U 732

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
U 732
( previous / next - all submarines )
U-bootVIIc0001.jpg
Graphic of a class VII C submarine
Type : VII C
Field Post Number : M- 49 880
Shipyard: Schichau-Werke , Danzig
Construction contract: November 21, 1940
Build number: 1523
Keel laying: October 6, 1941
Launch: August 18, 1942
Commissioning: October 24, 1942
Commanders:

October 24, 1942 to October 31, 1943
First Lieutenant Claus-Peter Carlsen

Flotilla:
Calls: 3 patrols
Sinkings:

claimed: 4 ships with a total of 17,000 GRT, confirmed: none

Whereabouts: Sunk in the Atlantic off Tangier on October 31, 1943 (31 dead, 19 prisoners of war)

U 732 was one of the Navy in World War II employed submarine of type VIIC . For the time of his three patrols , the sinking of four ships was claimed, but this was not confirmed by Allied casualty reports. The submarine was on 31 October 1943 in the Atlantic Ocean in front of Tangier hard hit by several British warships and soon scuttled . 31 crew members died in British while 19 prisoners of war came.

Construction and equipment

U 732 had a water displacement of 769 t on the surface and 871 t under water. She 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 in Gdansk Schichau works built submarine was of two four-stroke diesel engines F46 with 6 cylinders and supercharger of Kiel Germaniawerft with a capacity from 2060 to 2350 kW, for underwater operation with two electric motors GU 460 / 8-27 of AEG with a power of 550 kW. 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 ship could travel up to 8,500 nautical miles at 10 knots, and up to 80 nautical miles submerged at 4 knots. U 732 had five 53.3 cm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and one at the stern - and fourteen torpedoes , an 8.8 cm SK C / 35 cannon with 220 rounds of ammunition, and a 3.7 cm anti -aircraft gun M42 18/36/37/43 and two 2 cm FlaK C / 30.

team

The crew strength of the submarine was 44 to 60 men. On his last trip there were 50 men.

Calls

After its commissioning, the U 732 was tested under the command of the Berlin- born Oberleutnant zur See Claus-Peter Carlsen (1919–2016, by crew 37 b) from October 25, 1942 and then served until March 31, 1943 with the 8. U-Flotilla in Gdansk with trips to other Baltic Sea ports as a training boat . From April 1, 1943 to April 5, 1943, the submarine in Kiel was equipped for the first patrol.

On April 8, 1943, the U 732, now assigned to the 9th U-Flotilla , left the port of Kiel and was refueled in Kristiansand on April 10, 1943, in order to set out on its first patrol in the North Atlantic on the same day. Here it belonged to the submarine groups "Meise", "Specht" and "Fink". Carlsen stated that the submarine sank two steamers totaling 10,000 GRT, but there is no confirmation from Allied casualty reports. On May 15, 1943, U 732 entered the port of Brest (Finistère) .

On June 10, 1943 U 732 ran out of the port of Brest and went on patrol to the North Atlantic and the sea areas east of the Caribbean. On June 21st it was supplied with spare parts by U 488 , on June 24th by U 536 with lubricating oil and on June 25th by U 488 with fuel and provisions. According to Carlsen, the submarine sank two freighters with 7000 GRT each, but this was not confirmed by Allied casualty reports. U 732 reached the port of Brest again on August 31, 1943.

Last use and end

U 732 now had the order to cross the Strait of Gibraltar , which was heavily guarded by the British , and to advance into the Mediterranean together with four other submarines . On October 17, 1943, the submarine left Brest and reached the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar on October 30, 1943. While U 450 and U 642 got through and reached the Mediterranean Sea, U 732 got lost - as did U 566 , whose entire crew escaped to Spain and returned to Brest, and U 340 , whose crew was captured except for one drowned man the human losses were much higher at U 732 .

On the night of October 30th to 31st, 1943, U 732 appeared in front of Tangier , was discovered by enemy aircraft and attacked. Therefore, it appeared at dawn on October 31, 1943, 60 m depth, but was against 13:00 from the trawler HMS Imperialist with water bombs attacked. Due to the damage was turned up, but now followed an attack by the British destroyer HMS Douglas with ship artillery . A torpedo shot down by U 732 missed the destroyer. So the ailing submarine dived again and ran aground at a depth of around 160 m. The depth charges that were thrown did not hit, so that U 732 , in which the oxygen was running low, reappeared after a while. The submarine, which had been damaged by the ground contact on the depth rudder, surfaced and tried to escape between the British warships and fooled them with Aphrodite hydrogen balloons. This only succeeded for a while, because it was caught by a searchlight and under fire from HMS Douglas with its artillery. The Douglas and Imperialists dropped depth charges and fired at the submarine, killing several submariners standing on deck and causing others to jump in fear of death. Only then ordered Commander Claus-Peter Carlsen "all hands on board," which did succeed all the men still in the submarine and led by senior engineer Lieutenant (Eng.) Günter Feist the scuttling one. The submarine drivers, some of whom wore life jackets, swam in the water in the dark and heavy waves of the night, and a total of 31 men (including those who had previously fallen on deck) were killed that night. Only after several hours were two British warships added: The HMS Witherington took ten men on board, the Douglas eight men, including the chief engineer Günter Feist. Commander Carlsen first tried to swim to the coast, but was fished up by the Swiss mail steamer Ambriz , which was sailing to Gibraltar . Here Carlsen was captured by the British. A total of 19 men, including two officers, fell into British captivity , while 31 died, including two officers.

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. 44. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 93, 240. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
  • 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. 161f. ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
  • 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. 337, 350, 436-438, 538. ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ We mourn our comrade Claus-Peter Carlsen. U-Boot-Kameradschaft Munich 1926 in the Verband Deutscher Ubootfahrer eV, accessed on August 31, 2019.