U 507

U 507; ( previous / next - all submarines )
Type :	IX C
Field Post Number :	M 19 192
Shipyard:	German shipyard , Hamburg
Construction contract:	October 20, 1939
Build number:	303
Keel laying:	September 11, 1940
Launch:	July 15, 1941
Commissioning:	October 8, 1941
Commanders:	October 8, 1941 - January 13, 1943: ; Kkpt. Harro shaft
Calls:	4 activities
Sinkings:	19 ships (77,143 GRT)
Whereabouts:	sunk on January 13, 1943 off the Brazilian Atlantic coast

U 507 was a German submarine of the type IX C , which was used by the former German Navy during the Second World War in the North, West and South Atlantic.

technology

The Type IX was a two-hull ocean going boat , the design of which was derived from the U 81 - U 86 series from 1916 and which in many ways resembled the Type IA from 1936. Between March 1939 and July 1942, 54 Type IX C units were put into service. By again increasing the amount of fuel compared to variants IX A and IX B , the overwater route was increased by around 1500–1800 nautical miles . Greater use was made of the space between the shells to accommodate the fuel cells. The type IX submarines were ideal for long-distance journeys, as they had greater ranges compared to other types of the Kriegsmarine due to their fuel bunkers.

history

The order for the boat was awarded to Deutsche Werft AG , Hamburg , on October 20, 1939 . The boats of this type were originally manufactured by Deschimag AG Weser in Bremen . At the beginning of the Second World War, the German shipyard was commissioned to manufacture the Type IX submarines as replicas in large series. By the end of the war, the Deutsche Werft produced 24 Type IX C submarines for the Navy.

Construction and commissioning

The keel of the boat with hull number 303 was laid on September 11, 1940 and the launch on July 15, 1941. The commissioning under Corvette Captain Harro Schacht finally took place on October 8, 1941. Following a tradition of the German submarine weapon, the crew chose a sign painted on the tower, which in many cases expressed the boat's motto. The tower painting on U 507 showed a dog making males. The character was inspired by the British comic and Bonzo .

Flotilla affiliation, stationing and commander

The boat was used after its commissioning on October 8, 1941 until February 28, 1942 with the 4th Flotilla in Stettin as a training boat for training the crew. From March 1, 1942 until the day of the sinking, it was part of the 2nd U-Flotilla in Lorient, northern France, as a front boat. During the entire service life of the boat, Kkpt. Harro Schacht commander of U 507 .

Calls

U 507 undertook four patrol trips during its service time. On August 16 and 17, 1942 alone, the boat sank five unarmed merchant ships flying the national flag within 40 hours off the coast of Brazil , killing 607 people and losing 14,822 GRT. This was the trigger for the Brazilian declaration of war on Germany on August 22nd of that year.

time	Surname	Ship type	tonnage	Shipping company	Victim	Survivors
August 16, 1942, 2:03 a.m.	Araraquara	Passenger and cargo ship	4872 GRT	Lloyd Nacional	131	11
August 16, 1942, 9:13 a.m.	Annibal Benévolo	Passenger and cargo ship	1905 GRT	Companhia de Navegação Lloyd Brasileiro	150	4th
August 16, 1942, 7:10 p.m.	Baependy	Passenger and cargo ship	4801 GRT	Companhia de Navegação Lloyd Brasileiro	270	36
August 17, 1942, 3:49 p.m.	Itagiba	Passenger and cargo ship	2169 GRT	Companhia de Navegação Costeira	36	145
August 17, 1942, 6:03 p.m.	Arará	Passenger and cargo ship	1075 GRT	Companhia Serras de Navegação e Comércio	20th	16

Laconia aftermath

On September 12, 1942 at 10:07 p.m. U 156 torpedoed the RMS Laconia (19,695 GRT) at position 4 ° 34 ′ S , 11 ° 25 ′ W in naval square FF 7721 with two torpedoes . On board the Laconia there were 2,732 people including around 1,800 Italian prisoners of war. The commander of the U 156 recognized that allies had got into distress due to the torpedoing and initiated a rescue operation that was unprecedented in naval warfare. According to orders from the BdU, Admiral Karl Dönitz , U 507 made its way from its location in the Brazilian waters to the dump site on the African coast. There he met U 507 on September 15, a few hours after U 506 to the sinking site and collected castaways from lifeboats and took more lifeboats in tow. On September 18 there were 129 Italians, 15 women, 16 children and a British officer on board. Seven lifeboats with 330 people, including 35 Italians, were towed. Both German boats that arrived reported the completion of the rescue measures to Karl Dönitz. While Würdemann, commander of U 506, prudently only reported the number of shipwrecked people on board and in his tow and refrained from naming their nationalities, Schacht reported to his commander that he had boats with 95 British and Poles in tow. Doenitz then ordered him to cut the respective ropes, while Würdemann received no such order. A short time later, the Italians who had been fished up were handed over to the Annamite , a French notification ship, which had also rushed to help on the instructions of the BdU. Then U 507 marched on the orders of the BdU to Lorient for supply. When Commander Schacht described his actions in long radio messages after the rescue operation was completed and also described the assistance he had given British and Polish castaways, he received a sharp reprimand from Dönitz. -4.5666666666667 -11.416666666667

Attacks on U 507

Attack on U 507

The Allies carried out two verifiably recorded attacks on U 507 . On May 9, 1942, the submarine was attacked by a US Navy flying boat of the PBY Catalina type 225 miles south of its Pensacola base . On May 10, 1942, the submarine was again bombed by a PBY Catalina 56 miles south-southwest of its Pensacola base.

Sinking

During a follow-up to the Paukenschlag company, U 507 was transported by a Catalina maritime patrol aircraft belonging to the VP-83 squadron of the US Navy on January 13, 1943 at position 1 ° 38 ′ S , 39 ° 52 ′ W off the Brazilian Atlantic coast just south of the equator sunk. All the crew members of the submarine and a survivor of the merchant ship Baron Dechmont , which had been torpedoed and sunk by the U 507 ten days earlier at position 3 ° 11 ′ S , 38 ° 41 ′ W , died. -1.6333333333333 -39.866666666667-3.1833333333333 -38.683333333333

literature

Erminio Bagnasco: U-Boats in World War II. (Technology - Classes - Types. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia). 5th edition. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-01252-9 .
Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
Léonce Peillard : Affair Laconia (= Bastei Lübbe 63022 non-fiction book ). License issue. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1978, ISBN 3-404-00709-3 .
Eberhard Rössler : History of the German submarine building. Volume 1: Development, construction and characteristics of the German submarines from the beginnings to 1943. Licensed edition of the 2nd edition. Bechtermünzverlag, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-153-8 .

Notes and individual references

↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , pp. 229-232.
↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , pp. 56-57.
^ 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. 114.
↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 368.
↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat 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 , p. 215.
^ ^A ^b Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , p. 97.
↑ "Action [...] was wrong, the boat was parked to save Italian allies, not to save the British and Poles." Dönitz, quoted from: Clay Blair: Der U-Boot-Krieg. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , p. 101.

-1.6333333333333 -39.866666666667Coordinates: 1 ° 38 ′ 0 ″ S , 39 ° 52 ′ 0 ″ W.

[1] Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , pp. 229-232.

[2] Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , pp. 56-57.

[3] 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. 114.

[4] Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 368.

[5] Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat 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 , p. 215.

[Blair-6] A ^b Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , p. 97.

[7] "Action [...] was wrong, the boat was parked to save Italian allies, not to save the British and Poles." Dönitz, quoted from: Clay Blair: Der U-Boot-Krieg. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , p. 101.