Unterseeboot 852

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U-852
Type IXD2


Launch Date January 28, 1943
Commission Date June 15, 1943
Construction yard AG Weser, Bremen
Patrols
Start Date End Date Assigned Unit
January, 1944 May, 1944 4th Flotilla
Commanders
June, 1943 May, 1944 Kptlt. Heinz-Wilhelm Eck
Successes
Type of Ship Sunk Number of Ships Sunk Gross Registered Tonnage
Commercial Vessels 2 9,982
Military Vessels None 0

Unterseeboot 852 (usually abbreviated to U-852) was a German submarine built during World War II. She became famous as the only Kriegsmarine U-boat crew to be accused, prosecuted and convicted of war crimes during the Second World War.

Built in Bremen and completed in June 1943, the boat was of the Type IX, which possessed long range cruising capabilities as well as six torpedo tubes (four bow, two stern). She was commanded throughout her brief lifespan by Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, who led her through her sea trials and out onto her first war patrol on the 18 January 1944.

Contents

[edit] The SS Peleus

Her mission involved a high level of secrecy, because she was intended to disrupt allied communications in the Indian Ocean by attacking sea lanes there, and so she had to avoid conflict on her passage so her attacks could have maximum effect in the right area. This plan was complicated however, because on the 13 March on the latitude of Freetown, she spotted the lone Greek steamer SS Peleus, and sank her with two torpedoes. What followed has been the subject of much dispute since.

The sinking Peleus left a large debris field, amongst which were a number of survivors clinging to rafts and wreckage. This field would provide unmistakeable evidence of the presence of an enemy submarine, and thus would betray the position of the U-852 to aircraft and shipping patrolling the area. Eck then controversially decided to disperse the wreckage with the use of hand grenades and automatic weapons. The question of whether this "dispersal" order explicitly or implictly encouraged the killing of the sailors in the water, or whether this was an unfortunate example of collateral damage was to be the subject of a famous post war trial.

Eck ordered his junior officers to fire into the wreckage in an effort to disperse it and accounts differ greatly as to the number of shots fired and the damage done. Surviving Greek sailors, of which there were two, reported the shooting went on for a long while and that at least four of their compatriots were killed by it. The German crew's report stated however that they had shot several short machinegun bursts into the wreckage and were unable to see their targets in the dark. The men shooting were later proven to be the ship's engineering officer, Hans Lenz (who claimed he had done so under protest to spare an enlisted man from having to do it), Walter Weisspfennig (the ship's doctor who was not supposed to be handling arms), the second in command August Hoffmann and an enlisted engineer, Wolfgang Schwender (who was under direct orders and fired very few rounds). The submarine's commander, Eck, was also present during the incident while the remaining crew were below decks.

[edit] Aftermath & Trial

The operation to disperse the wreckage was not hugely successful, but the submarine was able to evade pursuit, and managed to sink the British cargo ship SS Dahomian off Cape Town on the 1 April, this time hastily leaving the scene rather than pausing. It was just a few weeks later, on the 30 April, the boat was spotted by a Vickers Wellington bomber, flying from Aden, which managed to damage her with depth charges, thus preventing her from diving. Knowing all was lost, Eck made for the Somali coast, where his ship was beached on a coral reef while under extensive air attack from six bombers of 621 Squadron Royal Air Force.

58 of Eck's crew made it to shore, where they were captured by the Somaliland Camel Corps and local milita. Seven of the crew had been killed by the constant air attacks the submarine had endured and the survivors were sent to various prison camps to wait out the end of the war. It was in prison Lenz provided his captors with a signed confession, which when combined with the testimony of the Peleus survivors and the log of U-852, which Eck had failed to destroy, provided damning testimony. Following the war's conclusion, all the above named crew members were placed on trial for the deaths of the steamer's crew at the Hamburg war trials, an extension of the Nuremberg trials for minor war criminals. After a four day hearing, at which crew members, survivors and experts were all called, all five men were found guilty.

Eck, Hoffmann, and Weisspfennig were sentenced to death, the latter as his role as a doctor precluded weapons handling under the Geneva Convention, and thus he had no right firing a weapon even in action, let alone such an incident as this. The former were executed because in their role as the boat's senior officers, responsibility for the actions of their crew, as well as for themselves, fell directly on their shoulders. All three were shot by firing squad at Lüneberg Heath on 30 November 1945. Lenz, by virute of his protest at the time and his written confession had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment, while Schwender, the only man involved who had been under direct orders, was given seven years.

The incident is notable as it was the only case in which Kriegsmarine personnel were convicted of war crimes following the Second World War, compared to the thousands of people from the other branches of service. It is also notable and controversial, because both British and American submarines were recorded massacring survivors of their targets, such as HMS Torbay and USS Wahoo, and yet their crimes were hushed up at the time and for some years after the war, and no legal proceedings ever attempted against the perpetrators. The USSR submarine SC-215 sank with torpedeo and gunfire the Mefkure with Jewish refugees [[1]].

[edit] Raiding career

Date Ship Nationality Tonnage Fate
13 March 1944 SS Peleus Greek 4,695 Sunk
1 April 1944 SS Dahomian British 5,277 Sunk

[edit] Recent developments

As several U-boats and Japanese I-boats carried uranium oxide to Asia from France, it is worth noting that following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Somalians living along the coast near U-852's wreck developed radiation poisoning. [citation needed]

[edit] References

See Also: List of U-boats

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