U 546
|
U 546 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
|
|---|---|
| Type : | IX C / 40 |
| Field Post Number : | M - 51 791 |
| Shipyard: | German shipyard , Hamburg - Finkenwerder |
| Construction contract: | June 5, 1941 |
| Build number: | 367 |
| Keel laying: | August 6, 1942 |
| Launch: | March 17, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | June 2, 1943 |
| Commanders: |
June 2, 1943 to April 24, 1945 |
| Flotilla: |
|
| Calls: | 3 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
1 warship with 1200 t (113 dead), shot down of a B-24 bomber (9 dead) |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk in the North Atlantic on April 24, 1945 (24 dead, 33 prisoners of war) |
U 546 was one of the Navy in World War II employed submarine of type IX C / 40 . The submarine shot down a B-24 bomber on its first patrol . On April 24, 1945, it sank a US destroyer with 1200 tons during its third patrol in the Atlantic west of the Azores , killing 113 crew members. On the same day it was sunk by other destroyers as part of Operation Teardrop . Of the 57 crew members, 24 died while 33 were taken prisoner by the United States . During the subsequent interrogation of the eight captured officers, which was associated with torture , no information on missile-armed submarines of the Kriegsmarine could be obtained, because U 546 was not one of them.
Construction and equipment
U 546 had a displacement of 1144 t at the surface and 1257 t under water. It was a total of 87.6 m long, 7.5 m wide, 10.2 m high with a 68.5 m long and 4.4 m wide pressure hull and had a draft of 5.35 m. The submarine built in the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg - Finkenwerder was powered by two MAN four-stroke diesel engines M9V40 / 46 with 9 cylinders each and an output of 1620 kW, with two electric motors from Siemens-Schuckertwerke with an output of 370 kW driven. It had two drive shafts with two 1.92 m propellers. The boat was suitable for diving to a depth of 150 m as a regular diving depth, up to a maximum of 200 m.
The submarine reached speeds of up to 13.2 knots on the surface and up to 7.3 knots under water. When surfaced, the boat could travel up to 13,850 nautical miles at 10 knots and up to 63 nautical miles submerged at 4 knots. U 546 had six 533 mm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and two at the stern - and 22 torpedoes , a 10.5 cm SK C / 32 rapid-loading cannon with 180 rounds of ammunition, and a 3.7 cm SK C flak / 30 and a 2 cm FlaK C / 30.
U 546 was one of only a few submarines to be equipped with a FuMO 61 Hohentwiel radar transmitter, which was located on the starboard side of the tower. In addition, U 546 possessed a FuMB -26 Tunis antenna, a combination of the FuMB antenna 24 Fliege and the FuMB antenna 25 Cuba II, to warn of enemy radar.
team
The crew strength of the submarine was 48 to 60 men. On his last trip there were 57 men.
Calls
After its commissioning, U 546 served under the command of Kapitänleutnants Paul Just (1915–1991) from June 3, 1943 as a training boat in Hamburg and was from June 11, 1943 in Kiel , from July 1, 1943 with the 4th U-Flotilla in Tried and tested Szczecin and other Baltic ports . From December 22, 1943 to January 14, 1944 in Stettin and from January 15, 1944 to January 21, 1944 in Kiel, it was equipped for the first patrol. Then it went to the Norwegian Kristiansand to refuel , which was left on January 26, 1944 for the first patrol into the North Atlantic. Here it operated as part of the submarine groups "Igel 1" and "Hai 1" west of Ireland and near Iceland , but remained without success in sinking. On 16 February 1944, U 546 by an Allied Sunderland - flying boat attacked, died whereby a crew member. On April 17, 1944, an air raid with nine depth charges by a British bomber Consolidated B-24 Liberator BZ800 (RAF Squadron 53 / H, pilot: F / L C. Roberts) followed, which was shot down, so that the entire nine-man crew died , while U 546 descended without damage. U 546 arrived in Lorient on April 23, 1944 . Here a snorkel was installed in the Lorient naval shipyard from April 23, 1944 to June 15, 1944 .
U 546 left the port of Lorient on June 15, 1944 , but had to return there on June 22 because of damage to the snorkel. After three days the submarine was ready to go again, so that it could sail again on June 25, 1944. It was now operating in the mid-Atlantic off the French colonial city of Dakar , where again no ships could be sunk. It reached Farsund on November 6th and Kristiansand on November 7th, and finally arrived in Flensburg on November 11th . The submarine was relocated in November 1944 for repair work via Kiel to Stettin and in March 1945 via Kiel and Horten (Norway) to Kristiansand.
