German submarine U-37 (1938)

U-37 docking at Wilhelmshaven on 18 April 1940
Career
Name:	U-37
Ordered:	29 July 1936[1]
Builder:	AG Weser, Bremen[1]
Yard number:	942[1]
Laid down:	15 March 1937[1]
Launched:	14 May 1938[1]
Commissioned:	4 August 1938[1]
Fate:	Scuttled, 8 May 1945 Sonderburg Bay
Raised:	Wreck broken up
General characteristics [2][3]
Type:	Type IXA submarine
Displacement:	1,032 t (1,016 long tons) surfaced 1,152 t (1,134 long tons) submerged
Length:	76.6 m (251 ft 4 in) o/a 58.7 m (192 ft 7 in) pressure hull
Beam:	6.5 m (21 ft 4 in) o/a 4.4 m (14 ft 5 in) pressure hull
Height:	9.4 m (30 ft 10 in)
Draft:	4.7 m (15 ft 5 in)
Propulsion:	2 × MAN M9V40/46 supercharged 9-cylinder diesel engines, 4,400 hp (3,281 kW) 2 × SSW GU345/34 double-acting electric motors, 1,000 hp (746 kW)
Speed:	18.2 knots (33.7 km/h) surfaced 7.7 knots (14.3 km/h) submerged
Range:	19,425 nmi (35,975 km; 22,354 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h) surfaced 144 nautical miles (267 km; 166 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) submerged
Test depth:	230 m (750 ft)
Complement:	48 to 56
Armament:	6 × torpedo tubes (4 bow, 2 stern) 22 × 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedoes 1 × 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval gun[4] (110 rounds) AA guns (2 cm FlaK 30)

German submarine U-37 was a Type IXA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.^[1][5] The submarine was laid down on 15 March 1937 at the AG Weser yard in Bremen, launched on 14 May 1938, and commissioned on 4 August 1938 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Schuch as part of the 6th U-boat Flotilla.^[5]

Between August 1939 and March 1941, U-37 conducted eleven combat patrols,^[1] sinking 53 merchant ships, for a total of 200,124 gross register tons (GRT); and two warships, the British Hastings-class sloop HMS Penzance, and the French submarine Sfax (Q182).^[5] U-37 was then withdrawn from front-line service and assigned to training units until the end of the war. On 8 May 1945 the U-boat was scuttled in Sonderburg Bay, off Flensburg.^[5] U-37 was the sixth most successful U-boat in World War II.^[7]

Service record

First patrol

U-37 left Wilhelmshaven, with Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Schuch in command, on 19 August 1939. The boat operated for nearly four weeks in the North Atlantic, returning to port on 15 September 1939.^[8]

Second patrol

U-37 left Wilhelmshaven on 5 October 1939 to conduct operations in the North Atlantic now under the command of Kapitän zur See Werner Hartmann. During this patrol she sank eight ships: four British, two Greek, one French and one Swedish, including the British steam freighter Yorkshire which was traveling with the Allied convoy HG-3, sailing from Gibraltar to Liverpool, England. Hartmann returned his boat to port on 8 November after nearly five weeks at sea.^[9]

Third patrol

On 1 January 1940 U-37 was reassigned to the 2nd U-boat Flotilla based at Wilhelmshaven. On 28 January 1940 the U-boat departed for the North Atlantic, with Werner Hartmann in command. As on his previous patrol, Hartmann sank eight ships, this time three British, two Norwegian, one Danish, one French and one Greek. Of these ships, two were in convoy at the time. U-37 returned to Wilhelmshaven on 27 February.^[10]

The crew of U-37 departing the submarine after reaching Wilhelmshaven on 18 April 1940

Fourth patrol

U-37 departed Wilhelmshaven on 30 March for Werner Hartmann's third consecutive patrol, this time around Norway. Again, Hartmann proved successful, sinking three ships; the Norwegian Tosca, the Swedish Sveaborg and the British Stancliffe. After patrolling for over two weeks, the U-boat returned to Wilhelmshaven on 18 April.^[11]

Fifth patrol

Under a new captain, Kapitänleutnant Victor Oehrn, U-37 departed from Wilhelmshaven on 15 May for a patrol around Portugal and Spain. U-37 had her most successful mission, hitting eleven ships, sinking ten of them. Three French ships were sunk, two Greek, two British, one Swedish, one Argentinian, one Finnish; one British ship was damaged. After three and a half weeks at sea, U-37 returned to Wilhelmshaven on 9 June.^[12]

The neutral Argentinian ship was Uruguay, sailing from Rosario to Limerick with a cargo of maize. U-37 surfaced and stopped Uruguay and examined her papers, then sank her with scuttling charges. Her crew of 28 were left in their lifeboats. Fifteen died, 13 survived.^[13]

Argentine merchant ship SS Uruguay, sunk by U-37

Sixth patrol

U-37 sailed from Wilhelmshaven on 1 August, again with Victor Oehrn in command. This week and a half long patrol in the Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland resulted in the sinking of a single British ship, Upwey Grange. U-37 returned to port on 12 August, but rather than head back to Wilhelmshaven, she made for Lorient in France, where the 2nd U-boat Flotilla was now based.^[14]

Seventh patrol

For the first time, U-37 began a patrol from a location other than Germany, in Lorient on 17 August, with Victor Oehrn in command once more. It was to focus on operations off the south-west coast of Ireland. Seven ships were sunk during this voyage; five of which were British, one Norwegian, and one Greek. Of these ships, one was from the convoy OA-220, the British Brookwood, traveling from Britain to the United States, two were from the convoy SC-1, the British sloop HMS Penzance and Blarimore, sailing from Sydney, Australia, to the United Kingdom. After two weeks at sea, U-37 returned to Lorient on 30 August.^[15]

U-37 at Lorient in 1940

Eighth patrol

On 24 September, U-37 departed Lorient on Victor Oehrn's fourth patrol, in which he would sail to the North Atlantic. During this month long operation U-37 sank six ships, four of which were in convoy at the time of attack, all of which were British. Five of these six ships were sailing under the British flag, while the sixth was from Egypt. The British ship Corrientes was sunk as part of convoy OB-217, sailing from Liverpool to North America. Heminge was sailing as part of convoy OB-220, also sailing from Liverpool to North America. British General was sunk while sailing as part of convoy OA-222, sailing from Britain to North America. The fourth ship sunk was the British Stangrant, sailing as part of the convoy HX-77 from Halifax to the United Kingdom. The U-boat returned to Lorient on 22 October.^[16]

Ninth patrol

After over a month in port, U-37 departed with a new captain, Oberleutnant zur See Asmus Nicolai Clausen on 28 November for operations around north-west Africa and Spain. Seven ships were sunk during this patrol; two French, two Swedish, two British and one Spanish. Of these seven ships, three were in convoy at the time of their sinking. The Swedish Gwalia and Daphne and the British Jeanne M were sailing as part of convoy OG-46 from Britain to Gibraltar. The French vessels, the oiler Rhône and the submarine Sfax belonged to Vichy France and were sunk in error. After five weeks on the high seas, U-37 returned to Lorient on 14 January 1941.^[17]

Tenth and eleventh patrols

U-37 left Lorient on 30 January 1941 to patrol off the coast of Portugal. On 8 February she spotted Convoy HG-53. The next day, U-37 sank two British ships, Courland and Estrellano. The third merchant vessel that U-37 sank on her tenth patrol was the British ship Brandenburg, on 10 February. The U-boat then returned to Lorient on 18 February after spending 20 days at sea and sinking 4,781 tons of shipping.^[18]

Leaving Lorient for the final time on 27 February 1941, U-37's last patrol took her to the waters south of Iceland. There she sank two vessels, the Greek cargo ship Mentor on 7 March, and the Icelandic trawler Pétursey on the 12th. After spending 24 days at sea, U-37 entered the port of Kiel on 22 March.^[19]

Training boat

On 1 May 1941 U-37 was reassigned to the 26th U-boat Flotilla, based at Pillau, as a training U-boat. She was transferred to the 22nd U-boat Flotilla, based at Gotenhafen on 1 April 1942, and finally to the 4th U-boat Flotilla on 1 July 1944, where she remained until the end of the war.

She was scuttled by her crew in May 1945.^[5]

Summary of Raiding History

Date	Name of Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate[20]
8 September 1939	Vistula	Sweden	1,018	Sunk
12 October 1939	Artis	Greece	4,810	Sunk
15 October 1939	Vermont	France	5,186	Sunk
17 October 1939	Yorkshire	United Kingdom	10,183	Sunk
24 October 1939	Ledbury	United Kingdom	3,528	Sunk
24 October 1939	Menin Ridge	United Kingdom	2,474	Sunk
24 October 1939	Tafna	United Kingdom	4,413	Sunk
30 October 1939	Thrasyvoulos	Greece	3,693	Sunk
4 February 1940	Hop	Norway	1,365	Sunk
4 February 1940	Leo Dawson	United Kingdom	4,330	Sunk
10 February 1940	Silja	Norway	1,259	Sunk
11 February 1940	Togimo	United Kingdom	290	Sunk
15 February 1940	Aase	Denmark	1,206	Sunk
17 February 1940	Pyrrhus	United Kingdom	7,418	Sunk
18 February 1940	Elin	Greece	4,917	Sunk
18 February 1940	P.L.M. 15	France	3,754	Sunk
10 April 1940	Sveaborg	Sweden	9,076	Sunk
10 April 1940	Tosca	Norway	5,128	Sunk
12 April 1940	Stancliffe	United Kingdom	4,511	Sunk
19 May 1940	Erik Frisell	Sweden	5,006	Sunk
22 May 1940	Dunster Grange	United Kingdom	9,494	Damaged
24 May 1940	Kyma	Greece	3,994	Sunk
27 May 1940	Sheaf Mead	United Kingdom	5,008	Sunk
27 May 1940	Uruguay	Argentina	3,425	Sunk
28 May 1940	Brazza	France	10,387	Sunk
28 May 1940	Julien	France	177	Sunk
28 May 1940	Maria Rosé	France	2,477	Sunk
29 May 1940	Telena	United Kingdom	7,406	Sunk
1 June 1940	Ioanna	Greece	950	Sunk
3 June 1940	Snabb	Finland	2,317	Sunk
8 June 1940	Upwey Grange	United Kingdom	9,130	Sunk
23 August 1940	Keret	Norway	1,718	Sunk
23 August 1940	Severn Leigh	United Kingdom	5,242	Sunk
24 August 1940	Brookwood	United Kingdom	5,100	Sunk
24 August 1940	HMS Penzance	Royal Navy	1,025	Sunk
25 August 1940	Blairmore	United Kingdom	4,141	Sunk
25 August 1940	Yewcrest	United Kingdom	3,409	Sunk
27 August 1940	Theodoros T	Greece	3,409	Sunk
27 September 1940	Georges Mabro	Egypt	2,555	Sunk
28 September 1940	Corrientes	United Kingdom	6,863	Sunk
30 September 1940	Heminge	United Kingdom	2,499	Sunk
30 September 1940	Samala	United Kingdom	5,390	Sunk
6 October 1940	British General	United Kingdom	6,989	Sunk
13 October 1940	Stangrant	United Kingdom	5,804	Sunk
1 December 1940	Palmella	United Kingdom	1,578	Sunk
2 December 1940	Gwalia	Sweden	1,258	Sunk
2 December 1940	Jeanne M.	United Kingdom	2,465	Sunk
4 December 1940	Daphne	Sweden	1,513	Sunk
16 December 1940	San Carlos	Spain	223	Sunk
19 December 1940	Rhône	France	2,785	Sunk
19 December 1940	Sfax (Q 182)	France	1,379	Sunk
9 February 1941	Courland	United Kingdom	1,325	Sunk
9 February 1941	Estrellano	United Kingdom	1,983	Sunk
10 February 1941	Brandenburg	United Kingdom	1,473	Sunk
7 March 1941	Mentor	Greece	3,050	Sunk
12 March 1941	Petursey	Iceland	91	Sunk

References

External links

• U-37 at u-boot-archiv.de (German)
• UFA Newsreel of Werner Hartmann and U-37 in 1940 (German)

See also

• List of German U-boats
• List of successful U-boats
• List of successful U-boat commanders

Coordinates: 54°55′N 09°47′E / 54.917°N 9.783°E / 54.917; 9.783