U 650
|
U 650 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
|
|---|---|
| Type : | VII C |
| Shipyard: | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg |
| Keel laying: | January 9, 1942 |
| Launch: | October 11, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | November 26, 1942 |
| Commanders: |
|
| Calls: | 7 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | in January 1945 in the English Channel dropped |
U 650 was a Type VII C submarine of the German Navy .
Affiliation and Commanders
The keel was laid on January 9, 1942. After being launched on October 11, 1942, the boat was put into service on November 26, 1942 and assigned to the 11th U-Flotilla . The commandant was initially Oblt. ZS Ernst von Witzendorf, then from 1944 Oberleutnant zur See Rudolf Zorn. The crew consisted of 47 men.
Unsuccessful hunt
In the spring of 1943, U 650 belonged to the "Star" submarine group that was used to hunt down Allied convoys in the North Atlantic . At the end of April, Commander von Witzendorf sighted the westbound convoy ONS-5, which was fighting its way south of Iceland through heavy weather. U 650 took on the role of the contact person defined in the pack tactics and led over a dozen other submarines to this convoy. In the subsequent attacks on the convoy, the submarine group suffered heavy losses without achieving any success. Commander von Witzendorf attacked a destroyer, but did not hit. In the summer of that year was U 650 on the way back to the base of a B 24 discovered and attacked with a water bomb whose detonation so badly damaged the boat that by an escort of the Air Force back to the port of Saint-Nazaire are passed had and could not leave the submarine base there until January 1944.
Abandonment of the French bases
The advance of the Allied forces into Brittany made it necessary to abandon the submarine bases on the French Atlantic coast in the summer of 1944. U 650 was one of the submarines that brought ammunition and supplies to the enclosed bases in La Pallice and Lorient . The boat was then ordered to Norway to join the 11th submarine flotilla that was newly established there in Bergen . The boat, under its new commander Oblt. S. Rudolf Zorn, reached Bergen as one of the few boats ordered there at that time after a 32-day journey.
Whereabouts
From its new base in Bergen, U 650 went on patrol again at the beginning of December. However , the boat did not reach the area of operation - the coast off Cherbourg . It disappeared without a trace and was considered lost for a long time when it was attempted to enter the English Channel .
Finding the wreck
1976, a submarine in the wreck was Channel south of Cornwall from Risdon salvage company at 49 ° 31 ' N , 5 ° 17' W discovered. In 1997 this was confirmed by divers . On July 17, 2008, the wreck was examined by the Odyssey Explorer at 49 ° 31 ' N , 5 ° 17' W at a depth of 97 m and identified as U 650 . The cause of the loss of the submarine is believed to be that U 650 was hit by a Hedgehog projectile with a 35 pound explosive charge and an impact fuse in January 1945 .
See also
literature
- Eberhard Möller, Werner Brack: Encyclopedia of German U-Boats. From 1904 to the present. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02245-1 .
Map with all coordinates: