Hi Denis If U-96 was really involved it happened in the evacuation of Pillau in January 1945, when a group of 12 U-boats left for Kiel with about 150 refugees on board. Unfortunately I don't now the numbers of the participating boats but I hope your research can help us to find out more on this topic.
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Hi John Well, Günther Hessler was a very experienced officer at that time serving in the Kriegsmarine since 1927. Some people may think he was given command of U-107 because he was married to the daughter of Karl Dönitz, but Hessler was not the only officer appointed a command after a few months shore training. There were Klaus Scholtz, Werner Hartenstein, Siegfried Strelow and Robert Gy
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Some additional infos:
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Hi John USCGC SPENCER picked up a total of 52 survivors, 45 from CRISTALES and 7 from MOUNT PARNES. I believe that the remaining 26 survivors from MOUNT PARNES were picked up by HMCS ARVIDA, which was probably the escort that scuttled the wreck. But unfortunately I found no confirmation for this.
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Hi John There were Catalinas of the US Navy stationed in Morocco since November 1942. In March 1943 the USN VP-73 was in Port Lyautey and the USN VP-92 in Port Lyautey and Agadir. In March 1943 they had been joined by the Liberators of the 1st and 2nd A/S-Squadron USAAF at Port Lyautey and one of these aircraft bombed and sunk the last U-boat in contact with UGS-6, U-524 on 22 March. If the
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Hi John The BdU always thought that the type IX was unsuited for the convoy operations in the North Atlantic due to their size, less maneuverability and longer time to crash-dive. They were only assigned to wolfpacks when not enough type VII were available or they were in the area where a convoy was sighted. U-124 made successful attacks on 11 different convoys during her career, but always
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Hi John Completed in May 1919 as COVERUN (2512 grt) for the US Shipping Board by the Great Lakes Engineering Works, Ecorse MI. 1922 renamed MAHUKONA for Matson Navigation Co, San Francisco. Apparently it was planned in 1940 to sold the vessel to France as BEAUVAIS, but this did not happen. She was then sold to Brazil and renamed SANTA CLARA for Navebras SA. On 14 Mar, 1941, sank after an explo
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Hi John According to the latest researches, the loss of SAGADAHOC occured as shown here on uboat.net: The vessel was torpedoed without warning, this is confirmed by the KTB of U-124 and the reports of survivors from the ship. The wrong description of the attack in Browning's book probably orginates from a note in Jürgen Rohwer's book "Axis Submarine Successes" (it is
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The longest patrol without stop was carried out by U-196 under the command of KorvKpt. Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat. They were underway for 225 days and covered a distance of about 33.000 nautical miles from Germany into the Indian Ocean and back to France.
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Hi You can find maps with the U-boat losses in this part of uboat.net
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Hi Roland Thank you for the additional informations. I only had the shortened KTBs (Ritschel) available for U-214 and he mentions the BV at 00.42 hours, but not the cause for it. Isn't it possible that the second malfunction of the compass was caused by the air attack at 18.15 hours on 6 December? The two depth charges detonated so close that the U-boat heeled hard over to starboard an
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Hi John The gyro compass of U-214 malfunctioned after the U-boat had been bombed on 6 Jan, 1943. They met U-105 five days later to get a replacement ball for the compass.
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Hi John At that time U-105 was on patrol between Grenada and Tobago and did not operate against the convoy TM-1, they just came across the drifting wreck of BRITISH VIGILANCE on their return voyage.
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Hi Gerard There were for sure problems with the durability of the Liberty ships, especially in a latter stage when it was tried to reduce the building times even more. In several cases Liberty ships broke in two in heavy weather, in a few cases even in calm seas. But the Liberty ships attacked by U-boats were almost all from the earlier series and proved in many cases difficult to sink. U-510
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Hi Luke Could it be that this is a typing error in the translation? The LUT (orginally designated FAT III) was a further development of the FAT, which became operational in December 1942. The trials for LUT torpedoes were carried out on U-970 of the 5th (Training) Flotilla until November 1943. The order is also signed by this Flotilla, so it is more likely from January 1944 after having ma
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Hi John At the same date as U-71
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Hi John U-71 arrived in the patrol line of Hartherz on 4 February and was ordered to return to base when the group was disbanded on 7 February.
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Hi John I know the book of Kelshall and it has its fair share of mistakes. For example in his description of the attack on U-158 he writes that the aircraft dropped 4 depth charges, but the action report clearly states that it was only intended to drop 4 depth charges - two of them could not be released. U-158 was sunk by only two depth charges, one exploding under the stern and the other appa
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Hi John The other man was also taken prisoner after sinking the EVERALDA. His name was Bernardo Corescardama, a Spanish citizen. Apparently a crew member, but I don't know his role.. perhaps the radio officer? By the way, does someone know the name of the master of EVERALDA?
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Hi Gerard HMS KURD was the last sinking and the only one that happened post war. The last attack during the war was made by U-2336 at 23.00 hours on 7 May.
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You can find the answer here:
Forum: Warship forum

Hi Spatz More informations about the torpedo incident and the reason why it was blown up can be found here:
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Hi Bill I think you mean this aircraft: It is claimed that one of these R4D-6S aircraft attacked a surfaced German U-boat in February 1945 north off Brazil and sank it. But I am not aware of any proof that such an attack actually took place and I have some doubts about the operational use of R4Ds, when so many Liberator, Mariner and Catalina aircraft were available for A/S patrols. These
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Hi Mark No German source mention an U-boat attack on that date and in the area. Two U-boats were known to be in the area: U-26 returned and no such action can be found in the war diary, but U-27 also operated in the area and did not return from patrol. U-27 was sunk on 20 September and its crew taken prisoner, so perhaps more informations about this action can be found in one of the British in
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Hi John U-124 attacked convoy FTT-4 on 16 December and sank TREWORLAS close to Trinidad on 28 December. Mohr encountered two tankers and an escort early the next day, but had to give up an attack when one of the diesels broke down and a Catalina of VP-53 damaged the boat with 4 depth charges. It is possible that the ships sighted were part of the convoy TM-1, which had left Trinidad on 28 Dece
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Hi John The convoy attacked was FTT-4, a short convoy series from Freetown to Trinidad (only 7 convoys between October 1942 and April 1943). At the time of the attack, the convoy consisted of 8 ships, escorted by the Flower class corvettes HMS AMARANTHUS and HMS TAMARISK and the Falmouth class sloop HMS MILFORD. There is no explanation for the observations made by Mohr, he heard two detonation
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Hi Mark The sinking of ATHENIA was brought to court at the Nuremberg Trial and no German account could be found of using the deck gun during the attack. You can read the testimony of Adolf Schmidt, a former crew member of U-30, here:
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Hi Pat You can find the answer here:
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Hi Adam and Bruce The warships sighted by this Bv138 and other Luftwaffe aircraft in the North Sea on 28 July 1943 was the Force A, a part of the Home Fleet during Operation "Governor". The plan was to lure the German battleship TIRPITZ out by a simulated raid on Southern Norway. The plan failed, but 5 shadowing Bv138 were shot down by Allied fighters. Force A consisted of: 2 bat
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Hi Jim To add some more thoughts to what Ken already wrote. EBB was sunk at night about 50 miles from land in an area that was frequently patrolled by aircraft. The commander of U-754 apparently tried to sink the small vessel as quickly as possible before dawn. The tactics used in such surprise attacks was to fire all available weapons from close distance, first aiming at the bridge to prev
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