U 264

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U 264
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Type : VII C
Shipyard: Vegesacker shipyard
Bremen-Vegesack
Build number: 29
Keel laying: June 21, 1941
Launch: April 2, 1942
Commissioning: May 22, 1942
Commanders:

May 22, 1942 - February 19, 1944:
Lieutenant Captain Hartwig Looks

Calls: 12 patrols
Sinkings:

3 ships (16,844 GRT)

Whereabouts: sunk in the North Atlantic on February 19, 1944

U 264 was a German type VII C submarine of the Kriegsmarine during World War II .

history

U 264 was built at the Vegesacker shipyard in Bremen, the keel was laid on June 21, 1941. U 264 was the first front-line submarine equipped with a snorkel . Not quite a year after the keel was laid, on April 2, 1942, it was launched . The boat was put into service on May 22, 1942.

The commander was Lieutenant Hartwig Looks . From its commissioning until October 31, 1942, U 264 belonged to the 5th U-Flotilla in Kiel and was in training. From November 1, 1942 until the sinking, the boat was then the flagship of the 6th U-Flotilla in Saint-Nazaire .

The first patrol lasted from November 3, 1942 to December 4, 1942. During this time, the ship was moved from Kiel to Saint-Nazaire. It met the convoy ONS-144 and sank the 6,696 gross tons large Greek freighter Mount Taurus ( Lage ) on November 17, 1942 . On January 10, 1943, the boat set out on its second patrol, which lasted more than seven weeks. U 264 came under aircraft fire twice, on February 8 and 9, but was not damaged.

On the third patrol that brought the crew to Lorient and lasted from April 8 to June 1, 1943, the boat was attacked again by two aircraft and again not damaged. On May 5, the boat encountered convoy ONS-5 and sank two ships, the British 4,586 tonne Harperley ( Lage ) and the American ship West Maximus (5,561 GRT) ( Lage ). The fourth and fifth voyages went smoothly: The fourth voyage took the ship from Lorient to Saint-Nazaire within one day (August 4, 1943); The fifth trip also lasted only one day, from September 15th to 16th. There were no special incidents. From September 22 to October 15, 1943, U 264 was again on patrol for over three weeks.

The last patrol began on 5 February 1944. During the patrol was U 264 contracted along with other submarines to the group "Hai", several convoys to attack, but recognized and south bypassed the group. The group was finally attacked on the night of February 18-19; U 264 was sunk by the British sloops HMS Woodpecker and HMS Starling from the Hunter Killer Group under the command of Captain Frederic John Walker . Looks remembers:

“Walker worked on me for ten hours and that was the end. About 100 depth charges were thrown and exploded under the boat. We were used to depth charges exploding overhead, but the full force of the bombs was now coming from below. […] And a fire was reported from the area of ​​the electric motors. If you've dived and a fire breaks out, it's the end. I decided to show up and we shot up like a champagne cork to where we were within the circle of submarine hunters formed by Captain Walker. The crew jumped into the water. [...] Then the boat sank under me. [...] I hung like a dead lettuce leaf on the stairway. Then a British sailor jumped across the deck, climbed down, grabbed my collar and said, 'Come on, sailor' and pulled me on deck. I was then taken to the officers' mess where they bombarded me with all sorts of questions. One said it was a very clever battle. That wasn't quite the impression I had. "

The entire crew survived. Unlike many other submarines, U 264 had no losses to report during the entire World War.

U 264 and Enigma

U 264 sent one of the last three encrypted messages that the Allies could not decrypt, although they had come into possession of a German Enigma decryption machine . This message could only be decrypted in 2006 on the initiative of Stefan Krah with the help of around 2,500 computers. She said:

“Pressed underwater when attacked, depth charges. Last opponent location 8:30 a.m., Marqu AJ 9863, 220 degrees, 8 nautical miles, push ahead. 14 millibar falls, NNO 4, view 10. "

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Sea War February 1944 at the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart ; uboat.net // U-boats fitted out with snorkels
  2. ↑ Quoted from Andrew Williams: Submarine War in the Atlantic. Weltbild, Augsburg 2006, ISBN 3-8289-0587-0 , p. 277, (English original edition 2002 for BBC Worldwide Ltd.).
  3. ↑ Matthias Kremp: The end of all riddles . In: Spiegel Online , March 3, 2006.