U 643

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U 643
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Olympic rings with white rims.svg
The Olympic rings, tower symbols of the boat
Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 49 612
Shipyard: Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Construction contract: January 20, 1941
Build number: 143
Keel laying: December 1, 1941
Launch: August 20, 1942
Commissioning: October 8, 1942
Commanders:

First Lieutenant for the Sea
Hans-Harald Speidel

Flotilla:
Calls: A company
Sinkings:

no depressions

Whereabouts: sunk in the central North Atlantic on October 8, 1943 (30 dead, 18 prisoners of war)

U 643 was a German submarine of the type VII C , a so-called "Atlantic boat ". It was used by the Kriegsmarine during the submarine war in the North Atlantic . On its first venture it was sunk on October 8, 1943, without having achieved any success, whereby 30 men of its crew died and 18 men, among them Commander Hans-Harald Speidel, were taken prisoner by the British .

Technical specifications

The Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg was only included in the Kriegsmarine's submarine building program after the start of the war. As a result, from 1939 onwards, the Hamburg shipyard's capacity was fully utilized to build 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 built for installation on boats of this type. A VII C-boat had a length of 67 m and a displacement of 865 m³ under water. It had two diesel engines that allowed a speed of 17 kn (= 31.5 km / h) over water . When underwater, two electric motors propelled the boat to a speed of 7.6 knots (= 14.1 km / h). The armament consisted of an 8.8 cm cannon and a 2.0 cm flak on deck until 1944 , after which the artillery armament was reinforced in all boats of this type. The main weapon of the VII-C boats, however, were the four bow torpedo tubes and one stern torpedo tube. Usually a VII C-boat carried 14 torpedoes with it. U 643 wore the five Olympic rings on the tower . This was the crew badge of the naval officer class 1936, the year in which the Olympic Games in Berlin took place. A Maling also adorned the tower of U 643 for a short time, depicting a sailor taking a pinch of snuff.

commander

  • October 8, 1942 to October 8, 1943 Hans Harald Speidel

Hans Harald Speidel was born in Danzig on May 20, 1917 and joined the Navy in 1936. In 1941 he completed his submarine training and then completed four patrols in the Mediterranean Sea under the command of Friedrich Guggenberger as 1st officer on watch on U 81 by summer 1942 . Following a commanders training course, he took over command of U 643 in October of the same year , which he held until the boat was lost. Hans-Harald Speidel was promoted to lieutenant captain on June 1, 1943 .

Mission history

From its commissioning until June 1943, U 643 belonged to the 5th U-Flotilla, a training flotilla stationed in Kiel . During this time, Commander Speidel undertook training trips with the boat in the Baltic Sea to train the crew. On August 26, the boat left Kiel and went over Haugsund by mountains . From here, Commander Speidel set out on his first patrol with this boat on September 14th.

Submarine group Roßbach

Destroyer (Polish) Hurricane sunk during a battle with the Roßbach group

At the end of September 1943, the German B-Dienst determined findings about an Allied convoy that was supposed to cross the Atlantic towards Europe. The submarine management therefore decided to put together a submarine group to hunt down this convoy in accordance with the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . This submarine group, which gathered in the central North Atlantic on September 27th, included 22 submarines, most of them like U 643 of the type VII C. In the following days, not only the expected convoy ON 203 succeeded in setting up the submarines To bypass north, two more convoys ONS 19 and HX 258 also passed the German search strip without losses. Several German submarines, however, were damaged, especially in combat with air forces. Due to new findings from the B-Dienst, the submarine command relocated the submarine group to the south on October 6th. On the evening of the following day, U 448 finally discovered a convoy: SC 143 with 39 ships and nine warships as escorts. While the British Admiralty, which was informed about the deployment of the German submarines, guided the convoy HX 259 around their position, SC 143 was allowed to run into the German lines. In the ensuing convoy battle, the German side was able to sink a destroyer and a cargo ship. Three German submarines were lost in the attack on SC 143 , including U 643 .

Sinking

HMS Orwell took the survivors of U 643 on

U 643 was discovered while driving near the convoy by a Liberator bomber and attacked with machine gun fire. When the British machine had to break off the attack due to lack of fuel, it reported the position of the German boat to another Liberator, who took over the pursuit and attacked the now submerged submarine with several depth charges. This attack did not seem to have been successful and only an hour later did other Liberators re-attack the U 643 that had surfaced again. After a total of four depth charges, the boat was destroyed and the crew set about manning the life rafts in life jackets. 90 minutes after the second attack, the boat exploded, throwing the seamen still standing on it into the air and killing many of them. A total of 30 men were killed. Commander Speidel and 17 men of his crew were taken on board by the British destroyer HMS Orwell and were taken prisoner of war . The German commander complained that his shipwrecked crew floating in the water had been shot by the aircraft and later brought this case to the indictment. The British pilots resolutely resisted Speidel's claims.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. 1997, p. 222.
  2. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 134.
  3. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. 1996, p. 230.
  4. ^ A b Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , pp. 509-510.
  5. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 154.
  6. ↑ Gerrit Reichert: He survived the madness on board . Article in the Nordwest-Zeitung of March 29, 2017. Accessed March 29, 2017.

literature

  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 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 und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .

Web links