U 534
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U 534 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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 U 534 in Birkenhead before being cut up for transport |
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| Type : | IX C / 40 |
| Field Post Number : | 49 383 |
| Shipyard: | German shipyard , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | April 10, 1941 |
| Build number: | 353 |
| Keel laying: | February 20, 1942 |
| Launch: | September 23, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | December 23, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
December 23, 1942 - May 5, 1945 |
| Calls: | 3 activities |
| Sinkings: |
no; 2 British planes shot down (8 dead) |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk on May 5, 1945 in the Kattegat northwest of Helsingør (3 dead, 49 survivors rescued from Danish boats), lifted in 1993, since 2009 a museum piece in Merseyside |
U 534 was a submarine of the German Navy during World War II . It failed to sink or damage any ships on its three ventures, but shot down two attacking aircraft - one of them when it was sunk - killing a total of eight British aircraft crew. It was sunk on May 5, 1945 in the Kattegat by two British aircraft, killing three of its crew and 49 being rescued by Danish lifeboats. The wreck was lifted in 1993 and later exhibited in England as a museum boat.
history
The type IX C / 40 boat was built in 1942 by Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg- Finkenwerder with the construction number 352. In the course of its entire service life it was commanded by Lieutenant Herbert Nollau, who had previously been an officer on watch on U 505 . The boat had the field post number M 49 357.
commitment
The history of operation of the boat shows no sinking of Allied ships. On August 27, 1944, the boat shot down a British Vickers Wellington aircraft on its second war patrol . Four of the six crew members were able to save themselves from the plane wreck, but one of them died in the water from his wounds while three men were rescued. Between November 1944 and May 1945 the boat was inoperable in Flensburg before it was to be moved to Norway shortly before the end of the war.
Sinking
After a stopover in Copenhagen , the boat was attacked on May 5, 1945 while sailing on the surface by British B-24 Liberator bombers . The boat shot down one of these attackers, but was hit by a depth charge on the second approach of the other aircraft , which hit the deck of the boat, rolled down and exploded under the boat. The 52-man crew managed to completely abandon the sinking boat - five of them through a torpedo tube, while the boat lay on the bottom at a depth of 67 m. However, three crew members died: one of these three, the 18-year-old radio operator Josef Neudorfer, died of lung failure during the ascent, the other two, including the other radio operator from Argentina, of exhaustion swimming in the water. Five of the six-man crew of the downed aircraft died. The 49 surviving submarine driver and the only survivor from the downed aircraft were carried lifeboats of about a mile away, before the island Anholt lying fire ship saved.
Whereabouts
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U 534 , the wreck of which was not a naval war grave , was dug in 1993 by a Danish company and was in the collection of the Warship Preservation Trust in Birkenhead, England , for several years . The boat was not restored , but kept in the condition in which it was lifted. After the museum in Birkenhead was closed on February 5, 2006 due to bankruptcy, the future of the boat was uncertain for a while.
In June 2007, Merseytravel, the carrier of the acquired public transport in Merseyside , the boat to issue it as an attraction at a ferry terminal in the Seacombe docks in Birkenhead. Merseytravel received the necessary approval for this in October 2007. It was decided to cut the boat into five sections to facilitate transport. At the new location, two of them were put back together, but the boat was left divided into four parts to allow visitors to the new location to see inside. The U 534 , which has now been renovated on the outside, has been on view since February 2009 . Furthermore, around 4.5 t of memorabilia that were found during the recovery, such as uniforms, ammunition and maps, as well as an Enigma machine (picture) , are to be shown in an exhibition next to the boat.
A special feature was the discovery of three T-11 acoustic torpedo pedos . Only 38 pieces were ever built and no other find is known.
literature
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. Preface by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rohwer, Member of the Presidium of the International Commission on Military History. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, p. 171. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 97, 230. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, pp. 352, 354. ISBN 978-3-8132-0514-5 .
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maas: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 3: Submarines, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers. Bernhard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 .
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 602, 728. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
Web links
- German submarines 1935–1945, U 534, Ubootarchiv.de
- U-534, Uboat.net
- Website of the new exhibition (eng.)
- BBC report on the establishment of the new museum (Engl.)
- Breaking German Navy Ciphers - The U-534 Enigma M4 News: Turing bomb decrypted using software (2012 )
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. 97.
- ↑ Steve Bond: Wimpy. A Detailed History of the Vickers Wellington in service, 1938-1953. Grub Street, London 2014. p. 150.
Coordinates: 53 ° 23 ′ 42 " N , 3 ° 0 ′ 34" W.