U 373
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U 373 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Shipyard: | Howaldtswerke , Kiel |
| Keel laying: | December 8, 1939 |
| Launch: | Not known |
| Commissioning: | May 1941 |
| Commanders: |
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| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 13 activities |
| Sinkings: |
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| Whereabouts: | Sunk on June 8, 1944 during Operation Overlord |
U 373 was a submarine of the Navy from Type VII C . It was commissioned on May 22, 1941 andsunkin the Bay of Biscay on June 8, 1944, killing four crew members.
Construction and technical data
At the beginning of the war, the Howaldtswerke shipyard in Kiel switched production to the construction of submarines for the German Navy. Until 1943, the German shipyard was intended to build twelve submarines every year - this requirement could not be met in any year. A Type VII C submarine had a length of 67 m and a displacement of 865 m³ under water. It was propelled over water by two diesel engines up to a speed of 17 knots . Two electric motors enabled a speed of 7 knots when underwater. Until 1944, the armament consisted of an 8.8 cm cannon and a 2 cm Flak C / 30 on deck as well as four bow torpedo tubes and a stern torpedo tube. A VII C-boat usually carried 14 torpedoes with it.
Commanders
- May 22, 1941 to September 25, 1943
Paul-Karl Loeser was born on April 26, 1915 in Berlin and was a member of Crew 35 (born in September 1935). With the rank of lieutenant in the sea he was from April to May 1941 commander in deputy on the school boat U 30 in the training flotilla 24 on the Memel . While he was in command of U 373 , Loeser was promoted to lieutenant captain on December 1, 1942 . He received no follow-up command and served on land until the end of the war, which he experienced as a member of the Dönitz Guard Battalion .
- September 26, 1943 to June 8, 1944
Detlef (called "Teddy") von Lehsten , born on August 14, 1917 in Hamburg, was a member of Crew 37b. Following a command to Air Force , he ended his submarine training in October 1942 and went first as 1.Where on U 584 until his following his command course in Ausbildungsflottille 24 of July to September 1943 Baubelehrung on U 373 received , whose command he took over as first lieutenant at sea .
Commitment and history
The building order for U 373 was issued to Howaldtswerke in Kiel on September 23, 1939 , the construction number was 004 and the keel was laid on December 8, 1939. In May 1941, the boat was put into service with the 3rd U-Flotilla in Kiel used as a training boat. Commander Loeser first made trips to Horten and Trondheim. On September 1, the 3rd flotilla was relocated from Kiel to La Rochelle and U 373 arrived in Brest on October 2, 1941 . Until the takeover by Commander von Lehsten, the boat operated on a total of nine voyages in the North and West Atlantic and off the coast of the United States as well as off Greenland and most recently in the Central Atlantic. In the early morning hours of a mining company in June 1942, U 373 erected a mine barrier consisting of 15 mines at the mouth of the Delaware on the east coast of the USA.
Fighting
The summer of 1942 was the most successful time for U 373 . Commander Loeser sank in:
- April: the Greek freighter Mount Lycabettus , the British steamer Thursobank
- June: the American tug John R. Williams
- September: the Canadian corvette HMCS Rosthem .
In addition, an unidentified steamer and a submarine fighter as well as the Canadian corvette HMCS Rosthem were attacked in June . U 373 sank a total of three ships with a total of 10,263 gross tons .
Before the sinking of U 373 , the boat had already lost its crew members as a result of an air raid. Because the boat was not submerged in time in the attack by two aircraft, a Wildcat and an Avenger , on July 27, 1943, two crew members were fatally and seven others seriously injured in this attack. However, the boat was able to continue its operation west of Madeira in the mid-Atlantic.
Sinking
On June 7, 1944, U 373 left Brest on its last voyage on the Land's End course . The mission was to stop the Allied invasion fleet . A total of 43 German submarines were used here, leaving the Atlantic ports in northern France. One day after U 373 had left Brest, the boat was attacked by a British Liberator bomber under the command of Canadian pilot Kenneth Owen Moore, first with on-board weapons and then with depth charges. The commander did not attempt to dive, and so the crew was almost completely able to gather on the upper deck and get into inflatables before the submarine sank. The chief engineer and the chief machinist went down with the U 373 , a machinist drowned while transferring to the inflatable boats and a boat mate was fatally hit in the water by the Liberator's on- board guns . The crew members of the boat later stated that they shot down the bomber on that occasion, which could not be confirmed.
47 men, including the commander, were able to save themselves. The survivors were picked up by a fishing boat and taken to the French coast. Oberleutnant zur See von Lehsten returned to Germany and took command of the large electric boat U 3508 on November 2nd . Kenneth Owen Moore, pilot of the Liberator , was awarded the sinking of U 629 in addition to the destruction of this boat , for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ R. Busch, H.-J. Röll: The Submarine War 1939–1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. 1997, pp. 233-234.
- ^ A b Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 . Page 681
Sources and literature
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Verlagsges., Herrsching 1981, ISBN 3-88199-0097 .
- Herbert A. Werner: The iron coffins (= Heyne books. No. 5177). Foreword by Hans Hellmut Kirst . Approved, unabridged paperback edition, 10th edition. Heyne, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-453-00515-5 .