Interesting info on battle of the Atlantic

You are welcome, Kai-Petri!

Naval-History.Net is one of my favourite sites in Internet about Royal Navy warfare. And month to month, grow in interest. Seems an authentic Enciclopedia. I sugest you search his embedded Google search machine.



Jan.

 

13 Dec, 1939

HMS Salmon (Lt.Cdr. E.O. Bickford, RN) sights a German task-force comprising the light cruisers Nürnberg, Leipzig and Köln and the destroyers Hermann Künne, Friedrich Ihn, Erich Steinbrinck, Richard Beitzen and Bruno Heinemann. The cruisers were a covering force for the destroyers who had laid mines off Newcastle. From great distance Lt.Cdr. Bickford managed to torpedo the Nürnberg and Leipzig in the central North Sea in position 56º47'N, 04º00'E. Nürnberg was hit in the bow and Leipzig was hit amidships. The damage to Leipzig was so severe that the ship was only used as schoolship after she was repaired.

Submarine HMS Salmon of the S class - Allied Warships of WWII - uboat.net

 

Capt. Hamilton Wilcox Howe of the US Navy (USN) - Allied Warship Commanders of WWII - uboat.net

Howe received the Navy Cross (citation below) for his actions on the night of 13 – 14 April 1942 in command of the Roper, when his destroyer sank the German U-boat U-85, the first German u-boat sunk off the East Coast of the United States in World War II, and the first u-boat sunk after the start of Operation Drumbeat (Paukenschlag) in January 1942. The U-85 rests in approximately 100-110 feet of water, around 14 miles east of Oregon Inlet.

 

Interesting info on the Weserübung and the RN movements 1940...

The German fleet at war, 1939-1945 - Google-kirjat

http://www.amazon.com/German-Fleet-At-War-1939-1945/dp/1591146518

 

Very cool. Great information.

 

They were lost in an area not very far from each other. It was in or near the Cape Farewell area according to the losses map at the Uboat Memorial in Moltenort.

 

On the sinking of U-415

After D-day the Royal Air Force embarked upon another set of intensive bombing raids on U-boat bunkers. These raids used not only a variety of different bombs, but also dropped mines in the harbour approaches.Consequently, there were a good number of stringent rules about manoeuvring U-boats in the port area. Some of these were so secret that they were not passed on to high ranking members of the technical staff nor to first watch officers, and resulted in at least one U-boat, U415 under Oblt.z.S Herbert Werner, being sunk right in front of the bunker. This happened during the early morning of 14 July 1944, and killed two of the crew, seriously injuring many more. Werner was due to have taken the boat and the First Flotilla´s engineering officer on trials, but failed to wake up in time. He was on his way down from his berth in the naval school on top of the hill when he saw the terrific detonation hurl two men in the air. Apparently, the engineering officer had instructed the first watch officer to take the boat out of bunker. Not knowing about the necessity to remain silent to prevent acoustic mines from being activated, he started the diesel engines instead of maneuvring with the silent motors.

From Hitler´s U-boat bases by Jak P. Mallmann Showell

 

Some nice photos from Norway..
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Hope this might be pretty big for the details...

 

The Kriegsmarine HQ where they had contacts to all their subs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwwMtLBvYAY

The Chateau de pignerolle was Dönitz´s HQ and the bunkers were full of people using Kriegsmarine Enigmas to contacts.
Perhaps Skipper knows more or visited the place? Or someone else?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIYi9hIRJy0

 

Propulsion by hydrogen peroxide V-80, the German faster below sea submarine version.

http://uboat.net/types/v80.htm

 

Just an interesting piece of info On Bismarck/Tirpitz, I think:


Bismarck-class battleship - Wikipedia

The ships were ordered in response to the French Richelieu-class battleships. They were designed with the traditional role of engaging enemy battleships in home waters in mind, though the German naval command envisioned employing the ships as long-range commerce raiders against British shipping in the Atlantic Ocean.

The sketch design for what became the Bismarck class was produced by the Construction Office in 1933 and the final design agreed 1936.[3][4] Ministerial advisor Hermann Burckhardt was responsible for the project, and he later supervised the launching of Tirpitz.

At the same time (1934), Germany was preparing to begin negotiations with Great Britain to secure a bilateral naval agreement that would effectively abrogate the naval restrictions of the Versailles treaty. In exchange, Germany would limit its fleet to a third the size of the Royal Navy. With the construction of at least two 35,000-ton battleships within reach,the German naval design staff began work in late October to lay out requirements for armament, armor, and speed.

Raeder ordered the turbo-electric engines for the new ships, but the contracting manufacturer, Siemens-Schuckert, could not meet the navy's requirements and removed itself from the project less than a month before construction on Bismarck began, forcing the navy to revert to high-pressure steam turbines.[

The displacement of Bismarck and Tirpitz was ultimately limited by the capabilities of existing infrastructure in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, rather than international agreements.

Even though Raeder and other senior naval officers envisioned using Bismarck and Tirpitz as commerce raiders against first French and later British shipping in the Atlantic, and in fact used them in that role during World War II, the ships were not designed for that mission. Their steam turbines did not afford the necessary cruising radius for such a role, and many of the decisions made for the ships' armament and armor layout reflect the expectation to fight a traditional naval battle at relatively close range in the North Sea. The disconnect between how Bismarck and Tirpitz were designed and how they were ultimately used represents the strategic incoherence that dominated German naval construction in the 1930s.

 

It was not "strategic incoherence", so much as it was a rapidly changing strategic policy. Up until 1936, France was considered the primary enemy. 1937-38, the primary enemy was swinging from France to Britain. By 1938, the primary enemy was Britain. As such, German warship design reflected this swing, as their warship designs became more focused on greater range - which can be seen in the preliminary and final designs incorporated into Germany's Z-Plan. And also was reflected in Raeder's "twin pole" naval strategy.

 

The summer of 1941 produced another boon for the British when cryptographers broke the U-boat cipher system and gained invaluable intelligence on German movements and strengths. It has been estimated that this development alone saved some 300 British ships in the second half of 1941.

From the early pages of Kiev 1941 by David Stahel

 

" Lacking any sophisticated form of bomb-sight, the Condor crews attacked their targets visually from abeam at low level, diving down to masthead height, where the guns of escort vessels were powerless to interfere. " You could hardly miss" says ( Edgar ) Petersen. " Even without a bomb-sight at least one of the bombs would find the ship provided you kept low enough". Some pilots, learning from experience that what little armament the merchant ships themselves carried was invariably mounted astern, directed their bombing runs along the length of vessels from the bow, pulling up steeply after they had dropped their bombs to avoid collision with masts.


From Hurricats by Ralph Barker