U 202
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U 202 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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|---|---|
| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 38 859 |
| Shipyard: | Germania shipyard in Kiel |
| Construction contract: | September 23, 1939 |
| Build number: | 631 |
| Keel laying: | March 18, 1940 |
| Launch: | February 10, 1941 |
| Commissioning: | March 22, 1941 |
| Commanders: |
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| Flotilla: |
1st U-Flotilla training boat |
| Calls: | 9 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
11 ships (43,578 GRT) + 4 ships damaged (33,736 GRT) |
| Whereabouts: | sunk in the North Atlantic on June 2, 1943 |
U 202 was a German type VII C submarine , also known as the "Atlantic boat ". It was used by the Kriegsmarine during the submarine war in the North, West and Central Atlantic. Commandant Hans-Heinz Linder dropped nine German spies on the east coast of the USA in the summer of 1942 .
Technical specifications
At the Germania shipyard in Kiel, which was mainly intended for the construction of capital ships, submarines (also for export) had been manufactured since 1934. After the expansion of the submarine building program, the shipyard was commissioned with an annual output of 42 boats, a number that could never be reached. In 1941, the Germania shipyard completed nine other type VII C boats in addition to the U 202 . A submarine of this class had a displacement of 761 cubic meters above and 865 cubic meters below the water. The diesel engine ensured an overwater speed of 17 knots , submerged the boat drove up to eight knots. A VII C had a length of 67.1 meters, a width of 6.2 meters and a draft of 4.8 meters. Usually there were 44 men on board. On the tower , the boat carried, in addition to the coat of arms of its godfather city Innsbruck, a maling , which represented a hedgehog.
Commanders
- March 22, 1941 to September 1, 1942 Hans-Heinz Linder
- September 2, 1942 to June 2, 1943 Günter Poser
Commitment and history
From the time of commissioning, U 202 was subordinate to the 1st U-Flotilla . From June 1941 it was used as a front boat.
"Margrave" and "Robber Baron" - U 202 in the North Atlantic
From the summer of 1941, U 202 was stationed at the base of the 1st U-Flotilla in Brest . From here, Commander Linder patrolled four patrols in the North Atlantic. At the end of August, the British fishing liner Ladylove was sunk , which sank within 15 seconds without being able to report.
- 27 August 1941 Lady Love 230 GRT sunk
On the same patrol, the boat in the pack of the Markgraf submarine group attacked the British convoy SC 42 . Commander Linder initially missed his first five torpedoes - in the end he sank the Swedish steamer Scania , which had been hit with two torpedoes by U 82 six hours earlier and was already in flames.
- September 11, 1941 Scania ( Lage ) sunk with 1980 GRT
At the beginning of November, U 202 was assigned to the pack of robber barons, which was supposed to attack the SC 52 , which had left Nova Scotia for Great Britain at the end of November . During this battle, Commander Linder sank a total of 10,608 GRT.
- November 3, 1941 British steamer Flynderborg ( Lage ) (2,022 GRT) and Gretavale ( Lage ) (4,586 GRT) [1] and an unidentified steamer sunk
Towards the end of the year, the U 202 was chosen to be one of 15 boats to penetrate the Mediterranean Sea to take action against the British naval forces that were supporting the battle for Tobruk . However , Commander Linder failed to break through the Strait of Gibraltar . U 202 stayed in Brest until March 1942 in order to repair the combat damage caused by the attempted breakthrough .
Bangs off the coast of the USA
U 202 left Brest on March 1st, heading for Cape Hatteras . Twenty submarines had been ordered to the American east coast to patrol from Maine to Florida. On the way there, Commander Linder succeeded in sinking a British tanker.
- 22 March 1942 British motor tanker Athelviscount sunk with 8,882 GRT
To supply these boats with fuel, UA was relocated to the mid-Atlantic, and U 202 also refueled there. Since the British convoy system was only introduced on the American east coast in June 1942, only single-moving ships were on the way there, which were easy prey for the German submarines. Commander Linder torpedoed another ship and drove back to Brest in April.
- 1st April 1942 British freighter Loch Don with 5249 GRT sunk
Spies on board
On May 27, 1942, U 202 left Brest again on a course to the US coast. Commander Linder had four German agents on board whom he was supposed to bring ashore near New York. Georg Dasch, Heinrich Heinck, Richard Quirin and Ernest Burger were equipped with several boxes of explosives and instructed to blow up aircraft factories and shipyards. U 202 reached Long Island on June 4th. When approaching the coast, the boat ran into a sandbank. The agents were successfully suspended, but U 202 was stuck until daybreak. Only the rising tide made it possible for Commander Linder to free the boat again by emptying some fuel tanks. U 202 continued to patrol the sea area between New York and Cape Hatteras and attacked two other ships.
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- On June 22, 1942, the Argentine steamer Rio Tercero with 4864 GRT sunk
U 202 picked up the Argentine captain from a lifeboat, who complained about the sinking of the neutral ship and stated that 13 Argentine flags had been set on the torpedoed side of the ship alone. Commander Linder failed to calm the Argentine down and the conversation had to be broken off when U 202 was forced to dive before an air strike. Two weeks later, Commander Linder sighted an American steamer. The City of Birmingham had nearly four hundred passengers and crew on board and sank within four minutes. Approaching ships were able to save most of the victims, nine people drowned.
- 1st July 1942 American steamer City of Birmingham ( Lage ) with 5861 GRT sunk
On the march back to France, Commander Linder spotted the convoy OS 34 and kept in touch until U 564 , U 751 and U 654 had gathered to hunt. U 202 did not take part in this attack due to lack of fuel and returned to Brest at the end of July.
U 202, under Oberleutnant zur See Günter Poser, left Brest on September 6, 1942. The boat operated in the North Atlantic, the Caribbean and southeast of Trinidad. On this venture it was able to sink 1 ship with 1,815 GRT and damage 1 ship with 7,191 GRT. After 49 days and covered 8,173.8 nm over and 444 nm under water, U 202 entered Brest again on October 25, 1942.
- 1st October 1942 Dutch steamer ACHILLES (1,815 GRT) sunk by torpedo. On October 1, 1942 at 9:51 p.m. U 202 sighted a steamer and started the attack. The steamer was hit aft with the first shot at 10:41 p.m. He then launched the lifeboats. The catch shot took place at 11:01 p.m. The ACHILLES disappeared in a large explosion cloud. There was one dead. [2]
- 7 October 1942 Damage to the American JOHN CARTER ROSE (7,191 GRT)
"Rochen" against UC 1
At the end of February 1943, U 522 reported a British convoy that was on its way to Curacao . The German submarine command decided that boats of the pack of seals and rays , which were lurking in the Atlantic for American convoys going to Africa to supply Operation Torch , should now attack this fast British convoy. The pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz to attack convoys provided that a boat chased the convoy and brought further submarines with radio signals. The attack was not to take place until a corresponding number of submarines had gathered in this way. A total of eleven submarines took up the chase of the UC 1 convoy , which consisted of 32 ships and was secured by six warships. On the evening of February 23, Commander Poser also intervened in the fighting with U 202 .
- 23 February 1943 a Dutch tanker MURENA (8,252 GRT) and two British tankers, the BRITISH FORTITUDE (8,482 GRT) and EMPIRE NORSEMAN (9,811 GRT) damaged, an American tanker Esso Baton Rouge ( able ) with 7989 GRT sunk. [3]
The enemy ships were damaged by a single quadruple shot from which three torpedoes were targeted. The sinking of the Esso Baton Rouge succeeded Commander Poser with a stern torpedo shot. Although German propaganda tried to portray the attack on the UC 1 as an overwhelming victory, in which eight tankers and one destroyer were sunk, in fact only three tankers were sunk and two damaged that night.
Sinking
On June 1, 1943, Commander Poser had the boat surfaced southeast of Cape Farvel in order to send the daily radio message to the BdU . With a Huff-Duff bearing, Cpt. Frederic John Walker , who with the HMS Starling nearby ensured the escort of the HX 241 convoy , aimed at U 202 and attacked at lunchtime. For several hours, Commander Poser managed to evade the Starling's depth charges and Cpt. Obstructing Walker's sonar location by ejecting canisters. But around midnight U 202 was forced to surface due to poor air in the boat and lack of fuel. Cpt. Walker had U 202 circled and shot at the boat with heavy machine guns. Eighteen crew members fell victim to the blanket fire from a short distance and the depth charges that the Starling threw between the swimmers. 30 more, including Lieutenant Poser, were rescued. U 202 sank ( location ) on 2 June at 00.30 PM.
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.
- ↑ SC stands for slow convoy
- ↑ The equipment also included civilian clothing and $ 154,000
- ↑ Marine grid square CA
- ↑ OS stands for "Outbound South"
- ↑ It was the Dutch tanker Murena , and the British tanker British Fortitude and Empire Norseman . The latter was sunk an hour later by U 558
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 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes-Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
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