U 400

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U 400
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : M 49 932
Shipyard: Howaldtswerke in Kiel (Plant 32)
Construction contract: August 25, 1941
Keel laying: November 18, 1942
Launch: January 8, 1944
Commissioning: March 18, 1944
Commanders:

March 18, 1944 - December 15, 1944
Lieutenant Captain Horst Creutz

Calls: 1 patrol
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: Sunk in the British minefield HY A1 in mid-December 1944.

U 400 was a German type VII C submarine of the Kriegsmarine during World War II .

history

Construction and commissioning

U 400 was commissioned on August 25, 1941 and laid down on November 18, 1942 at the Howaldswerke , Kiel . It was launched on January 8, 1944, and commissioned on March 18, 1944 under the command of Lieutenant Horst Creutz.

U 400 served as a training boat until October 31, 1944 . During this time the boat belonged to the 5th U-Flotilla , a training flotilla stationed in Kiel. On November 1, 1944, U 400 was assigned to the 11th U-Flotilla as a front boat, to which it belonged until it was sunk.

commitment

On its first voyage, the U 400 left Kiel for Aarhus on November 5, 1944 , where it arrived on November 6, 1944. The second trip led on November 9, 1944 from Aarhus to Horten (Norway) , where it arrived a day later. The third voyage took one day from Horten to Kristiansand on November 15, 1944 .

The only patrol was on November 18, 1944 from Kristiansand to Land's End , where U 400 was supposed to patrol but never arrived.

assignment

U 400 sailed from Kristiansand on November 18, 1944 with an unknown destination, and on November 28, 1944 received an order from the submarine command to run into the Irish Sea . On December 4, 1944, a radio assignment followed to patrol the northeast coast of Land's End. The new 3.7 cm FlaK 43 was to be tested in action during the journey . The U 400 was then supposed to return to Stavanger ; on the basis of provisions and diesel, December 30, 1944 is assumed as the planned return date.

Downfall

The last contact with U 400 was on November 18, 1944 shortly after it left the port. All orders at the beginning of January 1945 to report the situation in the Bristol Channel and the new armament remained unanswered, so U 400 was retrospectively classified as missing at the end of January.

discovery

After the end of the war, the Allies assumed that U 400 had encountered a convoy with the destination Australia, which was protected by the frigate HMS Nyasaland and sunk by it. It later emerged that the U 772 met the convoy and was sunk, but the fate of the U 400 remained unsolved. Only in 2006 was the wreck in the Bristol Channel by divers at position 50 ° 39 ′ 54 ″  N , 5 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  W Coordinates: 50 ° 39 ′ 54 ″  N , 5 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  W near U 325 and U 1021 found. It had run into a submarine mine (located at a depth of 20 meters) in November 1944 and sank. None of the 50-man crew survived the sinking.

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