This is a photo of the British tanker ALEXIA torpedoed and damaged by U-510 on 10 August 1942.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John On 29 April 1944 the 15th AAF struck Toulon with all 17 operational Bomb Groups, of which six were equipped with B-17 and the remainder with B-24, escorted by two Fighter Groups with P-38 and one with P-51. According to the USAAF Chronology a total of 573 heavy bombers participated in the mission, however it is not mentioned how many actually bombed the target or were lost.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Yes, this mistake was published in all books written by Rohwer and unfortunately copied by many other authors. The info I mentioned earlier is based on my own research about the Axis submarine attacks in the Black Sea that I made in 2002 with the help of a researcher working for the Institute of Military History in Moscow. It was probably the first time the original German and Soviet rep
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Gerd Enders obviously used the book "Axis Submarine Successes" written by Jürgen Rohwer as source for this information. He credited the sinking of LENIN to DELFINUL, but this is not possible because the Romanian submarine wasn't at sea on 27 July 1941. According to Soviet reports the LENIN was mined and sunk in an own defensive minefield. DELFINUL carried out only one succ
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John U-124 encountered the float with the three men four days after sinking the UMONA. Schulz noticed that it had drifted 45 miles since then and calculated that they will reach the coast in 3 days, so he told them their position and after learning that they had no provisions he gave them a gallon of water, some cognac, a tin of biscuits and some pieces of wood to use as paddles. Unfortu
Forum: General Discussions

It was MTB-715 that fired its two torpedoes at a northbound U-boat from a distance of 800 yards in the Hjeltefjord (60°42'N/04°46'E) at 0130Z on 6 April 1945. The attack was assessed by the U-boat Assessment Committee on 28 May 1945 as "U-boat present. No damage.", but no reason or source was given how they came to this conclusion. The U-boat attacked must have been U-1055
Forum: General Discussions

Hallo Thorsten Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I've corrected and updated our entry about this attack.
Forum: General Discussions

If you follow the link "See the 7 ships hit by U-407" on our page about U-407 and click on HMS Newfoundland you will reach this page with details about the attack: On this page it is mentioned that the damage was earlier credited to ASCIANGHI but newer research showed that the Italian submarine had most likely attacked HMS LAFOREY which then hunted and sank her together with HMS ECL
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John I've finished my research about the sinking of MEMNON and updated our page about this ship today: It is clear from primary sources that 24 men from this ship were interned by the Vichy French authorities after arriving at Dakar, including one gunner and three military passengers. The other three passengers were in the lifeboat that made it to Bathurst, so it is clear that none
Forum: General Discussions

The source for this information is Herbert Ritschels "Kurzfassung KTB deutscher U-Boote". Alan Tennent writes in "British and Commonwealth Merchant Ship Losses to Axis Submarines" that one gunner and the six RAF personnel carried as passengers were taken prisoner, but not by whom. However, I think Tennent meant that the soldiers were kept in Vichy French internment while the m
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John That's simply impossible because the two attacks carried out by Bullock were made during the afternoon on 8 December 1942 and the collision between U-221 and U-254 happened at 21.34 hours on 8 December. U-254 sank immediately after being rammed by U-221 in bad visibility and about 30 survivors were seen swimming in the water, but only four could be rescued as high seas thwarted mo
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Ken This data is available under "U-boat Patrols":
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Peter In the summer of 2013 the wreck of a type VIIC was discovered off Odensholm and recently dived by the Finnish diver group Badewanne (http://badewanne.fi). The U-boat is not yet identified without doubt, but it is very likely that this is indeed U-479. We've updated our page about this U-boat accordingly:
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Lorenzo Catalina V/210 attacked U-476 in position 65.08N/04.53E at 0719hrs on 24 May 1944. However, the attack carried out by Liberator C/59 was made at 0147 on 25 May (not 24 as you wrote). The target was U-276 and I've added the details of the attack to our page about this U-boat.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Enrique HMS SERAPH was used in several clandestine operations and her commander could be briefed before leaving port about not making any remarks about the nature of the mission in the patrol report. Furthermore a special canister was designed just for the purpose of transporting the corpse for Operation Mincemeat. U-616 was already at sea when the body was discovered off Huelva, ready t
Forum: General Discussions

