U 740

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U 740
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 51 233
Shipyard: F. Schichau shipyard , Danzig
Construction contract: April 10, 1941
Build number: 1537
Keel laying: April 26, 1942
Launch: December 23, 1942
Commissioning: April 27, 1943
Commanders:

Lieutenant Captain Günther Stark

Flotilla:
  • 8th U-Flotilla training boat
    March 1943 - March 1944
  • 1st U-Flotilla front boat
    April 1944 - June 1944
Calls: 3 patrols
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: Missing in the Bay of Biscay from June 6, 1944 , declared a total loss on June 9

U 740 was a German submarine of the class (or type) VII C , which was used by the Navy during the Second World War in the submarine warfare from 1943 to 1944 in the Atlantic.

Technical specifications

The Type VII C of the submarine class VII was the most built submarine of all during the Second World War . It was designed for independent use in the Atlantic. The boat had a displacement of 761 m³ above and 865 m³ under water, was 67.1 m long and 6.2 m wide and had a draft of 4.8 m. The two 1,400 hp diesel engines achieved an overwater speed of 17 knots . Under water, a VII-C boat was powered by two electric motors (375 hp each), which enabled a speed of 7.6 knots.

commander

  • March 27, 1943 - June 9, 1944

Günther Stark was born on February 1, 1917 in the Prussian Holland district and joined the Navy in 1936 as an officer candidate . He was thus a member of Crew 36 . After completing his training, he first went as a watch officer on the U-escort ship Saar and completed his submarine training in December 1941. Until the spring of 1943, Stark served as a watch officer with the 1st U-Flotilla and took over after the U-commander course (February 1943) and the subsequent building instruction (March 1943) took command of the U 740. In October of the same year, Günther Stark was promoted to lieutenant captain and commanded the U 740 until it sank on June 9, 1944.

Calls

Until March 1944, U 740 was used as a training boat in the 8th U-Flotilla. Most of the time it operated in the Baltic Sea. U 740 left Kiel on March 11, 1944 and reached the base of the 11th U-Flotilla in Bergen three days later. In the same month, the boat set out from Bergen to the area of ​​operations in the North Atlantic (west of Ireland) and finally reached the base of the 1st U-Flotilla in Brest on April 21 . On April 1, 1944, U 740 was subordinated to the 1st U-Flotilla and was used as a front boat until its loss. The U 740 did not report any sinking during its entire period of use .

Sinking

To ward off the invasion , the submarine group Farmer was put together from 36 boats on the instructions of the leader of the U-Boats West, Hans-Rudolf Rösing , which set out on June 6, 1944. U 740 was part of this group. Since the boat did not send any more reports after sailing, it is considered lost and was declared a total loss three days later. Initially, the sinking of a Liberator of the 120th Squadron was attributed, which on June 9th reported an attack on a submarine in the area of ​​the Isles of Scilly .

Current research now assumes that this attack was not aimed at a submarine. Other attacks that could have sunk U 740 would be attacks by a Liberator of the 53rd Squadron or one of the 224th Squadron on June 7th.

literature

  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
  • 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 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
  • Herbert A. Werner: The iron coffins (= Heyne books. No. 5177). Foreword by Hans Hellmut Kirst . Approved, unabridged paperback edition, 10th edition. Heyne, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-453-00515-5 .