Wreck of U-183

 Second World War 1939-1945, navy, shipwreck, submarine

Unterseeboot 183 was a Type IXC/40 U-boat laid down at the AG Weser Shipyard in Bremen in May 1941 and commissioned into Kriegsmarine service in April 1942. Assigned to the Atlantic U-Boat Fleet, the U-183 made two successful war patrols to North and Central America by May 1943 and had notched two kills to her records.

Upon her return to the Lorient U-Boat pens in May 1943 the U-183 and her crew received orders to join the Monsun Gruppe, a flotilla of U-Boats operating in the Indian Ocean and Dutch East Indies against British, American and Allied merchant shipping. Standing out of Lorient on July 3rd, the U-183 and her crew sailed around Cape Horn and arrived at Penang, Malaysia 120 days later and began their Indian Ocean operations. After a refit period following her long voyage the U-183 departed on her first of two successful war patrols in the Indian Ocean in February 1944 and by the time of her departure for her third in April 1945 she had claimed a further four merchant ships sunk.

Forced to withdraw from Penang and Singapore due to the Allied advance, the U-183 received her final refit at Kobe in February before departing from Batavia on her 6th War Patrol off New Guinea. Three days out of port the U-183 was running on the surface at dawn on April 23rd when she crossed the path of the USS Besugo (SS-321), a patrolling American Submarine also running on the surface. Advanced radar allowed the US sub to detect the U-183 before it came into visual range, and her Captain remained on the surface to use his subs speed to get into firing position on the U-183.

Loosing a spread of torpedoes at the quick-moving target, the Besugo remained on the surface and prepared to attack her target with her deck gun if the torpedoes did not find their mark. As her crews anxiously waited for the order to open fire, the first of two torpedoes slammed into the U-183 and broke the Veteran U-boat into three pieces which quickly flooded and sank, taking all but one member of her crew with them to the bottom at this location on April 23rd, 1945.


uboat.net/boats/u183.htm