U 250

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U 250
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Bundesarchiv Bild 200-Ub3380, commissioning U-250.jpg
U 250 when commissioned in 1943
Type : VII C
Field Post Number : M-00 412
Shipyard: Friedrich Krupp Germania shipyard , Kiel
Construction contract: June 5, 1941
Keel laying: January 9, 1943
Launch: November 11, 1943
Commissioning: December 12, 1943
Commanders:

December 12, 1943-30. July 1944
Lieutenant Werner-Karl Schmidt

Calls: 1 patrol
Sinkings:

1 warship (56 t)

Whereabouts: Sunk on July 30, 1944 in Koivisto Sound, Finland (46 dead, 6 prisoners of war), lifted by the Soviet Navy in September 1944 and scrapped in August 1945

U 250 was a submarine from the Type VII C , which in the Second World War by the Navy was used. On its only venture, it sank a Soviet submarine with 56 tons in the Baltic Sea , killing 19 sailors. On 30 July 1944, there was even before the then Finnish Koivisto from the Soviet U-hunters MO 103 sunk, where 46 men died, while the commander Werner-Karl Schmidt (1915-2001) and five other crew members in Soviet captivity came. The wreck was searched by Soviet navy divers, technology ( torpedo T 5 Wren ) and documents were captured, and lifted by the Soviet navy in September 1944. From April 12, 1945 it served briefly as the TS-14 of the Soviet Navy, but was scrapped after August 12, 1945.

history

The order for the boat was awarded to the Friedrich Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel on June 5, 1941 . The keel was laid on January 9, 1943, the launch on November 11, 1943, and the commissioning under Lieutenant Werner-Karl Schmidt on December 12, 1943.

U 250 undertook an enemy voyage during which a coastal defense boat was sunk.

commitment

The crew was trained in the period from December 12, 1943 to July 1, 1944 in the association of the 5th U-Flotilla based in Kiel.

U 250 left Kiel on July 15 and reached Helsinki via Reval on July 25, 1944 . On July 26, Helsinki was left in an easterly direction. On July 30, at 12:42 p.m., it sank the small Soviet submarine MO 105 in the area of Koivisto Sound . The attack on the only 26.9 m long and 56 t displacing vehicle of the type MO-4 took place submerged with a G7e torpedo from a distance of almost 600 m, at only 30 to 33 m water depth (19 dead, 7 survivors) ( Lage ).

Since there was no visible reaction for him in the following 1.5 hours, the commandant, Kapitänleutnant Schmidt, assumed that the sinking had been attributed to a mine hit. He continued to sail submerged into the sound in order to be able to detect ship movements there for expected landing operations.

At around 1.30 p.m., however, the Soviet submarine fighter MO 103 , also of the MO-4 type , commanded by Aleksander Kolenko, ran from the Koivisto base to the sinking site. After rescuing the survivors from MO 105 , he brought them back to the base and ran out again to search for the submarine. Schmidt therefore initially laid the U 250 at a depth of just over 30 meters. After a few hours, he tried to escape submerged at slow speed in a north-west direction to the open sea.

The U 250 was sighted at a shallow depth through the clear water from the small Soviet mine clearance boat KM-910 . At 7:02 p.m. Moscow time, the submarine fighter MO 103 , located 2.5 nm away , was called in and made contact at 7:10 p.m. at a distance of 1,300 m. U 250 was attacked and damaged by MO 103 with three large depth charges. Afterwards, a trace of air bubbles revealed the exact location of the submarine. Of a second series of four large and five small depth charges, one exploded in the area of ​​the bow cell of U 250 , causing a large leak of 2.75 m 2 . It dropped to position 60 ° 27 '  N , 28 ° 24'  O at a depth of 27 meters due.

Schmidt then tried to make his boat surface by blowing out the diving cells - which could be seen on the surface - to enable the crew to disembark. Since the commander of the U-fighter feared the use of submarine artillery, which was superior to his own armament, he had another large depth charge dropped at 7:40 p.m., which hit the U 250 behind the turret in the area of ​​the diesel engines and caused a large leak from caused about 30 m 2 . As a result, the U 250 was finally unable to drive, and parts of the wreckage and oil floated up.

Kapitänleutnant Schmidt and five other crew members who had been in the center in the middle of the submarine were able to escape from the aground boat through the tower and the tower hatch. Although at that moment Finnish coastal artillery opened fire from the coast ten kilometers away, they were picked up by MO 103 and were taken prisoner by the Soviets . The other 46 crew members who were in the bow and stern area of ​​the submarine were killed.

Whereabouts

Soviet special divers first penetrated the wreck, but only got as far as the tower and the headquarters. Due to previous agents messages, statements of the commander and the obvious test of six torpedo boats 5. S- flotilla of the Navy, the wreck to destroy by subjecting 30 water bombs was on board of U 250 a top secret new development, acoustically controlled torpedo type T 5 " Wren ", presumed. Since the U 250 was only 30 meters deep, it was lifted by the Soviet Navy at night in September 1944 - within reach of Finnish coastal artillery - and brought to Kronstadt on September 15, 1944 . Among other things, the dead crew members were recovered there and buried in the Kronstadt cemetery.

A total of eight torpedoes were recovered: from the four bow torpedo tubes one electrically powered torpedo of type T 5 and two electrically powered torpedoes of type G 7e with FAT-II. Tube 1 was empty after the shot on MO-105 . From the bow space (for reloading) three steam gas torpedoes of type G 7a with FAT-I. A type T 5 torpedo from the stern torpedo tube and another type T 5 torpedo from the stern area (for reloading). All torpedoes were more or less damaged. In order to reconstruct how they worked, damaged parts were supplemented with intact parts from the other torpedoes. There were also 36 sets of documentaries found in the wreck. The Enigma was also recovered.

The information on the extent to which the British, who were very interested in this, received information about technical details of the acoustically guided torpedoes are contradictory. In an exchange of letters with Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin had personally promised to pass on this information. After the war, in December 1947, Stalin left the then Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet fleet, Admiral WF Tribuz, the then People's Commissar for the Defense of the Naval Navy, Admiral NG Kuznetsov and his closest collaborators, Admiral Lev Michailowitsch Galler, as well as Admiral Alafusow and Vice-Admiral Stepan , inter alia, for passing on the documentation of the acoustic torpedoes from U 250 to the English, and punish them with degradation , jail or penal service . Galler died after four years in prison, for the others the sentence was overturned after Stalin's death on May 11, 1953.

On April 12, 1945 U 250 was put into service again by the Soviet Navy under the name TS-14 . Due to the serious damage, however, repairs were not made and the boat was decommissioned on August 12, 1945 and released for scrapping. The inventory of the Central Museum of the Soviet Naval Fleet in what was then Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg ) included the commandant's original flag , the on-board clock, and the cap and double glass.

literature

  • Boris A. Karschawin: The German submarine U 250 - New documents and facts. Saint Petersburg, Jena 1994.
  • Ulrich Israel: Marine calendar of the GDR 1984, U 250 - the boat of the »wrens«. Military Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1983, p. 42f.
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. Preface by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rohwer, Member of the Presidium of the International Commission on Military History. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, p. 210. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 138, 194. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: The German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 159. ISBN 978-3-8132-0513-8 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 270. ISBN 978-3-8132-0514-5 .
  • Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maas: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 3: Submarines, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers. Bernhard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 .
  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .

Web links