U 521

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U 521
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Type : IX C
Field Post Number : 46 411
Shipyard: Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg
Construction contract: February 14, 1940
Build number: 336
Keel laying: July 3, 1941
Launch: March 17, 1942
Commissioning: June 3, 1942
Commanders:

Captain Klaus Bargsten

Flotilla:
Calls: 3 patrols
Sinkings:
  • 3 ships (19,527 GRT)
  • 1 auxiliary warship (750 t)
Whereabouts: sunk on June 2, 1943 southeast of Cape May , a survivor

U 521 was a Germantype IX C submarine . It was used in World War II by the Navy during the U-Boat War in the North Atlantic , the Middle Atlantic, the Canaries and south of the Azores and was lost off the east coast of the USA in the summer of 1943.

Technical specifications

U 521 was part of the third construction contract for type IX C boats that was awarded to Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg-Finkenwerder. A boat of this type was 78.9 m long and fully equipped and underwater displaced 1120 tons (1120 m³) of water. Two 2200 hp - diesel engines ensured a overwater top speed of 18.3 knots . When underwater, the two electric motors enabled a speed of 7.3 knots. The Type IX C had four bow and two stern torpedo tubes and carried 22 torpedoes.

U 521 had a branch with oak leaves above the word " Horrido ", the hunters' greeting, as an emblem on both sides of the tower .

commander

Klaus Bargsten

Klaus Bargsten was born in Bad Oldesloe in 1911 , drove for a few years in the merchant navy and joined the navy in 1936. He drove on seven patrols as the first watch officer on U 99 under Otto Kretschmer . From March 1941 he commanded U 563 until he had to give up command of this boat due to serious injuries sustained in an air raid in the Bay of Biscay on November 30, 1941. On June 3, 1942, he was given command of U 521 , which he held until the sinking of the boat, which he was the only one to survive.

Mission history

After completing the training period with the 4th U-Flotilla , which lasted from June 3 to September 30, 1942 , U 521 left Kiel on October 3, 1942 for his first venture; it was the 13th patrol for the commander who had been promoted to lieutenant captain the day before.

First venture

The nine-week trip led first to Kristiansand , from there to the area of ​​operations in the North Atlantic and finally on December 8 to Lorient , the base of the 2nd U-Flotilla commanded by Corvette Captain Viktor Schütze . The boat survived the attack by a Lockheed Hudson on October 31 with only minor damage. On the morning of November 2, the boat sank the British freighter Hartington (5496 GRT) ( Lage ) about 400 nautical miles south of Cape Farvel ( Greenland ), which had already been torpedoed by U 522 and hit by U 438 . Around noon the following day, U 521 torpedoed the American tanker Hahira (6,855 GRT, 3 dead) loaded with 9,000 tons of heating oil ( location ), which was then abandoned by its crew and sunk by U 521 a few hours later . Both ships belonged to convoy SC-107, which was sailing from New York to Great Britain .

In mid-November belonged to U 521 to the group of 13 boats submarine group viper , the south of Greenland lay in wait for the convoy ONS-144 with its 33 ships. Bargsten discovered the convoy on November 15 and tried to bring the other submarines in the group. However, these signals were incomplete or were not received, so that U 521 initially remained alone with the convoy. Bargsten's first attack on November 15 was unsuccessful; he was pushed aside by the Norwegian corvette Rose and temporarily lost contact with the convoy. A second attack on November 18 was also unsuccessful. Although he reported having been successful three times, this was unconfirmed. Other boats in the pack sank a total of six ships in the convoy on November 17 and 18 and damaged one.

Second venture

The submarine hunter HMT Bredon

On January 7, 1943, U 521 left for its second venture, from which it returned on March 26. The BdU described the voyage as "successful", recognized four ships and one warship as sunk and awarded the commander the Knight's Cross on May 2nd . In fact, Bargsten sank only two ships, the British submarine hunter HMT Bredon (750 t, 43 dead) ( Lage ), a so-called Admiralty Trawler from the Gibr-2 convoy , on February 8, 1943 near the Canary Islands , and on March 18, 1943 the US cargo steamer Molly Pitcher (7176 BRT) ( location ) from convoy UGS-2, which was on its maiden voyage and had been badly damaged by U 167 the day before and left by its crew.

