U 864

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U 864
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Type : IX D2
Field Post Number : 54 842
Shipyard: AG Weser , Bremen
Construction contract: June 5, 1941
Build number: 1070
Keel laying: October 15, 1942
Launch: August 12, 1943
Commissioning: December 9, 1943
Commanders:

December 9, 1943 - February 9, 1945
Corvette Captain Ralf-Reimar Wolfram

Calls: 1 company
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: Sunk on February 9, 1945 off Bergen (Norway)
Wreck position of U 864

U 864 was a German IX D2 submarine that was used in World War II .

It was sunk on February 9, 1945 by the British submarine HMS Venturer . This was the only known case in which a submerged submarine was sunk by a submarine that was also submerged.

Last drive

U 864 left Bergen on February 7, 1945 , where it had made a stopover, with a crew of 70 and three guests on board under the command of Corvette Captain Ralf-Reimar Wolfram for a trip to Japan . The 87.5-meter-long 2150-ton submarine was fully loaded with the latest technology and essential war goods intended for Japan, including 1857 bottles of mercury (around 65 tons). It also had aircraft parts and drawings of the new Messerschmitt fighter Me 262 and engine components from Junkers and BMW on board to support Japan technologically in the war against the USA .

The next day, a machine failure forced us to turn back. The boat zigzagged underwater to shake off any pursuers and was almost at the entrance to the safe fjord in Bergen.

Sinking

The British submarine HMS Venturer under the command of James H. Launders had located hours before the loud engine noises, particularly due to the engine damage, and started the chase. From the outset, it had the task of sinking U 864 so that the war-essential goods did not reach Japan. The British monitoring service was informed of the route and the cargo of the boat. Around noon on February 9, U 864 came within range. Launders was able to identify the position of the German submarine from the extended periscope . The German commander also drove a symmetrical zigzag course, which enabled Launders to predict the route of U 864 relatively precisely.

Launders shot within a certain time interval four each with 320 kg TNT -tipped torpedo in a fan of two kilometers away from. He had the last torpedo set to a greater depth than the previous ones, as he assumed that the Germans would hear the incoming torpedoes and would dive deeper. This assumption was confirmed, and so he met U 864 and sank it. After the first violent explosion, bursting noises could be heard, followed by a series of smaller explosions, presumably from the missed torpedoes detonating in the distance. When visiting the sinking site, a steel cylinder floated in the thick oil slick on the surface of the water, the lid of which was screwed with wing nuts. It was probably a model of the foldable reconnaissance helicopter Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 , the so-called "white wagtail". None of the 70 crew members of U 864 and the three fellow passengers survived.

Rediscovery

The wreck, which was broken in two parts, was located in the North Sea not far from the Norwegian island of Fedje in March 2003 at a depth of 150 meters (location: 60 ° 46 ′  N , 4 ° 37 ′  E ). The sea floor around the wreck is polluted with mercury . There are plans to seal the site with concrete over an area of ​​around 47,000 m² to prevent the heavy metal from escaping further. According to current planning (October 2018), the sealing should have taken place by 2020 and cost around 31 million euros. Rescuing the submerged submarine is considered too risky.

In 2015, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority announced that eleven years of observation and analysis had not resulted in an increased accumulation of harmful substances in seafood found near the wreck. The consumption is harmless for pregnant women, breastfeeding women and children, since the existing mercury is presumably not converted into methylmercury .

As part of the three-part documentary series diving into the past , Operation Caesar - Hunt for U-864, the last hours and the rediscovery of the submarine were filmed.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ R. Busch, H.-J. Röll: The Submarine War 1939–1945. Volume 4. German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945 . ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , pp. 313-315.
  2. ↑ Ana Rua-Ibarz et al .: Assessment of Hg Pollution Released from a WWII Submarine Wreck (U-864) by Hg Isotopic Analysis of sediment and Cancer pagurus tissue. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, 50, 19, 10361-10369, abstract
  3. ↑ Sebastian Kirschner: Nazi submarine full of poison is to be sealed. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 10, 2018, accessed on October 10, 2018.
  4. ^ Andrè Germann: Poisonous wreck is covered · World War II submarine with 67 tons of mercury lies off Norway. In: Daily port report of October 11, 2018, p. 16
  5. ↑ Press release of Kystverket (norwg.) Accessed on April 15, 2018