U-Boat War Patrol: The Hidden Photographic Diary of U 564 by Lawrence Paterson

U-Boat War Patrol: The Hidden Photographic Diary of U 564 by Lawrence Paterson

Author:Lawrence Paterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473884618
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2016-02-28T16:00:00+00:00


‘22/7/42: CF78, 0810 hours. Mastheads in sight…’ Out of the dawn, two mast tips emerged (above). At first they were thought to herald mercantile targets, before being positively identified as Azores fishermen. In this photograph, Lawaetz, Webendörfer and Kalbach scrutinise the distant fisherman. Moments after Haring reported to the bridge to take this photograph, the battleships HMS Nelson and Rodney loomed from the horizon heading straight for U 564.

Early the next morning, Limburg’s precise navigation brought U 564 into grid DG 2633 in preparation for the rendezvous with Mützelburg. On cue, U 203 soon coasted into sight as Waldschmidt and his three watch members climbed the tower to begin their stint on duty. As U 203 approached from astern, Teddy ordered diesels throttled down to just above neutral, enough to keep steerage way on the grey steel hull. Easing into position to port of U 564, Mützelburg’s crew broke out their small rubber dinghy, and shortly afterwards he and his chief engineer, Obit (Ing.) Heinrich Heep, were aboard U 564 and talking to Suhren and Gabler atop the conning tower.

Safe in the knowledge that they lay outside the range of Allied land-based aircraft, several off-duty seamen were granted permission to come above decks, and they clambered up the metal ladder to welcome the two visiting officers. The opportunity was taken by several of them to enjoy a brief swim in the sea, although it was still far from the tropical climate of their ultimate destination. Meanwhile the virtually incapacitated Schlittenhard had been half-carried to the outer deck and aboard one of U 564’s own dinghies, along with his meagre possessions. While Webendörfer helped him into the small rubber boat, Heep ambled down on to the deck casing and jumped into the dinghy to return to U 203, taking whatever mail had already accumulated from Teddy’s crew with him. Mützelburg, however, opted to swim, and, after briefly racing about the U-boat’s deck with Hermann Kräh and several of U 564’s own swimmers, he climbed nimbly back once more on to the conning tower to perform one of his favourite tricks:

They were playing tag when Mützelburg ran up the conning tower and dived in elegantly head-first off the top of the bridge into the water. My hair stood on end, and I said to him: ‘What did you do that for? You wouldn’t catch me doing that. It’s reckless: the boat is so narrow that with its bulging fuel tanks on the side it’s not that easy to dive across them.’ But he laughed, and told me he did it quite often, and wouldn’t be put off doing it. Then he continued on his way.3



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