U 557
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U 557 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 37 961 |
| Shipyard: | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | September 25, 1939 |
| Build number: | 533 |
| Keel laying: | January 6, 1940 |
| Launch: | December 22, 1940 |
| Commissioning: | February 13, 1941 |
| Commanders: |
Oberleutnant zur See (later Kapitänleutnant ) Ottokar Paulshen |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 4 activities |
| Sinkings: |
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| Whereabouts: | on December 16, 1941 rammed by an Italian torpedo boat near Salamis and sunk |
U 557 was a German submarine of the former Navy that was used in World War II.
It was a type VII C boat that was designed primarily for use in the North and Central Atlantic ("Atlantic boat ").
Technical specifications
U 557 could reach a top speed of 19 knots over water . Under water it could make a maximum of eight knots with the help of the two electric motors. However, the power of the batteries only allowed this for an hour. At a low speed, for example two knots, the U 557 could theoretically travel under water for up to three days. A dive of this length could not be expected of the crew because the air in the Type VII C boats was already used up after 24 hours. This was also the usual interval for charging the batteries by generators during a surface voyage.
crew
When U 557 left Kiel in the summer of 1941, the team consisted of
- 4 officers and 3 ensigns
- 3 sergeants
- 14 NCOs
- 27 machinists, mechanics, seamen, torpedo mechanics, electricians and radio operators.
commander
- February 13, 1941 - December 16, 1941
Ottokar Arnold Paulshen was born on October 11, 1915 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. He attended the Liebig secondary school in Frankfurt and joined the Navy in September 1934 (Crew 34). At the beginning of the Second World War he was first watch officer on U 26 and then a commander's student and watch officer on U 18 . On June 8, 1940 Paulshen was given command of U 20 , which at that time was assigned as a training boat to the 1st U-Flotilla in Kiel. Following the construction instruction from the Navy Service in Hamburg , Oberleutnant zur See Ottokar Paulshen became commander of U 557 . On July 10, 1941, he was promoted to lieutenant captain.
history
U 557 was one of the first submarines to be built by the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. This shipyard was only converted to submarine construction after the beginning of the war and received the first building contract (for the boats U 551 to U 558 ) on September 25, 1939. The keel of U 557 was laid on January 6, 1940 and the launch on Held December 22, 1940. On February 13, 1941, the boat was put into service under Oberleutnant zur See Ottokar Paulshen. On the tower, U 557 had a variant of the coat of arms of its sponsored city Düsseldorf .
Until May 1, 1941, U 557 was assigned to the 1st U-Flotilla in Kiel (chief: Korvettenkapitän Hans Cohausz ) for its training and test drives in the Baltic Sea . An accident occurred on April 24, 1941 on the move from Königsberg to Kiel. During a diving exercise there was a water ingress in the diesel room. The boat sagged to the bottom. A mechanic was killed. U 557 did not come loose from the silt until the crew had been pacing back and forth between bow and stern. It was only through this “rocking” or “rocking” that the boat could be brought back to the surface from a depth of 165 meters.
From May 1 to December 4, 1941, U 557 was part of the 1st U-Flotilla as a front boat. At the beginning of the war it had its base in Kiel, but from June 1941 until it was dissolved in September 1944 it was based in Brest .
Calls
First venture
U 557 left Kiel on May 13, 1941 for its first patrol. The area of operation was in the North Atlantic. It was assigned to a chain of outposts that were on the hunt for British ships chasing the German battleship Bismarck . After its sinking, U 557 also searched in vain for survivors for a while. When returning to the northern escort routes, a ship with 7,290 GRT was sunk. On June 3, 1941, the boat was supplied with fuel by the tanker Belchen in Davis Strait . Only a few hours later the German supplier was caught by British cruisers and sunk.
On June 15, 1941, U 557 narrowly escaped a torpedo attack by the British submarine HMS Thunderbolt . A few days later it became involved in a skirmish with a British convoy that was heading towards Great Britain from Halifax, under the protection of four Canadian corvettes and the destroyer Ottawa . During a depth charge, the boat dropped to a critical 180 meters. It escaped sinking, however, because the pursuers broke off the hunt prematurely (due to unclear signals from one another).
On July 10, 1941, U 557 entered its new base in Lorient . On that day the commander Paulshen was promoted to lieutenant captain.
Second venture
On August 20, 1941 was U 557 of Lorient from. The area of operation was again the North Atlantic. On the night of August 27, 1941, it met the convoy Outbound South 4 (OS-4) , which was on its way to Sierra Leone . Four ships with 20,407 GRT could be sunk from this convoy.
- August 27, 1941: Norwegian freighter Segundo with 4,414 GRT sunk. ( Location ) The sinking of the ship cost seven people their lives. Gudrun Torgersen, the wife of the chief officer, was among the dead. 27 survivors were taken from the sloop HMS Lulworth .
- August 27, 1941: British steamer Saugor sunk 6,303 GRT. ( Location ) 59 crew members of the freighter were killed. 23 people survived the sinking of the Saugor , were picked up by the Perth and brought ashore the following day in Greenock, Scotland .
- August 27, 1941: British steamer Tremoda with 4,736 GRT sunk. ( Location ) 32 crew members were killed. The free-French deminer Chevreuil picked up 21 survivors and brought them ashore in Kingston , Jamaica .
- August 27, 1941: British steamer Embassage with 4,954 GRT sunk ( Lage )
Allegedly a fifth ship may have been sunk, but this has not been confirmed.
Third company
On November 19, 1941, U 557 left Lorient for the Mediterranean . On November 26, 1941, the boat broke the blockade at the Strait of Gibraltar . On December 2, 1941 , a ship with 4,032 GRT was sunk southeast of Ceuta . It arrived in Messina on December 7, 1941 . Since then, U 557 has been under the control of the 29th U-Flotilla based in La Spezia .
- December 2, 1941: Norwegian steamer Fjord with 4,032 GRT sunk
Fourth venture
The last voyage of U 557 began on December 9, 1941, when it left Messina. The area of operation was the eastern Mediterranean. On December 15, 1941, the boat was able to sink the British light cruiser HMS Galatea off Alexandria . The next day, U 557 was sunk by an Italian torpedo boat being hit by a ram.
- December 15, 1941: British light cruiser HMS Galatea with 5,220 t sunk ( location )
Downfall
On the way to his new base Salamis was U 557 in the late evening of December 16, 1941 west of the island of Crete , by the Italian torpedo boat Orione rammed and sunk ( location ). The Italian commander stated in his report that he had not noticed any signals from the direction of the submarine that could have prevented him from ramming this supposedly hostile boat. No rescue attempts were made by the Orione , as it was feared that the weather conditions would worsen. The entire crew of 44 men were killed in this incident.
Notes and individual references
- ^ 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. 122.
- ^ Ian M. Malcolm: "Shipping Company Losses of the Second World War. Book II", Moira Brown, Dundee 2020, ISBN 978-1-65661-255-7 , page 62
- ^ U 557 , website in the portal ubootarchiv.de , accessed on August 22, 2018
literature
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
- 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 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
- Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German submarines 1939–1945 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0826-9 .
- Peter Padfield: The Submarine War. 1939-1945. License issue. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-8289-0313-4 .
- Herbert A. Werner: The iron coffins (= Heyne books. No. 5177). Foreword by Hans Hellmut Kirst . Approved, unabridged paperback edition, 10th edition. Heyne, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-453-00515-5 .
- Dietrich Krause: Orione case. The sinking of U 557 by an Italian T-boat . In: Ship & Time. Panorama maritime . Issue 69, spring 2009, pp. 35–39.
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