U 268

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U 268
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 14 594
Shipyard: Bremen-Vegesack , Bremen
Construction contract: January 20, 1941
Build number: 033
Keel laying: September 4, 1941
Launch: June 9, 1942
Commissioning: July 29, 1942
Commanders:

Ernst Heydemann

Calls: 1 company
Sinkings:

1 ship with 14,547 GRT sunk
3 warships with 429 t sunk

Whereabouts: Sunk on February 19, 1943

U 268 was a submarine of the "Atlantic boat " called Type VII C , which was used by the Navy during the Second World War in the North Atlantic .

Construction and technical data

The Vegesacker Werft , founded in 1938 as a subsidiary of Bremer Vulkan , built u. a. a total of 74 submarines for the Navy. Even before the war began at the beginning of September 1939, the shipyard received an order to build 15 Type VII C boats.

The two diesel engines enabled a speed of 17 knots (31.6 km / h) when sailing above water  . A Type VII C boat had a maximum range of 6500 nm . Usually the two 375 HP electric motors were used on diving trips ,  guaranteeing a speed of up to 7.6 knots. The crew of U 268 chose a submerged submarine in front of a horseshoe as a boat sign.

commander

Ernst Heydemann was born in Güstrow on June 20, 1916 and joined the Navy in 1936. He was therefore a member of Crew 36 , the officer class of that year. At the beginning of the war he was an officer on watch on the submarine support ship Danube . Ernst Heydemann completed his submarine training in the summer of 1940, after which he served for a month as 1st WO on the training boat U 142 and then on U 141 , on which he completed three patrols . In October 1940 Ernst Heydemann was promoted to first lieutenant at sea . Until May 1942 he was in command of the U 17 school boat . Following his commanders course, Ernst Heydemann took command of the U 268 on July 29, 1942 .

history

U 268 was subordinate to the 8th U-Flotilla until January 31, 1943 . During this time, the boat was stationed in Gdansk and Commander Heydemann undertook training trips in the Baltic Sea to train the crew and run in the boat. On January 10, 1943, the boat set out from Bergen in Norway for its only venture. The area of ​​operation was the North Atlantic, in particular the sea area around Ireland .

Habicht submarine group

In January 1943, the Falke submarine group patrolled southeast of Greenland so unsuccessfully that the BdU's chief of staff , Eberhard Godt , said in his opinion that submarines were generally unsuitable for finding convoys. In the middle of the month, the submarine group Habicht was formed from the falcon boats, which still had sufficient fuel and newly arrived boats in the sea area , which were supposed to seek combat with Allied convoy groups according to the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . U 268 was assigned to this submarine group. On January 17, Commander Heydemann reported an eastbound HX convoy . HX 222 was protected by three destroyers and five corvettes and passed so close to the south of Iceland that the Allied air forces stationed there could quickly come to the rescue in the event of an attack on the convoy. Therefore, the submarine command Heydemann allowed the attack, but - contrary to the principles of the pack tactics - prohibited the other boats of the Habicht submarine group from intervening. Commandant Heydemann torpedoed the biggest target he could make out: the whaling factory ship Vestfold .

  • January 17, 1943 Panamanian whaling ship Vestfold with 14,547 GRT sunk

The Vestfold transported three tank landing vehicles, so-called LCT , which sank with the whaling mother ship. These were part of a delivery that was to be brought from the USA to Great Britain under the Lending and Lease Act . The sinkings of the three LCTs were also credited to Heydemann. This remained the only success of the coordinated submarine operations of the Kriegsmarine in the first half of January 1943. The ONS convoys that were actually expected in this sea area had not been found by the submarine groups Falke and Habicht . On January 19, the falcon and the hawk were disbanded and two new submarine groups were formed from the boats that still had the appropriate fuel and newly arrived boats: Haudegen and Landsknecht . U 268 was assigned to the Haudegen submarine group .

Sinking

On February 9, U 268 had to break away from the Haudegen submarine group and set course for the northern French Atlantic coast due to a lack of fuel. Since February 1, the boat was under the 1st submarine flotilla , which was stationed in Brest . On the night of February 19, a Vickers Wellington tracked the boat in the Bay of Biscay with radar. The pilot of the British fighter aircraft managed to get within 400 meters of the submarine, then saw it in the beam of light from his Leighlights . He then sank U 268 with four well-placed depth charges .

literature

  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 84.
  2. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. 1997, p. 467.
  3. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. 2001, pp. 163–164.
  4. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. 1997, p. 353.