Hi George These photos were taken by the German photographer Hugo Jaeger and were not published in the LIFE magazine, but a large part of his photo collection was bought after his death in the 1970s by TIME & LIFE pictures. About 2000 photos can be viewed online here: The LIFE picture archive is now hosted by Google and available here: The pictures of the "unknown submarine
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Hi Marc I did some detective work The tower in the background is the tower of the kings castle in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad) in East Prussia. According to Time Life the photo was taken sometimes earlier than 1942 by Hugo Jäger. He was an assistant to Hitler's photographer from 1937 to 1940 and then joined a propaganda unit for the duration of the war. So the photo was taken s
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Hi Norma Not only weather, cargo etc. were a factor, also the type of torpedo used. Later in the war the magnetic detonators finally worked, causing much more damage per hit and the homing torpedoes often hit the stern, stopping a vessel with the first hit and making it an easy target for a well aimed coup de grâce. ATHELSULTAN was considered, but the surviving master stated at the maritim
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Hi Norma Siri Lawson collected all available infos on the loss of ROBERT H. COLLEY here: Especially the statement of the witness George Reed is interesting and proves it for me that the storm broke the ship in two and not a torpedo. How many torpedoes it take to sink a tanker? Well, there is no certain answer to this question because a ship could remain afloat after hits in uncritical
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Hi Norma As you can read in the discussion on warsailors.com I had the same doubts about the possibility that ESSO WILLIAMSBURG was the wreck sunk by U-254. So we consulted all available sources, but the problem with Browning, Moore, Wynn and Blair is that they all used Rohwer as source so we had to make the re-assessment based on primary sources. As there were no survivors from ESSO WILLIAMSB
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The ROBERT H. COLLEY had been initially reported as torpedoed and because no other tanker claim was known from this area around that day and no other tanker was reported lost it seemed that U-254 had sunk her. Apparently no one noticed that the survivors and other witnesses of the incident raised some doubts about a loss due to a torpedo hit - the ship broke in two during a gale in heavy seas tha
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Hi Bruce I have asked Dr. Niestle about this and he is writing an article about his findings, which of course will be published on uboat.net when its finished. We will then update the fates of the involved U-boats accordingly.
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They were of the type XI as mentioned on the projects page:
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Hi These numbers were allocated to a cancelled order for type XIV U-boats. Seems this information is really missing on uboat.net and we will add this as soon as possible. Thank you for bringing this up.
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Hi John Thank you for pointing this out. It was apparently not the passenger vessel DEVONSHIRE, but the heavy cruiser HMS DEVONSHIRE that picked up the survivors from this vessel. The cruiser was returning from the bloackade of Gabon and arrived at Freetown on 29 November. I will change our entry on uboat.net for CONGONIAN accordingly.
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Gerard, a ship that had to be sunk by an Allied escort is usually fully credited to the U-boat that hit it. The reason for this is simple, the ship was damaged so badly that it would sink on its own earlier or later. The escorts sometimes only hastened the sinking of such a vessel because drifting wrecks would have been a menace to navigation.
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Hi Gerard To scuttle a ship it was not necessary to drop depth charges under a ship, a detonation close to the side would cause enough pressure to cause cracks in the hull or even remove some plates. The corvettes were not only equipped with rails to roll depth charges over the stern, but also with depth charge projectors (so called K-guns) to fire a single depth charge out to the side. It is
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Hi Mike Interesting, but the story about U-87 is apparently a distraction. The picture that appears in the article clearly shows that it is PORT NICHOLSON, in fact it is the same picture we use here on uboat.net: From the other facts mentioned (40 miles from Guyana, loaded with tin and copper, UK bound from South America, three crew members lost) I can narrow it down to one single possibi
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You can find a list of missing U-boats here:
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Hi John The U-9 in Speyer is of the 205 class of the Bundesmarine and was built in 1967. This was the third U-boat with this number, however the focus of uboat.net are the U-boats of WWI and WWII:
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Hi Apparently the Norwegian King got a personal yacht only after the war: The 15 U-boats intercepted by the 9th EG were accompanied by the following ships: Depotship HUASCARAN (6951 GRT, built in 1939 as German passenger/cargo vessel for the Hamburg-Amerika Linie) Depotship STELLA POLARIS (5209 GRT, built in 1927 as Norwegian cruise ship for Det Bergenske D/S) Fleet oiler KÄRNTEN (700
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Hi Simon U-180 left the Gironde under escort with 4 other U-boats, they were escorted out by a minesweeper to deeper waters and then continued alone, using the snorkel through the Bay of Biscay. U-195 and U-219 left in the group with U-180, also supply boats for Penang and both arrived there after using the snorkel along the Spanish coast, only surfacing again at night when passing the Azores.
