U 602
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U 602 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 47 187 |
| Shipyard: | Blohm + Voss , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | May 22, 1940 |
| Build number: | 102 |
| Keel laying: | February 8, 1941 |
| Launch: | October 30, 1941 |
| Commissioning: | December 29, 1941 |
| Commanders: |
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| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 4 activities |
| Sinkings: |
1 destroyer, 1,540 t |
| Whereabouts: | missing off Oran since April 1943 |
U 602 was a German type VII C submarine . It was used by the Kriegsmarine in World War II during the submarine war in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean and was lost in the Mediterranean in April 1943.
Technical specifications
The navy included the Hamburg shipyard Blohm and Voss in the submarine building program from the beginning of the war. The sixth construction contract for submarines to this shipyard was issued on May 22, 1940 and included ten boats of the type VII C, U 599 to U 610 . A boat of this type had a length of 67 m and a displacement of 865 m³ under water. It was propelled over water by two diesel engines that reached a speed of 17 knots . Two electric motors ensured a top speed of 7 knots under water. The armament of this submarine class - also called "Atlantic boat" - consisted of an 8.8 cm cannon and a 2 cm flak on deck as well as four bow torpedo tubes and a stern torpedo tube until 1944 .
Commanders
Philipp Schüler was born on October 17, 1911 in Frankfurt am Main and joined the Navy in 1935. Until 1940 he was a platoon officer on the battleship Gneisenau . Following his submarine training, he served as an officer on watch on U 100 and as commander on U 141 . On December 29, 1941, he took command of U 602 . On February 1, 1942, Schüler was promoted to lieutenant captain.
Mission history
In October 1942, the boat was involved in the operations of submarine groups that searched for Allied convoy trains in the North Atlantic in accordance with the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz .
Submarine groups Panther and Puma
The submarine group Panther was put together on October 6th to form a search strip in the sea area southeast of Cape Farvel from October 7th . It consisted of 18 boats and was supposed to track down Allied convoys , but did not detect any enemy ships. A few days later, some submarines in this group were reassigned to other submarine groups. U 620 , which now belonged to the Leopard submarine group , discovered the ONS 136 convoy on October 12 . U 353 was sunk on October 16 when the Wotan submarine group attacked the SC 104 convoy .
The regrouping of the submarines located in the North Atlantic and the compilation and positioning of the three new submarine groups Panther , Wotan and Leopard was very successful from the point of view of the submarine command with regard to the detection of convoys. This success can be traced back to the decryption of the Allied radio traffic by the German B service . Most of the remaining boats of the Panther submarine group were repositioned from October 16 and combined in the Puma submarine group . The damaged boat U 441 had to break off the operation and was replaced by U 436 . On October 22nd, 1942, U 443 under Konstantin von Puttkamer discovered the convoy ON 139. Puttkamer sent a report and decided to attack immediately, because a recent decision by Dönitz said that a convoy that ran faster than 11 kn would go against the Principles of pack tactics may be attacked immediately. Puttkamer sank two ships; other boats of the Puma submarine group did not reach the convoy. Puma was disbanded towards the end of October.
Use in the North Atlantic
In November 1942, U 602 patrolled the North Atlantic, but had no contact with the enemy until shortly before the end of this operation. U 603 , which was on its first venture, was already on course for France when its commander Hans-Joachim Bertelsmann discovered a convoy on December 4th, which was on its way to Gibraltar . The boat's bearing signs led four other submarines: U 175 , U 214 , U 432 and U 602 . The attacks by U 603 were unsuccessful, and the boat therefore did not take part in any further attacks, but ran to Brest as quickly as possible. The attacks on the convoy by the submarines that had rushed up were canceled on December 6th because of its strong air security.
Use in the Mediterranean
In the autumn of 1942, several submarines of the submarine flotillas stationed in the Mediterranean were lost in skirmishes against the Allied air and naval forces deployed in Operation Torch . The German submarine command decided to withdraw four of the submarines patrolling the Atlantic at that time and send them to the Mediterranean. In addition to the U 602 , these were U 443 , U 301 and U 258 . U 602 passed the Strait of Gibraltar , which was heavily guarded by British naval forces , on December 8, 1942 during a so-called "Gibraltar breakthrough" and reached the Mediterranean . There, Schüler succeeded in his only sinking the following day when he torpedoed the British P-destroyer HMS Porcupine . The destroyer was still able to reach Gibraltar, but was no longer repaired there. It was cut up and both parts of the hull, front and rear, were made buoyant and transferred to Dartmouth . There they served as port ships under the nicknames Pork and Pine until the end of the war .
Sinking
On April 11, 1943, U 602 ran from Toulon on a patrol in the western Mediterranean. The last radio message from the boat was made on April 19 at 11:10 p.m. At this time, the boat was heading south towards the western Algerian coast . Four days later, the boat stopped responding when requested. The entries of the FdU-Mediterranean showed by coupling the course that U 602 could have been in the sea area off Oran or Algiers at this time. It is assumed that U 602 sank without direct enemy action - the cause could be human or technical failure, a mine hit or a mishap. Since April 23, 1943, the boat with the entire crew of 48 men has been lost.
Originally, the sinking of the boat was attributed to a British Hudson bomber of the 500th Squadron of the Royal Air Force , which attacked a submarine in the sea area off Oran on April 23 despite counterfire with four depth charges and was shot down in the process. The Hudson pilot died in this attack and the crew was able to save themselves with parachutes. It has now been established that this attack was aimed at U 453 , which, however, was not damaged. The whereabouts of U 602 remains unclear.
Notes and individual references
- ↑ U 582 , U 441 , U 662 , U 84 , U 454 , U 757 , U 620 , U 382 , U 575 , U 735 , U 254 , U 353 , U 437 , U 442 , U 597 , U 610 , U 260 and U 602 .
- ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1999, pp. 71-72.
- ↑ The Puma submarine group consisted of U 301, U 436, U 443, U 563, U 575, U 621 and U 602 .
- ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1999, p. 168.
- ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1999, pp. 143-144
- ↑ Due to illness of the commander, Wilhelm von Mässenhausen, U 258 broke off the journey before passing the Strait of Gibraltar.
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. 1997, p. 509.
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. 1999, p. 86.
- ↑ C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. 1999, pp. 271-272.
literature
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 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 and Son, Hamburg a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
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