U 744

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U 744
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Type : VII C
Shipyard: F. Schichau GmbH , Danzig
Construction contract: June 5, 1941
Build number: 1547
Keel laying: June 5, 1942
Launch: March 11, 1943
Commissioning: June 5, 1943
Commanders:

First Lieutenant for the Sea Heinz Blischke

Flotilla:
  • 8th U-Flotilla training boat
    June 5, 1943 - November 30, 1943
  • 9th U-Flotilla front boat
    December 1, 1943 - March 6, 1944
Calls: 2 activities
Sinkings:
  • 1 merchant ship (7,359 GRT, 1 dead)
  • 1 warship (1,625 t, 88 dead)
Whereabouts: Sunk in the North Atlantic on March 6, 1944 (12 dead, 40 prisoners of war)

U 744 was a German type VII C submarine ofthe German Navy that was used during the Second World War . On its two ventures, it sank a merchant ship with 7359 GRT and one dead and a warship with 1625 t and 88 dead. U 744 was destroyed on March 6, 1944 in the North Atlantic, whereby 12 crew members - among them Commander Heinz Blischke - were killed. 40 men were taken prisoner by the Allies . An Allied prize squad boarded the submarine, but lost the captured documents when their own boat capsized. An attempt to tow the captured submarine, which had to be sunk in heavy seas, also failed.

history

The keel was laid on June 5, 1942. After the launch on March 11, 1943, the boat was put into service on June 5, 1943 and assigned to the 8th U-Flotilla for training. The commandant was First Lieutenant Heinz Blischke. Like most German submarines of its time, the U 744 also had a boat-specific mark that was selected by the crew and worn on boats and caps. It was a coat of arms that half showed a city gate and a mace as well as a stylized representation of a sailing ship.

Calls

After completing the training trips, U 744 was used as a front boat in the 9th U-Flotilla from December 1, 1943.

First venture

On December 2, 1943, U & nbbsp; 744 left the port of Kiel on its first mission. During this mission, the boat was assigned to the Rügen submarine group , which met convoy ON 217 south of Iceland in early January 1944 . Commander Blischke initially attacked a freighter traveling alone with seven torpedoes, none of which hit. A few days later, the British merchant ship Empire Housman , which had been hit and damaged by U 545 four days earlier, torpedoed . The Empire Housman sank two days later. A crew member of the British steamer lost his life and 45 men were saved. After 45 days at sea, U 744 ended its mission on January 15, 1944 and entered the French port of Brest , the base of the 9th U-Flotilla.

Second venture

On February 24, 1944, U 744 left the base in Brest for its second venture. On March 2, Commander Blischke attacked the MKS 40 convoy . The torpedoes fired sank the tank landing ship LST-362 ( Lage ), killing 88 men and rescuing 92, and damaging the HMS LST-324 .

Sinking

On March 5, 1944, U 744 was located by the British destroyer HMS Icarus . After the boat for 30 hours from the Icarus and the accompanying Canadian warships HMCS St. Catharines , HMCS Fennel , HMCS Chilliwack and HMCS Chaudiere and the HMCS Gatineau with depth charges had been hunted, it was forced to surface. When the U 744 came to the surface, it was immediately taken under fire by the Chilliwack , killing the men on the 2 cm flak of the submarine and the commander Heinz Blischke when he came through the tower hatch. The Chilliwack stopped fire when the German crew showed no signs of resistance. A boarding party reached the battered submarine from a dinghy of the Chilliwack , forced a submarine driver to board them again and was able to steal code books and radio documents from this , but had to leave the submarine, which was full of water. A dinghy of the St. Catharines capsized while trying to moor on the submarine. Finally, the Chilliwack's dinghy capsized in heavy seas , so that the captured documents were lost again and numerous Canadian sailors swam in the water between the 40 Germans who survived from U 744 . It was now necessary for the Allied ships to rescue their men who had gone overboard and the survivors of the German crew, which was achieved within an hour. The now abandoned entirely by the crew of U 744 sank despite the scuttling inappropriate and exploding explosive charges and was eventually by the Icarus sunk by a torpedo.

Of the crew of U 744 , 12 men were killed in the bombardment before boarding, and 40 men were taken prisoner by the Allies . U 744 sank on March 6, 1944 in the North Atlantic Ocean on the position 52 ° 1 '  N , 22 ° 37'  W .

See also

literature

  • Eberhard Möller, Werner Brack: Encyclopedia of German U-Boats. From 1904 to the present. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02245-1 .
  • 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. 31. 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. 115, 240. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: The German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 292. ISBN 978-3-8132-0513-8 .
  • 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. 200–202. 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. 525, 581-583. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .

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 , p. 115 and p. 381.
  2. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 142.
  3. ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942-1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 525, 581-583. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 . Page 525
  4. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 183.
  5. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 182.