Weather station Kurt

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Coordinates: 60 ° 5 '0.2 "  N , 64 ° 22' 50.8"  W.

Map: Canada
marker
Weather station Kurt
Remnants of the Kurt weather station on display at the Canadian War Museum

The weather station Kurt (or also: The weather radio device Land -26, WFL-26 ) was a fully automatic weather station , which was built by the crew of the German submarine U 537 in the south of the small Hutton peninsula on the northern Labrador peninsula in October 1943 has been. The installation was the only German military operation on land in North America during World War II .

background

The weather in the northern hemisphere moves mainly from west to east. This gave the Allies a distinct advantage. The network of allied weather stations in North America, Greenland and Iceland enabled the allies to make more accurate weather forecasts than was possible in Germany. In relation to the North Atlantic, German meteorologists only received information from ships and submarines, from weather stations in remote parts of the Arctic and data from specially equipped weather observation aircraft. However, many of these ships and stations were shut down by the Allies at the beginning of the war. The data of the aircraft were z. Partly incomplete because their range was limited and they were prone to Allied attacks. Regular reports from submarines were not possible, otherwise they were exposed to the danger of discovery.

Planning and development

The Land weather radio was developed to provide more detailed information. It was made by Ernest Ploetze and Edwin Stoebe from Siemens . The station consisted of a number of measuring devices, a telemetry system and a 150 watt shortwave transmitter from C. Lorenz (type Lorenz 150 FK). In total, the installation comprised a series of cylindrical containers, each 1 to 1.5 m in diameter and weighing around 100 kg each. A canister contained an antenna mast that could be extended to ten meters. A second, shorter mast carried an anemometer and a wind vane . Nickel-cadmium accumulators for powering the system were in other canisters . The station was to broadcast the weather data every three hours in two-minute transmissions on 3940 kHz. The plan was that the system would work for about six months without maintenance, depending on the number of battery canisters.

Two stations were planned for North America. The parts for the "Kurt" station were taken on board by U 537 in 1943 . On September 18, 1943, U 537 left Kiel under the command of Lieutenant Peter Schrewe. Also on board were the physicist Kurt Hans Sommermeyer (radiologist, biophysicist, later Prof. in Freiburg i. Br.) And his assistant, Walter Hildebrandt. During the journey, the submarine was hit by a storm whose large breakers caused considerable damage, including a leak in the hull and damage to Flakvierling 38 , so that the submarine was defenseless against Allied aircraft on the surface.

On October 22, 1943, U 537 arrived at Martin Bay in northern Labrador at the coordinates 60 ° 5 '0.2 "N, 64 ° 22' 50.8" W. This is near Cape Chidley on the northeast tip of the Labrador Peninsula. Lieutenant Schrewe chose this location because he believed it would minimize the risk that the station would soon be discovered by the Inuit . Within an hour of anchoring, a dispatched patrol found suitable terrain and Sommermeyer and his assistant began installing the station. Armed guards were supposed to secure the area while the crew began repairing the storm damage to the submarine.

As a camouflage, empty American cigarette boxes were laid out and a sign was put up, stating that the station was owned by the non-existent "Canadian Meteor Service". (This is sometimes cited as a mistake because Dominion Newfoundland was a British colony at the time and was not part of Canada . In fact, in 1943 Newfoundland had a very extensive Canadian and American military presence with air bases, air defense posts and other installations; the labeling was a bit cryptic, but The beginner's mistake "Meteor" instead of "Meteorological" would have easily put readers on the right track and deeply embarrassed the German Reich). The crew worked all night to install "Kurt" and repair their submarine. On the evening of October 23, 1943, after 28 hours, the work was finished and the anchor was lifted after making sure that the station was working. The Kurt weather station only worked for a few days. On November 8, 1943, the station was received for the last time by U 537 with interference. It was never put back into operation.

Rediscovery

The station was forgotten until the late 1970s. Then, however, the former Siemens engineer Franz Selinger came across Sommermeyer's papers and learned about the station in this way. He contacted the Canadian Department of Defense , which dispatched a team in 1981 to find the station. Some canisters had been opened and the contents were scattered on the floor, so that today not all of the components have been preserved. The remaining parts were recovered and brought to Ottawa , where they are now on display in the Canadian War Museum .

See also

literature

  • Alec Douglas: The Nazi Weather Station in Labrador . In: Canadian Geographic . tape 101 , no. 6 , 1982, ISSN  0706-2168 , pp. 42–47 (English, canadiangeographic.ca [PDF]).
  • Günter Happel: 1943: U 537 in Labrador - A German weather station in North America . In: Köhler's fleet calendar . tape 83 , 1995, ISSN  0075-6474 , pp. 128-132 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael L. Hadley: U-boats Against Canada. German Submarines in Canadian Waters . McGill-Quenn's University Press, Montreal et al. 1985, ISBN 0-7735-0584-9 , pp. 163 (English).
  2. Weather station Kurt erected in Labrador in 1943. In: uboat.net. Accessed July 8, 2018 .