U 441
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U 441 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 25 534 |
| Shipyard: | F. Schichau Werft GmbH Danzig |
| Construction contract: | January 5, 1940 |
| Build number: | 1492 |
| Keel laying: | October 15, 1940 |
| Launch: | December 13, 1941 |
| Commissioning: | February 21, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
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| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 12 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
1 ship (7051 GRT) |
| Whereabouts: | sunk in the Atlantic on June 8, 1944 |
U 441 was a German submarine of class (or type) VII C , which was used in the Atlantic from autumn 1942 to 1944 as part of the submarine war .
Technical specifications
A Type VII C submarine had a displacement of 761 cubic meters above and 865 cubic meters below the water. The diesel engine allowed a speed of 17 knots , submerged the boat drove up to eight knots. A VII C had a length of 67.1 meters, a width of 6.2 meters and a draft of 4.8 meters. Usually there were 44 men on board. The construction contract of May 5, 1940 for the F. Schichau shipyard in Gdansk included the U 439 , U 440 , U 441 and U 442 boats .
Commanders
From February 21, 1942 to May 15, 1943 and from August 6, 1943 to June 8, 1944
Klaus Hartmann was born in Plön on February 7, 1912. He started his officer training in the Navy with Crew 33 (the year 1933) and first went to sea on the light cruiser Nürnberg and the submarine support ship Wilhelm Bauer . He was promoted to lieutenant captain on April 1, 1941 , before starting his submarine training in July 1941. Kptlt. Hartmann completed the three-month commanders course in January of the following year and received the building instructions regarding U 441 in February 1942. There are different statements about the duration of his first command of U 441 . The war diary of the boat records the change of command on May 17, 1943. From May Kptlt. Hartmann was employed in the UAA (U-Boat Training Department) of the 1st U-Flotilla in Brest. In August 1943 he took up his second command on board U 441 , which he held until his death when the boat was lost.
From May 16, 1943 to August 5, 1943
Götz von Hartmann , born in Danzig in 1913, was a member of Crew 34 and was employed at the ship artillery school until 1940 (most recently as a group officer). He began his submarine training in the summer of 1940 and was then the first officer on watch on the U 93 . He then completed the commanders course and was promoted to lieutenant captain in November 1941. He commanded U 555 and U 563 , before replacing Kptlt. Klaus Hartmann as commander of U 441 in May 1943 . He was seriously injured in an air raid on U 441 with 10 dead and 13 wounded on July 12, 1943. After his command on U 441 , Kptlt. Von Hartmann was general adviser in the naval high command and then battalion commander of the First Marine Tank Fighter Regiment. At the end of the war, Kptlt. Von Hartmann became a prisoner of war, from which he was released in December 1947.
history
U 441 sailed from spring to summer 1942 as a training boat for the 5th U-Flotilla, which was stationed in Kiel and was subordinate to the Flotilla Chief Corvette Captain Karl-Heinz Moehle. On October 1, 1942, it was placed under the 1st U-Flotilla . This was originally stationed in Kiel, but was moved to Brest after the conquest of France in the summer of 1941. U 441 operated as a front boat in the Atlantic until it was sunk on June 18, 1944.
successes
- December 27, 1942: Dutch steamer Soekaboemi with 7051 GRT .
In March 1943, U 441 participated in the attack on the convoy HX 229 (HX for Halifax) coming from New York . Such convoys usually comprised 60 transport ships, which were secured by an escort group of six ships. At the time of the attack, HX 229 had nine security ships. Five of them were destroyers and four were corvettes. However, since this convoy had already been attacked in the previous days (by the submarine groups Raubgraf and Stürmer ), whereby ten ships were lost, the escort ships had the order to search for survivors and could not fully devote themselves to securing the convoy. Therefore, B-24 bombers of British squadrons 86, 206, 220 and 120 also covered the ships from the air. One of the largest convoy battles of the Second World War developed when the ships of HX 229 mingled with those of the convoy SC 122, which was on the same course, and were finally attacked by around 40 German submarines. The commander believed that he had sunk two more ships from the convoy and sunk a destroyer on March 1, 1944. This could not be confirmed after the end of the war.
modification
In the meantime, was rebuilt for " Flakfalle " This was the first place a tower conversion to tower IV made and there is a 2 x 2 cm Flak Vierling and a 3.7-cm-Flak (on the aft part of the tower) in the conservatory installed . Second, another 2 cm quadruplet was installed in an additional extension in front of the tower. The boat then operated under the name "U-FLAK 1". After such a conversion mostly caused marine damage and it generally did not prove itself, it was expanded again.
Sinking
In the early morning of June 8, 1944, a Royal Air Force 224th Squadron bomber spotted a submarine about twelve miles ahead. Due to the bright night, the pilot decided not to use the headlight during the attack and was able to surprise the U 441 that appeared. From a distance of about 900 meters, the B-24 opened fire with the bow guns and hit the boat several times on the deck and tower. On U 441 they waived an alarm dive and returned fire. On the next approach, the bomber attacked with depth charges and destroyed the submarine that was still surfaced ( Lage ). The entire crew of U 441 was killed. On its last voyage, U 441 had more than the usual number of crew on board. There is no agreement in the literature on the actual number of deaths; both 51 and 58 are given. The B-24 Liberator was the bomber that had also sunk U 373 that night .
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 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
- 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 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ There are different sources for the exact data situation.
- ↑ www.ubootarchiv.de , accessed on April 13, 2016
- ^ Gerhard Koop: Battle and sinking of the German submarine weapon. A record in words and pictures from the opponent's point of view. Bernard and Graefe, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-7637-5980-8 , p. 60, there also a picture.
- ^ Illustration in Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966. Karl Müller, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 , in the middle part of the picture (without page numbers) between pp. 208 and 209.
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , p. 253.
- ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 207.
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