U 197
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U 197 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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|---|---|
| Type : | Type IX D2 |
| Field Post Number : | 49 177 |
| Shipyard: | AG Weser , Bremen |
| Construction contract: | November 4th 1940 |
| Build number: | 1043 |
| Keel laying: | July 5, 1941 |
| Launch: | May 21, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | October 10, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
Robert Bartels |
| Flotilla: |
|
| Calls: | 1 company |
| Sinkings: |
3 ships with 21,267 GRT sunk, |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk on August 20, 1943 |
U 197 was a submarine of the type IX D2 - also called "Fern-U-Boot", "Ozeanboot" or "Ostasienboot" - that was carried out during the Second World War in the submarine warfare by the Navy in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean was used.
Technical specifications
All boats of the type IX D2 put into service by the Kriegsmarine were built at the Bremen shipyard of Deschimag AG Weser . This shipyard had already been commissioned to build submarines for the Reichsmarine (later the Kriegsmarine ) since 1934 and initially produced them in secrecy and circumventing the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . After the start of the war , the shipyard specialized in the construction of large Type IX boats, 113 of which were delivered to the Navy by the end of the war. In 1942 AG Weser delivered ten type IX D2 submarines. A submarine of this class displaced 1616 t over water and 1804 t when submerged. It was 87.58 m long, 7.5 m wide and had a draft of 5.35 m. The total of 5400 hp strong diesel engines reached a top speed of 19 knots , which 35.7 km / h equivalent. When underwater, the total of 1,100 hp from the two electric motors propelled the boat to a top speed of 6.9 knots - 12.8 km / h. IX D2 boats were armed with 24 torpedoes that could be ejected from four bow and two stern torpedo tubes . In addition, these boats had artillery armament with a 3.7 cm anti-aircraft gun , a 2.0 cm anti-aircraft gun and a 10.5 cm Utof cannon.
history
On October 10, 1942, U 197 was subordinated to the 4th U-Flotilla , a training flotilla stationed in Stettin . During this time, Commander Bartels undertook training trips in the Baltic Sea to train the crew and to retract the boat. On April 1, the boat was assigned to the 12th submarine flotilla stationed in Bordeaux . Three days later ran U 197 from Kiel made his first business venture. The submarine command had planned a large-scale submarine operation in the Indian Ocean for the summer of 1943, to which several boats of the type IX suitable for these waters were dispatched. The Charlotte Schliemann , a Z-ship that was positioned in a sea area south of Mauritius , was intended to supply these boats .
About a month and a half after the start of the operation, Commander Bartels sank a single Dutch ship in the South Atlantic :
- May 20, 1943 Dutch tanker Benakat (4763 GRT) sunk with torpedo
Another month later, on June 22nd, U 197 met the Charlotte Schliemann and added fuel and supplies. The following week, Commander Bartels attacked an Allied convoy and damaged a ship, the William Ellery . Since U 197 was attacked by an aircraft during the attack, Commander Bartels broke off the attack. The Liberty freighter was towed into the port of Durban .
In the following months, Commander Bartels sank two more ships:
- July 24, 1943: Swedish tanker Pegasus (9583 BRT) sunk with torpedo
- August 17, 1943: British freighter Empire Stanley (6921 BRT) sunk with torpedo
Sinking
The IX D2 boat U 181 under the command of Wolfgang Lüth had already left northern France in March and now needed new keys for the Enigma machine . The submarine command ordered Commander Bartels to rendezvous with U 181 to hand over new keyboards to Lüth. U 197 missed the first appointment on August 17 , as Commander Bartels was chasing the Empire Stanley at that time . After another consultation over the radio, the boats finally met on August 19. The British armed forces had succeeded in targeting the lively radio traffic between the two boats which preceded this appointment and in determining the position of the meeting point. Accordingly, several Catalina flying boats of Squadron 265 stationed in Durban patrolled the sea area. On August 20, the U 197 moving on the surface of the water was discovered by two Catalinas and sunk by depth charges and machine gun fire. There were no survivors.
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1996, page 199
- ↑ next to U 197 these were U 198 , U 196 and U 195
- ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , page 365
- ↑ The Charlotte Schliemann had loaded fuel oil and provisions mostly of Japanese origin (cf. Peter Padfield: Der U-Boot-Krieg . Bechtermünz, 1999, page 339)
- ↑ a b c Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 2001, page 141
- ^ A b Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, page 370 - page 371
- ↑ The Enigma's daytime setting could be read on the keyboards
literature
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .