U 405
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U 405 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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Sister boat U 995 in Laboe
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 35 435 |
| Shipyard: | Danzig Werft AG, Danzig |
| Construction contract: | October 16, 1939 |
| Build number: | 102 |
| Keel laying: | July 8, 1940 |
| Launch: | 4th July 1941 |
| Commissioning: | September 19, 1941 |
| Commanders: |
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| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 11 activities |
| Sinkings: |
2 ships with 11,841 GRT |
| Whereabouts: | Damaged by ramming on November 1, 1943 and sunk with artillery |
U 405 was a German submarine of the type VII C , which was used in the submarine war of the Second World War by the navy in the North Sea , in the North Atlantic and in the Bay of Biscay .
Technical specifications
The Danziger Werft AG delivered a total of 42 submarines of the type VII C and the modification VII C / 41 to the navy in the course of the Second World War. U 405 was part of the second construction contract that was given to this shipyard and comprised a total of four VII C boats. This model was also called "Atlantic boat" because of its endurance and operational capability. A 67 m long VII C-boat displaced 865 m³ under water and 761 m³ above water. Two diesel engines achieved a speed of 17 knots when sailing above water , while two electric motors propelled the boat to a speed of 7 knots when sailing underwater. The armament of the VII C-Boats until 1944 consisted of an 8.8 cm cannon and a 2 cm flak on deck, as well as four bow torpedo tubes and a stern torpedo tube. Usually a VII C-boat carried 14 torpedoes with it. In September 1941, all German shipyards delivered a total of ten Type VII C boats to the Navy. Corvette Captain Rolf-Heinrich Hopmann put U 405 into service on September 17th.
commander
Rolf Henrich Hopman was born on March 26, 1906 in Kiel and joined the Reichsmarine in 1926 . At the beginning of the war he was the chief officer on the destroyer Z 19 Hermann Künne and took part in the Weser exercise. He was used on land at the Battle of Narvik . Hopman served as a general staff officer until spring 1941 and then took command of the U 405 after completing his submarine training and a submarine commanding course .
Commitment and history
Until February 1942, U 405 was under the control of the 8th U-Flotilla in Danzig as a training boat and undertook training trips to train the crew. Although the boat was then assigned to the 1st U-Flotilla stationed in Brest, it operated from Drontheim and Bergen from then on. From July 1942 it was then subordinate to the 11th U-Flotilla stationed here. In the spring of 1943 U 405 moved to France and from then on belonged to the 6th U-Flotilla in Saint-Nazaire .
Boat emblem
The crews of most of the German submarines decided already during the time as a training boat for a license plate that was painted on the tower and worn on the cap. When a polar bear family was spotted passing an ice floe field , it was decided to choose a polar bear on a floe as the submarine emblem, which adorned the tower in several designs over the service life of U 405 .
Attack on SC 121
In February 1943, an Allied convoy with the identification SC 121 set out from New York for Europe, which consisted of 59 ships which - relatively inadequately - were only secured by a small group of escort ships. Commander Hopman discovered SC 121 and based on his report, the submarine command put together two submarine groups - Ostmark and Westmark - from the German submarines in the sea area, which take up the battle with the convoy according to the specifications of the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz should. Of the 27 submarines that were put together in the Ostmark and Westmark submarine groups , 18 were on their maiden voyage and others were commanded by inexperienced commanders who had not yet completed their own patrol . Initially, some of the Westmark boats caught up to the position of U 405 and began the attack on SC 121 on March 7th in rough seas - due to rising winds . Two days later the storm had grown into a hurricane, but some of the Westmark boats managed to stay with the convoy and sink a total of 8 ships. Commander Hopman attacked the flagship of the convoy and sank it and an armored landing vehicle that had rushed to defend it. In the morning hours of March 9th, Allied warships dispatched from Iceland arrived and reinforced the escort. In the meantime the storm had subsided and the air security had been strengthened. The German submarines then stopped their attacks. The loss of 12 ships and two escort ships from a single convoy was a kind of sad record for which the American escort group was criticized by its British allies upon arrival. From the two convoy trains that the American Escort Group A3 had to protect in the spring of 1943, a total of 26 ships had now been lost. The total losses of the Allies in the middle of the month amounted to 70 ships, of which 60 were lost in convoy trains such as HX 229 . The First Sea Lord, Dudley Pound , challenged the Allied convoy system as a whole under the impact of these setbacks. The often rumored assessment of the British commanders that the Germans almost succeeded in “tearing the bond” between America and Europe in March 1943 was subsequently used by Karl Dönitz and others, often with justification and as evidence of the Success of the strategy pursued by the German side. The wording, however, comes from a later assessment by the British - from autumn 1943 - and was therefore made retrospectively, namely at a point in time when the situation had already completely reversed. While - despite the heavy losses of a few convoys - a dozen convoys passed the Atlantic largely unmolested, the Navy had already lost 41 boats by March. When another 41 submarines were destroyed in May 1943, Karl Dönitz, for his part, was forced to suspend the submarine war on the German side.
Sinking
At the end of October 1943, a combat group around the aircraft carrier USS Card tracked down some German submarines. This also included U 405 , which was attacked by the destroyer Borie . As the destroyer for water bombing ansetzte, almost all depth charges klinkten accidentally simultaneously and rolled into the water. The subsequent detonations damaged the U 405 so badly that Commander Hopman decided to let the boat surface. While the Germans stormed on deck and tried to man their artillery, the Borie smeared the submarine with machine gun fire and started a ramming thrust. Commander Hopman succeeded in a quick maneuver to reduce the force of the collision by taking advantage of the fact that the incoming destroyer was lifted by a wave, and the Borie touched down on the deck of the submarine. During the ten minutes that followed, during which the submarine and destroyer could not separate from each other, the Borie crew was unable to use their heavy artillery due to the unfavorable angle - the men therefore used handguns and individual American sailors threw improvised projectiles on the deck of U 405 . When both ships were released, the destroyer was more seriously damaged than the submarine, which was now trying to escape. The destroyer took up the chase - guided by the radar - and when the commander had the water illuminated with searchlights, U 405 came into the beam of light. The discovered submarine tried in turn to ram the Borie . Three more hits with depth charges set at shallow depths stopped this attack and U 405 remained motionless. Now the destroyer ran away to increase the distance and sank the submarine floating on the surface with artillery fire. When the Borie approached again, the destroyer overran the Germans floating in the water. The commander Hutchins had carried out an evasive maneuver, as he believed he was being attacked by another submarine - and did not initiate any further rescue measures. The entire crew died when U 405 sank on the night of November 1 at position 49 ° 00'N 31 ° 14'W. For its part, the USS Borie was so badly damaged that it had to be abandoned by the crew a few hours later and sunk by an Avenger torpedo bomber . While trying to swim to the rescue ships, 27 men of the Borie crew died , which had not recorded any casualties during the duel with U 405 .
Commander Hutchins and the Borie's chief engineer received the Navy Cross . Commander Korvettenkapitän Hopman, son of Vice Admiral Albert Hopman , received the German Cross in Gold posthumously on January 5, 1944 .
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. 1997, p. 55.
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 , p. 106.
- ^ 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. 101.
- ↑ The abbreviation SC stands for "slow convoy" and denotes convoys that moved relatively slowly due to the number of ships on board.
- ↑ The boats of the Ostmark group should wait according to the orders.
- ↑ Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , pp. 315-316.
- ↑ Michael Salewski : Germany and the Second World War. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71390-6 , p. 224.
- ^ Dieter Hartwig: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Legend and reality. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77027-1 , p. 103.
- ↑ A German seaman was fatally hit by a knife, another was killed by an ammunition box.
- ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. 1998, pp. 519-520.
- ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , pp. 160-161.
literature
- 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 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .