Unterseeboot 1000

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U-1000
Type VIIC/41


Launch Date September 17, 1943
Commission Date November 4, 1943
Construction yard Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
Patrols
Start Date End Date Assigned Unit
June 4, 1944 June 19, 1944 31st Flotilla
Commanders
November, 1943 September, 1944 Kptlt. Willi Müller
Successes
Type of Ship Sunk Number of Ships Sunk Gross Registered Tonnage
Commercial Vessels 0 None
Military Vessels None 0

Unterseeboot 1000 (usually abbreviated to U-1000) was a German submarine or U-boat, built during World War II for service in the Second Battle of the Atlantic. She was completed in Hamburg in November 1943, and after working up trials was moved to Egersund in Norway in June 1944. From there she conducted her only war patrol in the waters off Norway, in the North Sea and towards the Arctic Circle, but found no enemy ships to target, retuning to Bergen without firing a shot. She did however manage to recover two Norwegian airmen of the British Royal Air Force, whose Mosquito aircraft had been shot down by U-804 two days before they were rescued from the sea.

On the 9 August, U-1000 was detailed to serve in the Baltic Sea against Soviet shipping, which was beginning to press into German waters as the Red Army advanced on land. On the 25 August, as she passed the East Prussian town of Pillau on her way to Reval, she struck a sea mine laid by the Royal Air Force. The mine crippled the submarine, which limped into Pillau in a wrecked state. All the crew survived the blast, but the boat was totally unserviceable and was abandoned in Pillau, the crew being transferred to U-3523, on board which they were all killed the following year. RAF aircraft regulaly mined German coastal waters, as they knew the routes used by German shipping, and could thus severely restrict German movement by sea with the use of air-dropped minefields.

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See Also: List of U-boats