Unterseeboot 550

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The Unterseeboot 550 (U-550) was a Type IX C/40 U-boat. She was constructed by Deutsch Werft of Hamburg and was commissioned on 28 July 1943 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Klaus Hänert, (born 2 January 1918; Kriegsmarine Class of 1936).

[edit] Commissioning

After undergoing training she was assigned to the 10 U-Flotille based out of Lorient, France. She departed Lorient on her first patrol on 6 February 1944. She sailed from Kiel for the North Atlantic and conducted weather reporting duties before sailing for Newfoundland and later the northeast coast of the United States.

[edit] Loss of the ship

On 16 April, south of Nantucket Island, she located convoy CU-21, bound for Great Britain from New York City. The tanker SS Pan Pennsylvania, one of the largest tankers in the world, was unwisely straggling behind the convoy and the U-550 torpedoed her. The tanker quickly caught fire and began to sink. As the tanker settled, the submerged U-boat maneuvered underneath the Pan Pennsylvania's hull in an effort to hide from the inevitable counteract by the convoy's escorts.

Convoy CU-21 was escorted by Escort Division 22, consisting of Coast Guard-manned destroyer escorts reinforced by one Navy DE, the USS Gandy, which took the place of the USS Leopold, which had been lost in action the previous month. The escort division's flagship, USS Joyce and the USS Peterson rescued the tanker's surviving crew, and then the Joyce detected the U-boat on sonar as the Germans attempted to escape after hiding beneath the sinking tanker. The U-550's engineering officer later said, "We waited for your ship to leave; soon we could hear nothing so we thought the escort vessels had gone; but as soon as we started to move-- bang!" The Joyce delivered a depth-charge pattern that bracketed the submerged submarine. The depth charges were so well placed, a German reported, that one actually bounced off the U-boat's deck before it exploded.

The attack severely damaged the U-550 and forced the Germans to surface, where they manned and began firing their deck guns. The Joyce, Peterson, and Gandy, returned their fire. The Gandy then rammed it abaft the conning tower, and the Peterson dropped two depth charges which exploded near the U-boat's hull. Realizing they were defeated, the U-boat's crew prepared scuttling charges and abandoned their submarine. The Joyce rescued 13 of the U-550's crew, one of whom later died from wounds received during the fire-fight. The remainder of the U-boatmen went down with their submarine. Joyce delivered the prisoners of war and the Pan Pennsylvania survivors to the authorities in Great Britain.

There is a grisly postscript to the sinking of the U-550. According to the Easter Sea Frontier's War Diary account of the sinking of the U-550, apparently some of the crew actually survived the sinking and were trapped in a forward compartment. They apparently attempted to escape from the U-boat as it lay on the ocean floor using their escape lungs.

At 1515 on 5 May 1944, the Coastal Picket Patrol CGR 3082 recovered a body from the sea in 39° 51' North x 71° 58' West, about 93 miles (150 km) ESE of Ambrose. The body was clothed in a German type life jacket. From the markings on his clothing it was possible that the man's name was "Hube". {Gfr. Seigfried Zube} A German escape lung was found near his body as well. An autopsy performed on the body indicated that the individual died only five days before his body was discovered -- the U-550 had been sunk on 16 April and the body was found 19 days later. Two other bodies were subsequently found. The first, picked up by another picket boat, CGR-1989, at 1730 on 11 May, was fully clothed, had an escape lung and life jacket on. He was found in a rubber raft. Identification marks indicated the man was a German sailor named Wilhelm Flade, age about 17. The body was transferred from CGR-1989 to CGR 1338 on the morning of 12 May 1944 and was brought to Tompkinsville{[1]. On 16 May a third body was sighted and picked up by USS SC-630. It was stated that the uniform and insignia indicated the victim had been a German crewman, although he carried no identification; that he had been in the water more than 18 days. {MaschtMt Gunther Heder}

The War Diary report continued:

"Further evidence is lacking to complete the apparent story of successful attempts made by certain men to escape from compartments in the vicinity of torpedo tubes or escape hatches. Curiously, the area was not entirely deserted by patrol vessels. On the day following the torpedoing of the PAN PENNSYLVANIA, a vessel was sent to the area to effect salvage operations or to sink the derelict [tanker] in order to remove such a menace to navigation. This vessel spent some time in trying to sink with gunfire the still buoyant and burning hulk of the PAN PENNSYLVANIA. No survivors were sighted during these operations. Questions were raised as to the possibility of some survivors having been able to reach the southern shore of Long Island, since the sub sank only 150 miles from Montauk Point; only 70 miles from Nantucket. Although such considerations should not be dismissed, it is doubtful that men aboard the smallest type rubber rafts would be able to cover so great a distance without being detected before they reached shore."

[edit] References

• [2] Price, Scott; Sinking the U-550
• Wynn, Kenneth; U-Boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 2: Career Histories, U511-UIT25, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), p. 27.