U 852

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U 852
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Type : IX D2
Field Post Number : M 52 771
Shipyard: AG Weser , Bremen
Construction contract: January 20, 1941
Build number: 1058
Keel laying: April 15, 1942
Launch: January 28, 1943
Commissioning: June 15, 1943
Commanders:

June 15, 1943 - May 3, 1944
Kptlt. Heinz-Wilhelm Eck

Calls: 1 patrol
Sinkings:

2 merchant ships (9,972 GRT, 34 dead)

Whereabouts: Beached and blown up on the Somali coast on May 3, 1944 (7 dead, 59 prisoners of war)

U 852 was a German type IX D2 submarine that was used in World War II . In his only patrol it sank two merchant ships with 9972 BRT, which 34 people died. After the sinking of the Peleus on March 13, 1944, the life rafts of the castaways were put under fire on the orders of the commandant Heinz-Wilhelm Eck , so that only three men survived. The submarine was badly damaged by six British aircraft on May 3, 1944, with seven crew members. 59 crew members escaped to shore British Somaliland , but were by British troops captured . Eck and four of his men were brought before a British court martial after the war because of the Peleus incident in Hamburg ; Commandant Eck, the second watch officer August Hoffmann and the on-board doctor Walter Weißpfennig were executed at the end of 1945 .

history

The order for this boat was awarded to AG Weser in Bremen on January 20, 1941 . The keel was laid on April 15, 1942 and the launch on January 28, 1943. On June 15, 1943, the boat was put into service. The commandant of the boat was Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Wilhelm Eck .

Until January 31, 1944, the boat of the 4th U-Flotilla was subordinated to the training of the crew in Stettin . Then it belonged as a front boat to the 12th U-Flotilla in Bordeaux . Like most German submarines of its time, U 852 also had a boat-specific sign on the tower . It was a turtle.

commitment

U 852 left Kiel on January 18, 1944 for his first and only company. The boat was the group monsoon allocated and had according to the base of the monsoon boats in Penang ( Malaysia ) to the destination. This was followed by a short stay in Kristiansand , Norway , where equipment was loaded on January 21, 1944. Then the boat set course for the Atlantic and headed south. On the evening of March 13, 1944, the Greek freighter SS Peleus with 8,833 GRT ( Lage ) was sunk north of the island of Ascension . After the sinking, Eck had survivors shot at, the life rafts destroyed with machine guns and hand grenades and attempted to sink parts of the Peleus ' wreckage by ramming them. This later became known as the so-called Peleus Incident . On April 1, 1944, Eck sank the British steamer Dahomian ( Lage ) off Cape Town . A few days later U 852 set course for the Indian Ocean and slowly moved north along the coast of East Africa. On April 14, 1944, the boat sent a radio message to the BdU in which the sinking of the Peleus and the Dahomian was reported.

Loss of the boat

The British radio reconnaissance succeeded in determining the course taken by U 852 and tracing the Cape of Good Hope . When the boat entered the range of the British Army's East Africa Command , regular patrols were set up by the RAF 621st Squadron to track down U 852s . On the morning of May 2, the boat was discovered and attacked by a Vickers Wellington from Squadron 621 off the Somali Hafun . The British pilot HR Mitchell decided to attack with four depth charges , which were set at shallow depths and detonated close to U 852 , while Commander Eck ordered an alarm dive. However, the detonation of the well-placed depth charges had damaged the boat's air inlet valve. In addition, the batteries and the diesel air mast had been damaged, and water penetrated, making the boat as a whole unclear for diving. In the following hours, U 852 was repeatedly attacked and badly damaged by six British Vickers Wellington of RAF Squadrons 621 and 8. In the course of the next day, persistent air attacks were repulsed. Several U 852 crew members were killed by gunfire on the attackers , including First Watch Officer Kolditz. In addition, 15 men of the crew were wounded.

