U 615
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U 615 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M - 45 089 |
| Shipyard: | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | August 15, 1940 |
| Build number: | 115 |
| Keel laying: | May 20, 1941 |
| Launch: | February 8, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | March 26, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
March 26, 1942 to August 4, 1943 |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 4 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
4 merchant ships (27,231 GRT, 191 dead) |
| Whereabouts: | self- sunk on August 7, 1943 in the Caribbean after damage (4 dead, 43 prisoners of war) |
U 615 was one of the Navy in World War II employed submarine of type VIIC . During his four patrols it sank four merchant ships with 27,231 BRT, where 191 people died, and shot two aircraft from. The submarine was in the August 7, 1943 Caribbean heavily damaged by Allied aircraft and shortly thereafter scuttled . While four crew members - among them the commander Ralph Kapitzky - perished, the remaining 43 were taken prisoner by the US . A man had already fallen on board in June 1943.
Construction and equipment
U 615 had a water displacement of 769 t on the surface and 871 t under water. She 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 615 had 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 48 men.
Calls
After its commissioning, the U 615 was tested under the command of the Dresden- born Kapitänleutnants Ralph Kapitzky (1916–1943, by Crew 35) from March 27, 1942, first in Hamburg and then in Kiel and other Baltic ports and served until September 4, 1942 in the 8th U-Flotilla based in Danzig as a training boat .
On September 5, 1942, now abandoned in La Pallice stationed 3rd U-boat Flotilla allocated U 615 Kiel Harbor and was on September 6, 1942 in Kristiansand refueled to the east of there on 7 September 1942 to his first war patrol in the North Atlantic set out from Newfoundland. On October 11, 1942 it sank the Panamanian steam cargo ship El Lago with 4221 GRT, whereby only two men were rescued and the remaining 57 died, and on October 23, 1942, the British reefer ship Empire Star with 12,565 GRT, of whose crew 42 died and 61 were saved. On October 30, U 615 arrived in the port of La Pallice , a suburb of La Rochelle .
On November 25, 1942 U 615 left La Pallice for its second patrol, during which it operated as part of the submarine groups "Daredevil" and "Impetuous" in the North Atlantic west of Ireland and south of Iceland and did not encounter any enemy ships. On January 2, 1943, U 615 was supplied with fuel by U 225 . It returned to La Pallice on January 9, 1943.
On February 18, 1943, U 615 ran out of La Pallice for its third patrol to operate again in the North Atlantic, this time as part of the submarine groups "Burggraf", "Raubgraf", "Seewolf" and "Adler" northeast of Newfoundland and south of Greenland. On March 23, 1943, it was supplied with fuel, engine oil and provisions by U 463 . On April 11, 1943, it sank the US steam cargo ship Edward B. Dudley with 7177 GRT, the 69 crew members all perished. Commander Kapitzky was wounded by flying debris from the ship that exploded 800 m away. On April 20, 1943 U 615 arrived again in La Pallice.
Last use and end
On June 12, 1943, U 615 left La Pallice for the last time and operated in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. On June 12, 1943, a Vickers Wellington (547 Squadron RAF / H, pilot: P / O JW Hermiston) attacked the submarine in the Bay of Biscay without causing any damage. On June 14, 1943, the submarine was attacked by a British Short Sunderland when U 257 and U 600 were also nearby. Heinz Wilke, the flak gunner on deck, was killed in the process, but the boatswain's mate Helmut Langner managed to shoot down the attacking aircraft. On June 26, 1943, U 615 was supplied with spare parts by U 488 and fuel by U 535 . On July 28, 1943, the submarine torpedoed another merchant ship in the Caribbean. It was probably the Dutch ship Rosalia with 3,177 GRT, which sank that day. 23 men on board died, only 13 were rescued.
When U 615 was operating in the Caribbean southeast of Curaçao on the evening of August 6, 1943 , it was attacked and severely damaged by several aircraft: Martin PBM Mariner P-6 and P-8 of the US Navy Squadron VP-204 , Martin PBM Mariner P-2, P-4 and P-11 of the US Navy Squadron VP-205 and Lockheed Ventura B-5 of the US Navy Squadron VB-130 and the US Army Squadron VB-130 . The Martin PBM Mariner VP-205 USN / P-4 was shot down, but four men of the submarine crew were fatally wounded in the attack; In the absence of adequate surgical care, Lieutenant Kapitzky and Petty Officer Helmut Langner were now aware that they would soon die. Shortly before his death, Commander Kapitzky transferred command to the first officer on watch, Lieutenant to the Sea, Herbert Schlipper. When the US destroyer USS Walker (DD-517) approached on August 7, 1943 , the now hopeless submarine was scuttled after all men had disembarked. At a depth of around 4,000 m, the pressure caused the torpedoes to explode in the sinking boat, which the survivors swimming in the water felt like a blow. The Walker approached the swimming Germans and took two men on board, but drove away after the underwater explosion. The swimmers expected that they would soon drown, but the enemy destroyer returned and took the remaining 41 men out of the water.
During the last patrol, five crew members perished, four of them in the last attack - among them the commander Ralph Kapitzky - while the remaining 43 men were taken prisoner by the US .
Fate of the prisoners
Five of the prisoners did not survive captivity in the USA - Helmut Fischer, Fritz Franke, Günter Külsen, Bernhard Reyak and Rolf Wizuy. In their cells in the interrogation center at Fort Hunt , several prisoners were questioned about the technical details of the submarines by a submarine driver from U 118 , Werner Drechsler , who appeared under a false name. However, none of them trusted the man. In a camp in Stringtown ( Oklahoma ), the five submarine driver got back together and arranged a turner as traitors. They were later relocated to Camp Papago Park , Arizona . Werner Drechler was also brought to this camp on March 12, 1944, but he did not survive the day. The five men from U 615 and two other submarine drivers lynched Drechsler that same night. All seven perpetrators were sentenced to death on August 16, 1944 and hanged on August 25, 1945 at Fort Leavenworth .
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 und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, p. 119. ISBN 978-3-8132-0490-2 .
- 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. 72, 223. ISBN 978-3-8132-0512-1 .
- 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 / Berlin / Bonn 2001, p. 266f. ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
- 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. 131–134. ISBN 978-3-8132-0514-5 .
- 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 Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 66, 72, 160, 173, 178, 324, 343, 435f., 438. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
- Axel Niestle: German U-boat Losses During World War II - Details of Destruction , 1998. ISBN 1-5575-0641-8 .
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