The operations of German submarines (submarines) during the Second World War are closely associated with the name of Karl Doenitz. In World War I, he served on a cruiser and took part in battles, then he was transferred to the submarine fleet. In 1918 he commanded the submarine "UB-68", operating in the Mediterranean, but in October of the same year he was captured when his boat sank during the attack of an enemy convoy. When Hitler, who came to power, began to revive the submarine fleet in 1935, Doenitz became commander of the submarine forces. In October 1939 he was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral. In early 1943, with the retirement of the commander of the German Navy, Admiral Raeder, Doenitz succeeded him, but retained the post of commander of the submarine forces and even transferred the submarine headquarters to Berlin in order to personally control the actions of the submarine.
Doenitz was convinced that the Battle of the Atlantic was vital to Germany's victory in World War II, and was invariably opposed to the use of German boats in areas he considered of little value to victory in the Atlantic. And only when the Germans had boats with a long cruising range, and their losses in boats in the Atlantic became unacceptably high, Doenitz agreed to the operation of German submarines in the Indian Ocean. This chapter of the history of the submarine war of the Second World War is devoted to this material, information for which the author obtained from a number of sources, including the work of M. Wilson “The War of the Submariners. Indian Ocean - 1939-1945 . At the same time, geographical names are given that were in use during the described period of time.
THE THOUGHT IS GIVEN A STROKE
The idea concerning the actions of German submarines far in Asia was first considered in November 1939. Since the then German boats did not have a cruising range that allowed them to operate even near the Cape of Good Hope, Admiral Raeder suggested that Hitler turn to Japan with a request to provide the Germans with several Japanese boats for waging a war against England in the Far East. After a short thought, the Japanese replied to this proposal simply: "There will be no boats."
In mid-December 1941, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the issue of delimiting the areas of operation of the German and Japanese navies in the Indian Ocean was discussed in Berlin. The Japanese wanted the border to run along an east longitude of 70 degrees, the Germans, suspicious of Japan's ambitious territorial plans in Asia, proposed making a diagonal line of demarcation across the entire ocean, from the Gulf of Aden to Northern Australia. In the end, in an agreement of January 18, 1942 between Germany, Italy and Japan, a line along the east longitude of 70 degrees was fixed - with the proviso that "military operations in the Indian Ocean can be conducted - if the situation so requires - outside the agreed border."
"WHITE BEAR" PUNCHES
By the end of 1942, the anti-submarine activities of the Anglo-American allies made patrolling of German boats off the coast of the United States and in the Central Atlantic very dangerous, and little by little the Germans began to send large submarines to patrol in the Freetown area, then in the Congo area and then to the Cape of Good Hope.
The first four boats (U-68, U-156, U-172 and U-504, all IXCs) sent to the Cape of Good Hope were known as the Polar Bear group. While the boats were still on their way to the patrol area, U-156 sank the British liner Laconia, which, among more than 2,700 passengers, carried 1,800 Italian prisoners of war and their Polish guards. The commander of the German submarine organized a rescue operation, to which he attracted the Italian submarine Capitano Alfredo Cappellini, which was patrolling off the coast of the Congo, but this was prevented by an American plane that dropped several bombs on the U-156, which was towing four lifeboats and hung out a big red cross. The German boat was partially damaged, and she had to return to France, and her place in the group was taken by U-159.
The named case of U-156 took place in the Atlantic Ocean, and it gives an idea of the problems faced by German boats detached from their bases. In addition, it was after the unsuccessful operation of U-156 to rescue the surviving passengers of the English liner that Admiral Doenitz issued an order forbidding submariners to pick up surviving sailors and passengers from enemy ships and ships sunk by the Germans. After the war, at the Nuremberg trials, Admiral Doenitz was accused of this order.
The boats of the "Polar Bear" group began their attacks in the Cape Town area and sank 13 enemy ships in three days, but later strong storms and poor visibility prevented them from hunting for new targets. In this regard, two submarines, without spending a set of torpedoes, began to return to their base in France, and U-504 and U-159 headed east to Durban, sunk several ships there and also returned to France. These actions of the "Polar Bear" group were one of the most successful operations of German submariners in World War II: four boats sank a total of 23 ships off the coast of South Africa and 11 more ships in the transition to and from the war zone. To this figure it is worth adding three ships sunk by U-156, which did not manage to complete the task to the end.
