U 532

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U 532
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Type : IX C / 40
Field Post Number : 50 614
Shipyard: Deutsche Werft AG , Hamburg
Construction contract: August 15, 1940
Build number: 347
Keel laying: January 7, 1942
Launch: August 26, 1942
Commissioning: November 11, 1942
Commanders:

Ottoheinrich Junker

Calls: 4 activities
Sinkings:

8 ships sunk,
2 ships damaged

Whereabouts: capitulated on May 10, 1945, sunk on December 9, 1945

U 532 was a German submarine of the Kriegsmarine of the type IX C / 40 , which was used in the submarine war of the Second World War by the German navy in the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean .

Construction and technical data

At the beginning of the war, Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg-Finkenwerder was commissioned to manufacture Type IX submarines as a replica shipyard for Deschimag AG Weser . U 532 was part of the fourth construction contract that the Navy received from this shipyard. Deutsche Werft AG had completed 41 submarines of this type by the end of the war. Such a submarine was 76.8 m long and displaced 1,144 m³ above water and 1,257 m³ submerged. Two 2,200 hp strong diesel ensured a overwater top speed of 18.3 knots , which are 33.9 km / h . When underwater, the two electric motors enabled a speed of 7.3 kn, which corresponds to 13.5 km / h. U 532 was launched on September 11, 1942 and was put into service by Corvette Captain Junker on November 25, 1942 . U 532 carried a black-clad water carrier with a yellow shirt as the boat's coat of arms - a motif that goes back to the Hamburg original Hans Hummel . The sign originally attached to the tower was exchanged for a Maling after the first venture .

history

The boat belonged to the 4th U-Flotilla as a training boat until March 31, 1943 and was stationed in Kiel . From April 1st, U 532 was assigned to the 2nd U-Flotilla in Lorient as the front boat . During this time the boat operated partly in the Indian Ocean. From October 1, 1944 until the end of the war, the boat finally belonged to the 33rd U-Flotilla stationed in Flensburg , which was set up after the naval bases on the northern French Atlantic coast had to be evacuated.

Star submarine group

On March 25, 1943, Korvettenkapitän Junker set out from Kiel with U 532 on his first patrol with this boat. The sea area east of Greenland was intended as the operational area . U 532 was assigned to the Star submarine group , which was supposed to seek combat with allied convoy groups according to the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . In May, the German submarines attacked convoy ONS 5 , which was on its way from the British Isles to North America with 42 merchant ships secured by seven escort ships . In the course of this attack, U 532 was discovered by escort ships of the convoy, followed for 15 hours and attacked several times with depth charges. The boat reached its new base in Lorient on the northern French Atlantic coast on May 15, 1943.

Monsoon submarine group

U 532 at the Liverpool docks

In the summer of 1943, the boat was assigned to the Monsun group, which operated from Japanese-occupied bases in Southeast Asian sea areas. U 532 left Lorient on August 3rd and reached its new base in Penang on October 30th. During this enterprise Junker sank four ships and damaged another. From Penang he undertook another patrol and then moved the boat first to Singapore , then to Batavia , where U 532 arrived in December 1944. The boat left Batavia on January 13, 1945 for its fourth expedition and reached European waters again in May.

Downfall

Corvette Captain Junker brought U 532 to the Scottish fjord Loch Eriboll on May 10, 1945 . The boat was brought from here first to Liverpool and later to Loch Ryan. From there, U 532 was towed by HMS Masterful to position 56 ° 8 ′  N , 10 ° 7 ′  W coordinates: 56 ° 8 ′ 0 ″  N , 10 ° 7 ′ 0 ″  W at the beginning of December and by the British submarine HMS Tantivy sunk with a torpedo.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Müller, Erlangen 1996, page 199
  2. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 94.
  3. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, page 118.
  4. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 376.
  5. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , page 381.

literature

  • Bodo Herzog : German U-Boats 1906–1966. Karl Müller, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
  • Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German submarines 1939–1945. 4th edition. Koehler, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0826-9 .