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Wreck of U-709

Portugal / Acores / Lagoa /
 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck, submarine
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Unterseeboot 709 was a Type VIIC U-Boat built for the German Kriegsmarine, laid down at the HC Stülcken Sohn Shipyard in May 1941 and commissioned into service in August 1942. Assigned to the 5th Unterseebootflottille at Kiel for training lasting five months, the U-709 and her crew departed on their maiden War Patrol on February 13th, 1943.

Operating out of Brest for much of the next year, the U-709 and her crew made four unsuccessful war patrols to the North Atlantic before returning to Lorient in late November 1943 for an overhaul and battle damage repairs. Returning to the fray in January 1944 with a new Captain and hopes for a change in their fortunes, the U-709 began her fifth War Patrol and made for the mid-Atlantic where she joined the 31-boat strong Wolfpack Preuessen in late February. Continuing to have no luck against enemy shipping, the U-709 claimed no kills as she and the balance of her Wolfpack attempted to attack an Allied Convoy which mysteriously kept evading their movements. Unbeknownst to the German Commanders, Allied codebreakers had decrypted the German ULTRA messages to the Preuessen Wolfpack and were simultaneously steering convoys around the U-Boats while vectoring warships towards it.

Suddenly surrounded by British, Canadian and American anti-submarine patrols, the U-709 and her crew played cat-and-mouse games with their enemy for several days before U-709 was given a chance to attack in the early morning of March 1st. While surfaced, she was in the process of lining up a shot on two American Destroyer Escorts drawn across her bows by a fellow U-Boat when starshells fired by the USS Bronstien (DE-189) brightly illuminated the U-709 for all to see. Almost immediately coming under fire, U-709 was struck with several 3-inch shells from Bronstien as her topside crew scrambled below decks, but she was able to submerge and went deep as the American ships began pinging away with their sonar. For several hours the U-709 eluded detection and survived several depth charge barrages from three US ships, however as dawn broke she was positively identified by sonar operators aboard Bronstien.

Trapped between the three ships, U-709 and her crew endured round after round of depth charging until a string from the USS Thomas (DE-102) finally caused her hull to give out. Shortly after the last explosion from Thomas’ depth charges, oil, debris and personal artifacts bubbled to the surface of the Atlantic, signifying the loss of U-709 and all 52 of her crew at this location on March 1st, 1944.

uboat.net/boats/u709.htm
Coordinates:   49°9'59"N   26°0'0"W

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  • Hans Götze (guest)
    Para saber más: http://www.u-historia.com/
This article was last modified 11 years ago