U 306

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
U 306
( previous / next - all submarines )
Coat of arms of Kassel, svg
The coat of arms of Kassel bore U 306 on the tower
Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 49 352
Shipyard: Flender-Werke , Lübeck
Construction contract: January 20, 1941
Build number: 306
Keel laying: September 16, 1941
Launch: August 29, 1942
Commissioning: October 21, 1942
Commanders:

Claus von Trotha

Calls: 3 activities
Sinkings:

1 ship (10,218 GRT ) sunk,
2 ships (11,295 GRT) damaged

Whereabouts: Sunk on October 31, 1943

U 306 was a German submarine of type VII C . It was developed by the Navy during the submarine war in the Second World War in the North used and Mid-Atlantic.

Technical specifications

The Lübeck shipyard of Flender Werke AG was already integrated into the German submarine building program before the start of the war through the Z-Plan of the Kriegsmarine. The first construction contract for type VII C boats was issued in January 1939. U 306 was part of the fifth construction contract that was received from this shipyard. It comprised a total of four submarines, all of the type VII C. Such a boat had a displacement of 761 m³ above and 865 m³ under water, was 67.1 m long and 6.2 m wide and had a draft of 4.8 m. The two 1,400 hp diesel engines achieved an overwater speed of 17 knots , which corresponds to 31.5 km / h. Under water, a VII C boat was powered by two electric motors with 375 hp each, which enabled a speed of 7.6 knots - that is, 14 km / h. U 306 bore the coat of arms of Kassel , the godfather town of the boat, and also an Austrian coat of arms and a horseshoe with a clover leaf on the tower .

commander

Claus von Trotha was born in Cologne on March 25, 1914 and joined the Navy in 1936 . At the beginning of the war he served as a watch officer on the destroyer Z 2 Georg Thiele , then on a torpedo boat. Following his submarine training, which he completed in April 1941, he went on the U 81 as an officer on watch . From February to September 1942, Claus von Trotha commanded the school boat U 554 . He then received command of U 306 . On April 1, 1943, Claus von Trotha was promoted to lieutenant captain.

Commitment and history

Until February 28, 1943 U 306 belonged to the 8th U-Flotilla and was stationed in Danzig . During this time, Commander von Trotha undertook training trips in the Baltic Sea to train the crew. On February 25th, he set out from Kiel on his first patrol with U 306 . The intended area of ​​operation was the sea area south of Iceland . On March 1, 1943, the boat was assigned to the 1st U-Flotilla , in whose base, the occupied northern French Atlantic port of Brest , U 306 entered on May 9, 1943.

Monkfish and titmouse

On this venture, the boat was assigned to the Seeteufel submarine group . In mid-March, Commander von Trotha managed to track down the Allied convoy ONS 1 and, according to the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz , to bring further German submarines to the convoy. In an emerging snowstorm, however, the ships of ONS 1 managed to evade the submarine group anglerfish and escape. In April U 306 was assigned to the Meise submarine group . On April 21, Commander von Trotha tracked down another convoy, it was HX 234 , which consisted of 43 merchant ships, which were secured by seven warships. The signals from U 306 led six other submarines to the convoy. Since the British armed forces managed to align the German radio signals through Huff-Duff , they tried to protect the convoy from attacks by means of an efficient air security system that would arrive soon. Commander von Trotha managed to sink a ship and damage another:

  • April 22, 1943 American freighter America with 10,218 GRT sunk by torpedo
  • 23 April 1943 British freighter Silvermaple with 5,313 GRT damaged by torpedo

Submarine against convoy

U 306 left Brest on June 10 for its second venture. The waters off the American east coast were actually intended as the area of ​​operations by the submarine command. But Commander von Trotha had interpreted his orders differently, headed for Dakar and now sailed with his boat through the sea area between the Canary Islands and Freetown , where Allied convoys were assembled. On July 16, Commander von Trotha discovered the convoy SL 133 running south . In the course of the morning U 306 attacked this convoy several times. On June 18, Commander von Trotha reported that he had "safely" sunk four ships with a total of 27,000 GRT and probably another one. The evaluation of the Allied documents showed that only one ship was damaged.

  • 16 July 1943 British steamer Kaipara with 5,882 GRT damaged by torpedo

On the way back from the operational area, U 306 took over fuel from the U-auxiliary tanker U 155 on July 23 , which had previously supplied some of the boats of the Monsun group . Both boats returned to the base in Lorient together on August 11th.

The HMS Whitehall was involved in the sinking of U 306

Sinking

On October 14, 1943, U 306 left Brest for its last venture. The boat was assigned to the Schill submarine group , which was set up in three search strips between the Azores and the Portuguese coast, and hunted down Allied convoys. In the attack on the convoys SL 138 and MKS 28 , U 306 was sunk by the HMS Whitehall , a destroyer from the First World War, and the corvette Geranium .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Except for U 306 , these were U 305 , U 307 and U 308 .
  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 , p. 89.
  3. ↑ a b c d 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 , p. 471.
  4. ↑ Contact-keeping submarines chased the enemy at a safe distance and regularly sent short radio messages that provided information on position, direction and speed.
  5. ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1998, pp. 331-332.
  6. ↑ Peter-Erich Cremer , who served for a short time in the staff of the BdU , reports that Dönitz always chose martial names for the submarine group, while his chief of staff Eberhard Godt preferred harmless names, such as songbird names.
  7. ↑ The Silvermaple was sunk a few days later by U 66 and the commander was taken prisoner.
  8. ^ U 333 under the command of Peter-Erich Cremer was one of the eight VII C submarines that patrolled this sea area during this period .
  9. ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1998, p. 477.
  10. ^ Bernard Ireland: Battle of the Atlantic. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2003, ISBN 1-59114-032-3 , p. 166.