U 653

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U 653
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 44 257
Shipyard: Howaldtswerke Hamburg
Construction contract: October 9, 1939
Build number: 802
Keel laying: April 9, 1940
Launch: March 22, 1941
Commissioning: May 25, 1941
Commanders:
Flotilla:
  • May – December 1941
    training boat 1st U-Flotilla
  • from December 1941
    front boat 1st U-Flotilla
Calls: 8 patrols
Sinkings:
  • 3 ships (14,983 GRT)
  • 1 warship (840 t)
Whereabouts: sunk by depth charges in the central North Atlantic on March 15, 1944

U 653 was a German type VII C submarine . This class of submarines was also called "Atlantic boat". It was used by the Kriegsmarine during the submarine war in the Atlantic . During its eight operations, U 653 patrolled the Caribbean and off the east coast of the USA.

Technical specifications

A Type VII C submarine had a length of 67 m and a displacement of 865 m³ under water. It was propelled over water by two diesel engines that ensured a speed of 17 knots . Two electric motors produced a speed of 7.6 knots under water. The armament consisted of a 8.8 cm cannon and a 2.0 cm flak on deck, as well as four bow torpedo tubes and a stern torpedo tube until 1944 .

Commanders

  • Gerhard Feiler from May 1941 to September 1943. Born
    on September 6, 1909 in Breslau , he joined the Reichsmarine in 1934 and completed his submarine training in the spring of 1941. Following his command on U 653 , he became a training officer in the 20th U-Flotilla .
  • Hans-Albrecht Kandler from October 1943 to March 1944.
    He was born on October 31, 1917 in Jena and entered the Navy in 1937. After completing his submarine training , he was the 1st crew on U 565 from summer 1942 , then took command of U 386 and finally took over U 653 in October 1943.

Commitment and history

In the spring of 1942, German submarines were ordered to the east coast of North America to open the submarine war there. This was the first of a series of U-Bootwaffe operations aimed at North American shipping and grouped under the name of the company Paukenschlag .

Blast boat

U 653 was ordered to a position west of the Hebrides , where signals had to be sent generously in order to simulate a number of submarines in this area of ​​the sea to the British Admiralty. This should be distracted from the approach of the bang-bang boats, which were sailing across the Atlantic at this time. This maneuver didn't work, however; because the British naval intelligence service was very well informed about the German submarines and also informed the American Atlantic fleet . Then U 653 went to North America. Commander Feiler succeeded in sinking a Norwegian ship a few hundred kilometers east of New York .

  • February 28, 1942: Norwegian freighter Leif with 1582 GRT sunk ( Lage )

For a submarine that had to deal with an unprepared enemy in this area of ​​the sea, U 653 was relatively unsuccessful. For example, Teddy Suhren sank a tanker with 11,400 GRT at the same time in the same sea area and damaged another one. In total, the 14 bang-bang boats of the spring of 1942 sank 24 ships with 125,000 GRT, which corresponds to 1.7 ships per submarine. Almost half of these ships, however, were accounted for by two submarines - U 96 and U 432 . However, despite its moderate success, the use of the U 653 brought an important insight: It was possible for VII C-boats to operate for ten days in American waters, an insight that flowed into the planning of further "bangballs". U 653 returned to Brest on March 30th . Commander Feiler's second patrol with this boat took him back to North American waters in the summer of 1942. He sank a freighter coming from Australia in mid-May , the crew of which then drifted at sea for a week until the five lifeboats reached Nantucket

  • May 17, 1942: British freighter Peisander with 6225 GRT sunk ( Lage )

At the beginning of June, Commander Borchert sank a British freighter near Bermuda with the U 566 returning to Europe . After the loss became known, two ships of the US Navy ran from here to search for survivors in the corresponding sea area. It was an old mine sweeper and a small submarine hunter . When U 653 crossed the course of the search party, Commander Feiler had the two ships torpedoed and sank one.

  • June 7, 1942: American aircraft escort ship USS Gannet with 840 t sunk ( location )
The USS Gannet

The gannet sank within minutes. 14 men of the crew were killed. The majority - 64 men - were rescued by Catalinas and the destroyer Hamilton . U 653 did not have any further successes on this venture and returned to Brest a month later.

Convoy battles

When the submarine group "Hai", which had successfully attacked convoys running north between Freetown and the Azores , had to be disbanded because of a lack of fuel and a shortage of torpedoes forced the submarines on their home course, the submarine command from Kernével provided a new submarine. Boat group together that, according to the principles of pack tactics , was supposed to hunt down the SL convoys that gathered in front of Sierra Leone and then went to Great Britain .

"Blücher" submarine group

U 653 , which belonged to this new group "Blücher", crossed the course of the convoy SL 118 on August 16. Commander Feiler reported the convoy and, according to the pack tactics, set direction finding signals. Peter-Erich Cremer - with his U 333 almost drowned only a few months earlier - was caught with Huff-Duff as he approached Feiler's position and was heavily harassed by an escort ship with multiple depth charges . U 333 was so badly damaged that Commander Cremer had to break off the voyage. U 653 followed the convoy for two days, but Commander Feiler found no opportunity to attack. On August 18, the boat was discovered by a Liberator bomber and so badly damaged with depth charges that Commander Feiler was forced to break off the voyage and return to Brest.

"Raubgraf" submarine group

In March 1943, U 653 was assigned to the “Raubgraf” submarine group, which hunted Allied convoys in the western Atlantic according to pack tactics . Commander Feller sank the drifting wreckage of an abandoned American freighter that had suffered a severe storm a week earlier .

  • 12 March 1943 American freighter Thomas Hooker sunk with 7176 GRT

The “Raubgraf” boats had formed a search strip off Newfoundland , into which the ON 170 convoy coming from Great Britain ran on March 13 and was discovered by U 603 . The submarine, for its part, was tracked down by the escort on the basis of aligned short signals, had to dive and lost contact. Two hours later, U 435 found the convoy again, set bearing signals, was thereupon discovered by HMS Whimbrel , attacked and dived. The position of ON 170 was again unknown. On March 14, Karl Dönitz ordered the submarine group to break off the attack on this convoy and to operate on convoy SC 122 , which was sailing from New York to Great Britain. When U 653 accidentally discovered the convoy HX 229 , the submarine command mistakenly identified it as SC 122. In the following attacks, Commander Feller did not score any sinkings.

Sinking

The British 2nd Escort Group, under the command of Captain Walker , had carried out exercises in coordinated anti-submarine defense with the escort aircraft carrier HMS Vindex in the spring of 1944 . On March 15, Vindex aircraft reported that they had discovered a submarine and marked the corresponding area with fire and smoke signals. The sloops of the 2nd Escort Group ran to the marked spot, were also able to capture a submarine and placed depth charges on it . A majority of underwater detonations after the tenth drop of the HMS Starling indicated the sinking of the submarine, which was very likely U 653 .

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. 265.
  2. Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. 1998, p. 587.
  3. Dönitz and his staff of seven resided in the basement of a villa on a promontory near the submarine bunker in Lorient .
  4. There were a total of eight escort groups, small ship associations that had been specially set up for anti-submarine defense .
  5. It was HMS Starling, HMS Magpie, HMS Wild Goose and HMS Wren - the latter arrived at the scene first.
  6. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. 1998, p. 185.

Literature and Sources

  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
  • 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 .
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .