On 12 March off West Schouwen a fighter-bomber gunned Lt
Böhme’s boat. It burned and both crew perished.
On their return to base in U-5064, Kugler + Alois Schmidt
reported having sunk a steamer of 3,000 to 4,000 tons.
On 10 March SKL had decided to use Seehund submarines to
supply the starving German garrison at Dunkirk. K-Verband Command received
orders to fit out three boats to carry transport cylinders of provisions,
batteries, limpet mines and mail. The boats were to be ready at Ijmuiden on 15
March.
On their return to base on 13 March, Fröhnert + Beltrami
reported having sunk a steamer in the Thames estuary. They had also survived a
depth-charging.
The same day U-5377 was lost, von Neefe und Obischau +
Pollmann were saved: U-5339 (Kempf + unknown) was depth-charged and sunk off
Buoy NF5: off Harwich on the same day a Seehund ran into five boats of 165th
Minesweeping Flotilla and after being forced to dive in a hail of 2-cm and
7.5-cm followed by depth-charges, the boat was lost at position 52°01′24″N and
01°53′24″E.
None of the three Seehund known to have been off Margate on
16 March returned. On 18 March B-Dienst reported a British signal describing
large quantities of oil and wreckage found near the Margate coast, and four
empty lifeboats. What ship this was and its cause of loss remains a mystery.
On 21 March in light fog, U-5366 (Hauschel + Hesel)
discovered a convoy assembling in grid square AN 7663 between Lowestoft and
Great Yarmouth. At 0330 Hauschel torpedoed a Liberty freighter which exploded
three minutes later. The whole sea was lit bright as day, the victim must have
been carrying munitions. U-5366 touched bottom at Egmond aan Zee during the
night of 24 March but reached Ijmuiden undamaged.
Gaffron + Köster got caught up in a battle between German
S-boats and British MTBs and MGBs on 22 March. The Seehund was fired on and the
tower was damaged, making the boat undiveable. The crew abandoned and were
picked up by the British. The same day Göhler + Kässler were attacked and sunk
by a fighter-bomber shortly after leaving Ijmuiden.
At 0452 on 22 March, MTB 394, while lying stopped on
listening watch about 23 sea miles south-east of Great Yarmouth, was rammed by
a Seehund. The British opened fire into the mist, heard cries for help and
picked up two German submariners.
At 1920 on 24 March U-5264 fired two torpedoes at a
destroyer near the South Falls sandbanks and missed.
On 25 March the British motor launch ML 466 was torpedoed by
a Seehund and exploded. There were no survivors. The attacker may have been the
boat of Meyer + Schauerte which had left Ijmuiden two days previously and
failed to return, although Wagner + Wegner or Plottnik + Mayer who were in the
area on 24 March are also possibles.
At 1200 the same day Warnest + Nöubeling came under attack
from motor launch ML 1471 near Tamarisk Buoy. Warnest decided that attack was
the best form of defence and responded with two torpedoes which missed. He
escaped, however, and returned to base.
On 26 March in grid square AN 7956, Küllmeyer + Raschke
torpedoed the steamer Newlands, 1,556 tons, which sank at once. The boat
returned to Ijmuiden on 27 March.
On 25 March at 1440 Beaufighter Q of RAF 254 Squadron sank a
Seehund about 17 sea miles north-west of the Elbow Buoy.
At 0231 on 26 March the escort destroyer HMS Puffin
pinpointed a Seehund by Asdic about seven sea miles off Buoy 4. The submarine
surfaced, rammed the stern of the destroyer, slid along the hull and exploded,
tearing a great hole in the destroyer’s forecastle, damaging the keel. Puffin
remained afloat and picked up the two Germans from the water. After an
inspection ashore, the destroyer was declared a constructive total loss.
On 27 March ML 586 sank a Seehund west of Walcheren.
On 30 March a Seehund sank the coaster Jim, 833 gross tons
southeast of Orfordness. Twelve of her crew of twenty survived. Another Seehund
was sunk by the harbour defence vessel HDML 1471.
On 27 March three Seehund left Ijmuiden to supply the German
garrison at Dunkirk. The boat of Fröhnert + Beltrami began to food and being
undiveable returned to base. They sailed again the following midday. Weather
was extremely bad with enormous seas. The storm lasted seven days: Fröhnert’s
boat reached Dunkirk on the last day of the tempest and was guided through the
coastal minefield by the stern light of a naval trawler. Both crewmen were
admitted to the military hospital with exhaustion. After their recovery they
were received by Admiral Frisius. On 9 April they sailed, and reached Ijmuiden
despite air attacks and a flooded diesel.
In summary it may be said that the fighting between hunters
and hunted became particularly bitter and resolute in March 1945. Seehund boats
sank or damaged five steamers of about 15,000 tons. A patrol boat was torpedoed
and a destroyer written off as a total loss after being rammed. On the debit
side, 5 K-Division lost at least 15 Seehund and 30 men dead or prisoner.
Before the beginning of April 1945, Anglo-American forces
reached north-west Germany and were virtually surrounding Festung Holland.
Additional Seehund at readiness in Wilhelmshaven naval base and U-boat bunkers
on Heligoland island prepared to sail for Holland, transport by road or rail
being no longer possible. Heavy air attacks on K-Verband bases caused damage to
buildings but the midget submarine force escaped unscathed. After the weather
improved sorties were sailed from 4 April with great determination. By the end
of the month 36 individual missions had been been sailed to the English east
coast, the Scheldt Esturary and to Dungeness near Dover.
On 8 April, 5 K-Division had 29 boats at Ijmuiden, only half
of them operational. Four others arrived on 20 April, 14 on 1 May from
Wilhelmshaven, and another two from Heligoland.
Two boats sailed, one each on 5 and 6 April respectively,
for the Thames-Scheldt route. U-5366 (Hauschel + Hesel) returned on 8 April
with no successes to report, the other boat was sunk, probably on the 6th. Nine
Seehund sailed at 2130 on 7 April to attack convoys between Dungeness and
Boulogne. Bischoff + Hellwig failed to return and were presumed killed in
action on 19 April. U-5332 (Wolter + Minetzke) ran aground at Calais. After
destroying the boat, they surrendered. Rosenlöcher + Musch remain missing. The
boats of von Pander + Vogel, Ross + Vennemann and U-5074 Schöne + Sass returned
to base, the latter boat being undivable after a Martin Marauder bombed it at
0630 on 8 April.
The operations of these and a number of other boats can only
be assembled in fragmentary form:
9 April, 0531. A Seehund torpedoed the tanker Y17 from
convoy TAC 90 eight cables off North Foreland Buoy NF5. The tanker burst into
fl ames after an explosion and
sank. There were no survivors.
9 April: Near Dungeness, Buttmann + Arno Schmidt attacked
convoy TBC 123. Buttmann sank the freighter Samida, 7,219 gross tons with one
torpedo, and seriously damaged the US freighter Solomon Juneau, 7,116 gross
tons, with the other. The Seehund was subsequently sunk by ML 102 east of
Dover. The body of Schmidt drifted across the North Sea and washed up on the
island of Föhr, to be interred at Wyk cemetery.
Another Seehund was sunk this day by Beaufighter W of 252
Squadron RAF.
Off Orfordness, a Seehund sank the British cable-layer
Monarch, 1,150 gross tons.
10 April: Pander + Vogel reported having sunk a tanker of
about 1,000 tons. Penzhofer + Schulz attacked a destroyer in the South Falls
area. The torpedo failed to release and dragged the submarine to the target,
where a collision ensued. The destroyer stood off and machine-gunned the
Seehund. The submarine escaped and made Ijmuiden on 12 April.
11 April: East of Dungeness a Seehund attacked convoy UC63B,
damaging the freighter Pat Wyndham, 8,580 gross tons. The same day the attacker
was sunk by ML 632.
U-5071 (Hullmann + Schiffer) was heading for home when
attacked from the air. Splinters damaged the torpedo warhead, which did not
explode, and the boat made Ijmuiden on 12 April.
U-5070 (Markworth + Spalleck) discovered a destroyer
escorting a refrigerator ship of about 3,000–4,000 gross tons off Dungeness
near buoy C6. Markworth fired both torpedoes and dived immediately to 15
metres. After 50 seconds there was a deafening explosion. The Seehund settled
on the bottom at 26 metres, screw noises overhead. A four-hour long
depth-charge inferno began. U-5070 survived.
At 0828 a Seehund was seen by escort vessel HMS Guillemot
three miles off North Foreland Buoy 1. ML 586 gave chase and sank the submarine
at 1330 hrs. Later, at 1945, ML 585 sank another Seehund near the South Falls.
