Unterseeboot 559

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U-559
Type		VIIC
Launch Date		January 1, 1941
Commission Date		February 27, 1941
Construction yard		Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
Patrols
Start Date	End Date	Assigned Unit
June 4, 1941	July 5, 1941	1st Flotilla
July 26, 1941	August 22, 1941	1st Flotilla
September 20, 1941	October 20, 1941	1st Flotilla
November 24, 1941	December 12, 1941	23rd Flotilla
February 16, 1942	February 26, 1942	23rd Flotilla
March 4, 1942	March 21, 1942	23rd Flotilla
May 18, 1942	June 22, 1942	29th Flotilla
August 15, 1942	September 21, 1942	29th Flotilla
September 29, 1942	October 30, 1942	29th Flotilla
Commanders
February, 1941	October, 1942	Kptlt. Hans Heidtmann
Successes
Type of Ship Sunk	Number of Ships Sunk	Gross Registered Tonnage
Commercial Vessels	4	13,482
Military Vessels	1	1,060

Unterseeboot 559 (or U-559) was a Type VIIC U-boat (or German submarine) of the Kriegsmarine built in 1941 at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg. She was most famous for an incident following her capture in the Mediterranean in 1942, in which British sailors were able to seize cryptographic material from U-559 without the German crew's knowledge, which facilitated the reading of the U-boat Enigma cipher.

1 War patrols
2 The sinking of U-559
3 Raiding career
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] War patrols

U-559 was originally intended to serve as an Atlantic U-boat during the Second Battle of the Atlantic, and this was the duty she participated in during her first two war patrols in the summer of 1941, operating out of St Nazaire U-boat base against allied convoys in the Western Approaches. During these operations, she successfully sank one freighter, the SS Aguila, but was unlucky generally in these operations. Following this, on the 26 September in her third patrol, she was part of the Goeben group of U-boats, which were the first to enter the Meditteranean Sea during the World War II.

In the Mediterranean, she operated from Salamis in occupied Greece on six patrols against allied shipping on the coasts of Libya and Egypt in a direct attempt to influence the North African Campaign, which was at a critical stage in the autumn of 1941 and early 1942. During these patrols she torpedoed five allied freighters and the Australian frigate HMAS Parramatta, without ever being seriously threatened herself.

[edit] The sinking of U-559

It was her own demise that made her most famous, when on the night of the 30 October 1942 the British destroyer HMS Petard forced U-559 to the surface off the coast of Egypt, having caught her sneaking up on a convoy. Depth charges dropped by HMS Pakenham, HMS Dulverton and HMS Hurworth joined the attack, and U-559 was forced to surrender, with four of her crew dead from the explosions and flooding.

Convinced that their ship was sinking, the German crew scrambled overboard in panic, and neglected to destroy their codebooks, or the enigma machine carried on board. They were collected by British ships, and hastily hustled below decks, so they could not see what was to follow. British sailors, Able Seaman Colin Grazier, Lieutenant Antony Fasson, and NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown then swam naked to the abandoned submarine which was slowly sinking. From it they successfully recovered code books that produced invaluable information for the codebreakers at Bletchley Park working on the cracking of the Enigma machine, as well as a working model of the machine itself. Grazier and Fasson returned to the boat, and drowned when the ship suddenly sank.

Both were awarded the George Cross posthumously, and Brown was awarded the George Medal. The Victoria Cross was considered but not awarded with ostensible reason that their bravery was not "in the face of the enemy", although another consideration may have been that a Victoria Cross would have drawn unwanted attention to the U-boat capture by German Intelligence.

The recovery was one of several such events that inspired the fictional account of the submarine capture in the movive U-571.

[edit] Raiding career

Date	Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
19 August 1941	SS Aguila	British	3,255	Sunk
27 November 1941	HMAS Parramatta	Australian	1,060	Sunk
23 December 1941	SS Shuntien	British	3,059	Sunk
26 December 1941	SS Warszawa	Polish	2,487	Sunk
10 June 1942	MV Athene	Norwegian	4,681	Sunk
10 June 1942	SS Brambleleaf	British	5,917	Damaged