I wonder which data allegedly shows that a U-boat transported the body to Italy. Found nothing in the war diaries that indicates this actually happened. In my opinion it also doesn't make sense to transport a body aboard a vessel that is not equipped with a cold-storage room.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John I've checked the primary sources available for the sinking of EMPIRE SHACKLETON and found that the crew numbered 62, of which 12 were picked up by CALGARY and 7 by HMCS SHEDIAC. HMS FIDELITY stated in a radio message that she had picked up two boatloads of survivors from this ship, but unfortunately mentioned no numbers. However, as far as it is known there were no casualties befo
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Robert You can find all available information, the complete crew list and a photo of REYNOLDS on this page:
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Mark This failed attack on EVERLEIGH was probably carried out by the Italian submarine TAZZOLI, but I don't have the details. Hopefully Platon Alexiades will be able to verify this.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John U-97 was sunk on 16 June 1943, the survivors were spotted the next day by a Walrus flying boat (701 Sqn FAA) which landed to assist them, but could only take one man aboard. The motor launch HMS ML-350 rescued the remaining 20 survivors. On 20 Aug, 1944, the Soviet Black Fleet carried out a massive air raid on the harbor of Konstanza with 62 medium bombers and 80 fighters and Il-2 g
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John The U-517 survivors were indeed rescued by HMS OPPORTUNE, but the U-1229 survivors were all picked up by USS JANSSEN.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John 29 men of U-752 died in the sinking, but it was the LI who went below to scuttle the U-boat and did not come back. HMS ESCAPADE took 13 survivors aboard as prisoners and reported that 20 to 30 bodies were seen floating in life jackets, but showed no signs of life. A few hours later U-91 came across these bodies, picked up 10 men and were able to resuscitate four of them.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi John 9 Jan, 1944: Pola was hit by 319 tons of bombs dropped by 107 B-17 (2nd, 97th, 99th and 301st BG, 15th AAF). Primary target for this mission had been Fiume, but a 10/10 cloud cover prevented an attack so the bombers were diverted to Pola.
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Francesco Your access to sources about the air war is certainly better than mine as it is not my field of research. I think we can agree that the torpedo hit on HMS IBIS was achieved by one of the S.79 of 130° Gruppo, but I have some doubts about the reported bomb hit on HMS IBIS because this is only mentioned by the S.O.I.S. - another unclear detail is the number of survivors which is repo
Forum: General Discussions

Ciao Francesco At 11.08 hours on 10 Nov, 1942, U-561 fired a spread of four G7e torpedoes at an aircraft carrier identified as ARGUS, escorted by two cruisers and several destroyers, but had some troubles to stay submerged after firing the torpedoes and subsequently dived deep, believing that they had been spotted. Schomburg heard one detonation after 176 seconds (3000 m) and claimed that they
Forum: General Discussions

The first research work to identify ships sunk by U-boats was "B.R.1337 British and Foreign Merchant Vessels Lost or Damaged by Enemy Action During the Second World War." published by the Trade Division in October 1945, which was continuously updated when the captured German documents were analyzed to find the whereabouts of the ships reported as missing. I don't know if the los
Forum: General Discussions

Seems the part about ramming the trawler was made up by the press, because no such action is mentioned in the report about the Fourth War Patrol by USS WAHOO: 27 March 1943 in 33°39N/125°23E 1012H Sighted trawler. 1020H Opened up with 20mm guns and 4 inch on a diesel trawler of about 100 tons. Holed him several times. A few fires started, but was so water-soaked they soon died out. Threw abo
Forum: General Discussions

Yes, they were... because U-boats were the only feasible weapon for Germany to fight the Battle of the Atlantic - they hadn't enough resources and time to built a large surface fleet or many strategic bombers to blockade Britain. In the words of Winston Churchill: "The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that ever
Forum: General Discussions

Hi Lorenzo In WW1 at least four German U-boats were sunk by merchants: UC-36 was rammed by French steamer MOLIÊRE on 21 May 1917 U-49 was rammed and sunk by gunfire from British steamer BRITISH TRANSPORT on 11 Sep 1917 UB-119 was rammed by British steamer GREEN ISLAND on 5 May 1918 U-103 was rammed by British passenger ship OLYMPIC (sistership of TITANIC) on 12 May 1918 In WW2 only one
Forum: General Discussions

Is it possible you mean the Japanese escort CD-27?
Forum: General Discussions