U 269
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U 269 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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 Graphic of a class VII C submarine |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M - 50 929 |
| Shipyard: | Bremen volcano Vegesacker shipyard , Bremen-Vegesack |
| Construction contract: | January 20, 1941 |
| Build number: | 034 |
| Keel laying: | September 18, 1941 |
| Launch: | June 24, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | August 19, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
August 19, 1942 to April 29, 1943 |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 5 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk on June 25, 1944 in the English Channel southeast of Torquay (14 dead and 38 prisoners of war) |
U 269 was one of the Navy in World War II employed submarine of type VIIC . During its five patrols in its almost two-year period of operation, no enemy ships were sunk or damaged. The submarine was destroyed on June 25, 1944 in the English Channel by the British frigate HMS Bickerton and then sunk by itself . Of the 52 crew members, 12 died on the day of the sinking and two more a few days later; the survivors fell into British captivity .
Construction and equipment
U 269 had a water displacement of 769 t on the surface and 871 t under water. She was a total of 67.1 m long, 6.2 m wide, 9.6 m high with a 50.5 m long pressure hull and had a draft of 4.74 m. The submarine built in the Bremer Vulkan-Werft Vegesack was powered by two four-stroke diesel engines F46 with 6 cylinders each and a charging fan from the Kiel Germania shipyard with an output of 2060 to 2350 kW, with two electric motors GU 460 / 8-27 from AEG for underwater operation driven with an output of 550 kW. It had two 1.23 m propellers. The boat was suitable for diving to a depth of 230 m.
The submarine reached speeds of up to 17.7 knots on the surface and up to 7.6 knots under water. When surfaced, the submarine could travel up to 8,500 nautical miles at 10 knots, and up to 80 nautical miles submerged at 4 knots. U 269 had five 533 mm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and one at the stern - and fourteen torpedoes , an 8.8 cm SK C / 35 cannon with 220 rounds of ammunition, a 3.7 cm FlaK M42 18/36 / 37/43 and two 2 cm FlaK C / 30.
team
The crew strength of the submarine was 44 to 60 men. On his last trip there were 52 men.
Calls
After its commissioning, U 269 was tested under the command of Oberleutnant zur See (from October 1943 Lieutenant Captain ) Karl-Heinrich Harlfinger (1915–1944) from August 19, 1942 and served from September 11, 1942 in the 8th U-Flotilla in Danzig as a training boat. From March 10, 1943, it was equipped in Kiel for the first patrol and drove via Kristiansand and Stavanger to Bergen (Norway) where it entered on March 20, 1943 and was assigned to the 11th U-Flotilla as a front boat.
From March 23, 1943 to April 23, 1943, the submarine carried out its first unsuccessful patrol as part of the “Polar Bear” submarine group in the North Sea . It arrived in Narvik on April 23 and was transferred back to Bergen the next day, where it arrived on April 28. Long maintenance work took place here. On April 29, 1943, Lieutenant Harlfinger had to temporarily resign from command due to a serious illness.
On July 1, 1943, Oberleutnant zur See Otto Hansen took over command until September 4, 1943 . From July 6th to July 12th the submarine carried out another unsuccessful patrol, this time under Hansen's command. The ship was now in Narvik and was transferred to Hammerfest , where it entered on July 14, 1943. The next patrol took it from July 22nd, 1943 to Spitzbergen and Bear Island . It suffered damage in the ice. Without sinking, the boat returned to Narvik via Harstad , which it reached on September 4, 1943.
On September 5, 1943, Harlfinger was able to take command of U 269 again. Under his command, the boat ran again on September 8th in Bergen, in whose shipyard it was equipped for patrols in the Atlantic from October 28th to November 3rd, 1943. The submarine has now been assigned to the 6th submarine flotilla in Saint-Nazaire . On November 4, 1943, Harlfinger led the boat from Bergen as part of the “Coronel” submarine group to the North Atlantic, where it was again unable to damage or sink any enemy ships. On December 15, 1943, U 269 entered the port of Saint-Nazaire. In the period from December 16, 1943 to March 16, 1944, the submarine was equipped with a snorkel in the navy shipyard of Saint-Nazaire .
Harlfinger, who was militarily unsuccessful, was accused of eviction from military service by the naval command. He was said to have contracted a venereal disease as a result of his unrestrained life and was thereby unfit for service. After a court martial was being prepared against him, Harlfinger committed suicide on March 21, 1944 with his service pistol in the Hotel Majestic in La Baule , so that the post of commander of U 269 became vacant.