12 April: Two Seehund including U-5366 (Hauschel + Hesel)
headed for the Thames-Northbound and Thames-Scheldt crossing point. In U-5366
the bilge pump failed, but Hesel carried out repairs under difficult
circumstances. On 13 April Hauschel sighted a convoy. Both torpedoes were fired
and missed. The boat put into Ijmuiden at 1700 on 18 April.
Between 0758 and 1020, aircraft attacked several Seehund at
position 52°N 02°E and claimed one sunk.
At 1630 Mosquito H of 254 Squadron RAF, Wellington V of 524
Squadron and Beaufighters M and U of 236 Squadron attacked and sank a Seehund
25 sea miles west of the Hook of Holland.
13 April: Barracuda L of 810 French Squadron sank a Seehund.
U-5090 (Kunau + Jäger) arrived at Ijmuiden after finding no
targets around Dungeness and surviving a day-long depth-charge attack. During
the delivery voyages from Wilhelmshaven to Ijmuiden, the boat of Schäfer +
Wurster was sunk. The boats had sailed after being informed that 500 RAF
bombers had attacked Heligoland in waves.
14 April: Four Seehund including U-5074 (Schöne + Sass) and
U-5364 returned to Ijmuiden from unsuccessful sorties.
The losses continued. The destroyer HMS Garth sank a Seehund
off Orfordness: on 18 April a land battery at Blankenberghe sank another. A
third boat was found beached and abandoned on the 19th. The Konrad + Kaldenberg
Seehund which had sailed on 10 April began to founder after being attacked by a
fighter-bomber. Konrad was killed. Kaldenberg threw the body of his commander
into the sea intending to use it as a float in an attempt to swim for shore. On
the way he was found by a British patrol boat and rescued.
At midday on 16 April the tanker Goldshell, part of convoy
TAM 40, sank north of Ostend after a violent explosion: it could not be
attributed definitely to a Seehund.
While running for Ijmuiden a Seehund ran out of fuel and
battery power. After drifting for days the rations came to an end. The current
took the boat towards the minefields off Katwijk. On 24 April the crew, having
written their farewell messages and put the bottle into the sea, abandoned the
submarine. Wehrmacht shore personnel spotted them. Their voyage lasted ten days
and is the longest Seehund patrol on record.
On 29 April off Walcheren the steamer Benjamin H Bristow was
sunk either by a mine or Seehund torpedo. The last definite torpedoing of a
ship by a Seehund occurred on 23 April 1945 near the South Falls. This was the
Svere Helmersen. The last Seehund to be lost to enemy action was sunk in a
depth-charge attack south-east of Lowestoft on 29 April by the corvette HMS
Sheldrake.
Because of the war situation, K-Verband Command cancelled
the Seehund training programme on 27 April. Under the protection of the two
auxiliaries Frida Horn (Kptlt Hugo Holm), and Meteor, the VP boat VS 517 (Kptlt
Paul Masch), the naval trawlers KFK 203 (Lt Otto Klähn) and KFK 204 (Lt Alfired
Laon) and a few air-sea rescue boats, the training Seehund were escorted from
Neustadt to Eckernföurde and then to Grafensteen in Denmark. The Danes refused
to admit them and referred the German convoy back to Neustadt. The training
division eventually surrendered at Surendorf.
On 28 April 1945 the Dutch operations terminated, although
several Seehund continued to act as blockade breakers into Dunkirk. On 2 May
1945 four boats undertook the dangerous journey and reached the port before the
capitulation. On 6 May 1945 the German units in Holland struck their flag. The
Royal Canadian Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment of 1st Canadian Division
took over Ijmuiden. About 5,000 Wehrmacht personnel went into captivity.
The Balance
The Seehund pocket U-boats sailed 142 missions from Holland
and accounted for about 93,000 gross tons of shipping (British sources estimate
120,000 tons). They were therefore the most successful German midget
submarines. These results could not affect the outcome of the war, but if the
Seehund had been developed and operational as little as six months earlier, it
could have caused Allied shipping grave problems, particularly at the time of
the invasion of Normandy. In any case they forced the continuing use of
hundreds of escort vessels to protect convoys. The operations led to high
losses in personnel and materials. The greatest respect is due to the brave men
who accepted the challenge to fight an overwhelmingly superior enemy dominating
the sea and air.
