U 595

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U 595
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : M - 38 801
Shipyard: Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Construction contract: January 16, 1940
Build number: 095
Keel laying: January 4, 1941
Launch: September 17, 1941
Commissioning: November 6, 1941
Commanders:

November 6, 1941 to November 14, 1942
First Lieutenant at Sea (from March 1, 1942 Lieutenant Captain ) Jürgen Quaet-Faslem

Flotilla:
Calls: 3 patrols
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: Sunk on November 11, 1942 in the Mediterranean near Oran (45 prisoners of war, no dead)

U 595 was one of the Navy in World War II employed submarine of type VIIC . During his three patrols in his twelve-month period of operation, no enemy ships were sunk or damaged. The submarine, commanded by Lieutenant Jürgen Quaet-Faslem , was badly hit by seven British aircraft in the Mediterranean near Oran on November 11, 1942 , shortly thereafter beached and blown up by the crew who had come ashore . All 45 crew members fell into Allied captivity . It was the only capture of German submarine drivers by a US tank unit , but one man was captured by the British beforehand.

Construction and equipment

U 595 had a water displacement of 769 t on the surface and 871 t under water. It was a total of 67.1 m long, 6.2 m wide, 9.6 m high with a 50.5 m long pressure hull and had a draft of 4.74 m. The submarine, built in the Hamburg shipyard Blohm & Voss , was powered by two four-stroke F46 diesel engines with 6 cylinders each and a charging fan from the Kiel Germania shipyard with an output of 2060 to 2350 kW, with two electric motors GU 460 / 8-27 from AEG for underwater operation driven with an output of 550 kW. It had two drive shafts with two 1.23 m tall propellers. The boat was suitable for diving to a depth of 230 m.

The submarine reached speeds of up to 17.7 knots on the surface and up to 7.6 knots under water. When surfaced, the boat could travel up to 8,500 nautical miles at 10 knots, and up to 80 nautical miles submerged at 4 knots. U 595 was carrying five 53.3 cm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and one at the stern - and fourteen torpedoes , an 8.8 cm SK C / 35 cannon with 220 rounds of ammunition, and a 3.7 cm anti -aircraft gun M42 18/36/37/43 and two 2 cm FlaK C / 30.

team

The crew strength of the submarine was 44 to 60 men. On his last trip there were 45 men.

Calls

After its commissioning was U 595 under the command of in Göttingen -born lieutenant to sea Jürgen Quaet-Faslem (1913-1971, from the crew tested 34) from November 6, 1941 and then served until May 31, 1942 at the 8th U -Flotilla in Gdansk with trips to other Baltic Sea ports as a training boat . It got stuck in the ice in Gotenhafen twice. On June 1, 1942, during the shooting training with the 25th U-Flotilla off the Hela peninsula near Danzig, the private corporal Günther Hoppe went overboard and drowned. From July 20 to 22, 1942, the submarine in Kiel was equipped for the first patrol.

On July 23, 1942, the U 595, now assigned to the 9th U-Flotilla , left the port of Kiel and was refueled on July 24, 1942 in Kristiansand , from there on July 25, 1942 for its first patrol as part of the U-boat Break up the Steinbrinck group in the North Atlantic east of the Newfoundland Bank. The submarine could not sink any ships and ran into the port of Brest (Finistère) on August 17, 1942 .

On September 9, 1942, U 595 ran out of Brest on its next patrol to operate again in the North Atlantic as part of the submarine groups "Arrow", "Blitz" and "Tiger". Due to a cable fire, it had to return without success in sinking and arrived back in Brest on October 6, 1942.

Last use and end

On October 31, 1942, U 595 set off again from Brest. It was possible to cross the Strait of Gibraltar , which was heavily guarded by the British , and to advance into the Mediterranean . U 595 now operated as part of the “Delphin” submarine group in the western Mediterranean and northwest of Tenes, without being able to sink or damage enemy ships.

On November 14, 1942, U 595 was in the Mediterranean northeast of Oran near the Algerian coast by seven Lockheed Hudson (C and D, British RAF Squadron 608, pilots: G. Williams and CA Livingstone as well as X, J, F, K and W, British RAF Squadron 500, Wing Commander: D. Spotswood) attacked and badly damaged. The Hudsons F, K and X were themselves damaged by the anti-aircraft fire from U 595 , but returned safely. The submarine commander Quaet-Faslem had the Enigma and secret documents sunk. Despite ongoing attacks by the aircraft, the submarine was beached on the Algerian coast near Tenes near Cape Khamis , 44 of the 45 crew members were safely brought ashore and the stranded boat was blown up. One man from U 595, however, swam in the water and did not reach the bank. In the meantime, the British destroyer HMS Wivern (D66) was approaching, fired five shots, then discovered the floating and took it on board as a prisoner. He was later brought to England.

Those who fled ashore were taken under machine gun fire by an airplane, but they escaped the attack without loss. The crew of U 595 encountered a French unit that the Germans considered Vichy French and thus allies. They were housed in a French barracks in Picard , where they went to sleep while the French kept watch. The French, however, informed the British and the Americans. At midnight, there was the U-boat operator to a rude awakening: soldiers of a tank unit of the United States Army they awoke, and they were considered prisoners of war after Oran brought. On November 30, 1942, they arrived in the United States on a troop transport .

U 595 is one of the few German submarines of the Second World War in which the entire crew survived a sinking in the course of a battle unharmed - albeit as prisoners, although they knew nothing of the fate of the one who was captured by the British. However, one crew member was killed in the target practice in June 1942.

The commander Quaet-Faslem of U 595 later made a name for himself when he took part in two major escape attempts by naval officers from the Camp Papago Park prison camp near Phoenix ( Arizona ).

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. 184. 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. 60, 223. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, pp. 176–179. ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
  • 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 1939-1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1998. pp. 763, 766. ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
  • Clay Blair: The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 69, 129, 138, 140, 142. ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .

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