U 257

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U 257
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 23 394
Shipyard: Vegesacker shipyard of the Bremen volcano
Bremen-Vegesack
Construction contract: December 23, 1939
Build number: 22nd
Keel laying: February 22, 1941
Launch: November 19, 1941
Commissioning: January 14, 1942
Commanders:

Heinz Rahe

Calls: six ventures
Sinkings:

no depressions

Whereabouts: Self-sunk on February 24, 1944 after being damaged

U 257 was a German submarine of the type VII C , which was used in the submarine warfare during the Second World War by the German navy in the Bay of Biscay and in the North Atlantic .

construction

The boat was built at the Vegesack shipyard of Bremer Vulkan , which had been manufacturing submarines for the Reichsmarine and later for the Kriegsmarine since 1934, partly by circumventing the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . U 257 was part of the second construction contract that was awarded to Bremer Vulkan after the start of the war. On January 14, 1942 Oberleutnant zur See Heinz Rahe put U 257 into service. Like most German submarines of its time, U 257 also had a boat-specific symbol. It was a picture of a jumping wolf.

Commitment and history

After commissioning, U 257 was initially assigned to the 5th U-Flotilla as a training boat and stationed in Kiel . During this time, Commander Rahe undertook training trips in the Baltic Sea to retract the boat and train the crew. On October 1, 1942, the boat was assigned to the 3rd submarine flotilla as a front boat and stationed at the La Pallice base on the northern French Atlantic coast.

Operations against convoy trains

The first operation of the boat began on September 19, 1942. U 257 initially ran from Kiel to the Norwegian bases of the Navy in Kristiansand and Bergen and finally drove to the intended area of ​​operations in the North Atlantic. On October 18, the boat entered the new base in La Pallice. The second operation in mid-December had to be canceled after a few days due to damage to the boat and the illness of a crew member.

On December 22nd, 1942, Commander Rahe then left for the third company with U 257 . On his undertakings in the autumn of 1942, U 257 belonged to several submarine groups, namely the groups Luchs , Falke and Landsknecht , who searched for Allied convoys in the Atlantic in accordance with the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz.Commander Rahe returned with U 257 in mid-February La Pallice without sinking or damaging a ship.

On the fourth venture, which lasted from March 14, 1943 to May 7, 1943, and during the fifth venture, between June 12, 1943 and September 15, 1943, the boat was owned by the submarine groups Seewolf , Adler , Meise and assigned to woodpecker . Even during these missions, which took the boat into the mid-Atlantic and the waters off Freetown , Commander Rahe did not sink any enemy ships. In mid-November the boat moved from Lorient to Saint-Nazaire . From here, Commander Rahe set out with U 257 on January 2, 1944 for his last venture.

Bait in the Bay of Biscay, weather in the Atlantic

Initially, U 257 was commissioned to lay out radar "baits" from the Thetis model in the Bay of Biscay . The Thetis baits were logs over four meters long to which tinfoil strips were attached. Under water, these pieces of wood were kept in balance by an iron rod so that they stood upright in the water, floating on a small platform made of cork . This construction was intended to simulate a worthwhile radar contact to opposing tracking aircraft. Following this task, Rahe was instructed to meet with the blockade breaker Rio Grande in order to hand over current maps to the commanders. The Rio Grande was expected to return from Japan at this point, but had already been lost. Following a battle with US naval forces, the damaged ship was self-sunk by its own crew on January 4 without the knowledge of the Navy. On January 27, the submarine command came to the conclusion that the Rio Grande would not be available and gave Rahe the order to record and pass on weather observations with his boat. Rahe came across the Allied convoy SC 153 .

Loss of the boat

The HMS Nene helped with the attack on U 257

At the end of February 1944, the ASDIC crew of the Canadian frigate Waskesia reported a contact that was identified as a submarine. Although the commander of the escort group that secured the SC 153 convoy did not believe in a submarine, the ASDIC specialists of Waskesia convinced their commander to take up the submarine hunt. In the subsequent water bombing was Waskosia by the British frigate Nene supported.

Finally, Commander Rahe appeared and ordered the boat to be abandoned. Under strong artillery fire from Waskosia , the crew of U 257 initiated the self- sinking and left the boat. In the battle with the Waskesia and the subsequent sinking of the boat, 31 men of the crew of U 257 died . One officer, six NCOs and 12 men survived the loss of the boat and were taken prisoner. They reported that Rahe stayed on board U 257 , threw his rescuer to a crew member in a rubber dinghy and then probably shot himself.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 . Page 219 - page 220
  2. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , page 82.
  3. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , page 352.
  4. ↑ The abbreviation SC stands for slow convoy and denotes particularly large and therefore particularly slow convoy trains
  5. ^ A b Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , page 179

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