U 307

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U 307
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 50 406
Shipyard: Flender-Werke , Lübeck
Construction contract: January 20, 1941
Build number: 307
Keel laying: November 5, 1941
Launch: September 30, 1942
Commissioning: November 18, 1942
Commanders:
  • Friedrich-Georg Herrle
  • Erich Kruger
Calls: 12 activities
Sinkings:

2 ships (7,226 GRT ) sunk

Whereabouts: sank in the Barents Sea on April 26, 1945

U 307 was a German submarine of type VII C . It was used by the German Navy during the submarine war in World War II in the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean . The boat was used to support the Wehrmacht's weather stations in the Arctic and was involved in several attacks on allied northern convoys .

Technical specifications

The Flender Werke AG in Lübeck was involved in the German submarine building program as part of the Z-Plan before the war began. U 307 was part of the fifth construction contract that went to this shipyard and included 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.

Like most German submarines of its time, the U 307 also had an emblem on the tower . It was a Viking ship on a white cross, the coat of arms of the 13th submarine flotilla to which the boat belonged. On his last venture, the Frisian saying Lever dood as slaav was also attached to the tower.

Commitment and history

HMS Loch Insh

U 307 belonged to the 8th U-Flotilla until April 30, 1943 . During this time the boat was stationed in Gdansk and Commander Herrle undertook training trips in the Baltic Sea to train the crew. On May 1st, the boat came as a front boat to the 11th U-Flotilla , with which it remained until November of the same year, then U 307 switched to the 13th U-Flotilla.

Until December 1943 Commander ran Herrle Hammerfest from three to do in the waters around Spitsbergen and Bear Island from. At the end of 1943 the boat was stationed first in Drontheim, then from February 1944 in Narvik . On the next two operations, U 307 was involved in attacks on convoy RA 57 and convoy RA 59 , accompanied the Haudegen company and was used to monitor the weather itself.

On December 2, 1944, Oberleutnant zur See Erich Krüger took command of U 307 . He led the boat on four other outings. U 307 patrolled near Bear Island and was involved in an attack on the Northern Sea Convoy RA 56.

Sinking

U 307 left the Harstad base on April 17, 1945. The boat had sailed into the Barents Sea together with U 286 , U 313 and U 363 - all of them carried the motto Lewer dood as slaav on the tower. The submarine group had the order to attack the convoy RA 66 according to the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . When trying to dodge the escort vehicles of the convoy was U 307 from the frigate HMS Loch Insh on April 29 by depth charges sunk. Descriptions of the survivors indicate that the boat first ran into a mine, then after being forced to surface it was damaged by artillery fire from the frigate HMS Loch Insh and then sunk by the crew themselves.

14 men could be saved.

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 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 ,

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ next to U 307 there were U 305 , U 306 and U 308
  2. ^ A b 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 Axel Niéstle: German U-Boat Losses during World War II , Frontline Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84832-210-3 page 53
  4. ↑ Eckard Wetzel: "U-Boats before Murmansk" , 4th edition, Ullstein Edition Maritim, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-548-26810-1 , p. 286