Wreck of U-801 | Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck, submarine

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck, submarine

Unterseeboot 801 was a Type IXC/40 U-boat laid down at the Deutsche Schiff und Maschinenbau Yard in Bremen in September 1941 and commissioned into the Kriegsmarine in March 1943. Taking her first war patrol to the North Atlantic from Bergen in November 1943, the U-801 spent 57 unsuccessful days at sea before she returned to her new homeport of Lorient in January 1944.

After reprovisioning and repairs, the U-801 departed for her second war patrol on February 26th, bound for the mid-Atlantic off the Azores to hunt Allied shipping. Roughly 18 days later, she took up her station and began searching for her targets, but she herself became a target on the evening of March 16th, when airborne patrol aircraft picked up the U-801 shortly after she surfaced to run her engines. The surfaced sub was promptly strafed by two planes flying from the Escort Carrier USS Block Island (CVE-21), but managed to submerge before serious damage could be inflicted. Unfortunately for the sub, the Destroyer USS Corry (DD-463) and Destroyer Escort USS Bronstein (DE-189) were vectored in to find the sub.

Managing to remain undetected for most of the evening, the U-801's sonar operator would have likely heard the two American ships moving away from their position, allowing the U-801 to rise to the surface once again so her crew could repair their battle damage and report the contact to Fleet Command. The radio message was quickly intercepted and triangulated by the US ships, and within an hour lookouts on the U-801 sighted the onrushing American ships. U-801 again dove deep, but was quickly boxed in and brought to the surface by concentrated depth charge attacks. As the U-801 broke the surface just before midnight, she was taken under fire from the US ships as her crew scrambled to get topside. Her Captain elected to remain below with his ship as scuttling charges went off and sent the U-801 to the bottom at this location on March 16th, 1944. Nine other members of her crew were lost in her sinking.


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