U 530
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U 530 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | Type IX C / 40 |
| Field Post Number : | 49 518 |
| Shipyard: | Deutsche Werft AG, Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | August 15, 1940 |
| Build number: | 345 |
| Keel laying: | December 8, 1941 |
| Launch: | July 28, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | October 14, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
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| Calls: | 7 activities |
| Sinkings: |
2 ships (12,063 GRT) |
| Whereabouts: | in the July 10, 1945 Mar del Plata , Argentina is running |
U 530 was a German submarine of the type IX C / 40 of the Kriegsmarine , which was used in the Second World War . U 530 went to seven patrols and sank two ships of 12,063 gross tons . After the war ended, it went to South America, where the crew surrendered to the Argentine authorities on July 10, 1945 in the port of Mar del Plata .
history
U 530 was on 14 October 1942 in the German shipyard in Hamburg on down Kiel . During its training it belonged to the 4th U-Flotilla in Kiel and completed training trips in the Baltic Sea. From March 1, 1943 to September 30, 1944 it was subordinate to the 10th U-Flotilla. From October 1st until the end of the war in Europe, this boat belonged to the 33rd U-Flotilla.
Rendezvous in the Atlantic
On May 22, 1944, U 530 left the bunker in Lorient, France, and went to Trinidad . On the way it met with the Japanese submarine I-52 to deliver a Naxos type radar detector . A navigator also went on board I-52. The port of destination for I-52 was Lorient. The submarines met on June 23 in the Atlantic about 1,370 km west of the Cape Verde Islands . After 133 days at sea, U 530 returned from Trinidad to Lorient. The Allies were informed about the meeting of the two submarines and dispatched the escort aircraft carrier USS Bogue to the meeting point. While U 530 escaped undetected, a group of destroyers managed to sink I-52 with an acoustic torpedo .
Crossing to South America
On February 19, U 530 left Kiel for its eighth venture. The intended area of operation was the US east coast. Contrary to the order from Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz to the Navy to enter the ports and hand over all ships to the Allies, U 530 ran towards South America, only to capitulate on July 10, 1945 in the Argentine port of Mar del Plata . The commandant, Oberleutnant Otto Wermuth, had decided to go to Mar del Plata. During his interrogation by the Argentine authorities, he did not provide any information about why the crossing had taken almost two months, the deck gun was missing, the entire crew had no identity papers with them and what had happened to the logbook .
The crew of the U 530 was finally interned and the U 530 was handed over to the United States for testing , where it was sunk on November 28, 1947 as a training target by a torpedo from the USS Toro .
Rumors
The unexpected arrival of U 530 gave rise to a large number of rumors: Brazilian admiral Jorge Dodsworth Martins claimed that U 530 was responsible for the sinking of the Brazilian cruiser Bahia . The Brazilian admiral Dudal Teixeira believed that U 530 had come from Japan. An Argentine journalist alleged that he saw a police report from the Buenos Aires Region Police Department mentioning the landing of a foreign submarine on the Argentine coast. Various high-ranking officers and some civilians had disembarked; the civilians could have been the disguised Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun . U 977 was also suspected of having sunk the Bahia . An investigation by the Brazilian authorities later revealed that the Bahia had sunk itself in an accident during a combat drill.
The Argentine Ministry of the Navy thereupon issued an official statement, in which it was stated that neither U 530 was responsible for the sinking of the Bahia , nor were high-ranking Nazi leaders or officers on board. U 530 did not land on the Argentine coast either before it surrendered.
Circumstances of surrender
In the book Ultramar Sur: La fuga en submarinos de más de 50 jerarcas nazis a la Argentina by Carlos de Nápoli and Juan Salinas, published in 2002, the authors speculate about the background to the journey from U 530 to Argentina. The text is based allegedly on photocopies of the now no more than classified information classified interrogation of Commander Wermuth between 13 and 15 July 1945th
The interrogation protocols suggest that the surrender order was believed to be inauthentic because it was received unencrypted and with a false signature. Internment in Argentina, which is believed to be neutral, must then have appeared to all crew members as a better solution to a surrender in the USA forced by a ruse. The demilitarization that was carried out and the sinking of secret items also suggests that nothing was wanted to fall into the hands of the possibly still existing enemy.
