Unterseeboot 238

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U-238
Type VIIC


Launch Date January 7, 1943
Commission Date February 20, 1943
Construction yard Germaniawerft, Kiel
Patrols
Start Date End Date Assigned Unit
No Patrols 5th Flotilla
September 5, 1943 October 8, 1943 1st Flotilla
November 11, 1943 December 12, 1944 1st Flotilla
January 27, 1944 February 9, 1944 1st Flotilla
Commanders
February, 1943 February, 1944 Kptlt. Horst Hepp
Successes
Type of Ship Sunk Number of Ships Sunk Gross Registered Tonnage
Commercial Vessels 4 23,048
Military Vessels None 0

Unterseeboot 238 (usually abbreviated to U-238) was a German Type VIIC submarine of the Kriegsmarine built for service in the Second World War. She was built during 1942 by Germaniawerft of Kiel, and she was commissioned February 20, 1943, with Oberleutnant zur See Horst Hepp in command. Hepp commanded her for her entire career, receiving a promotion to Kapitänleutnant in the process.

She was a successful if short lived boat, sinking four freighters and damaging another during her operations against Allied convoys in the Second Battle of the Atlantic. She had the misfortune, however, of serving at the turning point of the war, when allied countermeasures were taking a heavy toll on the U-boat force. She conducted three war patrols, beginning in September 1943, following her warm up trials in the Baltic Sea.

[edit] War Patrols

The first patrol of the U-238 was conducted from Trondheim in Norway as part of the 1st U-flotilla, and entailed the submarine exiting the North Sea via the Denmark Strait and operating against Allied shipping in the supposed "air cover gap" in the Central Atlantic, where Allied aircraft were unable to effectively operate against German U-boats. This first patrol was by far the most successful of U-238's patrols, as on the 20 September, it attacked a large convoy, sinking one 7,000-ton cargo ship and damaging another. This was followed by three more victims on the 23 September, when two Norwegian ships and a British freighter were sunk from the same convoy.

The U-238's second patrol was less successful, as two weeks after leaving Brest, France she was attacked by Avenger aircraft from the escort carrier USS Bogue, whose rockets killed two crew and wounded five more, prompting the submarine to return to Brest with severe damage which put it out of service for a month. It was during this patrol that the submarine captured two British Royal Air Force personnel, whose Vickers Wellington bomber had been shot down by U-764.

U-238's third and last patrol began in January 1944, and lasted a fruitless month, until on the 9 February, when she was caught by the convoy escorts of Convoy SL.147 and Convoy MKS.38, 270 miles off Cape Clear. She counter attacked unsuccessfully and was sunk with all 50 hands by the sloops HMS Magpie, HMS Starling and HMS Kite.

[edit] Raiding career

Date Ship Nationality Tonnage Fate
20 September 1943 SS Theo Dwight Weld American 7,176 Sunk
20 September 1943 SS Fred Douglass American 7,176 Damaged
23 September 1943 MV Oregon Express Norwegian 3,642 Sunk
23 September 1943 SS Fort Jemseg British 7,134 Sunk
23 September 1943 SS Skjelbred Norwegian 5,096 Sunk

[edit] References

See Also: List of U-boats