U 873
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U 873 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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 The US coastal patrol ship USCGC Argo (WPC-100) escorts U 873 in Portsmouth Harbor , New Hampshire . |
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| Type : | IX D2 |
| Field Post Number : | M - 50 271 |
| Shipyard: | Deschimag AG Weser , Bremen |
| Construction contract: | August 25, 1941 |
| Build number: | 1081 |
| Keel laying: | February 17, 1943 |
| Launch: | November 11, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | March 1, 1944 |
| Commanders: |
March 1, 1944 to May 17, 1945 |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 1 patrol |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | capitulated at Portsmouth , New Hampshire on May 16, 1945 (59 prisoners of war) and scrapped on March 10, 1948 |
U 873 was a submarine of the German Navy that was used in World War II . It belonged to the Type IX D2 , a class of long-range submarines. The submarine could not sink or damage ships and was handed over to the US Navy on May 11, 1945 - after the surrender of the Wehrmacht . It was scrapped on March 10, 1948. His commandant Friedrich Steinhoff committed suicide on May 19, 1945 during interrogation.
Construction and equipment
U 873 had a displacement of 1610 t on the surface and 1799 t under water. It was a total of 87.6 m long, 7.5 m wide, 10.2 m high with a 68.5 m long and 4.4 m wide pressure hull and had a draft of 5.35 m. The submarine, built by Deschimag AG Weser in Bremen , was powered by two MAN four-stroke diesel engines M9V40 / 46 with 9 cylinders each and an output of 6620 kW, with two electric motors from Siemens-Schuckertwerke with an output of 740 kW for underwater operation . It had two drive shafts with two 1.85 m tall propellers. The boat was suitable for diving to depths of 200 m.
The submarine reached speeds of up to 20.8 knots on the surface and up to 6.9 knots under water. When surfaced, the boat could travel up to 23,700 nautical miles at 10 knots and up to 121 nautical miles when submerged at 2 knots. U 873 had six 533 mm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and two at the stern - and 24 torpedoes , a 10.5 cm SK C / 32 rapid-loading cannon with 180 rounds of ammunition, and a 3.7 cm M42 flak gun 2575 rounds of ammunition and a 2 cm FlaK C / 30 equipped with 8100 rounds of ammunition.
team
The crew strength of the submarine was 55 to 60 men. On his last trip there were 59 men.
Occupation history
Parts of the crew of U 873 go to the original crew of the submarine U 604 back, the after severe damage to the August 11, 1943 scuttled was after the men on the submarines U 185 and U 172 had been distributed. While U 185 was sunk on August 24, 1943, U 172 brought 23 crew members from U 604 to Lorient . Twelve of the survivors of U 604 became part of the later crew of U 873 , including the chief engineer Oberleutnant Helmut Jürgens, chief helmsman Albert Finister, boat mate Peter Binnefeld and radio mate Georg Seitz.
Calls
After its commissioning, U 873 belonged to the 4th U-Flotilla under the command of Lieutenant Friedrich Steinhoff (1909-1945) from March 1, 1944 to January 31, 1945 to train the crew and test the boat.
On July 29, 1944, the submarine was damaged in an air raid on Bremen. Four men of the crew were wounded and the sailor corporal Fritz Grusa died of his wounds in December 1944.
From February 1, 1945, the boat was assigned to the 33rd U-Flotilla and left Kiel for Horten on February 17, 1945 , where it arrived on February 22, 1945.
U 873 left Horten on March 21, 1945 in the direction of Kristiansand and entered there one day later. On March 30, 1945 U 873 ran out of the first and last patrol into the Atlantic to operate as part of the submarine group "Seewolf" off the North American Atlantic coast.
After the surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, Commander Steinhoff surrendered on May 11, 1945 with his 59-man crew to the destroyer escort USS Vance , who had the boat brought up by a prize squad and escorted it to Portsmouth , where it was up after almost seven weeks entered high seas on May 17, 1945.
Treatment of prisoners and suicide of the commander
Four submarines of the former “Seewolf” submarine group arrived in Portsmouth one after the other after the surrender: U 805 of type IX on May 16, U 873 on May 17, U 1228 on May 18 and U 234 of Type X on May 19th. The crew of U 873 were first interrogated in the Portsmouth Naval Prison , but then taken to the Boston borough of Charlestown . Commandant Steinhoff and his crew had to march through the streets of Boston to the Suffolk County's Charles Street Jail , where onlookers cursed and pelted stones and trash from the roadside.
The prize commandos took away all medals and other belongings from the prisoners. This was customary to gain information and prevent possible sabotage. According to the Geneva Convention , however, reports must be drawn up so that the property can later be returned to the owners. In Portsmouth, however, the items were distributed among prison staff as souvenirs. Jack Henry Alberti, a civil interrogator, interrogated prisoners in the city jail, hiring a strong marine to beat the prisoners if necessary. This is what happened to Commandant Steinhoff, whose face was swollen after the interrogations and had a cut. On May 19, 1945 Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Steinhoff committed suicide by severing his wrist on his right wrist with a broken spectacle lens and a piece of wire from his service cap and bleeding to death . He was buried at Fort Devens (grave number 934). The content of the interrogations was kept secret and the witness Steinhoff was now dead, but suspicions were made that it was about uranium transports with German submarines to Japan . In contrast to U 234 , U 873 had no uranium on board at the time of its surrender.
A top-level investigation by the US Navy shortly afterwards revealed in a report dated June 29, 1945 that the distribution of prisoners' property among prison staff as souvenirs, as well as the use of beatings during interrogation, was a serious violation of the Geneva Convention and against the US Navy guidelines for dealing with prisoners. In addition, the civilian officer Jack Henry Alberti had far exceeded his competencies as an officer with the interrogations with the help of the marine soldier used for the beatings.
Whereabouts of the submarine
U 873 was brought into a dry coat, where engineers from the Portsmouth Navy Shipyard examined the structure of the IXD2 submarine, and then transferred to the Philadelphia Navy Shipyard, Pennsylvania . After the war, U 873 was awarded to the USA as loot and after a few tests it was scrapped on March 10, 1948 in New York by the Interstate Metals Corporation.
See also
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 and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, p. 233. 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. 146, 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. 397. 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. 749, 799. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
- Philip K. Lundeberg: Operation Teardrop Revisited . In: Timothy J. Runyan, Jan M. Copes (Eds.): To Die Gallantly - The Battle of the Atlantic . Westview Press, Boulder 1994. ISBN 0-8133-8815-5 .
Web links
- German submarines 1935–1945, U 873
- U-873, Uboat.net
- U-873, Uboatarchive.net: U-873 surrendered to US forces on May 11, 1945
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Stephen D. Bryen: Technology Security and National Power: Winners and Losers. Routledge, London / New York 2017. p. 107.
- ^ Philip Henshall: The Nuclear Axis: Germany, Japan and the Atom Bomb Race, 1939-1945 . Sutton, 2000. p. 178.
- ↑ James P. Duffy: Target: America. Hitler's Plan to Attack the United States. Lyons Press, New York NY 2006, ISBN 1-59228-934-7 , pp. 116 and 175. Original source: Irregularities Connected with the Handling of Surrendered German Submarines and Prisoners of War at the Navy Yard, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, SecNav / CNO file A16-2 (3) EF30, Record Group 80; National Archives USA ( U-873 available online at Uboatarchive.net).
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