When entering the port of Mar del Plata on July 10, 1945, the U 530 was in a "miserable condition". The hull was rusty, the tower had been broken open, and the metal had marks from a recent fire. Attempts were made to sabotage the diesel engine. The commandant, who was described in the newspapers as tall and blond, identified himself as Otto Wermuth. He and most of the crew members could no longer produce identity papers. Wermuth told some journalists that U 530 set out from Horten in Norway on March 3, 1945 . From April 24th, they drove in compliance with radio silence because they were in the coastal waters of the United States.
He described that he was very close to New York and could see cars and trains through the periscope . The submarine allegedly had no further contact until May 12th, when it was learned of the unconditional surrender and the end of the war in Europe the previous week.
Investigators of the Argentine Navy came to the conclusion that there had been a mutiny on U 530 , according to which Commander Wermuth was not in constant command of the boat. Since the logbook or war diary was nowhere to be found, the exact details of the trip remained in the dark. Otto Wermuth was described as small and dark-haired. It was therefore suspected that the tall blond Otto Wermuth, who had brought the boat to the port in Mar del Plata, was a swindler who had only recently come on board, possibly only recently boarded on the Argentine coast. To support this view, it was argued that he was very vague about the exact details of the trip. In addition, Wermuth testified that the deck gun was taken from the ship in Germany and left on the quay , while the crew unanimously stated that they had dismantled it and sunk it overboard in the Atlantic.
Deck guns were dismantled from around 1943 on most of the IXC / 40 type submarines, which U 530 belonged to.
It is not clear from the interrogation documents which Otto Wermuth was interrogated by the Argentine Navy on July 13, 1945. The officer refused to answer the questions in most cases. He merely stated that he had received a reconnaissance and attack order directly from Berlin . He decided to go to Argentina when he was 1000 nautical miles northeast of Puerto Rico . He crossed the equator near the Saint Peter and Saint Paul rocks . In order to avoid detection by coastal patrols , they stayed about 200 nautical miles from the coast. He had arrived at the Punta Mogotes lighthouse near Mar del Plata on July 9, 1945 at around 3 a.m., and then drove along the coast towards Miramar , where he arrived at around 6 a.m. and spent the day there. He returned to Mar del Plata at around 7 a.m. on July 10th.
Wermuth was unable to explain the whereabouts of any of the six inflatable dinghies . He admitted to having thrown all torpedoes - except one dud - as well as all handguns, machine guns and ammunition, all radar devices, the Metox and all pressure gauges overboard. He also destroyed all records, diaries, nautical charts, code books and books with confidential content.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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. 90.
- ^ Wolfgang WE Samuel: American Raiders. The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson MS 2004, ISBN 1-578-06649-2 , 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. 498.
- ↑ a b U-530. TIME , July 23, 1945, accessed April 4, 2010 .
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer : Chronology of the war at sea. 1939-1945. The Naval History of World War II. With Special Assistance from Gerhard Hümmelchen and Thomas Weis. 3rd revised edition. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2005, ISBN 1-59114-119-2 , p. 423.
- ↑ Carlos de Nápoli, Juan Salinas: Ultramar Sur. La fuga en submarinos de más de 50 jerarcas nazis a la Argentina. Grupo Editorial Norma, Buenos Aires 2002, ISBN 987-545-075-8 (new edition under the title: Ultramar Sur. La fuga en submarinos de más de 50 jerarcas nazis. Belacqua De Ediciones Y Publicaciones, Barcelona 2006, ISBN 84-96326- 66-7 ).
- ^ Report on the Interrogation of Prisoners from U-530 surrendered at Mar del Plata, July 10, 1945 .
Web links
- U 530 on uboatarchive.net