U 201
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U 201 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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 Departure of the submarines U 123 and U 201 (background) in Lorient (France) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M 33 584 |
| Shipyard: | Germania shipyard , Kiel |
| Build number: | 630 |
| Keel laying: | January 20, 1940 |
| Launch: | December 7, 1940 |
| Commissioning: | January 25, 1941 |
| Commanders: |
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| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 9 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
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| Whereabouts: | Sunk in the North Atlantic on February 17, 1943 (49 dead, no survivors). |
U 201 was a German type VII C submarine . With regard to the name of the first commandant, the knight's cross bearer Kapitänleutnant Adalbert Schnee , two snowmen were painted on the tower of U 201 . In addition, the boat carried the coat of arms of the sponsored city Remscheid on the front of the tower. On its nine patrols it sank 22 merchant ships with 103,355 GRT and 469 dead as well as two British warships with 5700 t and 51 dead, so a total of 520 dead. When it was sunk on February 17, 1943 in the North Atlantic by a British destroyer, all 49 crew members died.
history
The boat was put into service on January 25, 1941 and belonged to the 1st U-Flotilla . The boat was in command of the ship until August 24, 1942, Lieutenant Adalbert Schnee . On August 25, 1942, Günther Rosenberg took command of U 201 .
Calls
In the course of nine operations, the commanders Schnee and Rosenberg sank 22 merchant ships with a tonnage of 103,355 GRT and two warships with 5,700 t with U 201 . The largest ship sunk by U 201 was the unarmed British passenger steamer Avila Star (14,443 GRT), which Schnee sank shortly after midnight east of the Azores with three G7 torpedoes on July 6, 1942 . 84 people were killed. Another British passenger ship sunk by snow with U 201 was the Aguila ( Lage ) of the shipping company Yeoward Line, which sank off Fastnet on August 19, 1941, killing 157 passengers and crew members.
Sinking
At the beginning of February 1943, U 69 , a boat belonging to the Haudegen submarine group , discovered the ONS 165 convoy in the western North Atlantic . The boat that was looking for the supply boat U 460 sent bearing signals that brought U 201 to the convoy. U 69 was sunk by the British destroyer HMS Fame by ramming it. U 201 in turn began to send direction finding signals, whereby Commander Rosenberg attempted to bring more U-boats to the convoy in accordance with the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . The signals enabled the escort from ONS 165 to align the boat with a Huff-Duff . The destroyer HMS Viscount sank U 201 on February 17, 1943 with depth charges ( Lage ). All 49 crew members were killed.
Remarks
- ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German U-Boats 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 73.
- ↑ The Haudegen submarine group consisted of 21 boats and was formed in the spring of 1943 south of Greenland to hunt for convoy trains. Haudegen attacked two convoys and was disbanded in early February.
- ^ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. 1980, p. 328.
- ↑ The sinking was originally attributed to the HMS Fame (cf. Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Seekrieges 1939–1945. 1980, p. 328 and Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. 1998, p 106)
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. 1999, p. 78.
literature
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
- Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes-Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Vgesmbh, Herrsching 1980, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
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