Third enterprise and sinking

The boat left Lorient on May 5, 1943 to wage a trade war off the US east coast. There it was sighted on May 31 by an American reconnaissance aircraft about 225 nautical miles east of Cape Hatteras , whereupon it dived and sailed to the northwest. On June 2, at a scuba diving about 150 nautical miles southeast of the Delaware Bay and Cape May , the boat at 12:30 of the Americas was submarine hunters PC 565 that the convoy NG-365 to Guantanamo secured, via sonar pinpointed and at 12:39 with water bombs attacked. The depth charges caused serious damage, including flooding. The submarine, whose instruments and control functions had probably largely failed, then came to the surface. Whether Bargsten had ordered the surfacing or whether this, as shown in parts of the literature, was caused or even ordered by his chief engineer , is ultimately irrelevant. When Bargsten was the first to come through the hatch onto the bridge immediately after surfacing, as usual , the boat was fired at from one of its 2 cm automatic cannons from the PC-565, which was only about 350 m away , with several hits on the tower . Then the submarine hunter took a ramming course on U 521 , while at the same time the corvette USS Brisk (PG-89) came to support.

Even before the submarine could be driven, it fell very fast, with the bow above to position 37 ° 43 '  N , 73 ° 16'  W . Bargsten was flushed from the tower during or shortly before and was the only survivor of the 52-man crew . After his rescue and capture he said, first, that he had the scuttling ordered his boat in order not to let it fall into enemy hands, it was but then very quickly, practically fallen under his feet and inexplicably. Later, however, he presented the matter in such a way that a wave washed him overboard and the boat sank shortly afterwards; there was no longer any question of an order to submerge oneself.

PC-565 threw a depth charge about 100 m before the sinking point, observed large air bubbles, then took the bargain floating in the water on board and stayed there until 2:30 p.m. Buoyant oil, wood splinters and body parts were observed. The sea is over two kilometers deep at this point, and the wreck has not been found to this day. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) indicates the wreck site under number 992 on nautical chart 12200, i.e. 6nbsü; h. 3–5 nautical miles from the sinking point indicated by the coordinates.

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ 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. 116.
  2. ↑ Patrol info for U-521. At uboat.net.
  3. ↑ Hahira. American steam tanker. At uboat.net.
  4. ↑ All other submarines in use had been withdrawn from the North Atlantic at this point in time to fight the Allied invasion fleet in North Africa ( Operation Torch ).
  5. ↑ The BdU , Karl Dönitz , criticized that Bargsten had fired his torpedoes from too great a distance when attacking the ONS-144, and assumed that their final detonations would have been wrongly interpreted as hits by the commander. (Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939–1945. Volume 5: The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg et al. 2003, ISBN 3-8132 -0515-0 , p. 356)
  6. ^ ONS-144. Outward, northbound, slow (North Atlantic). Nov 15, 1942 - Nov 21, 1942. At uboat.net.
  7. ^ HMS Bredon (T 223). British A / S trawlers. At uboat.net.
  8. ↑ Admiralty Trawlers were the British counterpart to the German war fishing cutters and were used as escort boats, minesweepers and submarine hunters.
  9. ^ Molly Pitcher. American Steam Merchant. At uboat.net.
  10. ↑ PC-565 was christened USS Gilmer in February 1956 , but was laid up with the Atlantic Reserve Fleet since 1946 and was sold to the Venezuelan Navy in 1960 .
  11. ↑ Neither the 7.5 cm gun nor the 40 mm gun were used in the attack.
  12. ^ Bernard Ireland: The Battle of the Atlantic. 2003, p. 171.
  13. ↑ James E. Wise, Jr .: Sole Survivors of the Sea. 2008, pp. 91-93.
  14. ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1998, p. 418.
  15. ↑ 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. 106.
  16. ↑ The alleged discovery of the wreck by divers in 1991 at a depth of 70 meters near Point Pleasant (New Jersey) (Georg Högel: Emblems, Wappen, Malings deutscher U-Boats 1939–1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 117) must be seriously doubted, because that is around 300 nautical miles further north.

literature

  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
  • 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 .
  • Bernard Ireland: The Battle of the Atlantic. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2003, ISBN 1-59114-032-3 , p. 171.
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
  • James E. Wise, Jr .: Sole Survivors of the Sea. Emphasis. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2008, ISBN 978-1-59114-943-9 , Chapter 13.

See also

Web links