U 979
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U 979 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Type : | VII C |
| Field Post Number : | M - 52 107 |
| Shipyard: | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg |
| Construction contract: | June 5, 1942 |
| Build number: | 179 |
| Keel laying: | August 10, 1942 |
| Launch: | April 15, 1943 |
| Commissioning: | May 20, 1943 |
| Commanders: |
October 9, 1941 to September 8, 1942 |
| Flotilla: |
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| Calls: | 3 activities |
| Sinkings: |
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| Whereabouts: | beached and blown up in front of Amrum on May 24, 1945 (all men ashore, no fatalities) |
U 979 was one of the Navy in World War II against the war in front of Iceland inserted submarine of type VIIC . On its three operations it damaged a merchant ship with 6386 GRT (without fatalities) and an auxiliary warship with 5969 t and two dead. In addition, on May 2, 1945, it sank a British auxiliary warship with 348 t and 23 dead and only one survivor. It was at sea until May 24, 1945 and was finally aground off Amrum and blown up after the crew had gone ashore.
Construction and equipment
U 979 had a water displacement of 769 t on the surface and 871 t under water. It was a total of 67.1 m long, 6.2 m wide, 9.6 m high with a 50.5 m long pressure hull and had a draft of 4.74 m. That in the Hamburg shipyard Blohm & Voss built submarine was of two four-stroke diesel engines F46 with 6 cylinders and supercharger of Kiel Germaniawerft with a capacity from 2060 to 2350 kW, with underwater operation with two electric motors GG UB 720/8 of BBC with a power of 550 kW. It had two drive shafts with two 1.23 m tall propellers. The boat was suitable for diving to a depth of 230 m.
The submarine reached speeds of up to 17.7 knots on the surface and up to 7.6 knots under water. When surfaced, the submarine could travel up to 8,500 nautical miles at 10 knots, and up to 80 nautical miles submerged at 4 knots. U 979 had five 53.3 cm torpedo tubes - four at the bow and one at the stern - and fourteen torpedoes , an 8.8 cm SK C / 35 cannon with 220 rounds of ammunition and a twin 2 cm FlaK C. / 30 equipped. The submarine was also equipped with a snorkel .
Stakes and end
After its commissioning, U 979 served as a training boat in the 5th U-Flotilla under the command of Lieutenant Johannes Meermeier (1916–1982) . In August 1944 the submarine was assigned to the 9th U-Flotilla and in October 1944 to the 11th U-Flotilla .
On August 6, 1944, the submarine left Kiel to reach the port of Horten in Norway on August 8, 1944 . It left this on August 14th and reached Kristiansand on August 15th , where it was refueled. It left again on August 15, 1944 and entered Bergen (Norway) on August 27 , where the damaged periscope was replaced and from where it went on its first patrol into the Atlantic on August 29, 1944 . On September 22, 1944, U 979 torpedoed the ship USS Yukon (AF-9) with 5747 GRT, which was in service with the United States Navy , killing two of the 229 people on board and spilling 230,000 liters of oil into the sea. In an emergency, the USS Yukon reached the nearby port of Reykjavik . U 979 entered Trondheim on October 10, 1944 .
On November 9, 1944 U 979 left Trondheim for its second venture into the waters off Iceland, where it could not sink ships, and arrived in Stavanger on January 16, 1945 . From March 26th to March 29th 1945 the relocation to Bergen took place.
On March 29, 1945, the third operation of the submarine began from Bergen. On May 2, 1945 U 979 sank 7 nautical miles off Skagi (Iceland, 64 ° 10′N 23 ° 12′W) with a torpedo the British submarine hunter (trawler) HMT Ebor Wyke (F.1601) with 348 t , with 23 of the 24 British seafarers on board dying. On May 4, 1945, a torpedo of the submarine hit the British tanker Empire Unity with 6386 GRT, which, however, did not sink, but could be towed to Hvalfjordur (Iceland). All 46 men on board survived.
Johannes Meermeier managed to maneuver his submarine into the waters off the island of Amrum in the last days of the war and the days after . Here he had U 979 grounded near Wittdün on Amrum on May 24, 1945 , the crew went ashore and the submarine was blown up, the wreck of which remains in the sandy soil near Amrum to this day.
See also
literature
- Clas Broder Hansen: The Amrum submarine. Der Kleine Amrumer, 2018, pp. 30–39.
- 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. 157. 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. 113, 223. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 3: The German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, p. 357. ISBN 978-3-8132-0513-8 .
- 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 - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. P. 736. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
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