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Hi Simon The BdU KTB continues about U-180 on 15.8. and mention that the boat did not yet sail. On 16.8. it is mentioned why: "As according to the garrison commander of St. Malo, unloading there is impossible ... As the cargo reported for U 180 consisted of 15 tons dynamite charges, 7 tons of 2 cm. ammunition, demolition charges and 16 tons of ballast, it is wondered whether this cargo i
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Hi Gudmundur Congratulations! According to the old Icelandic traditions you have to name him Uboatson after the successful work of his father or something like that, your rules and language can be confusing Hope the mother is as well as he is and I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas. I will drink a beer to him this evening.
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Hi Robert Yes, the B-25G and H were equipped with a 75mm gun but they were almost exclusively used in the South-West Pacific after mid-1943 and not to fight U-boats. The gun was manually loaded and the aircraft had to fly a straight course towards the target to aim, in ideal circumstances about four rounds could be fired during one attack. This made them unsuitable for the fight against a surf
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Hi Here you can find more informations about the work of German submarine designer for other Navies between the wars:
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Of course On the third patrol U-502 was part of the group Neuland - five type IX U-boats that started an offensive in the Carribean with a simultaneous attack on harbors there in mid-February 1942. U-502 operated in the Gulf of Venezuela against the small lake tankers which brought crude oil from Lake Maracaibo to the refineries on Aruba and Curaçao and sank three of them. The U-boat was the
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Hi Lio Apparently not, the U-boat was on passage from the North Sea to the patrol area southeast of Greenland when coming across the SVEND FOYN, straggling from the convoy HX-152 south of Iceland. I don't know the exact circumstances of the encounter, but U-502 must have been disturbed after the intial attack either by an escort or aircraft and could not sink the vessel.
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Hi A truly nice presentation of the history of your granddad and his squadron and a well done research work. Unfortunately I was not able to identify the U-boat attacked by this Fortress, as no one sent a message about being attacked on that day in the area of the naval grid AL01 (in which the position 5658N/2332W is). There were several U-boats in the area on that day to operate against co
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Hi Gaines Early in the war the aircraft used anti-submarine bombs which needed a direct hit on the target to be effective. This and the lack of a suitable sight for low-level attacks made it almost impossible for aircraft to destroy enemy submarines, only 3 U-boats were lost in unassisted aircraft attacks from 1939 to 1941. The depth charge gave the aircraft a more suitable weapon, as no direc
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Hi Lio U-502 was in an unnamed group chasing the convoy SC-48, but only had a short contact with it. In mid-October she joined the group Reißewolf which operated unsuccessfully against the convoys ON-26 and ON-28. On the return voyage Rosenstiel was ordered to operate against the convoy OS-10, but could not carry out the order due to the loss of fuel.
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Hi John The loss of U-732 had nothing to do with convoy MKF-24, which left Gibraltar on 28 September and arrived at the Clyde on 7 October. On 31 October, the U-boat was located by the A/S trawler HMS IMPERIALIST while trying to get into the Mediterranean in the Straits of Gibraltar. HMS DOUGLAS and was sent from Gibraltar to assist the trawler and sank U-732 after they had to surface.
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Hi Tom The correct translation: Approached sound bearing at half speed (30 meters). Yes, the 30 meters is very likely the depth. Well, this page on uboatarchive.net could be helpful. It lists the terms collected during the interrogation of German U-boat prisoners:
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Hi Tom Correct. In the KTBs they wrote sometimes ' (prime) for minutes and " (double prime) for seconds. This orginates from the symbols used for arcminute and arcsecond in the maritime cartography and navigation. You will probably never find a reference to feet and inch in U-boat war diaries, in Germany the metric system is in use since 1875.
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Here are some more informations from the salvage company:
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