German submarine U-552
Erich Topp (r) on U-552 in St. Nazaire in October 1941
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History | |
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Nazi Germany | |
Name | U-552 |
Ordered | 25 September 1939 |
Builder | Blohm & Voss, Hamburg |
Yard number | 528 |
Laid down | 1 December 1939 |
Launched | 14 September 1940 |
Commissioned | 4 December 1940 |
Decommissioned | February 1945 |
Fate | Scuttled on 5 May 1945 at Wilhelmshaven |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Type VIIC submarine |
Displacement | |
Length |
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Beam |
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Height | 9.60 m (31 ft 6 in) |
Draught | 4.74 m (15 ft 7 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed |
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Range | |
Test depth |
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Complement | 4 officers, 40–56 enlisted |
Armament |
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Service record | |
Part of: |
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Identification codes: | M 20 052 |
Commanders: |
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Operations: |
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Victories: |
German submarine U-552 was a
U-552 was involved in two controversial actions: On 31 October 1941, she sank the
U-552 had an unusually long service life, surviving to the end of World War II; after evacuating from her French base during the spring of 1944, she operated on training duties in the Baltic Sea until she was decommissioned in February 1945. On 5 May 1945, she was scuttled in Helgoland Bight, to prevent her falling into enemy hands.
Design
The submarine had a maximum surface speed of 17.7 knots (32.8 km/h; 20.4 mph) and a maximum submerged speed of 7.6 knots (14.1 km/h; 8.7 mph).
Service history
Initial voyage to Helgoland
Following construction, which was completed on 4 December 1940, U-552 was given two months of working-up training, during which she prepared her crew and equipment for the operations ahead. She then sailed from
First patrol
U-552's first official war patrol began on 18 February 1941, when she left Helgoland for a patrol in the
Second patrol
U-552 began her second war patrol on 7 April 1941, when she left her new home port of St Nazaire for the North Atlantic. The U-552 arrived in her assigned patrol area south-west of Iceland on 11 April.[5] No targets were engaged until 26 April when at 18:09 GMT, the U-552 was midway between Iceland and northern Scotland. Topp sighted “smoke cloud bearing 10°T” from a small “patrol vessel size” target. The target was followed “at the limit of visibility” while waiting for nightfall. At 00:10 (27 April), about 130 nautical miles SE of Iceland, the small vessel Commander Horton was attacked. The U-552 log records “Fishing trawler (patrol vessel) sunk with 82 shots of 8.8 cm and 102 shots MG C30. No resistance.” (Commander Horton, 227 tones, 14 casualties).
Around 11:00 GMT on 27 April, the U-552 was submerged and “Propeller sounds heard bearing 200°T”. Topp then commenced a surface pursuit of a large steamer. “Estimate enemy speed 16 knots. Am gaining only as a result of the zig zags.” At 14:12, at grid position AL3236, the Beacon Grange was in the targeting range of 1000 meters. The submerged U-552 fired a fan of three torpedoes. All three torpedoes hit the ship. A few minutes later while the crew were launching lifeboats, the U-552 surfaced and “ran in for a coup de grace”. A fourth torpedo was fired and the U-boat log records “Hit aft 20 meters. … Steamer breaks completely in the center, deck awash, ends continue to float.” (Beacon Grange, 10,119 tones, 2 casualties)
During the afternoon of 28 April 1941, a historic battle was underway about 180 miles south of Iceland. A wolf pack “Rudeltaktik” of five U-boats had launched the war's first submerged daylight attack on a convoy. The submerged U-boats, which were spread out over a distance of about 10 miles, intercepted and attacked an east-bound convoy. The U-123 (Karl-Heinz Moehle), had spotted Convoy HX-121 and called in U-65 (Joachim Hoppe), U-95 (Gerd Schreiber), U-96 (Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock), and U-552 (Erich Topp) for the kill. U-552 started things off at 14:15 GMT (60°06’N 20°18’W), when it torpedoed the British tanker Capulet. Nine casualties resulted, and the tanker was abandoned, but did not sink. At 17:25, three more ships were sunk by U-96 with one spread of three torpedoes: British tanker Oilfield (47 casualties, 8 survivors); Norwegian tanker Caledonia (12 casualties, 25 survivors); and British freighter Port Hardy (one casualty). U-65 was sunk by H.M.S. Douglas in a depth-charge attack, and all 50 men in the crew perished.
After torpedoing the tanker Capulet, U-552 was depth charged in five separate attacks from destroyers
On 30 April, the surfaced U-552 was about 150 nautical miles west of the North Channel entrance … and searching for targets. At 21:40 GMT, Topp sighted a ship, the troopship S.S. Nerissa approaching from the north-west. For almost 2 hours, Topp stalked the zigzagging Nerissa and adjusted his torpedo firing solution accordingly. Finally, Topp saw a phosphorescent glow on the sea and decided that 1,000 metres was as close as he should approach his target, and he fired a fan of three torpedoes. The U-552 log records that one of the three torpedoes “hit astern” at 00:27 Berlin Time (GMT+2). About 6 minutes later, Topp closed in on the already stricken ship and fired a fourth torpedo as a coup de grace into Nerissa's aft starboard side while her crew and passengers were launching lifeboats. More than half of the 207 casualties were Canadians. (S.S. Nerissa, 5,583 tones, casualties 207)
The U-552 had four remaining torpedoes and she continued searching for merchant ships in transit towards the North Channel. Topp was not successful in engaging any additional targets and almost 48 hours after sinking the S.S. Nerissa, the U-552 commenced her homeward transit south. She arrived in St Nazaire on 6 May.[6] [7][8]
Third patrol
U-552 left St Nazaire for her third war patrol on 25 May 1941. In 39 days, she travelled into the North Atlantic and sank three British vessels: the Ainderby on 10 June, the Chinese Prince on 12 June, and the Norfolk on 18 June. During the attack on the Norfolk, U-552 attempted to attack the remaining ships in the convoy, but was forced to break off the attack due to the arrival of several of the convoy's escorts. All of these attacks occurred off the northwest coast of Ireland, and once U-552 returned to St. Nazaire on 2 July 1941, she had amassed a total of 24,401 GRT from the ships she had sunk.[9]
Fourth patrol
U-552's fourth patrol was much less successful than her previous three. Having left St Nazaire on 18 August, she proceeded to head south into the waters off Portugal and Spain. Here, she sank the Norwegian vessel, Spind. Following this sinking, U-552 returned to St Nazaire on 26 August 1941, after only 9 days at sea.[10]
Fifth and sixth patrols
Her next two patrols all took her further into the Atlantic, where the danger was lessened, but so were the targets, with the result that she only hit three more cargo ships. Also this time, during her final patrol of 1941, she sank the Reuben James, which was torpedoed on 30 October in controversial circumstances.[11][12]
Sinking of USS Reuben James
On 31 October 1941, USS Reuben James was one of five
The destroyer was the first US Navy warship to be sunk in World War II.[12]
The incident provoked a furious outburst in the United States, especially when Germany refused to apologize, instead countering that the destroyer was operating in what Germany considered to be a war zone and had suffered the consequences. The sinking of the Reuben James did not lead the US to declare war on Germany; it did, however, provide a pretext to officially transfer the
Second Happy Time
In 1942, again commanded by
Sinking of the David H. Atwater
The destruction of the SS David H. Atwater, in the Atlantic Ocean 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) off Chincoteague, Virginia, was one of the more controversial actions of the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War, primarily due to the manner of the sinking.[18]
On the night of 2 April 1942, at the height of the U-boat offensive against US shipping known as the "Second Happy Time", the unarmed coastal steamer David H. Atwater was en route from Norfolk, Virginia, to Fall River, Massachusetts,[19] with a full load of 4,000 tons of coal.
Around 21:00, between Cape Charles and Cape Henlopen,[20] the ship was ambushed by U-552, which had followed her submerged. The submarine surfaced about 600 yd (550 m) from the freighter and opened fire with her 88 mm deck gun and machine guns without warning, one of her first shells destroying the bridge and killing all of the officers. In all, 93 rounds were fired from the deck gun, with 50 hits being recorded on the small freighter,[21] which rapidly began to sink.