SECOND WAVE
In the second half of October 1942, four new German boats came to the coast of South Africa (U-177, U-178, U-179 and U-181, all of the IXD2 type), which, in comparison with the IXC boats, had greater length, displacement and sailing range. Formally, these boats were not part of the "Polar Bear" group, and their task was to round the Cape of Good Hope and operate eastward in the Indian Ocean, putting continuous pressure on the enemy's limited anti-submarine resources in the area.
The first to appear in the designated area was U-179, which on the same day sank an English ship 80 miles south of Cape Town, but was itself attacked by an English destroyer, who arrived in the area to provide assistance to the ship's crew members in the water, and died. The most successful of these four boats was U-181 under the command of V. Lut. When the boat returned to Bordeaux on January 18, 1943, a scanty note appeared in its logbook: “In total, the boat was at sea for 129 days and covered 21,369 miles. In the Cape Town – Lawrence – Markish area, 12 vessels with a total displacement of 57,000 tons were sunk”.
A few words should be said about the German submarine base in Bordeaux, which, along with other bases on the Atlantic coast of France, went to the victors after the latter was defeated in 1940. The base was located 60 miles from the sea up the Gironde River and was located along one of the bodies of water not flooded by the tide; the entrance to the reservoir from the river was carried out through two parallel locks, which were the most vulnerable element of the system. The base had 11 shelters, where 15 closed berths (including three dry docks) were equipped for submarines. The size of the structures can be judged by the fact that the bomb-proof roof was more than 3 m thick. The German 12th Submarine Flotilla in Bordeaux shared its base with Italian submariners commanded by Admiral A. Parona.
At the beginning of 1943, five boats of the Seal group left France for the Indian Ocean, which returned to base in early May, reporting the sinking of 20 ships and damage to two more - in general, about half that of the Polar Bear group.
When the Seal group left the designated area, the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci arrived there from France, which torpedoed the Empress of Canada troop transport during the crossing, and then added five more ships to it on patrol. On May 23, 1943, a boat returning to Bordeaux at the entrance to the Bay of Biscay was sunk by the British.
By June 1943, there were six German submarines on patrol in the Indian Ocean, including U-181, which was on its second patrol in the area. At the end of June, German boats were refueled from the tanker Charlotte Schlieman; it happened 600 miles south of Mauritius, in an area far from traditional shipping lanes and unlikely to be visited by enemy aircraft. The boats that had received additional fuel and supplies from the tanker now had to stay at sea not for 18 weeks, as planned when they left Bordeaux, but for six months, 26 weeks. After restocking, U-178 and U-196 went hunting in the Mozambique Channel, and U-197 and U-198 went to the area between Laurenzo Markish and Durban. V. Lut, who by this time had become a corvette captain and a knight's cross with oak leaves and swords, led his U-181 to Mauritius.
U-177 was assigned to an area south of Madagascar where the Germans believed that enemy aircraft activity was minimal, making it easier for U-177 to use the small Fa-330 single-seat helicopter known as the Bachstelze. To be precise, the Bachstelze was a gyroplane that was lifted into the air by a three-bladed rotor that rotated under the pressure of air and the forward motion of the boat. The device was attached to the rear of the boat's wheelhouse with a cable about 150 m long and rose to a height of about 120 m. The observer in his place surveyed the horizon at a much greater distance - about 25 miles - compared to about 5 miles when observed from the conning tower of the boat, and reported on the phone about everything noticed. Under normal conditions, the apparatus was lowered down, disassembled and covered in two waterproof containers located behind the wheelhouse; it was not an easy job, which took about 20 minutes. On August 23, 1943, a Greek steamer was seen from Bachstelze, after which a Greek steamer was attacked and sunk by a submarine, which was the only known case of the successful use of this unusual machine. The British did not know about the existence of this novelty for another 9 months, until in May 1944 the German submarine U-852 was thrown on the coast of the Horn of Africa, and then they were able to inspect the remains of the damaged hull with the gyroplane hidden in it.
In August 1943, five of the six German boats operating in the Indian Ocean began to return to France, and the sixth (U-178) headed for Penang. Submarines U-181 and U-196 arrived in Bordeaux in mid-October 1943, having spent 29 and a half weeks and 31 and a half weeks at sea, respectively. These two patrols demonstrated the high fighting spirit of the crews of both boats and the outstanding leadership of their commanders. The commander of U-181 V. Luth, based on his own experience, even prepared a small report in which he revealed his methods of maintaining the morale of the crew. In addition to the usual competitions and tournaments for sailing boat crews, he, in particular, promoted the idea of granting “leave on board,” in which a member of the boat's crew was relieved of all duties, except for alarm actions.
Meanwhile, off the coast of South Africa, Italian submarine Ammiraglio Cagni was carrying out its second patrol in the area; she had been at sea for 84 days and managed to attack and severely damage the English cruiser, but then news of Italy's surrender came, and the boat headed for Durban, where her crew was interned.
ZADUL UNKIND "MUSSON"
Back in December 1942, the Japanese offered their Penang base for basing German submarines, from which they could operate in the Indian Ocean. In the spring of 1943, the Japanese again raised this issue and additionally asked to give them two German boats for the purpose of their subsequent copying. Hitler agreed to the transfer of the boats in exchange for a supply of rubber. Admiral Doenitz, in turn, understood that the time had come to expand the geography of the German submarine forces, and the best result could be achieved by a surprise attack in the northern Indian Ocean, which was becoming a new battlefield for the Germans, where Japanese boats carried out only a few patrols. Such an attack could not have been carried out until the end of September, that is, until the end of the southeast monsoon; it was planned that for this purpose from Europe will be sent from six to nine boats.
Nine type IXC submarines of the Monsoon group left their bases in Europe in late June - early July 1943 and headed for the Indian Ocean. During the transition, while still in the Atlantic, three of them were sunk by enemy aircraft, and the fourth, due to technical problems, had to return to Bordeaux. One of the sunken boats was a U-200, carrying several commandos from the Brandenburg division who were to be landed in South Africa, where they were to incite the Boers to march against the British. The other five boats of the group proceeded south, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean, where, in the area south of Mauritius, they refueled from a German tanker sent from Penang and separated, sailing to designated areas.
U-168 initially went to the Bombay area, torpedoed and launched an English steamer and destroyed six sailing ships with artillery fire, after which it went to the Gulf of Oman, but did not achieve success there and arrived in Penang on November 11. U-183 patrolled the area between the Seychelles and the African coast to no avail, arriving in Penang in late October. U-188 operated at the Horn of Africa at the end of September and destroyed an American ship with torpedoes. A few days later, she made an unsuccessful attempt to attack a convoy leaving the Gulf of Oman. Moreover, the failure of the attack, according to the Germans, happened due to the deterioration in connection with the tropical heat of the state of the batteries on the torpedoes, which had an electric drive. U-188 then passed the west coast of India and arrived in Penang on 30 October. As a result, the U-532 submarine at that time became the most successful submarine of the "Monsoon" group, sinking four enemy ships off the western coast of India and damaging one more. At the same time, fate was not favorable to U-533, which, after refueling from Mauritius, left the Gulf of Oman, where it was destroyed by an English plane that dropped four depth charges on the boat.
As M. Wilson writes, “the results of the actions of the Monsoon group were disappointing. Nine boats and one submarine tanker were sent on the campaign, of which four were sunk, and the fifth returned to the base … The submarine tanker was damaged and returned to the base, the replacement boat was sunk. After spending four months at sea, only four boats came to Penang, which together sunk only eight ships and six small sailing ships. This was not a promising start. In addition, the Germans faced the need to maintain and supply their boats in Penang and strengthen their new flotilla.
STRATEGIC CARGO
At the beginning of 1943, the Air Force and Navy of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition in the Atlantic made it more and more difficult for German ships and ships to try to break through the blockade and reach French ports on the Atlantic with their strategic cargo. The trip of the Japanese submarine I-30 to Europe and back with a valuable cargo pushed the Germans to consider using submarines as cargo carriers. Since the rapid commissioning of special transport boats was impossible, Admiral Doenitz proposed to re-equip the large Italian submarines located in Bordeaux and use them for transporting goods to the Far East and back.
