Günther Reeder
Kapitänleutnant (Crew 35)
| Successes 3 ships sunk, total tonnage 18,266 GRT 1 auxiliary warship damaged, total tonnage 10,552 GRT |
| Born | 2 Nov 1915 | Berlin-Karlshorst |
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Ranks
Decorations
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U-boat Commands
| U-boat | From | To | |
|---|---|---|---|
| U-7 | Oct, 1940 | Jan, 1941 | No war patrols |
| U-7 | Feb, 1941 | 29 Mar 1941 | No war patrols |
| U-214 | 1 Nov 1941 | 10 May 1943 | 5 patrols (181 days) |
Günther Reeder joined the Kriegsmarine in 1935. After the usual training he was the First Watch Officer (1WO) on the U-58 (Kptlt. Herbert Kuppisch) from Feb 1939 to Sept 1940 (Busch & Röll, 1999). On this boat he went out on 11 patrols, spending 181 days at sea (Busch & Röll, 1997).
He commanded of the small "duck" U-7 from Oct 1940 to Jan 1941 and again from Feb 1941 to 29 March 1941 (Busch & Röll, 1999).
In Oct 1941 Oblt. Günther Reeder was sent to a shipyard in Kiel to go through his U-boat familiarization (Baubelehrung) in preparation for this next command. On 1 Nov 1941 he commissioned the brand new type VIID minelaying U-boat U-214 (Busch & Röll, 1999). His boat was one of only 6 such boats in the war. The next 6 months he spent in the Baltic working up both boat and men.
On 18 May 1942 U-214 left Kiel, Germany for Norway and then for Lorient, France arriving on 2 June. Reeder commanded the U-214 on 5 patrols, 181 days at sea (Busch & Röll, 1997). He sank 3 ships for over 18,000 tons and damaged the British Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Cheshire (F 18) on 18 Aug 1942 (Rohwer, 1998).
While outbound through the Bay of Biscay on May 6, 1943 Reeder's boat, the U-214, was heavily depth charged by a British Whitley bomber (10 OTU). Heavy machine-gunfire hit and severely wounded Reeder forcing him to abort his 2 day old patrol and put into Brest on May 10. A replacement captain, Rupperecht Stock, took the boat out again on May 19 (Blair, 1998).
This was to be Reeder's last U-boat command. He then joined the staff of 9th Flotilla in May 1943, serving there until Sept when he became an instructor with the 3rd ULD until the end of the war (Busch & Röll, 1999).
Sources
Blair, C. (1998). Hitler’s U-boat War. The Hunted, 1942-1945.
Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II.
Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1997). Der U-Bootkrieg 1939-1945 (Band 2).
Rohwer, J. (1998). Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two.
Patrol info for Günther Reeder
| U-boat | Departure | Arrival | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | U-214 | 18 May 1942 | Kiel | 20 May 1942 | Kristiansand | Patrol 1, | 3 days | |
| 2. | U-214 | 21 May 1942 | Kristiansand | 2 Jun 1942 | Lorient | Patrol 1, | 13 days | |
| 3. | U-214 | 3 Jun 1942 | Lorient | 4 Jun 1942 | Brest | Patrol 1, | 2 days | |
| 4. | U-214 | 13 Jun 1942 | Brest | 17 Jun 1942 | Lorient | Patrol 2, | 5 days | |
| 5. | U-214 | 17 Jun 1942 | Lorient | 18 Jun 1942 | Brest | Patrol 2, | 2 days | |
| 6. | U-214 | 9 Aug 1942 | Brest | 9 Oct 1942 | Brest | Patrol 3, | 62 days | |
| 7. | U-214 | 30 Nov 1942 | Brest | 24 Feb 1943 | Brest | Patrol 4, | 87 days | |
| 8. | U-214 | 4 May 1943 | Brest | 10 May 1943 | Brest | Patrol 5, | 7 days | |
| 5 patrols, 181 days at sea | ||||||||
Ships hit by Günther Reeder
| Date | U-boat | Name of ship | Tons | Nat. | Convoy | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug 1942 | U-214 |  | Balingkar | 6,318 |  | nl | SL-118 | |
| 18 Aug 1942 | U-214 | | Hatarana | 7,522 |  | br | SL-118 | |
| 18 Aug 1942 | U-214 | | HMS Cheshire (F 18) (d.) | 10,552 | | br | SL-118 | |
| 30 Dec 1942 | U-214 | | Paderewski | 4,426 |  | po | ||
| 28,818 | ||||||||
3 ships sunk (18,266 tons) and 1 ship damaged (10,552 tons). Legend | ||||||||
About ranks and decorations
Ranks shown in italics are our database inserts based on the rank dates of his crew comrades. The officers of each crew would normally have progressed through the lower ranks at the same rate.
Media links
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