U 714

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U 714
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 50 495
Shipyard: HC Stülcken Sohn , Hamburg
Construction contract: December 7, 1940
Build number: 780
Keel laying: December 29, 1941
Launch: November 13, 1942
Commissioning: February 10, 1943
Commanders:

February 10, 1943 - March 14, 1945
Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Joachim Schwebcke (since June 1, 1944 Lieutenant captain )

Calls: 6 activities
Sinkings:
  • 1 merchant ship (1226 GRT)
  • 1 auxiliary warship (425 t)
Whereabouts: in the March 14, 1945 North Sea near the Firth of Forth sunk

U 714 was a German type VII C submarine ofthe former Navy in World War II .

Construction and commissioning

It was laid on December 29, 1941 at H. C. Stülcken Sohn in Hamburg . It was launched on November 13, 1942. On February 10, 1943, U 714 was put into service by Lieutenant Hans-Joachim Schwebcke, a crew member of Admiral Graf Spee who had escaped to Germany . Like many German submarines of its time, the U 714 also had a boat-specific logo on the tower . It was the so-called "Bull of Scapa Flow", which was also the symbol of the 7th submarine flotilla to which the boat belonged from August 1943. The stylized drawing of an attacking bull was based on a well-known caricature, which Engelbert Endrass varied and which was attached to the tower of U 47 . Endrass was the first officer of the watch of the boat, with the Günther Prien to the British naval base was attacked. After Prien's death, the “Bull of Scapa Flow” became the symbol of the 7th U-Flotilla. In addition to the U 607 and U 47 , more than fifty other submarines of the German Navy bore this symbol on the tower.

Commitment and history

From its commissioning until July 31, 1943 for the purpose of training, the boat belonged to the 5th U-Flotilla in Kiel , from August 1, 1943 to November 10, 1944 to the 7th U-Flotilla in Saint-Nazaire and from November 11, 1944 to on its sinking for the 33rd U-Flotilla in Flensburg .

Ventures

For its first venture, U 714 left Trondheim for the North Atlantic on October 13, 1943 . On November 8, the boat was attacked by an unidentified aircraft but was not damaged. U 714 returned to Lorient on December 2 without any further incidents. During his second venture, which began on January 20, the boat, west of the Hebrides, at position 58 ° 17 ′  N , 13 ° 22 ′  W, hid the crew of the U 545 , which was damaged by an air attack and subsequently sunk. The boat entered Saint-Nazaire on February 25th. A third, uneventful venture began on June 6th and ended on June 15th, 1944 in La Pallice . The fourth venture (August 27 to October 20, 1944), after which the boat arrived in Farsund ( Norway ), as well as a fifth, ending in Flensburg (October 23 to 28, 1944), ran without any particular incident .

Sinking

In February 1945 U 714 was relocated to Horten (Norway), where it left for its sixth and final operation on March 3rd. On March 10, 1945, the submarine sank off Dundee ( Scotland ) at the position 56 ° 0 ′  N , 2 ° 0 ′  W the escort of convoy FS 1753, but separately moving minesweeper trawler Nordhav II (FY 1906) (425 GRT ) of the Norwegian Navy in exile. Of the 23 crew members, 17 were rescued. On March 14, 1945, U 714 sank the Swedish freighter Magne (1,226 GRT) belonging to convoy FS 1756 off St. Abbey Head, Firth of Forth , Scotland, at position 55 ° 52 ′  N , 1 ° 59 ′  W. Of the 21 men on board, 11 survived. The crew of the South African frigate HMSAS Natal located the submarine with Asdic when they ran to the place of the sinking for assistance, and sank it with their Squid water bomb throwers at position 55 ° 57 ′  N , 1 ° 57 '  W . All 50 crew members died here. The Natal could hardly be considered operational, as she had only been put into service a few days earlier and her crew had left the port for the first time for this attack. Therefore, the sinking success attracted considerable attention and brought the ship and crew several awards. The British destroyer HMS Wivern claimed it was involved in the sinking, but experts refused.

Whereabouts

The wreck of U 714 was discovered in autumn 2006 by a British group of divers who kept the GPS coordinates secret to avoid looting. It was originally mistaken for the British boat H11 , which was further south in deeper water . In April 2007, the wreck diving expert Innes McCartney managed to identify the submarine. The wreck, lying at a depth of over 60 m and thus only accessible to technical divers, is said to have broken into three parts, but McCartney found it intact and largely without damage (“ the wreck is very intact showing little battle damage ”). The hull is densely overgrown with soft corals . In 2008, the British government placed the submarine under protection as a Protected Place under the Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986 . While divers are allowed to look at the wreck, collecting souvenirs, rescuing or getting inside is prohibited. Roger Williams, a former crew member of HMSAS Natal and Axel Schwebcke, a son of the submarine commander Hans-Joachim Schwebcke, played a key role in the campaign to protect the wreck.

literature

  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , pp. 102-103.
  2. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 139.
  3. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 380.
  4. ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , page 523
  5. ↑ wrecksite.eu: U 714 Wreck