U 352

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U 352
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Photographing a German U-boat.jpg
Remains of U 352 , 2008
Type : VII C
Field Post Number : M - 00 518
Shipyard: Flensburg shipbuilding company
Construction contract: September 23, 1939
Build number: 471
Keel laying: March 11, 1940
Launch: May 7, 1941
Commissioning: August 28, 1941
Commanders:

Captain Hellmut Rathke

Flotilla:
  • 3rd flotilla (training until the end of 1941, front boat from January 1942)
    August 28, 1941 to May 9, 1942
Calls: two ventures
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: sunk on May 9, 1942 in the Atlantic near Cape Hatteras 34 ° 12 ′ 0 ″  N , 76 ° 35 ′ 0 ″  W (15 dead, 32 prisoners of war)

U 352 was a German type VII C submarine that was usedby the navy during World War II for the submarine war in the Atlantic . During its two patrols it could not sink any ships. On May 9, 1942, a little over a year after its commissioning, it wassunkby a US Coast Guard cutter, the Icarus ,patrolling North Carolina . Of the 47 crew members, 15 died, while 32 were taken prisoner by the US, including the commander Hellmut Rathke .

Calls

After its commissioning, U 352 served under the command of the East Prussian- born captain lieutenant Hellmut Rathke (1910-2001, from the crew 30) from August 28, 1941 to the beginning of January 1942 as a training boat and was tested.

For its first patrol voyage, U 352 left the port of Kiel on January 15, 1942 and was refueled in the ports of Kristiansand (January 17 and 18) and Bergen (Norway) (January 19 and 20), the latter as well loaded with provisions. U 352 left the port of Bergen on January 20, 1942 and operated as part of the Hecht submarine group in the North Atlantic west of the Hebrides and north of the Faroe Islands . It had only one enemy contact when it shot a torpedo on a warship in vain. It entered Saint-Nazaire on February 26, 1942 .

The second and last patrol of U 352 began with the departure from Saint-Nazaire on April 7, 1942. The boat was operating on the Atlantic coast of the USA and met a freighter accompanied by one on May 8, 1942 off Onslow Bay ( North Carolina ) US Coast Guard cutter. Three torpedoes were shot down on the two ships, but none hit.

Sinking

On May 9, 1942, another US Coast Guard cutter, the Icarus , located south of Cape Hatteras at 8:25 p.m. by sonar, an object about one kilometer away. A few minutes later, the Icarus was attacked by a submarine that had since surfaced with a torpedo , which detonated about 200 meters behind the coast guard cutter and caused it to sway sharply without damaging it. The Icarus turned and dropped eight depth charges , severely damaging the submarine and killing the first officer on watch, Josef Ernst. Rathke tried to avoid destruction by touching down the boat at a depth of 38 m, but further depth charges caused great damage and forced the submarine to surface. Due to a leak in the stern, it was no longer clear to dive. Rathke did explosives to scuttle attach the submarine.

The Icarus opened fire with her artillery and machine guns while the German crew left the submarine and went into the water. They were no longer able to man the flak and return fire - numerous crew members were killed by machine gun fire while swimming on deck or in the water. The machinist Gerhard Reussel's leg was torn off by a grenade, and Commander Rathke, who was swimming in the water, tried to tie off the stump of his leg with his belt. Head machinist Heinrich Bollmann's left arm was torn, the stump of which was tied off with his belt by radio officer Kurt Krüger.

When U 352 sank, the Icarus ceased fire, left the combat area and left the castaways behind. After the commander of the Icarus , Maurice D. Jester, had asked his superior by radio and had been instructed to take the Germans prisoner, the coast guard cutter turned around and picked up the crew members of U 352 swimming in the water . There were 33 men, one of whom, Gerhard Reussel, died on board the Icarus . The others were as prisoners of war in Charleston ( South Carolina brought) on land. A total of 15 submarine drivers died in the sinking, including Reussel, while 32 survived, including Commander Hellmut Rathke . One of the survivors was Bollmann, who had lost his arm, was a prisoner at Fort Bragg ( North Carolina ) for some time and later returned to Germany.

U 352 dropped to the position of 34 ° 12 '0 "  N , 76 ° 35' 0"  W .

Lynching of prisoner in Papago Park

Machines Corporal Otto stems from U 352 did not survive captivity: He participated in Camp Papago Park active lynching of Werner Drechsler from U 118 , a fellow prisoner and informants of the US authorities, was this along with six other participants from other submarines of Sentenced to death in a US military tribunal on August 16, 1944 , and hanged at Fort Leavenworth on August 25, 1945 .

literature

  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars . Translated from English by Alfred P. Zeller, Urbes-Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, p. 84. ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
  • 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. 188. 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. 53, 255. ISBN 978-3-8132-0512-1 .
  • 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. 49. 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 Hunters 1939–1942 . Heyne Verlag, 1998. pp. 669-671, 804. ISBN 978-3-453-12345-8 .

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X . Page 369
  2. ↑ Henry C. Keatts and George C. Farr: Dive Into History, Volume 3: U-Boats. Pisces, 1994. ISBN 1-5599-2064-5 .
  3. ↑ Kemp, Paul: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars . Translated from English by Alfred P. Zeller, Urbes-Verlag, Gräfelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 84.