Another possibility was considered - boats with cargo from Germany secretly get to Madagascar, where a merchant ship is waiting for them, all cargo is loaded onto this ship, and it leaves for Japan; with cargo from Japan, it was supposed to arrive in the reverse order. These desperate proposals clearly illustrate the dire need of German industry for the strategic materials that the Germans wanted from Japan. The Italians eventually agreed to use their 10 boats in Bordeaux as transports to and from the Far East, but two of the dozen were lost before work began on their conversion. It was assumed that using the space where the stock of torpedoes was located, the boat would be able to carry up to 60 tons of cargo, but in reality it turned out twice as much. During the re-equipment, the opportunity was found to take on board the boat an additional 150 tons of fuel. On the bridge and in the wheelhouse, part of the equipment was dismantled, in particular the combat periscope. Instead, they installed equipment signaling the irradiation of the enemy's radar boat.
After finishing the refitting and picking up the cargo, the first two Italian boats departed to the Far East in May 1943, but were soon lost. The next three boats were more successful and reached Singapore by the end of August. The first to appear there was the Commandante Alfredo Cappelini submarine - after a 59-day stay at sea, there were almost no supplies left on it, the superstructure and hull were damaged by bad weather in the area south of the African continent, and there were many problems with the equipment of the boat. After completing the repair work, the submarine went to Batavia, where it was to be loaded with 150 tons of rubber and 50 tons of tungsten, opium and quin. Two other boats had to transport the same cargo. By this time, there were already doubts about Italy's ability to continue the war, and the Japanese in every possible way delayed the departure of the boats to Europe. As soon as it became known about the surrender of Italy, the crews of all three boats were taken prisoner by the Japanese and sent to the camps, where there were already thousands of British and Australian prisoners of war. Italians received the same meager rations and suffered the same ill-treatment as their recent opponents.
After lengthy negotiations between the Germans and the Japanese, these Italian boats were taken by the Germans; the same end befell the rest of the Italian submarines still in Bordeaux. One of them, Alpino Attilio Bagnolini, became UIT-22 and went to sea with a German crew only in January 1944. British aircraft sank it 600 miles south of Cape Town.
SPECIAL JAPANESE RELATIONS
It was already mentioned above that the submarines that remained intact from the first wave of the "Monsoon" in the fall of 1943 came to Penang, where close communication of the Germans began, sometimes exclusively in English. The almost unnatural relationship between the Japanese Navy and the ground forces was of great interest to the German crews.
Once, when several German submarines were stationed in the port, a strong explosion occurred in the bay - a ship with ammunition took off. Unwittingly, the Germans rushed to pull the wounded Japanese sailors out of the water and prepare medicines to help. The Germans were shocked by the demand of angry Japanese naval officers to leave the scene. Equally astonishing was the fact that the rest of the Japanese officers and sailors stood indifferently on the shore and looked at the burning remains of the ship. One of the Japanese officers literally flew into a rage because the German sailors ignored the order and continued to pull the badly burned Japanese out of the water. A senior German officer was summoned to the office of the Japanese admiral, who explained to him that the incident had happened to a ship belonging to the ground forces, therefore, ground troops were obliged to deal with the wounded and bury the dead. There is no reason for the Navy to interfere in this matter unless specifically requested by their Army counterparts.
In another case, a German submarine U-196 arrived in Penang, which, having left Bordeaux, carried out a patrol in the Arabian Sea and ended the campaign after staying at sea for almost five months. The boat was awaited by the Japanese admiral and his headquarters, as well as the crew members of the German boats in the bay. It was pouring rain, a strong wind was blowing towards the sea, which, in combination with the current, led to the boat being carried away from the pier. Finally, from the submarine, they managed to throw the bow rope to one of the German sailors on the shore, who secured it to the nearest bollard. To the amazement of the Germans, a nearby soldier of the ground forces approached the bollard and calmly threw the rope into the sea. The boat made another attempt to land, this time successfully, but the Germans were surprised that the admiral did not react to what had happened. Later the Germans learned that that part of the pier with the ill-fated bollard belonged to the ground forces; as for the private who participated in the incident, he knew one thing: not a single naval ship, Japanese or German, has the right to use this bollard.
