U 592
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U 592 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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 Coat of arms of Hamburg, sponsored city of the boat |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 37 556 |
| Shipyard: | Blohm + Voss , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | January 16, 1940 |
| Build number: | 092 |
| Keel laying: | November 30, 1940 |
| Launch: | August 20, 1941 |
| Commissioning: | October 16, 1941 |
| Commanders: |
Carl Borm |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 10 activities |
| Sinkings: |
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| Whereabouts: | Sunk on January 31, 1944 southwest of Ireland |
U 592 was a German type VII C submarine of the former German Navy .
Technical specifications
The Hamburg shipyard Blohm + Voss was not involved in the submarine building program of the Reichsmarine or the Kriegsmarine before the war began. From 1939, however, the capacity of the Hamburg shipyard was fully utilized with the construction of submarines. The efficient series production method of the shipyard was supposed to guarantee the annual production of 52 type VII C submarines. In addition, under license from MAN , diesel engines were manufactured for installation on boats of this type. Two of these type VII C-boat diesel engines achieved a speed of 17 knots when sailing above the water . Such a boat had a maximum range of 6500 nm . Under water, the two electric motors, each 375 hp , were usually used, guaranteeing a speed of 7.6 knots. On the tower , U 592 bore the coat of arms of its godfather city Hamburg, the birthplace of the first commandant. Therefore, the crew also chose the Hamburg original Hans Hummel as the motif for the boat emblem of U 592 .
Commanders
- October 16, 1941 to July 24, 1943 Carl Borm
Carl Borm was born in Hamburg on August 10, 1911 and joined the Reichsmarine in 1934 .
Until the beginning of the war he served as an officer on watch on the Scharnhorst , then - until April 1941 - he commanded minesweepers M60, M111, M75. Following his submarine training and a submarine commanders course, he took command of U 592 in October 1941 .
- September 2, 1943 to January 31, 1944 Heinz Jaschke
From July to September 1943 the boat was in the shipyard in Saint-Nazaire and had no commander. On September 2, the first officer on watch, Jaschke, took command. Heinz Jaschke joined the Navy at the beginning of the war. When the boat was put into service, he served as second, from January 1943 as first officer on watch on U 592 . One day before he took command of this boat, Heinz Jaschke had been promoted to lieutenant at sea .
Commitment and history
The boat completed six trips in the North Sea and the Barents Sea from Bergen and Narvik before being relocated to northern France in the spring of 1943.
"Doctor on duty"
On May 29, 1943, U 592 ran from Saint-Nazaire in northern France , the base of the 6th U-Flotilla, for its first venture into southern waters. The boat was supposed to patrol the South American coast and had a doctor on board. When commander Otto von U 449 reported several casualties after a battle with a British aircraft in mid-June and asked for medical care, the commander of the submarines, Karl Dönitz , instructed U 592 to meet with U 449 in the North Atlantic. To cheer up his team, who had been looking forward to the mission in more southerly regions after several trips in arctic waters, Commander Borm had the "bumblebee" on the tower of U 592 painted over with a red cross and the slogan "Doctor on duty North Atlantic consultation hours during the day and night . add 5 ”at night up to swell. Before he was able to find U 449 , however, it had already met with U 119 , which also had a doctor on board, and no longer required any further care. U 592 was ordered to continue its operation in the North Atlantic and returned to Saint-Nazaire on July 14th.
Downfall
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The submarine set out for its last venture on January 10, 1944. The North Atlantic, in particular the sea area west of Ireland, was intended as the operational area of U 592 . The British intelligence service discovered in the spring of 1944 that a German submarine group was in these waters to attack two convoys. Aircraft of the escort carriers Nairana and Activity patrolled the sea area accordingly and a group of British warships searched the German submarines with ASDIC below the surface of the water. While Commander Jaschke tried to reach a favorable position to attack the escort aircraft carrier Nairana , U 592 was located on January 31, 1944 at 10.15 a.m. by the British sloop HMS Wild Goose . The boat was then sunk by the experienced crew of HMS Starling under the command of Frederic John Walker by depth charges. After a series of 14 depth charges, a huge submarine detonation was detected and oil and body parts were exposed. The sunk submarine could be safely identified as U 592 on the basis of the papers that were fished out.
Notes and individual references
- ^ A b Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939–1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 127.
- ↑ U 449 was sunk a few days later with the entire crew trying to pass the Biscay and reach the base by the same submarine hunting group that later also destroyed U 592 .
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 507.
- ↑ The Germans were targeting the SL 47 and MKS 38 convoys .
- ^ Bernard Ireland: Battle of the Atlantic. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2003, ISBN 1-59114-032-3 , p. 186.
- ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , pp. 173-174.
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