U 748
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U 748 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M-55 456 |
| Shipyard: | F. Schichau GmbH , Danzig |
| Construction contract: | August 25, 1941 |
| Build number: | 1558 |
| Keel laying: | August 20, 1942 |
| Launch: | May 12, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | * 31. July 1943 as S 5
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| Commanders: |
As S 5 :
As U 748 : |
| Flotilla: |
As S 5 :
As U 748 :
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| Calls: | 1 company |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk by the crew themselves on May 3, 1945 in the Kiel Canal near Rendsburg |
U 748 was a German class VII C submarine, which was handed overby the Navy to the Italian Marina Militare in the Second World War to compensate for the transport of submarines ( UIT-1 to UIT-20 ), and wasput into serviceas S 5 .
History and commissioning as S 5
The boat was laid down on August 20, 1942 at the Schichau works in Danzig as U 748 with construction number 1558. It was launched on May 12, 1943 and was sold together with U 428 , U 746 , U 747 , U 429 , U 430 , U 749 , U 1161 , U 750 and U 1162 of the Italian Navy as S 1 (U 428), S 2 (U 746), S 3 (U 747), S 4 (U 429), S 5 (U 748), S 6 (U 430), S 7 (U 749), S 8 (U 1161), p 9 (U 750) and S 10 (U 1162) to compensate for the "Aquila" transport submarines, which were used, for example, as part of the Monsoon group in the East Asian sea area. The command of S 5 took over Capitano di Corvetta Mario Arillo, who tested the boat with the 8th U-Flotilla until September 9, 1943 and trained the crew in handling the new boat, but he did not transfer the boat to Italy as planned because before that - on September 3, 1943 - the armistice of Cassibile between Italy and the Allies was concluded.
Use as U 748
When the Italian government concluded an armistice with the Allies, the OKM decided to take back the eight VII-C submarines handed over to Italy. The Italian crew of S 5 was arrested and transported to a prisoner of war camp . S 5 was then put into service on October 6, 1943 as U 748 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Götz Roth, a former commander of U 351 and subordinated to the 24th U-Flotilla as a training boat . The boat had its own emblem on the tower in addition to the flotilla symbol of the 24th U-Flotilla - a black elk shovel. A colored Moritz, one of the main characters from Wilhelm Busch's " Max and Moritz - A boy story in seven pranks" was briefly at the front of the tower . U 749 , U 748's sister boat , had the tower emblem of Max from the same story.
Use statistics
Although the boat was a training boat, which normally did not carry out any activities, U 748 was one of the few training or school boats that made an exception.
Relocation trip
On June 20, 1944, U 748 left Gotenhafen under the command of Lieutenant Roth at 2:00 am and transferred to Tallinn , where it arrived the next day without any particular incident.
First and only venture
After leaving Tallinn on July 5, 1944 at 7:00 a.m., the boat was at sea for five days. The trip led via Helsinki , Risholm to Nuokko and back to Helsinki. The operating areas were the northern Baltic Sea , off Koivisto and the Narva Bay . Commander Roth was unable to sink or damage any ships before entering Helsinki.
2. Relocation trip
U 748 left Helsinki on July 21st at 1:00 p.m. and arrived in Gotenhafen four days later. During the layover in Gotenhafen, the First Watch Officer (I WO) First Lieutenant Siegfried Endler left the boat and went to the commanders' course. On March 21, 1945 he put U 4711 into service, a Type XXIII boat from the Germania shipyard in Kiel .
3. Relocation trip
With the Hannibal company , the evacuation of the Baltic Sea bases of the navy began as a result of the approach of the Red Army . On January 27, 1945, the U 748 , which was still in Gotenhafen, was relocated , this time under the command of Lieutenant Hans-Friedrich Puschmann, as OL Roth took over the Type IX C / 40 boat U 1232 from Captain Kurt Dobratz in April and KL Knecht was assigned to the building instruction of the Bremen Type XXI boat U 3036 . It reached the port of Rendsburg safely on February 3rd , where it was sunk by the crew under the command of Lieutenant Dingler in May , in accordance with the rainbow order .
Whereabouts
On May 3, 1945 the flood valves of U 748 were opened and the boat sunk at the pier itself. It was lifted and demolished in June 1945. The contemporary witness Wittford recalled: “On the afternoon of May 5 or 6, 1945, we boys, between 10 and 14 years old, rowed the lifeboat of the Holland - it belonged to Captain Behrmann - towards the Bay of Armesünder behind the Ahlmann-Carlshütte. Here the cargo ship Clio was lying with equipment for the Wehrmacht , which was no longer needed. When we passed the old wooden jetty in front of the Carlshütte by boat, we discovered something uncanny about 100 meters to the right of it. A crooked submarine tower peeked out of the dark Eider water! The boat was aground about six to ten meters from the old quay wall. We drove slowly up to the tower protruding halfway out of the water. The water gluggled inside the tower. When I hit the tower with the back of my hand, it sounded like a dying bell. ”This report was published in the Schleswig-Holsteiner Landeszeitung in 1985 under the title“ Rendsburg U-Boat Stories ”.
literature
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
- 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 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ 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. 143.