U 180

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U 180
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Type : IX D 1
Field Post Number : M 44 013
Shipyard: Deutsche Schiffs- und Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft
(DeSchiMAG AG Weser ), Bremen
Construction contract: May 28, 1940
Build number: 1020
Keel laying: 25th Feb 1941
Launch: December 10, 1941
Commissioning: May 16, 1942
Commanders:
  • May 16, 1942 - January 4, 1944 Corvette Captain Werner Musenberg
  • October - November 7th 1943 First Lieutenant Harald Lange
  • April 2 - August 23, 1944 Oblt.zS Rolf Riesen
Calls: 2 activities
Sinkings:

2 ships (13,298 GRT)

Whereabouts: missing in the Bay of Biscay since August 23, 1944

U 180 was a submarine of type IX D 1 , which in the Second World War by the German navy was used.

history

The construction contract for the U 180 was placed on May 28, 1940 at the Deschimag AG Weser shipyard in Bremen. There the boat was laid down on October 7, 1941 and launched on December 10, 1941. Corvette captain Werner Musenberg put U 180 into service on May 16, 1942 under his command. Particularly on the U 180 was its speed of approx. 25 knots , which it achieved with six new Daimler-Benz 20-cylinder V-engines with a total of 9,000 hp . Only U 195 was also motorized.

The submarine was used for an extraordinary mission in which the Indian nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose and the Arab nationalist Abid Hasan were handed over to a Japanese submarine.

The boat has been missing in the Bay of Biscay since August 23, 1944 .

Flotillas

The submarine belonged to the following flotillas:

  • May 16, 1942 to January 31, 1943 4th U-Flotilla (Stettin)
  • February 1, 1943 to January 4, 1944 12th U-Flotilla (Bordeaux)
  • January 5, 1944 to April 1, 1944 Boat out of service - conversion to a transport boat
  • April 2, 1944 to August 26, 1944 12th U-Flotilla (Bordeaux)

Use statistics

U 180 only completed two operations, whereby it sank two ships with a total of 13,298 GRT.

First patrol (long-distance operation)

From February 9 to July 3, 1943 under Corvette Captain Werner Musenberg. On February 9, 1943, the submarine left Kiel.

After the departure date was postponed several times, absolute silence was ordered on the evening of February 8, 1943 and items of cargo and suitcases were loaded. After sailing, the U 180 stopped roughly in the middle of the Kiel Fjord and two people who came by motorboat went on board.

The journey with escort led past the Skagerrak to Kristiansand , shore leave was prohibited, as was the case the next day in Egernsund near Bergen (Norway) . U 180 , now alone, followed the Norwegian coast, drove past the northern tip of England and west between Iceland and the Faroe Islands into the Atlantic . The order now announced was to take the two passengers, the Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose and his adjutant, the Arab nationalist Abid Hasan, to the Indian Ocean, where they were to be picked up by a Japanese submarine and brought to Singapore .

Heading south, it came into contact with the supply submarine U 462 on March 3, 1943 , and fuel and provisions were replenished. Past the islands of Ascension and St. Helena , on which the Allied bases were already located, the further voyage almost failed due to a technical defect in the fresh water treatment.

  • At the Cape of Good Hope by, on their way to the Indian Ocean , met U 180 under cover of darkness at 3:56 AM on April 18, 1943, to the position 34 ° 56 '  S , 34 ° 3'  O (Navy Planquadrat KZ 6568) on the British motor tanker Corbis with 8,132 GRT and sank it. Ten sailors who were equipped with the bare essentials survived the sinking, 50 lost their lives. Another freighter escaped U 180 .

On April 20, 1943, U 180 reached the meeting point about 300 km south of Madagascar , marine grid square KR 5276, with the Japanese U-cruiser I-29 . Due to the weather, the handover took a few days, during which weapons and new inventions were exchanged and Bose and Hasan transferred to the Japanese ship. In their place two shipbuilding officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy came on board the U 180 , frigate captain Emi and corvette captain Tomonaga. There were also 50 gold bars weighing 40 kg.

On the way back, U 180 was discovered near Durban on May 12, 1943 by an aircraft of the South African Air Force (44th Squadron). Since the aircraft could not be shot down, U 180 dived to avoid being followed.

  • On June 3, 1943, U 180 met the Greek steam freighter Boris with 5,166 GRT at 11:40 p.m. and was able to sink it at position 7 ° 14 ′  S , 18 ° 41 ′  W near Ascension , in marine grid square FL 3816. All 37 crew members survived.

A planned meeting to refuel with the supply boat U 463 did not materialize, as it had already been sunk by British bombers on May 16, 1943. In order to be able to continue the journey home, U 180 took over fuel from U 530 on June 19, 1943 , which was badly damaged and no longer submersible.

Another time was U 180 detected from the air on June 30 1943rd The twin-engine British bomber of the 53rd Squadron launched an attack, but was surprised by the speed of the U 180 and could not drop any bombs. Another attack with on-board cannons narrowly missed the submarine.

Only very slowly, so as not to be discovered and mostly under water, the journey continued into the Bay of Biscay. There the submarine was escorted by a German destroyer as far as the port of Bordeaux , where U 180 arrived on July 3 or 9, 1943.

Second patrol

On August 22, 1944, the boat ran out of Bordeaux under the command of Lieutenant Rolf Riesen. The area of ​​operation was the Vizcaya. There was probably in the Gironde a mine and decreased, with no survivors at the position 45 ° 50 '  N , 1 ° 30'  W . in grid square BF 68.

Trivia

The author Jack Higgins not only uses the name of the submarine in his novel "The Secret of U 180" (English title 'Thunder Point'), the true fate of U 180 is also mentioned in the fictional story.

literature

  • Hans Herlin : Damn Atlantic. Fate of German submarine drivers. Weltbild, Augsburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8289-0825-3 .
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Translated from the English by Alfred P. Zeller. Urbes-Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Wien: About the boat U-180. Eyewitness report. (Senior machinist on U 180 ).
  2. ↑ Robert Deininger: Subhas Chandra Bose - He wanted freedom for India. In: Augsburger Zeitung , August 19, 2000.
  3. ↑ Hermann Wien: U-180 and the secret imperial matter. Eyewitness report.
  4. ^ Tanker Corbis. On uboat.net
  5. ↑ a b U 180. ( Memento from May 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on ubootwaffe.net
  6. ^ Freighter Boris . On uboat.net
  7. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. 1998, p. 227.

Web links