U 853

U 853 ( previous / next - all submarines )
Type :	IX C / 40
Shipyard:	AG Weser , Bremen
Keel laying:	August 21, 1942
Launch:	March 11, 1943
Commissioning:	June 25, 1943
Commanders:	June 25, 1943-9. July 1944 Kptlt. Helmut Sommer June 18, 1944-9. July 1944 Oblt.zS Helmut Frömsdorf July 10, 1944-31. August 1944 Oblt.zS Otto Wermuth Aug. 24, 1944-15. October 1944 Corvette Captain. Günter Kuhnke Sep 1 1944–6. May 1945 Oblt.zS Helmut Frömsdorf
Calls:	3 patrols
Sinkings:	1 merchant ship (5353 GRT, 12 dead) 1 warship (430 t, 49 dead)
Whereabouts:	Sunk on May 6, 1945 off the coast of Rhode Islands (55 dead, no survivors)

U 853 was a type IX C / 40 submarine of the former German Navy and was used in World War II . On its third and final patrol off the Atlantic coast of the USA, it sank a warship and - as the last American ship sunk by the Navy on May 5, 1945 - a merchant ship, killing a total of 61 people. On May 6, 1945, it was sunk off Rhode Island, killing all 55 men on board, and with U 881 was the last German submarine sunk by enemy action during World War II.

history

Mention of U-853 on a plaque in Portland , Maine, USA

Attack on U 853 on May 6, 1945

It was on 21 August 1942, the shipyard AG Weser in Bremen on keel laid and put into service on June 25 1943rd The last commandant of the boat was Oblt. Helmut Frömsdorf .

On its second voyage, now with the 10th U-Flotilla , U 853 sailed as a weather boat in the North Atlantic from April 1944 and also carried out unsuccessful attacks on ships attempting to cross the Atlantic in northern convoys . On May 25, 1944 , U 853 (under Captain Sommer) was able to repel and escape attacks with rockets from three Fairey Swordfish from the MAC ships Ancylus and Empire MacKendrick .

On June 17, during the same mission, it was attacked by aircraft belonging to the US escort carrier USS Croatan , but was able to escape them.

During the last mission as the front boat of the 33rd U-Flotilla, U 853 torpedoed the American tanker Atlantic States (8537 BRT) in the Gulf of Maine on April 5, 1945 and sank the U-fighter USS Eagle 56 (PE-56 ) ( Location ).

On May 5, 1945 U 853 sank the American coal freighter Black Point (5353 GRT) ( Lage ) off Block Island ; this was the last sinking by a German submarine before America.

In the course of May 6, 1945, U 853 was hit off Rhode Island at the coordinates 41 ° 13 ′  N , 71 ° 27 ′  W by depth charges from the American destroyer escort USS Atherton and the American frigate USS Moberly and the US military airships K-16 and K -58 sunk, with the entire crew of 55 men in the boat perished. Shortly after the sinking, only a single corpse was recovered, which navy divers brought from the tower to the surface, as well as a skeleton, which was buried in the Newport Naval Cemetery after intervention by the German government .

literature

• 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 und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, pp. 74, 135, 229, 252. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
• Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 117, 211. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
• 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, p. 353f. 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. 727f., 795f., 799. ISBN 3-453-16059-2 .

Web links

• German submarines 1935–1945, U 853
• U-853, Uboat.net
  • USS PE-56 - American Patrol craft (Eagle), Uboat.net
  • Black Point - American Steam merchant, Uboat.net
• U-853 under Helmut Frömsdorf, Black Point sank off Rhode Island after armistice, USS Eagle off Portland Maine. Eric Wiberg, October 25, 2015.
• Article at ahoy.tk-jk.net (engl.)
• In the end, the "USS Eagle" fell victim to the German submarine.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronik des Seekrieges, May 1944. Retrieved on July 5, 2008.
2. ^ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Seekrieges, June 1944. Retrieved on July 5, 2008.
3. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Seekrieges, April / May 1945. Retrieved on July 5, 2008.
4. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Seekrieges, May 1945. Retrieved on July 5, 2008.

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap