Wolfgang Heyda

Wolfgang Heyda (born November 14, 1913 in Arys , East Prussia , † August 21, 1947 in Kiel ) was a German submarine commander during the Second World War .

military service

Heyda joined the Reichsmarine in 1932 and attended the Mürwik naval school . At the beginning of the war he served on the ironclad Admiral Scheer. In April 1940 he began his submarine training. From November 26, 1940 to May 19, 1941, Heyda commanded the school boat U 120 , which belonged to the 21st submarine flotilla , as part of his submarine command training . Heyda took command of U 434 on June 21, 1941 . On November 11th, Heyda left for his first venture with this boat. In mid-December, U 434 was assigned to the submarine group "Seeräuber", which attacked convoy HG 76 , which was en route to Liverpool , near Gibraltar in accordance with the pack tactics developed by Karl Dönitz . At dawn on 18 December, U 434 , north of the destroyers, which protected the convoys of Madeira 36 ° 15'N 15 ° 48'W coordinates in position: 36 ° 15'N 15 ° 48'W spotted with water bombs attacked. U 434 was rammed and sunk by the destroyer HMS Blankney after surfacing . Two members of the crew of U 434 were killed and 42 were captured.

Under the leadership of Commander Frederic John Walker, the ships of the 36th Escort Group sank four German submarines - including the U 434 - during this first mission . Heyda was eventually sent to the Bowmanville POW Camp (Camp 30) in Ontario , near Toronto , Canada .

Captivity and attempted escape

In Bowmanville in October 1942, there was a three-day riot among prisoners protesting their handcuffing. The uprising came to be known as the "Battle of Bowmanville" . U-boat commander Otto Kretschmer was involved in the rebellion after attacking and capturing a Canadian guard.

In the late summer of 1943, a group of prisoners of war developed an escape plan for which the German submarine command agreed to pick up some officers from the Canadian coast. Through this so-called Kiebitz company , in addition to Kretschmer and his first officer Knebel-Döberitz, the submarine commanders Elfe and Ey. First was U 669 for their pick-up on the coast of New Brunswick provided, but got lost on the journey. Instead, U 536 was sent to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River , where it arrived on September 24 and waited for the fleeing people in front of Pointe de Maisonette. In Bowmanville, however, the escape plan had since been thwarted by the Canadian guards as a result of a partial collapse of the prisoner barracks above the dug escape tunnels. After this venture failed, Heyda designed his own escape attempt. He let himself be pulled up by a so-called "boatswain's swing" - a seat sling on a pulley system - on a power pole near the camp fence, swung himself over the barbed wire and escaped.

Heyda traveled 1,400 kilometers by train to Pointe de Maisonnette in New Brunswick on Chaleur Bay to meet with U 536 . Police forces in Canada and the USA had meanwhile learned of the extent and course of the "Kiebitz operation" by deciphering the coded messages in the prisoners' letters and after intercepting the maps sent from Germany in gift packages to Bowmanville, they also got an idea of ​​the planned meeting point. The authorities accordingly initiated a targeted search for the escaped prisoner of war. Heyda was captured on the beach at Pointe de Maisonnette, where the Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) were waiting for the submarine to appear offshore (the RCN had a large anti-submarine task force under managed by HMCS Rimouski). Heyda was taken to the Pointe de Maisonnette lighthouse, where Corvette Captain Desmond Piers of the Royal Canadian Navy commanded the operation. There Piers confronts the German, who claimed to be a tourist on vacation, with the findings of the Allies. In the bay one heard depth charges, but the commander of U 536 , Kapitänleutnant Rolf Schauenburg, avoided the attacking ships and, after sinking two freighters, reached the open Atlantic , where his boat was stopped and sunk six weeks later by escort ships from convoy SL 139 has been. Schauenburg survived the sinking of U 536 and was in turn taken to a Canadian prisoner-of-war camp.

death

Heyda returned to Camp 30 in Bowmanville and was released from captivity in May 1947. He died only three months later, on August 21, 1947, of polio in the Kiel University Clinic .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939–1945 Volume 1 The German U-Boat Commanders , Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 , page 100
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2. 1942–1945 Die Gejagt , Heyne Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , pages 484–485
3. ^ Terence Robertson: The Wolf in the Atlantic " Verlag Welsermühl, Wels 1969, pages 344-345

literature

• Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll (1999): German U-boat commanders of World War II: a biographical dictionary. Translated by Brooks, Geoffrey. London, Annapolis, Md: Greenhill Books, Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-186-6 .