U 2361

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U 2361
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Type : Type XXIII
Field Post Number : 51 111
Shipyard: Deutsche Werft AG , Hamburg
Construction contract: September 20, 1943
Build number: 515
Keel laying: November 12, 1944
Launch: January 3, 1945
Commissioning: February 3, 1945
Commanders:

Heinz von Hennig

Flotilla:
Calls: no
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: Sunk on November 25, 1945 by artillery fire as part of Operation Deadlight

U 2361 was a submarine of the German Navy in World War II . It was a so-called “coastal submarine” of the XXIII type , which had an extendable snorkel that was developed by the Kiel inventor Hellmuth Walter . U 2361 capitulated to the British armed forces in a Norwegian port and was brought to Scotland after the end of the warandsunkthere as part of Operation Deadlight .

construction

Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg-Finkenwerder had been involved in the Kriegsmarine's submarine building program since the beginning of the war and was exclusively commissioned with the manufacture of type IX boats . It was therefore one of the few production facilities that did not manufacture any Type VII submarines . At the end of 1943, Deutsche Werft AG was also commissioned to build the new Type XXIII for the first time . The development of these boats was inspired by the innovative " Walter submarine " of the type XXII , which was designed for short-term use as "coastal submarines" and should not penetrate far into the open sea. Therefore, armament with only two torpedoes was considered sufficient.

The type XXIII did not have an upper deck from which the snorkel on the larger type VII boats , which provided air in and out when underwater, could be folded out. These boats therefore had a snorkel that could be extended like a periscope . The 34.7 m long and 3 m wide XXIII boats had a crew of up to 12 men. These were single-hulled boats that could reach speeds of up to 9.7 knots when underwater  . In the last two years of the war, a total of 61 Type XXIII submarines were built. These boats were made in section construction. The construction costs amounted to 761,721 Reichsmarks .

Deutsche Werft AG was scheduled to deliver eight Type XXIII boats a month. By the end of the war , the shipyard had delivered 48 Type XXIII boats to the Navy, 19 of them in the final year of the war. U 2361 was put into service on February 3, 1945 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Heinz von Hennig. The 22-year-old commander had previously served as an officer on watch on U 421 and completed two patrols with this boat .

Commitment and history

The HMS Onslow sank U 2361

On February 3, 1945, U 2361 was initially assigned to the 32nd U-Flotilla stationed in Königsberg as a training boat. Two weeks later, the boat was assigned to the 4th U-Flotilla , which was stationed in Stettin .

End of the boat

Commander Heinz von Hennig surrendered to the British armed forces with U 2361 on May 9, 1945 at the Norwegian naval base in Kristiansand . The boat left Kristiansand on May 29th and was brought to Scapa Flow , where it arrived on June 1st. There it ran out again five days later and reached Loch Ryan on the east coast of Scotland, where many German submarines gathered to be sunk in Operation Deadlight towards the end of the year . U 2361 was towed into position by the HMS Enforcer on November 27, 1945 at around 9:00 a.m. and sunk with artillery fire by the destroyers HMS Onslow and ORP Blyskawica .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eberhard Rössler: " History of German U-Boatbuilding. Volume 2" , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-86047-153-8 , page 341
  2. ↑ Bodo Herzog : German U-Boats 1916–1966 , Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 , page 203
  3. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , page 186
  4. ↑ Eberhard Rössler: " History of the German U-Boat Building. Volume 2" , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-86047-153-8 , page 365
  5. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , page 232
  6. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 , page 97.
  7. ↑ Axel Niestlé: "German U-Boat Losses of World War II. Details of Destruction ", Frontline Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84832-210-3 , page 176
  8. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , page 374