U 64 (Navy)

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U 64 (Kriegsmarine)
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Type : IX B
Field Post Number : M-00 412
Shipyard: AG Weser , Bremen
Construction contract: July 16, 1937
Build number: 952
Keel laying: December 15, 1938
Launch: September 20, 1939
Commissioning: December 16, 1939
Commanders:

December 16, 1939 - April 13, 1940
Lieutenant Georg-Wilhelm Schulz

Calls: 1 patrol
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: sunk on April 13, 1940 in Herjangsfjord near Narvik

U 64 was a submarine of type IX B , which in World War II by the German navy was used.

history

The construction contract for the boat was awarded to Deschimag / AG Weser in Bremen on July 16, 1937 . The keel was laid on December 15, 1938 and the launch in September 1939. The commissioning under Lieutenant Georg-Wilhelm Schulz took place on December 16, 1939.

Until March 31, 1940, the boat belonged to the 1st U-Flotilla in Kiel as a training boat . From April 1, 1940 until its sinking, it was assigned as a front boat to the 2nd U-Flotilla in Wilhelmshaven . As a so-called “ maling ”, U 64 portrayed a moose or an emaciated cow on the tower, spewing torpedoes from its mouth and anus.

U 64 undertook a during his service patrol on which it sank no ships or damaged. The boat was launched on April 6, 1940 at 13:15 of Wilhelmshaven and reached on 12 April 1940 at 23.00 Narvik . It had just finished its training trips and was supposed to accompany the auxiliary cruiser Orion into the Atlantic on its first mission . On April 9, 1940, under the keyword Hartmut, the order came to run to Narvik, where the boat was to support the German invasion forces, Commodore Friedrich Bontes 10 destroyers . On April 11, 1940, U 64 sighted a British destroyer off the Vestfjord . An attack failed because of a bug in the depth control of the torpedo . U 64 was discovered and filled with depth charges. But it escaped and entered Narvik the next day. After a British air raid on the port of Narvik, in which U 64 remained unscathed, commander Schulz had the boat moved into the Herjangsfjord . The next day it anchored close to Bjerkvik to do some repairs.

On April 13, 1940, the second battle for Narvik took place. Around noon, U 64 had almost finished its repairs when it was attacked by the aircraft on board the British battleship HMS Warspite . The Swordfish crew attacked the submarine with two bombs and machine gun fire. One bomb detonated on the starboard side, while the second hit on the port side, close to the bow. U 64 suffered severe water ingress in the forecastle and quickly sagged forward. The commander ordered the bulkheads to be closed and the boat to be abandoned. When twelve men had left the boat, Schulz saw that there would not be enough time for the rest of his crew to disembark. However, since the water at this point was only 35 meters deep, there was still a chance to get out with the diving rescuer from "below". The tower hatch was therefore closed immediately and the boat sank at 1.45 p.m. to position 68 ° 33 '  N , 17 ° 33'  E in marine grid square AG 1156. 40 minutes later, 27 survivors came to the surface. They too were finally rescued by German mountain troops. Eight crew members remained missing; they had probably already been killed by the bomb hit the forecastle.

The commandant of the boat, Kapitänleutnant Georg-Wilhelm Schulz, returned to Germany via Sweden to put U 124 into service there.

The wreck of U 64 was lifted and scrapped in August 1957.

literature

  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
  • Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
  • 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 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 5: The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg et al. 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0515-0 .
  • Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German submarines 1939–1945. 4th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0826-9 .
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
  • Wilhelm Schulz: Above the wet abyss. As a commander and flotilla chief in the submarine war. ES Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Berlin et al. 1994, ISBN 3-8132-0422-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 4th edition. 2001, p. 55.