Unterseeboot 47

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October 1939. U-47 returns to port after sinking HMS Royal Oak. The battlecruiser Scharnhorst is seen in the background.

Unterseeboot 47 (U-47) was a German type VII B U-Boat (submarine). She was laid down on February 25, 1937 at Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel and went into service on December 17, 1938. [1]

U-47 became famous when, on October 14, 1939, under the command of Günther Prien, she managed to enter the base of the British home fleet at Scapa Flow through a hole in the defence line, and sank HMS Royal Oak.

U-47 carried out ten combat patrols and spent a total of 238 days at sea. She sank 30 enemy merchant ships (164,953 tons) and damaged eight more. She did lose a sailor, Heinrich Mantyk, overboard on September 5, 1940.

U-47 had a displacement of 761 metric tons, 865 tons submerged. She was powered by two 1400 PS (1 MW) diesel engines and two 375 PS (280 kW) electric motors. Her speed was 17 knots (31 km/h) on the surface and 7.6 knots (14 km/h) submerged. Her underwater armament consisted of four torpedo tubes in the bow and one in the stern. The deck artillery consisted of an 88 mm gun and a 20 mm anti-aircraft automatic cannon. The vessel's range was 6500 nautical miles (12,000 km).

U-47 following its 6th patrol, July 1940

1 Fate
2 Raiding career
3 Crew
4 External links

[edit] Fate

Conning Tower Art

U-47 went missing on March 7, 1941 and she was once thought to have been sunk by the British destroyer HMS Wolverine west of Ireland, but it turned out that the ship attacked there was actually the U-A, part of the Foreign U-Boats corp. To date, there is no official record of what happened to the U-47 or her 45 crewmen, though a variety of possibilities exist, including mines, a mechanical failure, a victim of her own torpedoes, or possibly a later attack that didn't confirm any kills - by the corvette team of HMS Camellia and HMS Arbutus.

Oddly, in September 2002, one of the torpedoes that the U-47 had fired off-course at the Royal Oak rose to the surface from its resting place at the bottom of the sea. The unexploded torpedo, minus a warhead, gradually drifted towards the shore, where it was spotted by a crewman aboard the Norwegian tanker Petrotrym. A Royal Navy tugboat intercepted the torpedo, and after identifying it as belonging to the U-47 63 years earlier, detonated it a mile from shore.

[edit] Raiding career

Date	Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
5 September 1939	SS Bosnia	Belgian	2,407	Sunk
6 September 1939	SS Rio Claro	British	4,086	Sunk
7 September 1939	SS Gartavon	British	1,777	Sunk
14 September 1939	HMS Royal Oak	British	29,150	Sunk
5 December 1939	SS Novasota	British	8,795	Sunk
6 December 1939	MV Britta	Norwegian	6,214	Sunk
7 December 1939	MV Tajandoen	Dutch	8,159	Sunk
25 March 1940	SS Britta	Danish	1,146	Sunk
14 June 1940	SS Balmoralwood	British	5,834	Sunk
21 June 1940	SS San Fernando	British	13,056	Sunk
24 June 1940	SS Cathrine	Panamanian	1,885	Sunk
27 June 1940	SS Lenda	Norwegian	4,005	Sunk
27 June 1940	SS Leticia	Dutch	2,580	Sunk
29 June 1940	SS Empire Toucan	British	4,421	Sunk
30 June 1940	SS Georgios Kyriakides	Greek	4,201	Sunk
2 July 1940	SS Arandora Star	British	15,501	Sunk
2 September 1940	SS Ville de Mons	Belgian	7,463	Sunk
4 September 1940	SS Titan	British	9,035	Sunk
7 September 1940	SS Neptunian	British	5,155	Sunk
7 September 1940	SS Jose de Larrinaga	British	5,303	Sunk
7 September 1940	SS Gro	Norwegian	4,211	Sunk
9 September 1940	SS Possidon	Greek	3,840	Sunk
21 September 1940	SS Elmbank	British	5,156	Damaged
19 October 1940	SS Bilderdijk	Dutch	6,856	Sunk
19 October 1940	MV Shirak	Belgian	6,023	Damaged
19 October 1940	SS Wandby	British	4,947	Sunk
20 October 1940	SS La Estancia	British	5,185	Sunk
20 October 1940	SS Whitford Point	British	5,026	Sunk
20 October 1940	MV Athelmonarch	British	8,995	Damaged
2 December 1940	SS Ville d'Arlon	Belgian	7,555	Sunk
2 December 1940	MV Conch	British	8,376	Damaged
26 February 1941	SS Kasongo	Belgian	5,254	Sunk
26 February 1941	MV Diala	British	8,106	Damaged
26 February 1941	MV Rydboholm	Swedish	3,197	Sunk
26 February 1941	MV Borgland	Norwegian	3,636	Sunk
28 February 1941	SS Holmlea	British	4,233	Sunk