U 877

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U 877
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Olympic rings with white rims.svg
The Olympic rings - the boat's tower emblem
Type : IX C / 40
Field Post Number : 50 294
Shipyard: Deschimag AG Weser , Bremen
Construction contract: April 2, 1942
Build number: 1085
Keel laying: May 22, 1943
Launch: December 10, 1943
Commissioning: March 24, 1944
Commanders:

Klt Eberhard Findeisen

Flotilla:
Calls: A company
Sinkings:

no ships sunk or damaged

Whereabouts: Sunk on December 27, 1944 northwest of the Azores (55 prisoners of war, no dead)

U 877 was a submarine of type IX C / 40 , which the Navy during the Second World War in the North Atlantic was used among other things for weather observation and sank no ships on his only company. When it was sunk on December 27, 1944 northwest of the Azores , all 55 crew members were taken prisoner by the Allies - there were no fatalities.

Technical specifications

Deschimag AG Weser has been involved in building up the German submarine fleet since 1934. Originally intended for the construction of boats of the large type IA , which was little appreciated by Dönitz , the shipyard - in addition to two boats of this class - produced six boats of the smaller type VII by 1937 . During this time, the shipyard was commissioned with the construction of the larger Type IX boats, which Deschimag Werft specialized in manufacturing and of which they had delivered 113 units to the Navy by the end of the war. The Type IX C / 40 designed for overseas use was a two-hulled boat 76.8 m long and 6.8 m wide. Two diesel engines with an output of 4400 hp ensured a speed of 18.3 knots over water. The Olympic rings, the crew mark of the commandant's class of officers, were painted on the tower of U 877.

commander

Eberhard Findeisen was born in Leipzig on May 25, 1916 and joined the Navy in 1936. From 1941 to 1943 he served as a group officer at the Mürwik Naval School . Then he was a liaison officer at the German naval command in Italy . During this time he was promoted to lieutenant captain. In the summer of 1943 he completed his submarine training and in the spring of the following year the submarine commanders course. On March 24, 1944, at the age of 27, he put U 877 into service as a commander . Like the rest of the crew, he survived the sinking and died on January 17, 2007 at the age of 90 in Busselton , Australia .

Commitment and history

U 877 drove from Kiel to Horten on November 11, 1944 and from there to the first company on the 25th. The intended area of ​​operation was the North Atlantic.

Weather boat

U 877 had the task of collecting and passing on weather data in the sea area south of Ireland , which should be used for planning the Ardennes offensive . It was supposed to replace the structurally identical U 870 in this task, which at that time - as its commander Hechler was repeatedly forced to make extensive course changes by British ASW forces - was still approaching the target area. While leaving Kristiansand , the escorted U 877 was attacked by the British Bristol Beaufighters . Two well-placed depth charges caused Findeisen to initiate an alarm diving maneuver , which permanently damaged the antenna of the Hohentwiel radar device . Upon reaching the deployment area on December 22nd, it turned out that the radio was also damaged and no messages could be sent, only received. The submarine authorities thought the boat was lost. In the event that U 877 did still exist, Dönitz released Findeisen from the task of weather observation. Instead, Findeisen was instructed to independently look for targets in the North Atlantic.

Sinking

U 877 diving rescuers on display at the Elgin Military Museum, St. Thomas, Ontario

Accordingly, Findeisen set course for the sea area off New York . On December 27, U 877 was arrested by Allied warships near the convoy HX 327 . The two Canadian corvettes St. Thomas and Edmundston recorded the submarine with the sonar and initially steered both of them towards the suspicious signal in accordance with this bearing. Initially, the Edmunston steered in the direction of the bearing received, but did not identify the target as a submarine. While on the Edmundston it was already doubtful that the contact received was a submarine, the sonar watch of the St. Thomas , after initially suspecting a school of fish, finally came to the opposite conclusion. The commander of St. Thomas , Lieutenant Commander Denny, then fired two volleys from the Squid mortar in the direction of the signal. The attack of the two Canadian corvettes forced Findeisen finally to U 877 after a hit at the rear, which made sink the boat to over 300 meters depth, to let emerge by the blowing of all ballast tanks. When Findeisen opened the tower hatch, he and his helmsman were thrown on deck by the overpressure in the boat and suffered severe head injuries. The crew left the boat and the chief engineer initiated the self-sinking process to be the last to come out. All 55 crew members of the submarine were taken on board by the two Canadian corvettes as prisoners of war and brought to England .

U 877 is one of the few German submarines sunk in the Second World War in which the entire crew survived - albeit z. Some seriously injured and as a prisoner. The sinking of U 877 was credited to the St. Thomas .

Aftermath

The first watch officer of U 877 , Peter Josef Heisig, was a crewmate of the II. WO of U 852 , Hoffmann, who was charged with war crimes after the war with his commander Eck. When Heisig learned of the impending Eck trial , he urged to be summoned as a witness. During the joint training of Heisig and Hoffmann in the 2nd submarine training division in Gotenhafen , the commander of the submarines had given a speech to the young officers. At the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals, Heisig not only testified that Karl Dönitz had spoken of an intensification of the naval war in this address, but also expressed allegations against previous superiors. He had been advised by them to take the opportunity to destroy castaways to ensure that only officers were on the bridge. His testimony was not used in the trial against the officers of U 852 , but was brought in at Dönitz's expense in the Nuremberg proceedings.

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, p. 64. 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. 149, 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 and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1999, p. 308. ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 .
  • Clay Blair : The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 627, 757, 816. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
  • Dieter Hartwig: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Legend and reality. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77027-1 .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 153.
  2. a b c C. Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, pp. 757-758.
  3. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 238.
  4. P. Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars , Urbes Verlag, Graefeling 1997, p. 238 (Kemp describes the St. Thomas and the Edmunston as frigates )
  5. ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing vor München 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 , p. 238, gives a depth of 360 m
  6. ^ A b Peter Padfield: The Submarine War. 1939-1945. License issue. Bechtermünz-Verlag, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-8289-0313-4 , p. 351.