressed to Bauer (Ernst Bauer) her commander. U-boat Command didn’t accept that their codes had been broken during the war and weren’t as careful as they could have been as a result. Doenitz still didn’t know it when he wrote his book “Memoirs Ten Years and Twenty Days†after the war and he says so in the book.
Like the military everywhere, individual operations were given names and a boat participating in operation so and so might be referred to as one of the so and so boats but these names were just for the duration of the operation.
Hope this helps,
Ken Dunn
</HTML>
Some U-boats were sponsored by cities & towns. I am not sure if this always included taking up a collection to help pay for the boat to be built or if it was sometimes just an honorary sponsorship. These boats usually carried the crest of the town sponsoring them as their conning tower emblem (or at least part of their conning tower emblem). For example, U-352 had the crest of their sponsoring city as its emblem. There is an explanation of this in “U-Boat Emblems of World War II 1939 – 1945†by Georg Hogel (ISBN 0-76430-724-X).
As to code names for U-boats, I have not heard of any (which doesn’t mean they didn’t exist). A number of boats had nicknames given to them by their crews, and some types of boats had generic nicknames like the Milch Cows (designed to resupply other U-boats at sea). Based on the KTBs I have seen, at sea, their radio transmissions were usually addressed to their commanders at the time. For example radio transmissions for U-126 were addressed to Bauer (Ernst Bauer) her commander. U-boat Command didn’t accept that their codes had been broken during the war and weren’t as careful as they could have been as a result. Doenitz still didn’t know it when he wrote his book “Memoirs Ten Years and Twenty Days†after the war and he says so in the book.
Like the military everywhere, individual operations were given names and a boat participating in operation so and so might be referred to as one of the so and so boats but these names were just for the duration of the operation.
Hope this helps,
Ken Dunn
</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
U-Boat code names and sponsoring cities
|
STEVEN H. SANDMAN | 04/13/2001 08:57AM |
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RE: U-Boat code names and sponsoring cities
|
Ken Dunn | 04/13/2001 12:13PM |
|
RE: U-Boat code names and sponsoring cities
|
Rainer Bruns | 04/13/2001 12:56PM |
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RE: U-Boat code names and sponsoring cities
|
Frank | 04/13/2001 12:57PM |
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RE: U-Boat code names and sponsoring cities
|
Frank | 04/13/2001 01:05PM |
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RE: U-Boat code names such as \'U-Polyp\'
|
Kim | 04/16/2001 04:34PM |
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RE: U-Boat code names such as \\\'U-Polyp\\\'
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Ken Dunn | 04/17/2001 12:04AM |
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RE: U-Boat code names such as \\\\\\\'U-Polyp\\\\\
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Kim | 04/18/2001 07:41PM |