After installing the snorkel, the 29-year-old lieutenant at sea Georg Uhl was given command of U 269 on April 6, 1944 . On April 15, the submarine sailed into the port of Lorient , where it stood by for several weeks and made test drives until May 22. On May 23, it arrived in Brest (Finistère) to fend off a possible Allied invasion as part of the submarine group "Dragoons" in the west of the English Channel. On May 27, 1944, the boat returned to Brest without having achieved anything.
Last use and end
On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion ( Operation Overlord ) actually took place , and on that day U 269 left the port of Brest under the command of Georg Uhl to fight Allied ships in the English Channel. After several violent Allied air strikes, the boat entered the port of St. Peter Port on June 14th without attacking any ships to recharge its batteries. On June 16, it set sail again, but could not do anything in front of the port of Cherbourg and was supposed to return to St. Peter Port. On June 25, however, U 269 was discovered by the British frigate HMS Bickerton under the command of EM Thorpe from the British 5th Escort Group (British Support Group 5), attacked with depth charges and seriously damaged, with two seamen fatally injured. Uhl had to let the submarine emerge and gave the order to sink itself and "all hands on board". Uhl also jumped into the water, but according to reports from survivors he got caught in the propeller of the British frigate and was torn to pieces by it. A member of the crew who had just got on in Brest jumped to the 3.7 cm anti-aircraft gun and fired at the frigate, but was killed almost immediately by a salvo from the English. Other comrades also suffered severe or fatal wounds. The two seamen responsible for the scuttling - the chief engineer Oberleutnant zur See Friedrich Mürb (1914–1990) and the chief machinist's mate Ludwig Jaburek (1922–2011) - who were initially enclosed in the tower of the submarine and with it to a depth of around Had sunk 70 meters, they were then able to save themselves to the sea surface without any breathing aids. The surviving submarine drivers from U 269 were brought on board by the frigate Bickerton and brought to England as prisoners of war .
Fate of the crew members
On the last voyage of U 269 there were 52 crew members on board. Of these, including the commander Georg Uhl 12, died on the day of the sinking in the English Channel - among them several after they were first seriously wounded on board the Bickerton , the rest in the water or in a hail of bullets on the deck of the U 269 . No dead remained in the wreck of the submarine. Of those who died on June 25th, three are buried in Cannock Chase , England. Two more died of her injuries in Great Britain on July 1 and July 2, 1944, of which the corporal Bertram Kayser, who died in hospital, is buried in Brookwood ( Surrey ), England . One crew member died on September 28, 1944 of a pulmonary embolism in a prisoner of war camp in the USA, another also in captivity in February 1945. Thus, 16 men of the crew of June 25, 1944 were dead by the end of the war. The other 36 crew members survived the war.
reception
In 2015 and in a second edition in April 2016, the memories of the former U 269 crew member , corporal Willi Blüm (1923–2009), a cousin of CDU politician Norbert Blüm (* 1935), edited by Willi Blüm's son Jörg Blüm and by Joachim Poppe under the title Sunken Youth . With this title, the authors want to express that “this generation of youth would have preferred to do anything else than let all their hopes, wishes and dreams sink into a mad war.” In addition to Willi Bluem's memories, the book also contains a report by the chief machinist's mate Ludwig Jaburek (1922–2011), technical and chronological data on the submarine, facsimiles of various documents and a list of the crew members.
The submarine was also mentioned in 2011 in the Westfälischer Anzeiger in connection with a late family reunification of the chief machinist's mate Ludwig Jaburek with descendants who go back to his time in the port of Bergen (Norway) .
See also
literature
- Jörg Blüm, Joachim Poppe: Sunken youth: memories of a German submarine driver on U-269 . BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2016. ISBN 3-7347-7972-3 .
- 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 and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, pp. 88, 245. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 85, 220. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- 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, pp. 258, 261. ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
- 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. pp. 522, 684. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
- Lüdenscheid - 89-year-old former submarine chief mate Ludwig Jaburek only recently learned of the existence of a daughter in Norway. Lüdenscheider will be dad, grandpa, grandpa in one day. Westfälischer Anzeiger , June 22, 2011.
- Vorsfelder wrote a book about submarine warfare. Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung , May 5, 2015 (book review by Absenkte Jugend )
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