U 953

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U 953
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Type : VII C
Field Post Number : 49 558
Shipyard: Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Construction contract: April 10, 1941
Build number: 153
Keel laying: February 10, 1942
Launch: October 28, 1942
Commissioning: December 17, 1942
Commanders:
  • Karl-Heinz Marbach
  • Herbert A. Werner
  • Erich Steinbrinck
Calls: 10 activities
Sinkings:

a ship (1,927 GRT) sunk

Whereabouts: demolished and scrapped in June 1949 after being used as a British test boat

U 953 was a German type VII C submarine, a so-called "Atlanticboat", which was used by the German Navy during the submarine war in World War II in the North Atlantic , in the Bay of Biscay and in the English Channel .

Technical specifications

A VII C-boat was propelled by two diesel engines while it was crossing the water and reached a speed of 17 knots . Under water, a submarine could make a speed of 7.6 kn with the help of the two electric motors. However, the power of the batteries only allowed this top speed for underwater travel for an hour. At a lower speed, the boat could theoretically travel underwater for up to three days. U 925 had a so-called snorkel , a ventilation hose that was suspended from a fold-out mast and had a float at the upper end that was supposed to keep the snorkel outlet above water. Such a snorkel guaranteed the removal of diesel gases as well as the fresh air supply and made longer underwater trips possible.

Commitment and history

From December 17, 1942 to May 31, 1943, U 953 was part of the 5th U-Flotilla as a training boat . From June 1, 1943, it came to the 3rd U-Flotilla as a front boat , where it remained until October 14, 1944. During this time U 953 was converted and used as an anti- aircraft trap at times . On October 15, 1944, the boat came to the 33rd U-Flotilla , where U 953 remained until the end of the war.

Submarines against Operation Neptune

In May 1944, as part of a meeting of the commanders of the 1st and 9th U-Flotilla in Brest , Commander Marbach witnessed the announcement of the measures formulated by Karl Dönitz in order channel No. 1 to ward off the expected invasion of the Allied forces on the northern part of France Atlantic coast . Doenitz 'demand that the invasion fleet with "full commitment" of submarines, also "under penalty of loss" to meet, was the attending submarine commanders by the leaders of the submarines -West, Captain Hans-Rudolf Rösing transmitted . Marbach interpreted the measures conveyed on this occasion as an order for “total deployment” and later summarized Rösing's words as follows: “If things don't go any further, then the invasion fleet should at least be rammed by us, even if it's only the smallest boat.” On his sixth patrol , which lasted from June 6th to 18th , Marbach attacked three Canadian destroyers with U 953 : the HMCS Restigouche , the HMCS Qu'Appelle and the HMCS Skeena , but could not sink any of the warships.

Test boat and sinking

Under the command of Oberleutnant zS Erich Steinbrinck, U 953 was transferred from Drontheim in the summer of 1945 first to Scapa Flow and then to the sea ​​loch Loch Ryan on the west coast of the Scottish council area Dumfries and Galloway , where the boat arrived at the beginning of June. At the end of December U 953 moved to the Northern Irish port of Londonderry .

The boat was used by the Royal Navy as a test boat until 1949 and was eventually demolished and scrapped at Clayton & Davies in Gateshead .

Literary processing

The former commander of U 953 , Herbert A. Werner, published his memoirs in the 1980s under the title: " The iron coffins ".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 , Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 . Page 196
  2. ↑ a b Peter Padfield: The U-Boat War 1939-1945 , Bechtermünz Verlag under license Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-8289-0313-4 , page 390 - page 391
  3. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 . Page 399

literature

  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .