Hans-Jürgen Hellriegel
Hans-Jürgen Hellriegel (born June 16, 1917 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf ; † July 2, 1944 in the Atlantic southwest of Tenerife ) was a highly decorated German naval officer and submarine commander in World War II . He was in command of U 140 , U 96 and U 543 . On his patrols he sank five ships and seriously damaged one. However, various sources provide various information about the sunk BRT .
Life
Hans-Jürgen Hellriegels military career began in April 1936 and was thus a member of the so-called Olympic crew . After serving on the torpedo boat Luchs for six months , he enlisted in the U-Bootwaffe in October 1938. A little more than a year later, in December 1939, he began his service as second officer on watch on board U 46 , under the command of Kptlt. Herbert Sohler and later under Kptlt. Engelbert Endrass .
He finally left the boat in March 1941 and took a commanding course. In April of the same year he took over his first command of the U 140 . Hellriegel led the submarine on two patrols in the Baltic States in the summer and sank the Soviet submarine M-94 .
In April 1942 he replaced Kptlt. Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock as commander of U 96 . His first patrol was unsuccessful, but on his second it was possible to sink four ships. He also seriously damaged the British tanker FJ Wolfe .
Hellriegel left U 96 in March of the following year and took command of U 543 a month later . He was one of the few commanders who completed patrols with three classes of submarines ( Type II , Type VII and Type IX ). Hellriegel and the entire crew fell in July 1944 when they were attacked by a US aircraft belonging to the escort aircraft carrier USS Wake Island .
Awards
- Iron Cross 2nd class on April 24, 1940
- Submarine War Badge (1939) on April 26, 1940
- Iron Cross 1st Class on July 3, 1940
- Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on February 3, 1944
literature
- Gaylord TM Kelshall: The U-boat war in the Caribbean , Naval Institute Press 1994, ISBN 9781557504524
- Clay Blair : Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted: 1942–1945 , Random House 1998, ISBN 978-0679457428
- Kenneth Wynn: U-boat Operations of the Second World War: Career histories, U511-UIT25 Naval Institute Press 1998, ISBN 1557508623
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll, Geoffrey Brooks: German U-boat commanders of World War II , Naval Institute Press 2006, ISBN 1557501866
Individual evidence
- ^ Website Uboat.net: Profile of Hans-Jürgen Hellriegel
- ↑ 10. Patrol of U 96
- ^ Website Uboat.net: U 543
- ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 379.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hellriegel, Hans-Jürgen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German naval officer and submarine commander in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 16, 1917 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin-Wilmersdorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 2, 1944 |
| Place of death | Atlantic southwest of Tenerife |