HMS graph
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HMS Graph ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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 U 570 / HMS Graph, image of the HMS Graph |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Shipyard: | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg |
| Keel laying: | May 21, 1940 |
| Commissioning: | May 15, 1941 (Kriegsmarine), September 19, 1941 (Royal Navy) |
| Commanders: |
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| Calls: | |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | Decommissioned in February 1944, ran aground on March 20, 1944 on the way to scrapping near Islay, later scrapped |
HMS Graph was a British submarine of the German type VII C . Its original name when it was put into service was U 570 , in the Royal Navy it had the additional serial number P 715 in addition to its name. The U-Boot was the only German U-Boot that was used by both sides in World War II .
U 570
U 570 was laid down on May 21, 1940 at Blohm + Voss in Hamburg and put into service on May 15, 1941 under the command of Lieutenant Hans-Joachim Rahmlow. After that, the boat was part of the crew training of the 3rd U-Flotilla in Kiel for three months before it was moved to Trondheim in August 1941 as ready for the front . On August 23, 1941, the boat left Trondheim to operate in the North Atlantic and then to call at its final base in La Pallice in occupied France .
The capture of the submarine
After four days at sea around 11 a.m., Rahmlow decided to surface the boat in a position 62 ° 15 ′ N , 18 ° 35 ′ W south of Iceland , and had it brought to periscope depth first . Since the periscope inspection showed no threat, Rahmlow completely surfaced the barely moving boat, almost directly beneath a Lockheed Hudson of the British 269th Squadron flown by Squadron Leader JH Thompson , which had taken off from Iceland and was on anti-underground boat - patrol was located. The plane had been in the blind spot of the periscope and was therefore not detected. Thompson responded immediately to the opportunity and dropped several depth charges around the boat, causing it to be slightly damaged. The completely unexpected attack probably panicked the inexperienced submarine crew including their commander. On his second approach, Thompson allegedly found that a white flag was being waved from the boat's tower as a sign of abandonment (the German commander later denied this). Thompson broke off the attack - the first successful attack by a Lockheed Hudson on a German submarine - and radioed his base for further instructions. He was ordered to continue guarding the boat while ships were being brought up to the wrecked submarine, which took a few hours. Towards evening, Thompson went the fuel running low, from a Catalina - flying boat replaced. Twelve hours after the successful attack, the trawler HMS Northern Star, converted into a submarine hunter , was the first Allied ship to reach the submarine. However, the bad weather prevented a takeover of the German boat, so they waited for reinforcements. During the night, the auxiliary submarine hunters HMS Kingston Agate , HMS Windermere and HMS Wastwater and the destroyer HMS Burwell reached the area. Finally, the Canadian destroyer HMCS Niagara also joined. With the help of lifeboats, the submarine was finally taken over by the British.
Due to the long time between the air raid and the arrival of the boarding party , the Allies did not capture any secret material on this occasion. The crew of U 570 had destroyed everything and thrown the boat's Enigma overboard. Therefore there was no reason to keep the conquest of the boat like that of U 110 a secret. Apart from that, the German crew had done relatively little damage, the boat remained operational. The Allies gained insightful knowledge about the technical performance of the most built German submarine. This included in particular the unexpectedly great diving depth, which is why the detonators of depth charges, which were previously adjustable to a maximum of 153 m, have now been corrected to up to 200 m.
Postplay in the prison camp
In September, the 1st officer on watch , the 2nd WO and the chief engineer of U 570 were imprisoned in the British prison camp Grizedall Hall , where several hundred officers of the Navy and the Air Force were at that time . The inmates were familiar with "Case U 570" from British newspapers, and the three officers of the boat were cut by their fellow inmates. Contrary to the Geneva Convention , Otto Kretschmer , who was also imprisoned there and commissioned by the British camp commandant with the management of the camp, put together a so-called "honorary council" from prisoners without the knowledge of the guards, which was supposed to determine the extent to which the three newcomers could be accused of " cowardice before the enemy " and how to proceed with them further. The II. WO and the LI were acquitted of the above accusation, but the "Honorary Council" demonstrated defamatory behavior to the I. WO in connection with the loss of U 570 and decided to transfer it to a court martial as soon as the invasion of Great Britain was successfully concluded . Subsequently, the young officer proposed to restore his honor by suicide , which the "Honorary Council" considered to be insufficient.
