Black Flag: The Surrender of Germany's U-Boat Forces 1945 by Lawrence Paterson

Author:Lawrence Paterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781783469130
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
Published: 2009-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

U-boat men in temporary accommodation at one of the Norwegian concentration points, as they await orders from the British High Command in Norway. The tents were supplied from Finland. Many units were left to fend for themselves for prolonged periods of time until Allied logistics could deal with them.

The successes of 30 Assault Unit were almost astounding. They had continually been at the cutting edge of the Allied sweep across Europe, and elements crossed the Rhine with the first wave of troops in March 1945. Once over this last great obstacle before the heart of the German Reich, the various small task forces of 30 Assault Unit were assigned a more advance role by DNI, roving ahead of the main army. SHAEF objected to this, ordering that they were not allowed to advance beyond the leading troops, but local commanders of XXI Army Group chose not to enforce these conditions. By 10 April, 30 Assault Unit was arrayed as follows:

Team 4, attached to Guards Armoured Division headed for Bremen;

Team 5, covering Hanover before heading also to Bremen;

Team 6, attached to Canadian Armoured Division;

Team 7, attached to Polish Armoured Brigade bound for Emden and Wilhelmshaven;

Team 8, covering western Holland;

Team 10, covering Hamburg and the east;

Team 55, covering perceived evacuation areas for key naval personnel in southern Germany. This latter objective was also handled by Team 5, after their discovery in Hanover of the evacuation of naval personnel and scientists to the Harz mountains.

On 26 April, Team 4, led by Lieutenant-Commander Job, and numbering just over thirty men, took the surrender of Bremen, including the Deschimag Shipyards, Job himself leading the advance on a bicycle when one of his few vehicles broke down. Several Type XXI U-boats, completed and under construction, were captured, alongside a Narvik-Class destroyer being rigged for demolition in the harbour. In Kiel, Team 10 combined with the 1st SAS Regiment to take control of the battered city. They crossed the Elbe, attached to 5th Division as 13th Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, and were in Lübeck at 0600hrs two days later. Leaving a small detachment to exploit Lübeck, the remainder headed for Kiel arriving at Travemünde at 1130hrs. Within three and a half hours they were at Timmendorfer Strand, and from there reached Neustadt where they found an SS prison ship, SS Athen, crammed with six thousand prisoners. Two SS guards were executed.

On 5 May, 30 Assault Unit and the SAS Regiment entered Kiel, whereupon Team 10 immediately occupied the Walterwerke where they captured Dr Helmuth Walter, Professor Kramer and the entire staff of technicians. Despite this success, all secret papers had been destroyed before their arrival. Following the general German surrender, more naval intelligence teams would arrive to exploit the Walterwerke, including the reconstruction by the German engineers of various secret weapons systems, including the XXIIb and XXVI U-boat types, advanced torpedoes, aircraft rocket-propelled bombs and other projects. The Germaniawerft shipyard was neutralised, including the Kilian U-boat bunker, which had taken a direct hit from bombs during the night of 9 April.

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