Hitler's Navy by Gordon Williamson

Author:Gordon Williamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Kapitänleutnant Hans Günther Lange, commander of U-711, a Type VIIC. U-711 took part in 12 patrols during the war and was sunk on 4 May 1945 by British aircraft. (Author’s collection)

Several of the great Type VIIC aces earned their Knight’s Cross, not by sinking huge tonnages of enemy merchant ships, but by spectacular sinkings of major enemy warships. Amongst these was Kapitänleutnant Hans Diedrich von Tiesenhausen, commander of U-331. Although this commander, operating in the Mediterranean, sank but two ships, his total tonnage score was 40,435. The reason for the high tonnage with just two ships was that one of these was the battleship HMS Barham, torpedoed and sunk by von Tiesenhausen on 25 November 1941. His other sinking was a 9,000-ton freighter, the Leedstown. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his sinking of the Barham on 25 January 1942. On 17 November 1942, U-331 was attacked and sunk by Swordfish torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable. Von Tiesenhausen and 15 of his crew were rescued and spent the remainder of the war in captivity.

Other warship killers included Kapitänleutnant Klaus Bargsten, commander of U-521, whose sinkings, though totalling only six ships, included the famous Tribal-class destroyer HMS Cossack and the US sub-chaser Bredon, and Korvettenkapitän Helmut Rosenbaum, commander of U-753, whose similar total of six ships sunk included the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle.

A Type VII U-boat was also responsible for sinking one of the Royal Navy’s most famous ships, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. On 13 November 1941, the 26-year-old Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Guggenberger, having just reached the Mediterranean in command of U-81, torpedoed the Ark Royal just 25 miles from Gibraltar. It was a propaganda triumph for Germany, which had in fact been prematurely claiming the sinking of the Ark Royal for some time, and a disaster for the Royal Navy, especially in light of the result of subsequent enquiries, which established that Ark Royal might have been saved had it not been prematurely abandoned.

One of the most interesting of U-boat commanders was Korvettenkapitän Peter Erich ‘Ali’ Cremer. Cremer was decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross on 5 June 1942 as commander of the Type VII U-333, the boat’s first commander having served previously on the destroyer Theodor Riedel. Cremer sank a modest seven enemy ships totalling some 36,000 tons, and was eventually given a shore posting where he commanded the ‘Wachbattailon Dönitz’. Thrown into combat around Hamburg in the last few days of the war, Cremer led a highly successful ‘tank-hunting’ unit that knocked out a significant number of British tanks during the defensive battles around the port.

Not all of the most highly decorated Type VII aces were tonnage or warship killers. Only two men in the entire Kriegsmarine were decorated with the coveted Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds to the Knight’s Cross. One, Wolfgang Lüth, was a Type IX commander, and the other, Albrecht Brandi, commanded a Type VII.

Albrecht Brandi had begun his naval career with the minesweeping branch and only came to the U-Bootwaffe in April 1941.

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