Unterseeboot 140 (1940)

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U-140
Type IID


Launch Date June 28, 1940
Commission Date August 7, 1940
Construction yard Deutschewerk, Kiel
Patrols
Start Date End Date Assigned Unit
November 20, 1940 December 17, 1940 1st Flotilla
June 19, 1941 June 30, 1941 22nd Flotilla
July 7, 1941 July 24, 1941 22nd Flotilla
Commanders
August, 1940 April, 1941 Kptlt. Hans-Peter Hinsch
April, 1941 December, 1941 Kptlt. Hans-Jürgen Hellriegel
December, 1941 August, 1942 Kptlt. Klaus Popp
September, 1942 July, 1944 Kptlt. Albrecht Markert
August, 1944 November, 1944 Kptlt. Herbert Zeissier
November, 1944 May, 1945 Kptlt. Wolfgang Scherfling
Successes
Type of Ship Sunk Number of Ships Sunk Gross Registered Tonnage
Commercial Vessels 3 13,204
Military Vessels 1 206

Unterseeboot 140 (or U-140), was a German submarine built during World War II. She saw only one combat patrol, but still managed to see action as a training boat in the summer of 1941. Built at Kiel shipyards during 1939 and 1940, U-140 was a IID Type U-boat, which meant she was too small for major operational work in the Atlantic Ocean, which was now required by the Kriegsmarine as the Second Battle of the Atlantic expanded.

[edit] War Patrol

The U-140 only had one raiding patrol, under her first captain, Hans-Peter Hinsch. He took her round the north of Scotland in December 1940 following her work-up program, and it was here she sank her first victim, twelve days into the cruise. He sank two more six days later north of Ireland before he headed home towards retirement for the boat. U-140 was docked, her crew transferred and she was converted into a training ship, designed to operate solely in the Baltic Sea, training submariners for the main U-boat force.

It was during this necessary yet onerous duty that her new captain, Hans-Jürgen Hellriedel, found himself facing a small Soviet submarine on the surface, well into the Baltic a month after the invasion of Russia. In a careful attack, U-140 torpedoed and sank her rival with his scratch crew of new recruits. Orders had been pushing U-140 further into the Baltic during the preceding months, with the hope that she might achieve just such a victory.

Following this excitement, U-140 returned to training duties, which she continued for the remained of the war without further incident, save in the final months, when she was transferred to Wilhelmshaven in a general ship of equipment and personnel to te West. It was there, on the 2 May 1945 in Jade Bay, that U-140 was scuttled by her crew to prevent her seizure by the advancing British forces. Post-war she was raised and scrapped.

[edit] Raiding career

Date Ship Nationality Tonnage Fate
2 December 1940 SS Victoria City British 4,739 Sunk
8 December 1940 SS Lawhill Finnish 2,816 Sunk
8 December 1940 SS Ashcrest British 5,652 Sunk
21 July 1941 submarine M-94 Soviet 206 Sunk

[edit] References