U 2364

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U 2364
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Type : Type XXIII
Field Post Number : 51 307
Shipyard: German shipyard , Hamburg
Construction contract: September 20, 1943
Build number: 518
Keel laying: November 27, 1944
Launch: January 23, 1945
Commissioning: February 14, 1945
Commanders:
  • Dieter Hengen
    February 14 to the end of April 1945
  • Gerhard Remus from the
    end of April to May 5, 1945
Flotilla:

February 16 to May 4, 1945
training boat 4th U-Flotilla

Calls: no
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: sunk by the crew on May 4, 1945

U 2364 was a submarine of the German Navy in World War II . It was a so-called "coastal submarine" of the XXIII type with a modern Walter drive . U 2363 was sunk by its own crew shortly before the end of the war.

construction

The Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg-Finkenwerder was one of the few production facilities that did not manufacture any Type VII submarines . Since the beginning of the war, this shipyard was involved in the U- boat building program of the Kriegsmarine , but was only commissioned with the manufacture of Type IX boats . At the end of 1943, Deutsche Werft AG was commissioned to build the new Type XXIII for the first time . It was planned to deliver eight boats of this type per 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.

These boats were equipped with the newly developed Walter drive and designed for short-term use as "coastal submarines", so they should not penetrate far into the open sea. Therefore, armament with only two torpedoes was considered sufficient. The 34.7 m long and 3 m wide XXIII boats had a crew of up to twelve 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. U 2364 was put into service on February 14, 1945 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Dieter Hengen. The 22-year-old Hengen had previously served as an officer on watch on U 255 .

Commitment and history

On February 14, 1945, U 2364 was initially subordinated to the 32nd U-Flotilla as a training boat , which was stationed in Königsberg , but came immediately to the 4th U-Flotilla in Stettin . At the end of April 1945, Lieutenant Gerhard Remus took command of U 2364 . The 29-year-old Remus had commanded several submarines until the beginning of 1943 and then worked as head of shooting training in the 24th U-Flotilla and the 26th U-Flotilla .

End of the boat

U 2364 was sunk by its own crew on May 5th in the Geltinger Bay near Flensburg . With the order, Commander Remus followed the so-called rainbow order , which provided for the self-destruction or self-sinking of the German submarines to prevent them from being handed over to the Allied forces. The “Rainbow Order” was withdrawn by Karl Dönitz on May 4th in preparation for the partial surrender of the North German Wehrmacht troops. Nevertheless, 34 other German submarines in addition to U 2364 were sunk in the Geltinger Bay by their own crews on that day .

See also

Footnotes

  1. 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
  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. 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 , p. 191.
  5. 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
  6. 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 358