U 76 (Navy)

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U 76 (Kriegsmarine)
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Type : VII B
Field Post Number : M 27 140
Shipyard: Vegesacker shipyard
Bremen-Vegesack
Construction contract: June 2, 1938
Build number: 004
Keel laying: December 28, 1939
Launch: October 3, 1940
Commissioning: December 3, 1940
Commanders:
Calls: 1 company
Sinkings:

2 ships (7,290 GRT)

Whereabouts: self-sunk on April 5, 1941 south of Iceland

U 76 was a German submarine of type VII B , which in World War II by the German navy was used.

history

The order for the boat was awarded to the Vegesacker shipyard in Bremen on June 2, 1938 . The keel was laid on December 28, 1939, the launch on October 3, 1940. The commissioning under Oberleutnant zur See Friedrich von Hippel finally took place on December 3, 1940. Like most German submarines of its time, the U 76 also carried a boat-specific logo that was selected by the crew. The boat carried the Tyr rune, also called Tiwaz , which is assigned to the Germanic god of war Tyr . The sign looks like an upright arrow.

After its commissioning on December 3, 1940, the boat belonged to the 7th U-Flotilla in Kiel as a training boat until March 1941 . After the training period, U 76 came from April 1, 1941 to its sinking on April 5, 1941 as a front boat for the 7th U-Flotilla in St. Nazaire .

Commander von Hippel ran out with U 76 during his service time to an enterprise on which he sank two ships with a total tonnage of 7,290 GRT .

Use statistics

The boat left Kiel on March 19, 1941. It entered Bergen on March 26, 1941 due to damage to the air filter and left again on March 28, 1941. U 76 was sunk on April 5, 1941. On this 18-day expedition in the North Atlantic and south of Iceland two ships with 7,290 GRT were sunk.

  • April 4, 1941: sinking of the British steamer Athenic ( Lage ) with 5,351 GRT. The steamer was sunk by a torpedo. He had loaded 8,400 tons of grain and was on his way from Portland via Sydney to London . The ship belonged to convoy SC-26 with 24 ships. There were no casualties and 40 survivors.

Whereabouts

Before the Athenic was sunk , its crew had succeeded in sending out an emergency signal, whereupon several British warships called at the sinking area. The destroyer HMS Wolverine eventually got sonar contact with U 76 , which was walking on the surface of the water to recharge its batteries. Commander von Hippel initiated an alarm dive, but the boat was so severely damaged by depth charges from the Wolverine and the sloop HMS Scarborough, which had meanwhile arrived to support them , that the commander let the boat reappear and instructed his crew to leave the boat and into the water to jump. Meanwhile, a third British warship had approached: the corvette Arbutus went alongside at U 76 to board the German submarine. Three British sailors boarded the U 76 under the leadership of an officer and tried to descend via the submarine tower into the control center in order to secure the boat's Enigma cipher machine and secret documents. Since there was already salt water in the headquarters and this had also reacted with the battery acid, creating chlorine gas, the British soldiers broke off their attempt. U 76 sank as a result of the self-sinking initiated by Commander von Hippel under artillery fire at position 58 ° 35 ′  N , 20 ° 20 ′  W in naval grid square AL 2657. One crew member was killed, the remaining 42 were saved.

U 76 did not lose any crew members during its service life prior to the sinking.

literature

  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
  • Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 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 and Son, Hamburg a. a. 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 and Son, Hamburg a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 5: The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0515-0 .
  • Erich Gröner : Die Handelsflotten der Welt 1942 and supplement 1944. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-469-00552-4 (reprint of the 1942–1943 edition).
  • Erich Gröner: Search list for ship names (= The merchant fleets of the world. Supplementary volume). JF Lehmanns Verlag Munich 1976, ISBN 3-469-00553-2 (reprint of the 1943 edition).

Notes and individual references

  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, page 63
  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 , page 51
  3. ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 1: The Hunters. 1939-1942. Heyne, Munich 1998, page 322
  4. ^ A man was killed either by artillery bombardment (Busch / Röll: Deutsche U-Boot-Los , Mittler 1999) or by chlorine gas poisoning (Blair: Der U-Boot-Krieg. Die Jäger , Heyne 1998)

See also

Web links