The submarines of the U-Boot-Klasse XIV , officially called Type XIV , derived from the Type IX D , were designed to supply other German submarines with fuel, food and ammunition during the Second World War . The nickname of boats of this class was "dairy cow" , more rarely "manatee" . The shipyard was the Deutsche Werke Kiel AG in Kiel .
These submarines had no offensive weapons themselves, only anti-aircraft guns to defend against air attacks. In the middle of World War II, they played an important role in supporting medium-sized Type VII C submarines in the attack on the American coast ( Operation Paukenschlag ).
These supply posts, which were strategically important for the German submarines, became a primary target of the Allied forces. As early as April 1942, the Secret Service had evaluated an aerial photograph showing an unusually large submarine leaving Kiel , which the British initially took for a kind of mine- layer. By mid-May this boat had supplied a total of fifteen German submarines in the central and western Atlantic. Although the British remained in the dark about the exact circumstances, they suspected on the basis of the suddenly extended operating times of these boats that a supply must have taken place at sea. Rodger Winn, commander of the British Naval Tracking Room, in which the movements of the submarines of the Axis Powers in the Atlantic and the North Sea were tracked and recorded, wrote a report on June 1, 1942, in which he made specific assumptions in this regard. Two months later, new intelligence from the Secret Service made these assumptions certain. At this point in time, three further supply submarines, U 461 , U 462 and U 463, had already set out on operations. Improved surveillance of the Atlantic using radar and airplanes helped destroy the supply boats during 1943; The Allies used knowledge they had gained by deciphering the German Enigma codes (see also United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory ).
A total of ten submarines of this class were completed and used: U 459 , U 460 , U 461 , U 462 , U 463 , U 464 , U 487 , U 488 , U 489 and U 490 . Another fourteen were planned, but these were not built or were demolished in various phases of construction. Three of these ( U 491 , U 492 and U 493 ) were 75% completed in July and August 1943 when the decision to stop the construction of type XIV boats.
Axel Urbanke: The providers of the "gray wolves". Use and fate of the German U-Tankers 1941–44. Luftfahrtverlag start, 2013, ISBN 9783941437142 .
Notes and individual references
↑ It was U 459 , the first supplier, which was deployed under the command of Georg von Milamowitz-Moellendorf from March 22 to May 15, 1942 on a supply trip in the western Atlantic and north of Bermuda.
↑ Patrick Beesly: Very Special Intelligence. Hamish Hamilton, London 1977, p. 115.
^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939 to 1945. Volume two - The submarine construction in German shipyards. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 1997, p. 492.
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