U 672
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U 672 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M - 51 135 |
| Shipyard: | Howaldtswerke , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | January 20, 1941 |
| Build number: | 821 |
| Keel laying: | December 24, 1941 |
| Launch: | February 27, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | April 6, 1943 |
| Commanders: |
April 6, 1943 to July 18, 1944 |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 4 patrols |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk on July 18, 1944 in the English Channel north of Guernsey (52 prisoners of war, no dead) |
U 672 was one of the Navy in World War II employed submarine of type VIIC . During his four patrols in his fifteen month period of operation, no enemy ships were sunk or damaged. The submarine was on 18 July 1944 in the English Channel by the British frigate Balfour significantly damaged and then by the crew scuttled . All 52 crew members fell into British captivity .
Construction and equipment
U 672 had a water displacement of 769 t on the surface and 871 t under water. It 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, which was built in the Howaldtswerke in Hamburg , 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 with one Power of 550 kW driven. 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 when submerged at 4 knots. U 672 had five 533 mm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and one at the stern - and fourteen torpedoes , an 88 mm SK C / 35 cannon with 220 rounds of ammunition, a 37 mm FlaK M42 18/36/37 / 43 and two 20 mm FlaK C / 30.
The submarine had a piggy ("Kleini") on the tower as a boat-specific symbol .
team
The crew strength of the submarine was 44 to 60 men. On his last trip there were 52 men.
Calls
After its commissioning, U 672 was tested under the command of a Danish father and a German mother in Copenhagen- born Oberleutnants zur See Ulf Lawaetz (1916-2002, Crew 37b ) from April 7, 1943 and then served until September 30, 1943 with the 5. U-Flotilla in Kiel with trips to other Baltic Sea ports as a training boat . The front training took place from May 9, 1943 to June 18, 1943 in the training group for front submarines (AGRU front) on the Polish (West Prussian) Hela peninsula . From October 27, 1943 to November 12, 1943, the submarine in Kiel was equipped for the first patrol and left the port of Kiel on November 13. It was now assigned to the 6th U-Flotilla as a front boat. Via Kristiansand and Bergen (Norway) , from where it left on November 17, 1943, U 672 made its first patrol into the North Atlantic west of Ireland. Here it belonged to the submarine groups "Coronel", "Coronel 1", "Coronel 2", "Föhr", "Rügen 5" and "Rügen 6". During this time U 672 had no contact with the enemy and consequently could not sink any ships, but the crew was not exposed to the fear of death of enemy attacks. On January 15, 1944, the submarine entered the port of Saint-Nazaire , the base of the 6th U-Flotilla.
From February 24, 1944 to May 12, 1944, the submarine, as part of the “Prussia” submarine group, carried out a second, yet again unsuccessful, enemy voyage in the North Atlantic between Ireland and Newfoundland and returned to Saint-Nazaire . In the period from May 13, 1944 to June 27, 1944, U 672 was equipped with a snorkel in the navy shipyard of Saint-Nazaire . A third, again unsuccessful patrol began on June 28, 1944, when the Allies had already landed on the coast of Normandy as part of their Operation Overlord . The submarine's snorkel failed so that U 672 had to return to Saint-Nazaire on July 1, 1944.
Last use and end
After repairing the snorkel, U 672 left the port of Saint-Nazaire on July 6, 1944 - still under the command of 27-year-old Ulf Lawaetz - to fight Allied ships in the area of the mouth of the Seine . When the submarine reached the English Channel while underwater on July 13, it was discovered (although underwater) by Allied airmen and attacked with four depth charges. Although these missed their target, the aviators notified the US Navy. On the same afternoon, U 672 encountered a group of four American destroyers and a light cruiser. The submarine fired a torpedo each at the cruiser and at a destroyer without hitting. U 672 was now sent to the Isle of Wight on the orders of Admiral Hans-Rudolf Rösing . North of the island of Guernsey , however, the submarine was discovered in the afternoon of July 18, 1944 by the British frigate Balfour under the command of CDB Coventry and successfully attacked with Hedgehog grenade launchers, so that water penetrated the submarine. Lawaetz had to give the order "all hands on board", and the submarine drivers took their places in individual lifeboats. The secret documents and the Enigma machine were destroyed before Lawaetz and his chief engineer, Leutnant zur See Georg Käseberg, scuttled the boat themselves and were the last to leave. After about 12 hours, two Spitfire fighters discovered the castaways floating in their inflatable boats, which they reported to the British Coast Guard. PT speed boats and air-assisted water rescue units (Air Sea Rescue Units, ASRU) started from Dartmouth and brought all 52 crew members of U 672 to the English mainland, so that the entire submarine crew set off into British captivity .
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 and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, p. 141. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 108f., 235. ISBN 978-3-8132-0512-1 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, pp. 223, 268f. 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. 602, 704. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
- Innes McCartney: Lost Patrols - Submarine Wrecks of the English Channel . Periscope Publishing Ltd., Penzance (Cornwall) 2002. pp. 67f. ISBN 1-904381-04-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georg Högel: "Embleme coat of arms of Maling's German U-Boats 1939-1945" , 5th edition, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , page 137
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