U 325
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U 325 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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|---|---|
| Type : | VII C / 41 |
| Field Post Number : | M 14243 |
| Shipyard: | Flender-Werke , Lübeck |
| Construction contract: | July 16, 1942 |
| Keel laying: | April 13, 1943 |
| Launch: | March 25, 1944 |
| Commissioning: | May 6, 1944 |
| Commanders: |
May 6, 1944 - April 20, 1945 |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 3 activities |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | sunk between April 30 and May 9, 1945 in the British minefield Artizan B3, Part 1 (52 dead, no survivors) |
U 325 was a Germantype VII C / 41 submarine ofthe Kriegsmarine during World War II . It failed tosink or damage any shipson its three patrols and sank in a minefield off the coast of Cornwall in the last days of the war, killing all 52 crew members.
history
Construction and commissioning
It was commissioned on July 16, 1942 and laid down on April 13, 1943 at the Flender works in Lübeck . The launch took place on March 25, 1944, and commissioned on May 6, 1944 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Erwin Dohrn.
U 325 served as a training boat until November 30, 1944 . During this time the boat belonged to the 4th U-Flotilla , a training flotilla stationed in Stettin . On December 1, 1944, U 325 was assigned to the 11th U-Flotilla , to which it belonged until it was sunk.
commitment
For its first venture, U 325 ran from Kiel to Horten (Norway) on December 1, 1944 .
From there, the second voyage went on December 9, 1944, first to Kristiansand and then from there on December 11 to patrol the British Isles and the western English Channel off Cherbourg . U 325 returned to Norway on February 14 of the next year and started at Trondheim .
The third and final trip began on March 20, 1945 in Trondheim and was supposed to lead to Land's End .
Downfall
The last contact with U 325 was on April 10, 1945 and included the order to disrupt convoy traffic around the southwestern headland of England.
With the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, U 325 was listed as operational by the commander of the submarines .
discovery
U 325 was considered missing until the wreck in 2006 twelve nautical miles (22 km) north-northwest of Newquay ( Cornwall ) at position 50 ° 31 ′ 4 ″ N , 5 ° 22 ′ 8 ″ W near U 400 and U 1021 , was found. All three submarines sank in the Bristol Channel in the minefield with the code name Artizan B3 , the first part of which had been laid on the morning of April 30, 1945 by the mine- layer HMS Plover at a depth of 18 meters. The damage to the wreck (large semicircular hole) matches a sinking by a mine. None of the 52 crew members survived.
Further identification features of the U 325 were a type 2 folding snorkel with a ring-float snorkel head valve and an anti-radar coating (Jaumann) around the exhaust.
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, p. 52. 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. 153, 238. 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, p. 334. 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. 742. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .