Wolfgang Heyda

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Wolfgang Heyda (November 14, 1913 - Aug 21, 1947) was a German U-boat commander during World War II.

After U-boat commander training aboard U-120, Lieutenant Commander Heyda took command of U-434 on June 21, 1941, and began his first war patrol November 11 1941. Near Gibraltar Heyda would become embroiled in a great convoy battle, and find himself a victim in the battle of the Atlantic. Commander Frederic John Walker, c.b. D.S.O., commander of the 36th Escort Group sank four U-boats on his first war patrol, including U-434. Heyda was eventually sent to the Bowmanville POW camp in Ontario, near Toronto, Canada.

At Bowmanville in October 1942 an insurrection of the prisoners protesting their being shackled took place for three days. The insurrection became known as the Battle of Bowmanville. Commander Otto Kretschmer was instrumental in the rebellion having assaulted a guard, then taking him prisoner.

Operation Kiebitz, a plan to have Otto Kretschmer, Horst Elfe, Hans Ey and Hans Joachim Knebel-Döberitz escape and picked up by a U-boat, was developed in 1942 and was to be executed in September 1943. Knebel-Döberitz was the former adjutant of Admiral Karl Dönitz. The successful escape of Otto Kretschmer, a top U-boat ace, would be sensational. However, the escape plan was foiled, and Heyda made an escape via electric wires over a barbed wire fence. He then traveled 1400 km to Maisonnette Point, New Brunswick, on the Chaleur Bay where he was to be picked up by a U-boat.

Police forces in Canada and the United States started a manhunt for the escaped POW. Heyda was captured on the beach in New Brunswick, and the Canadians were waiting for the U-boat with a substantial submarine attack force. Heyda was taken to the Maisonnette Point lighthouse where Lieutenant Commander Desmond Piers of the Canadian Navy commanded the operation. There, Piers confronted Heyda who claimed to be a tourist on vacation. Depth charges were heard in the bay, but the commander of U-536, Lieutenant Commander Rolf Schauenburg, evaded the attacking ships and made it safely into the Atlantic only to be sunk six weeks later by Canadian forces.

Heyda was sent back to the Bowmanville POW camp and was eventually released as a POW in May 1947. Heyda died of polio on August 21, 1947 in the Kiel university clinic just three months after his release.

His biography is contained in the book "Silent Runner, Wolfgang Heyda, U-boat Commander" by Rodney J. Martin. ISBN 0-9740651-0-2