As it did so, Topp directed his crewmen to continue firing, striking the Atwater's crewmen as they tried to man the lifeboats.[22] When Captain Webster was hit, the crew abandoned attempts to launch the lifeboats and leapt into the sea.[23]
The first ship to arrive on the scene was the small Coast Guard Patrol Boat USS CG-218, which found a lifeboat holding three survivors and three bodies; the survivors reported that they had dived overboard and swum to the boat. Next on the scene was the
The destroyers USS Noa and Herbert were directed to the scene at 21:22 and arrived at 24:00,[24] but U-552 had by then escaped the scene, going on to sink other vessels.[25]
Whether the attack on the liferafts was deliberate, or an unfortunate and unintended consequence of a nighttime attack, has been heavily debated. Some of the crew of U-552 survived the war, and her captain, Erich Topp, later became an admiral in the postwar Bundesmarine. No charges were brought against Topp, as happened to
Later patrols
U-552 had less success in later years, as did the U-boat force in general, as U-boats failed to keep ahead of the rapidly increasing numbers and capabilities of Allied antisubmarine efforts. She was transferred to operations off the
During 1943, U-552 was increasingly unable to serve effectively against the well-prepared and organized Allied convoy system, a fact reflected by her failure to sink a single ship during her two patrols into the North Atlantic Ocean. During one of these, a
In 1944, she had a single patrol, but was unable to close with or threaten any Allied convoys, so was withdrawn to Germany in April 1944 for use as a training vessel in the 22nd U-boat Flotilla, a role she fulfilled until she was decommissioned in February 1945. On 5 May 1945, she was scuttled in Wilhelmshaven Bay to prevent her capture.
Wolfpacks
U-552 took part in 21 wolfpacks, namely:
- Brandenburg (15 – 26 September 1941)
- Stosstrupp (30 October – 4 November 1941)
- Störtebecker (15 – 19 November 1941)
- Benecke (19 – 22 November 1941)
- Seydlitz (27 December 1941 – 6 January 1942)
- Zieten (6 – 19 January 1942)
- Endrass (12 – 17 June 1942)
- Wolf (13 – 30 July 1942)
- Pirat (30 July – 3 August 1942)
- Steinbrinck (3 – 4 August 1942)
- Meise (11 – 27 April 1943)
- Star (27 April – 4 May 1943)
- Fink (4 – 6 May 1943)
- Naab (12 – 15 May 1943)
- Donau 2 (15 – 19 May 1943)
- Mosel (19 – 24 May 1943)
- Siegfried (22 – 27 October 1943)
- Siegfried 2 (27 – 30 October 1943)
- Jahn (30 October – 2 November 1943)
- Tirpitz 3 (2 – 8 November 1943)
- Eisenhart 5 (9 – 15 November 1943)
Summary of raiding history
Date | Ship Name | Nationality | Tonnage[Note 1] | Fate[26] |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 March 1941 | Cadillac | United Kingdom | 12,062 | Sunk |
10 March 1941 | Reykjaborg | Iceland | 687 | Sunk |
27 April 1941 | Commander Horton | United Kingdom | 227 | Sunk |
27 April 1941 | Beacon Grange | United Kingdom | 10,119 | Sunk |
28 April 1941 | Capulet | United Kingdom | 8,190 | Damaged |
1 May 1941 | Nerissa | United Kingdom | 5,583 | Sunk |
10 June 1941 | Ainderby | United Kingdom | 4,860 | Sunk |
12 June 1941 | Chinese Prince | United Kingdom | 8,593 | Sunk |
18 June 1941 | Norfolk | United Kingdom | 10,948 | Sunk |
23 August 1941 | Spind | Norway | 2,129 | Sunk |
20 September 1941 | T.J. Williams | United Kingdom | 8,212 | Sunk |
20 September 1941 | Pink Star | Panama | 4,150 | Sunk |
20 September 1941 | Barbaro | Norway | 6,325 | Sunk |
30 October 1941 | USS Reuben James | United States Navy | 1,190 | Sunk |
15 January 1942 | Dayrose | United Kingdom | 4,113 | Sunk |
18 January 1942 | Frances Salman | United States | 2,609 | Sunk |
20 January 1942 | Maro | Greece | 3,838 | Sunk |
25 March 1942 | Ocana | Netherlands | 6,256 | Sunk |
3 April 1942 | David H. Atwater | United States | 2,438 | Sunk |
4 April 1942 | Byron D. Benson | United States | 7,953 | Sunk |
7 April 1942 | British Splendour
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United Kingdom | 7,138 | Sunk |
7 April 1942 | Lancing | Norway | 7,866 | Sunk |
9 April 1942 | Atlas | United States | 7,137 | Sunk |
10 April 1942 | Tarnaulipas | United States | 6,943 | Sunk |
15 June 1942 | City of Oxford | United Kingdom | 2,759 | Sunk |
15 June 1942 | Etrib | United Kingdom | 1,943 | Sunk |
15 June 1942 | Pelayo | United Kingdom | 1,346 | Sunk |
15 June 1942 | Slemdal | Norway | 7,374 | Sunk |
15 June 1942 | Thurso | United Kingdom | 2,436 | Sunk |
25 July 1942 | British Merit | United Kingdom | 8,093 | Damaged |
25 July 1942 | Broompark | United Kingdom | 5,136 | Sunk[27] |
3 August 1942 | G.S. Walden | United Kingdom | 10,627 | Damaged |
3 August 1942 | Lochatrine | United Kingdom | 9,419 | Sunk |
19 September 1942 | HMS Alouette | Royal Navy | 520 | Sunk |
3 December 1942 | Wallsend | United Kingdom | 3,157 | Sunk |
References
Notes
- gross register tons. Military vessels are listed by tons displacement.