Last use and end
On March 21, 1945 U 546 ran from Kristiansand on its last patrol in the North Atlantic, where it operated as part of the submarine group "Seewolf" northwest of the Azores . On April 24, 1945 U 546 was discovered northwest of the Azores by a carrier aircraft belonging to the US escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9) and shortly afterwards by the US destroyers USS Frederick C. Davis , USS Hayder , USS Flaherty , USS Neunzer , USS Varian , USS Chatelain , USS Joseph C. Hubbart , USS Janssen , USS Pillsbury and USS Keith attacked west of the Azores. U 546 saw the attack and shot a T5 Wren - Torpedo on the destroyer USS Frederick C. Davis down, hit and sank, though the destroyer Foxer began jammers. USS Frederick C. Davis sank within 5 minutes. Of the 192-strong crew of the Frederick C. Davis , 113 died, while 82 men were rescued by the USS Hayder (66 men) and other US warships. 37 minutes after the sinking of the Frederick C. Davis , the USS Flaherty located the submarine, which was now being pursued by several destroyers and attacked with depth charges. Commander Paul Just realized that he had no chance against the odds and tried to escape in a zigzag course, using Bold decoys to deceive the enemy . However, U 546 was hit so badly by two volleys of the Flaherty with Hedgehog shells that it had to surface and was immediately caught in the artillery fire of the USS Pillsbury and several other destroyers. The tower of the boat was destroyed and was no longer passable. However, 33 men managed to leave the boat under attack through the diesel hatch, until after about 10 minutes an explosion tore the boat apart and it sank very quickly over the bow. 24 men of the crew were killed. The 33 survivors were taken on board as prisoners of war by the USS Varian .
From the submarine group “Seewolf”, U 546 was the fourth boat that was lost in the course of Operation Teardrop . The sinking was observed by U 805 , which managed to escape and only surrendered to the Americans on May 16, 1945 in Portsmouth (New Hampshire) . On May 5, 1945, the U 881 , a fifth German submarine - without survivors - was lost during the operation.
Interrogate the prisoners
Captain Paul Just and the other officers of U 546 were interrogated on board the aircraft carrier USS Bogue , but made no statements other than the information required by the Geneva Convention . On 27 April 1945, the prisoners were in Argentia ( Newfoundland ) brought ashore and interrogated eight officers and "specialists" including Just in a military prison. The US military feared a submarine-controlled attack with V1 cruise missiles ( Fieseler Fi 103 ) or rockets on US coastal cities, and they tried to obtain information on this by torturing the prisoners - beatings and punitive exercises. Since the officers of U 546 did not know anything about this, this did not succeed. However, a diary of a survivor fished out of the water by the Varian revealed that the submarine was only equipped with torpedoes, not cruise missiles or missiles. However, the prisoners continued to be forcibly interrogated. The commandant of the Varian , Lt. Cdr. Leonard A. Myrhe , was called in for the interrogation, but protested the treatment of the prisoners. Then they were to Fort Hunt ( Virginia relocated), where they were still beaten during interrogations. After the Wehrmacht surrendered on May 8, 1945, Commander Just was finally ready on May 12 to write a report on the operations of U 546 . This ended the interrogations and the eight prisoners were taken to prison camps for longer-term accommodation, which had already happened to the other 25 prisoners.
According to the US historian Philip K. Lundeberg, the beatings and torture of the survivors of U 546 were a “one-off atrocity”, motivated by the acute pressure of the interrogators to get information about possible rocket attacks as quickly as possible be. Similar allegations were also made in connection with the interrogation of the commander of U 873 , Friedrich Steinhoff , who committed suicide on May 20, 1945 in the Charles Street Jail city prison in Charlestown (Boston) .
See also
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. 117. 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. 114, 230. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: The German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 231. ISBN 978-3-8132-0513-8 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 344f. 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 Hunters 1939–1942 . Heyne Verlag, 1998. P. 687. ISBN 3-4531-2345-X .
- Clay Blair: The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 587, 724, 797f. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
- Philip K. Lundeberg: Operation Teardrop Revisited . In: Timothy J. Runyan, Jan M. Copes (Eds.): To Die Gallantly - The Battle of the Atlantic . Westview Press, Boulder 1994. ISBN 0-8133-8815-5 .
Web links
- German submarines 1935–1945, U 546
- U-546, Uboat.net
- U-546, Uboatarchive.net: Report on U-546 (draft)
Map with all coordinates: