U 300
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U 300 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M - 05 631 |
| Shipyard: | Vegesacker shipyard , Bremen |
| Construction contract: | March 23, 1942 |
| Build number: | 065 |
| Keel laying: | April 9, 1943 |
| Launch: | November 23, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | December 29, 1943 |
| Commanders: |
December 29, 1943 to February 2, 1945 |
| Calls: | 3 activities |
| Sinkings: |
2 merchant ships (7559 GRT, 43 dead); |
| Whereabouts: | self-sunk on February 22, 1945 after severe damage (9 dead, 41 prisoners of war, of which one died after 4 weeks) |
U 300 was a German U-boat of the type VII C , which in the Second World War by the Navy was used. On its second venture on November 10, 1944, it sank the British tanker Shirvan with 6017 GRT and 18 dead and the Icelandic cargo ship Godafoss with 1542 GRT and 25 dead, including 4 children. It later damaged two ships, one of them irreparably and with the loss of 7 lives. On his third war patrol the submarine by two British minesweepers was heavily damaged and in Quarteira on 22 February 1945. scuttled . 9 men of the crew, including the commanding officer, were killed in the shelling that day, while 41 were taken prisoner by the British. One of these died in captivity just under two months later.
history
The construction contract went to the Vegesacker shipyard in Bremen on March 23, 1942 . The keel was laid on April 9, 1943, the launch on November 23, 1943. The boat was put into service on December 29, 1943 under Oberleutnant zur See Fritz Hein, who commanded the boat until it sank on February 22, 1945. The boat had the field post number 05631.
After training with the 8th U-Flotilla in Danzig until July 31, 1944 , U 300 initially belonged to the 7th U-Flotilla in St. Nazaire ( France ) and then from October 1, 1944 to the 11th U-Flotilla in Bergen (Norway) .
The first mission began on July 13, 1944 in Kiel, went to the North Atlantic south of Iceland with a stopover in Horten on July 15 - 18 , and ended on August 17, 1944 in Trondheim . The second mission began on October 4, 1944 in Trondheim, led again to the sea area south of Iceland and ended on December 2, 1944 in Stavanger . On this voyage, the boat sank the Icelandic freighter Godafoss (1542 GRT) and the British tanker Shirvan (6017 GRT) from the UR-142 convoy on November 10 .
The third mission was the last of the boat. After leaving Stavanger on January 21, 1945, U 300 was at the western exit of the English Channel after a few days . Here the commander decided to drive to the area in front of Gibraltar , asked for permission by radio and received orders to reach the Strait of Gibraltar by February 16 at the latest in order to attack a convoy expected there on February 17 .
On February 16, 1945, the Strait of Gibraltar was reached, and on February 17, audible noises could be heard as the reported convoy UGS-72 approached. At around 11:00 a.m., Hein managed to break into the convoy and fire two torpedoes each at the American freighter Michael J. Stone (7,176 GRT ) and the British tanker Regent Lion (9,551 GRT). After the attack, U 300 went deep and retreated westward. The Michael J. Stone was able to continue running damaged in the convoy, while the Regent Lion was so badly damaged that it had to be dragged into Tangier and decommissioned as a total loss.
On February 18, 1945, Hein had the empty bow tubes reloaded. Then he approached the Strait of Gibraltar again. During the drive along the North African coast, no screw noises could be heard in the listening device. Hein now wanted to try to penetrate into the Mediterranean . The boat went at a depth of 40 meters. Suddenly the noise of screws could be heard, and just minutes later the U 300 was hit with five depth charges and badly hit by the British mine clearance yacht HMS Evadne . Then the screw noises were lost and there was no further pursuit, so the commander said that the depth charges were only thrown on suspicion.
U 300 went to depth and hit the bottom at around 180 meters. The boat had suffered serious damage. Among other things, the bow torpedo system was no longer usable, the periscope and other equipment were badly damaged, and the boat was losing oil. It was possible to weld the crack in the pressure hull, but at best the boat could still sail at a depth of 20 to 30 meters. Since the snorkeling facility was still in order, Hein attempted to perhaps reach home after all. Along the African coast, the boat drove again towards the Atlantic towards the Portuguese coast.
On February 21, 1945, machine and screw noises were increasingly heard. Probably because of the defective periscope, the U 300 was discovered by a security group of an LST convoy and attacked with depth charges by the British minesweepers HMS Recruit and HMS Pincher . Hein tried to shoot an acoustic T-5 "Wren" torpedo, but the tail boom was also defective. In the meantime February 22, 1945 had dawned. Since the U 300 was barely roadworthy, Hein - west of Cádiz in front of Cape Sankt Vinzenz at position 36 ° 29 ′ 0 ″ N , 8 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ W - gave the order to the crew to surface and sink the boat to give the opportunity to save yourself. However, because of the severe damage, the self-sinking was very difficult and the boat stayed on the surface longer than intended. This cost Hein and eight other crew members their lives from British artillery and machine gun fire. The remaining 41 men were rescued by HMS Recruit and HMS Pincher and so came into British captivity . Oberleutnant zur See Otto Karl Blum died almost two months later in captivity.
literature
- 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. 58, 95, 263. 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, 220. 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 und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 166. 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 und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 379. 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. P. 735. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
Web links
- German submarines 1935–1945, U 300, Ubootarchiv.de
- U-300, Uboat.net
- U-300 . At u-boot-archiv.de.
Notes and individual references
- ^ Heikendorf (Möltenort), Plön district, Schleswig-Holstein: U-Boot-Ehrenmal Möltenort, U-300, Type VIIC / 41, 11th U-Flotilla, Bergen, front boat. Online project Fallen Memorials
- ↑ The boats of the 7th U-Flotilla left St. Nazaire in August and September 1944 and moved to Norway, so U 300 was never stationed in St. Nazaire.
- ↑ a b Ships hit by U-300 . At uboat.net.
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