Citations
- ^ a b c d Gröner 1991, pp. 43–46.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (Initial voyage)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ a b Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (First patrol)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ a b Helgason, Guðmundur. "Reykjaborg (Steam trawler)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ISBN 0117726036.
- ISBN 9781704113821.
- ^ "U-boat Kriegstagebücher (KTB) logs". U-boat Archive.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (Second patrol)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (Third patrol)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (Fourth patrol)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (Fifth patrol)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- ^ a b c Helgason, Guðmundur. "Patrol info for U-552 (Sixth patrol)". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
- ISBN 0-252-06963-3.
- ISBN 0-06-016155-8, p. 91.
- ISBN 1-55750-867-4.
- ISBN 1-57591-026-8.
- ^ W.A.B. Douglas, No Higher Purpose: The Official Operational History of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War, 1939-1943, Vanwell Publishing (2004), pp. 501-502
- ^ Bridgland p 216
- ISBN 1-55750-087-8.
- ISBN 9780870217265.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Allied Ships hit by U-boats - David H. Atwater". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 16 October 2008.
- ISBN 0-7653-0707-3. "The crew was not given any chance to abandon ship, and when they tried to do so, their lifeboats were riddled by machine gun fire."
- ^ ISBN 1-55750-362-1.
- ^ a b "Eastern Sea Frontier - April 1942 - Appendix VIII". U-boat Archive. Archived from the original on 23 August 2012.
- ISBN 1-55750-149-1.
- ^ Helgason, Guðmundur. "Ships hit by U-552". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
- ^ Danger UXB p. 68
Bibliography
- Bridgland, Tony, Waves of Hate:Naval atrocities in the Second World War (2002) ISBN 0-85052-822-4
- Browning, Robert M. Jr. U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. ISBN 1-55750-087-8.
- Busch, Rainer; Röll, Hans-Joachim (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.
- Busch, Rainer; Röll, Hans-Joachim (1999). Deutsche U-Boot-Verluste von September 1939 bis Mai 1945 [German U-boat losses from September 1939 to May 1945]. Der U-Boot-Krieg (in German). Vol. IV. Hamburg; Berlin; Bonn: Mittler. ISBN 3-8132-0514-2.
- Edwards, Bernard (1996). Dönitz and the Wolf Packs - The U-boats at War. Cassell Military Classics. pp. 75, 77, 81, 85. ISBN 0-304-35203-9.
- Gröner, Erich; Jung, Dieter; Maass, Martin (1991). German Warships 1815–1945, U-boats and Mine Warfare Vessels. Vol. 2. Translated by Thomas, Keith; Magowan, Rachel. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-593-4.
- Sharpe, Peter (1998). U-Boat Fact File. Great Britain: Midland Publishing. ISBN 1-85780-072-9.
- Owen, James (2010). Danger UXB - The Heroic Story of the WWII Bomb Disposal Teams. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1-4087-0255-0.
External links
- Helgason, Guðmundur. "The Type VIIC boat U-552". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 28 December 2014.
- Hofmann, Markus. "U 552". Deutsche U-Boote 1935-1945 - u-boot-archiv.de (in German). Retrieved 28 December 2014.
- Submarine atrocities