Self-detonation

In the evening, Commander Eck beached his boat on the coast of British Somaliland ( location ). After it was recognized that the U 852 could not be repaired with on-board resources, Eck ordered the boat to be abandoned and destroyed. However, Eck failed to destroy the war diary and the maps. The demolition was mostly successful, with the tower remaining almost intact. Written sources indicate that the stern of the boat fell off during the blast, while photographic material shows that both the stern and bow of the boat were blown off. The extensive destruction of the boat by an on-board demolition team is also supported by eyewitness reports. 59 crew members, including the commanding officer, survived the loss of the boat and some of them were able to save themselves on the beach. Several of these, as well as those swimming in the water, were taken on board as prisoners of war by a British warship that had meanwhile arrived, the HMS Falmouth . 16 men were able to climb the steep slope and initially escape. They were only captured several days later by British forces with the help of the Somaliland Camel Corps after getting stuck in the desert area.

Questionable British losses

Seven German seamen were killed in action as a result of the air raids on the boat. In return, reports of U 852 survivors mention the shooting down of a Wellington by the anti-aircraft gun of the submarine and the crash of another aircraft at the time the submarine was blown up, but no information is given in English publications about the air attacks on U 852 corresponding aircraft losses.

Aftermath

The 59 survivors of U 852 were brought to Aden , where they arrived on May 6th. In the course of the interrogations that followed, disgruntled crew members, including LI Lenz, reported on the atrocities in connection with the sinking of the Peleus . The British were later able to penetrate the wreckage of U 852 and recover a wagtail . This was the first time they heard about this gyroplane . They also found the war diary and a nautical map on which the sinking place of the Peleus was marked. Thereupon Kapitänleutnant Eck and four of his men were brought before a British military tribunal in October 1945 . Eck and two of his officers, Leutnant zS August Hoffmann and Oberstabsarzt Walter Weißpfennig, were found guilty of the murder of shipwrecked crew members of the Peleus , sentenced to death and executed on November 30, 1945.

literature

  • Hans Herlin : Damn Atlantic. Fate of German submarine drivers. Weltbild, Augsburg 1993, ISBN 3-89350-553-9 .
  • Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German submarines 1939–1945. 4th edition. Koehler, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0826-9 .
  • Theodor P. Savas: Silent hunters. German submarine commanders in World War II. Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-548-24621-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German U-Boats 1939-1945 , 5th edition Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978 3 7822 1002 7 , page 150
  2. ↑ Herlin 1993, p. 239.
  3. ↑ Herlin 1993, pp. 241, 244.
  4. ↑ Herlin 1993, p. 252.
  5. ^ A b Paul Kemp: "The German and Austrian U-Boat losses in both world wars" , Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing before Munich 1997, ISBN 3 924 896 43 7 , page 195
  6. ↑ Other sources cite May 1st as the time of the initial attack, see Paul Kemp: "The German and Austrian U-Boat losses in both world wars ", Urbes, Graefelfing before Munich 1997
  7. ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , page 626
  8. ^ Paul Kemp: "The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars ", Urbes, Graefelfing before Munich 1997, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , page 195
  9. ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: "The U-Boat War 1939-1945 German U-boat losses from September 1939 to May 1945 , Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3 8132 0514 2 , page 227
  10. ^ A b Tony Bridgland: Waves of Hate: Naval Atrocities of the Second World War . Leo Cooper, Barnsley 2001. pp. 108f.
  11. ↑ An aircraft engine had already caught fire. Later this machine crashed into the sea. in German U-Boats 1935-1945, U 852 on Ubootarchiv.de.
  12. ↑ Herlin 1993, p. 287.
  13. ↑ Steve Bond: Wimpy. A Detailed History of the Vickers Wellington in service, 1938-1953. Grub Street, London 2014. p. 182.
  14. ^ Hilary Saint George Saunders : History of the Second World War. The Royal Air Force 1939-1945. Vol. III: The Fight is Won . United Kingdom Military Series, London 1954. Chapter XI , pp. 256f.
  15. ↑ Clay Blair : Der U-Boot-Krieg Volume 2 Dei Gejagt 1942-1945 , Heyne Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3 453 16059 2 , page 626
  16. ↑ Dieter Hartwig: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz Legend and Reality. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77027-1 , page 152f.