U 576

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Coordinates: 34 ° 30 ′ 6 ″  N , 75 ° 13 ′ 2 ″  W.

U 576
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 44 177
Shipyard: Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Construction contract: January 8, 1940
Build number: 541
Keel laying: August 1, 1940
Launch: April 30, 1941
Commissioning: June 26, 1941
Commanders:
  • June 26, 1941 - July 15, 1942
    Lieutenant Captain Hans-Dieter Heinicke
Flotilla:

7th U-Flotilla
until August 1941 Training
boat September 1941 - July 1942 Front boat

Calls: 4 activities
Sinkings:
  • 4 merchant ships (15,450 GRT )
Whereabouts: at the 15 July 1942 Cape Hatteras the US merchant ship by depth charges from the air and by artillery fire Unicoi sunk

U 576 was a German Type VII C submarine of the German Navy that was used in World War II.

history

U 576 was built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. The keel was laid on August 1, 1940 and the launch took place on April 30, 1941. The boat was put into service on June 26, 1941 under Lieutenant Captain Hans-Dieter Heinicke, who commanded it until it was sunk. U 576 was assigned to the 7th U-Flotilla as a training boat on June 26, 1941 . After the crew had completed their training, it remained with this flotilla as the front boat.

On four operations, U 576 sank four merchant ships with a tonnage of 15,450 GRT and damaged two more with 19,457 GRT.

On June 16, 1942, the boat left St. Nazaire for the last time . The last time seven submarines were used simultaneously in the western Atlantic ( U 132 , U 158 , U 202 , U 332 , U 404 , U 576 , U 701 ). The risk of these missions had increased considerably, as there were hardly any targets outside of escorted convoys. On July 13, 1942, the U 576 , which had previously been unsuccessful on this journey, started its journey home after being damaged. On July 15, the boat attacked convoy KS-520 off the coast of North Carolina , which was en route from Norfolk to Key West , sank one ship and damaged two others. On the same day it was damaged on the water surface by depth charges from two US Kingfisher bombers and gunfire from the armed US merchant ship Unicoi and then sunk (according to some information, which was not confirmed by its crew, by a ramming blow by the Unicoi ). All 45 crew members were killed. The wreck of U 576 was discovered 30 nautical miles off Cape Hatteras in August 2014 , about 200 meters next to the wreck of the Nicaraguan freighter Bluefields, which she sank last (coordinates approximately N 34 ° 30.6 'W 75 ° 13.2').

After three submarines had been sunk, the other four boats received the order to return on July 19.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 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. 48.
  2. ↑ 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. 372.
  3. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 86.
  4. ↑ a b Christiane Heil: Found more than 70 years after the patrol. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 24, 2014, p. 8.

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