Some time later, the inmates of Grizedall Hall learned that U 570 had been towed into the port of Barrow-in-Furness . Now the prisoners came up with the plan to subsequently sink the boat. With the involvement of many inmates, civilian clothing and forged identity cards were made. Prisoners who knew northern England from peacetime made a map and described bus and rail connections. A map of the port of Barrow was even drawn up. While the prisoners were having a noisy recital, the I. WO broke out of Grizedall Hall and escaped. He was caught by members of the British Home Guard , arrested and shot while trying to escape.
The I. WO of U 570 was buried in Grizedall Hall in October 1941 with the accompanying words of a British military chaplain. The coffin was covered with the British war flag and an honor guard fired three volleys as it was lowered into the grave .
The case was eventually investigated by the UK authorities. During the interviews, Kretschmer claimed to have known nothing about any of this. His role in the affair could not be proven. However, the case also became known in German circles and Hitler awarded him the Swords for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves in January 1942 , although it was known that he had been a British prisoner of war for over ten months.
The English author James Follett processed this episode in his novel U-700 .
The captured submarine was first towed to Þorlákshöfn on Iceland, where it was put aground in order to temporarily repair it. It was then towed by the destroyer supply ship HMS Hecla to Barrow-in-Furness to be fully repaired in Cavendish Dock by Vickers Armstrong , the shipyard that built the majority of British submarines . It was then subjected to sea tests in the Clyde. On September 19, 1941, the submarine was under the command of Lt. Cdr. GR Calvin returned to the service of a warring Navy, this time the Royal Navy . Most of the time, the boat was used for training purposes, but it also undertook several trips, the majority to secure convoys . During these missions, the boat usually wore an oversized Royal Navy flag.
On October 21, 1942, the HMS Graph's lookout spotted the sister boat U 333 in the Bay of Biscay . The German boat under the command of Captain Peter-Erich Cremer was badly damaged on its way back to the base after a battle with the British destroyer escort HMS Crocus . However, the tower guard spotted the bubble traces of four of the HMS Graph fired torpedoes so early that U 333 could drive an evasive maneuver. On the HMS Graph , after the final detonations of the torpedoes, which were mistakenly assumed to be impacts, you could hear deformation noises of the damaged hull of U 333 (the German boat had been rammed twice by the HMS Crocus ) when it was accelerating, and this was taken as an indication of destruction .
On December 31, 1942, the boat sighted the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper , which was on its way back to its base in the Norwegian Altafjord after the battle in the Barents Sea . The HMS Graph could not get into attack position because of the cruiser's high speed. Three hours later, two German destroyers were sighted, one of which had the other in tow. However, the torpedoes fired missed their target, even if the crew heard explosions and a reconnaissance aircraft found oil stains on the sea that morning.
In 1943 the boat was overhauled again in Chatham. Defects that could not be remedied due to a lack of spare parts meant that the boat was initially classified as a reserve and taken out of active service in February 1944. On the way to scrapping, the boat towed by the tug HMS Allegiance ran aground on the west coast of the Scottish island of Islay on March 20, 1944 after the towline broke. The wreck was recovered and dismantled in 1947 after tests of depth charges had been carried out on it.
One of the Navy flags of U 570 was presented to the pilot of the aircraft, which forced the boat to the object as a trophy. It is now in the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon .
Individual evidence
- ^ Terence Robertson: The Wolf in the Atlantic. The war experiences of Otto Kretschmer, the most successful submarine commander in World War II. 5th edition. Welsermühl, Munich 1969.
