U 963
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U 963 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | 50 702 |
| Shipyard: | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | June 5, 1941 |
| Build number: | 163 |
| Keel laying: | April 20, 1942 |
| Launch: | December 30, 1942 |
| Commissioning: | February 17, 1943 |
| Commanders: |
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| Calls: | 10 activities |
| Sinkings: |
no; 1 plane shot down |
| Whereabouts: | Sunk on May 20, 1945 off Portugal itself (48 prisoners of war, no dead) |
U 963 was a German U-boat of the Navy , which in World War II in the Atlantic and in the Baltic Sea was used. In its ten ventures it could not sink or damage ships. After the war ended, on May 20, 1945, it was self- sunk by its crew off the Portuguese coast. All 48 men of the crew were handed over by the Portuguese to the British and were taken prisoner of war .
Technical specifications
U 963 was a type VII C boat that was designed primarily for use in the North and Central Atlantic (so-called "Atlantic boat "). The outer shell was made of 20.5 mm thick sheet steel, the boat was 66.5 m long and displaced 760 t of water. Powered by the 3000 hp diesel engine, it could travel up to 17 knots over water and had a maximum range of 9500 nautical miles .
Commanders
- February 17, 1943 - December 1944
Karl Boddenberg was born on May 23, 1914 in Osenau and drove as chief helmsman and watch officer on the U 201 . In 1942 he served in the course of two patrols on the American Atlantic coast and in the mid-Atlantic on this boat, until he went to the torpedo school in Mürwik in September 1942 , where he started his career as an officer. In the spring of 1943 he was given command of U 963 and on April 1 of the same year was promoted to lieutenant at sea . Following his time on U 963 , Karl Boddenberg was assigned to the Navy High Command , where he served until March 1944. Boddenberg experienced the end of the war as a company commander of the 4th ship trunk division.
- August 13, 1944 - August 21, 1944
Oberleutnant zur See Werner Müller was 1st WO on U 953 . In August 1944 he led U 963 as a commander on a transfer trip from Brest to La Pallice.
- January 16, 1945 - May 20, 1945
Rolf-Werner Wentz was born on January 1st, 1920 in Lübeck and joined the Navy in 1939 as an officer candidate . From 1941 to 1943 he served as a watch officer on U 380 , then he was initially a shooting instructor in the command staff of the torpedo school in Mürwik . He found his further use "at sea" only a year later with the command of U 963 , which he held until the end of the war.
history
U 963 completed nine operations in the Atlantic, the Biscay and the Baltic Sea. No ship was attacked or sunk by this submarine during this time.
Calls
After commissioning, the U 963 initially drove as a training boat with the 5th U-Flotilla and was then assigned to the 1st U-Flotilla in Brest, where it was not moved until April 1944. By then, the boat had completed three operations in the North Atlantic area of operations from Bergen , Drontheim and Lorient . In October 1944, U 963 returned to Bergen as a result of the relocation of the 1st U-Flotilla and was transferred to the 11th U-Flotilla , with which it remained until the end of the war.
During its missions U 963 was repeatedly attacked by Allied aircraft. On February 5, 1944 a British Consolidated B-24 Liberator (53 Sqn RAF / T) bomber was shot down. On March 26, 1944, nine men on the submarine were wounded by an Allied air raid off Brest (Finistère) , two of them very seriously. On June 7, 1944, shortly after the start of its operation , U 963 was so badly damaged by the attack of a British Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber (53 Sqn RAF, pilot John William Carmichael) that it had to return immediately for repair. A bomb attack on the submarine port of Brest on August 12, 1944 resulted in two fatalities among the submarine crew: Boat mate Albrecht Sekula died during the attack, Corporal Helmut Laskosky the next day as a result. Another man died on August 21, 1944 when he went overboard during an alarm dive in the Bay of Biscay .
Sinking
After the submarine was badly damaged by an air raid on May 6, 1945, Commander Wentz had the boat sunk off the Portuguese coast on May 20 ( Lage ). The entire crew (48 men) were interned in Portugal and were eventually transferred to British captivity .
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, pp. 31, 165, 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. 103, 223. 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 2008, pp. 359, 372. 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. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 500, 584, 594, 597, 682, 712, 720, 781, 783. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 . Page 533
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