12th submarine flotilla
The 12th U-Flotilla (12th submarine flotilla) was a military association of the former German Navy during World War II , which existed from October 1942 to August 1944. Its story ended after the Allied invasion of France in August 1944, when the last seaworthy boats moved to the underground bases in Bergen and Flensburg - Kielseng or returned to the Far East . The flotilla also received its first operational submarine bunker in January 1943.
history
The flotilla was set up on October 15, 1942 , as the third long-range front flotilla, in occupied French Bordeaux under the command of Corvette Captain and later Frigate Captain Klaus Scholz. In addition to the long-haul type IX and XB boats , the flotilla also had nine of the ten Type XIV “dairy cow” boats and three of the four Type VII F boats. The areas of operation of these submarines were in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean . The most famous boats of this flotilla were U 181 under Korvettenkapitän Wolfgang Lüth , U 196 under Korvettenkapitän Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat and U 198 under Captain Werner Hartmann . After the Allies landed in Normandy and after all ships had left Bordeaux , Frigate Captain Scholtz and his 220 flotilla members tried to make their way to Germany by land , but they were all captured by US soldiers on September 11th and were taken prisoner.
The silhouette of a Type VII C submarine sailing across Asia was used as the flotilla coat of arms. The coat of arms was encased in a large black "U" and there was a red wolf above the VII C submarine.
Flotilla Chiefs
- Corvette captain / frigate captain Klaus Scholtz ( bearer of the oak leaves for the knight's cross ): October 15, 1942 to August 1944 (formerly in command of U 108 )
Reported submarines
The flotilla was under a total of 46 units from 1942 to 1944.
| class | Submarine |
|---|---|
| VII F | U 1059 , U 1061 , U 1062 (only U 1059 and U 1062 left for the Far East ) |
| IX D1 | U 180 and U 195 as front and transport boats |
| IX D2 | U 177 , U 178 , U 179 , U 181 , U 182 , U 196 , U 197 , U 198 , U 199 , U 200 , U 847 , U 848 , U 849 , U 850 , U 851 , U 852 , U 859 , U 860 , U 861 , U 862 , U 863 , U 871 |
| XB | U 117 , U 118 , U 119 , U 219 , U 220 , U 233 |
| XIV | U 459 , U 460 , U 461 , U 462 , U 463 , U 487 , U 488 , U 489 , U 490 |
| Aquila | UIT 22 , UIT 23 , UIT 24 , UIT 25 |
literature
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 29.