AND LACK OF TORPEDES
At the end of 1943, Doenitz sent another group of submarines to the Far East, of which three were destroyed by enemy aircraft back in the Atlantic; only U-510 reached Penang, which managed to sink five merchant ships on a short patrol in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. At the beginning of 1944, the Germans seriously worsened the situation with refueling boats with fuel from surface tankers, since the British destroyed one tanker in February, and the second, Brake, in February. The successful actions of the British were a direct result of the decryption of the coded radio messages of the Germans. Heading to Europe from Penang, the U-188 submarine managed to refuel from Brake, which came under the fire of the guns of the British destroyer, but could not protect the tanker, since it had previously used up the torpedo supply to destroy six enemy merchant ships, and went under water. On June 19, 1944, U-188 arrived in Bordeaux, becoming the first of the Monsoon boats to return to France with a cargo of strategic materials.
The biggest problem for German submariners in the Far East was the lack of torpedoes; Japanese-made torpedoes were too long for German torpedo tubes. As a temporary measure, the submariners used torpedoes removed from armed German raiders in the area. At the beginning of 1944, Doenitz sent two new VIIF-class submarines to Penang, each of which transported 40 torpedoes (35 inside the boat, and 5 more on deck in watertight containers). Only one boat (U-1062) reached Penang, the second (U-1059) was sunk by the Americans west of the Capo Verde Islands.
At the beginning of February 1944, Doenitz sent another 11 boats to the Far East, one of which was the "veteran" (already the third voyage!) U-181. The boat safely reached Penang in August, having managed to sink four ships in the Indian Ocean and twice elude the enemy. The first time the boat was on the surface, it was discovered by an amphibious aircraft, after which it was hunted for six hours by British aircraft and a sloop, who threw depth charges at the boat. Then, already on the way to Penang, at night, on the surface, the Germans noticed on the starboard side the silhouette of an English submarine, which made an urgent dive. U-181 immediately reversed course and left the area, and the British submarine Stratagem was unable to find a target in the periscope.
Submarine U-859, which spent 175 days at sea and was killed near Penang by a torpedo from the British submarine Trenchant, is noteworthy. The boat leaving Kiel circled Iceland from the north and sank a ship under the flag of Panama that had lagged behind the convoy at the southern tip of Greenland, after which it went south. In tropical waters, the temperatures on board the boat became unbearably high, in stark contrast to the early days of the voyage, when the boat rarely exceeded 4 degrees Celsius. At the Cape of Good Hope, the boat got into a storm with a force of 11 points, and after that, southeast of Durban, it was attacked by an English plane, which dropped five depth charges on it. On a patrol in the Arabian Sea, she sank several ships, and then went to Penang …
At the end of 1944 - beginning of 1945, of the German boats that came to the Far East, only two were combat-ready - U-861 and U-862, and eight more boats were being serviced, repaired or loaded for sailing back to Europe. Submarine U-862, leaving Penang, reached the northern coast of New Zealand, circled Australia, sinking one ship near Sydney on Christmas Eve 1944 and another near Perth in February 1945, and returned to base. This patrol is considered the farthest for all German submarines.
On March 24, 1945, U-234 (type XB) left Kiel for the Far East, carrying 240 tons of cargo, including 30 tons of mercury and 78 tons of radioactive uranium oxide (this fact was kept secret for many years), and three important passengers - General of the Luftwaffe (the new German air attaché in Tokyo) and two Japanese senior naval officers. Due to problems with the radio, Doenitz's order to return was accepted by the boat only on May 8, when she was far in the Atlantic. The boat commander chose to surrender to the Americans. Not wanting to be included in the list of surrendered prisoners, the Japanese went to bed after taking an excessive dose of luminal; the Germans buried them at sea with all military honors.
When it became known about the surrender of Germany, there were six German submarines in Japanese ports, including two former Italian ones. The boats lowered the German flag, then the Japanese introduced them into the combat strength of their Navy. Two Italian-built boats had the dubious honor of serving alternately to Italy, Germany and Japan.
From a statistical point of view, the fighting of German and Italian submarines in the Indian Ocean was not a big success. The Germans and Italians sank more than 150 enemy ships with a total displacement of about a million tons. Losses - 39 German and 1 Italian submarine. In any case, the confrontation in the Indian Ocean for Germany was not "a battle that wins a war." Rather, it was intended to divert enemy forces (especially aviation), which in other areas could be used with much greater effect.
