Wreck of U-1062

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

Unterseeboot 1062 was a Type VIIF U-Boat laid down at the F. Krupp Germaniawerft Shipyard in Kiel in August 1942 and commissioned into Kriegsmarine service in June 1943. Designed primarily to serve as a resupply submarine rather than a dedicated offensive vessel, U-1062 and her crew spent their first six months of service engaged in type training with the 5th Unterseebootflottille at Kiel perfecting their craft before standing out for Bergen, Norway in late December 1943 to prepare for their maiden war patrol.

After taking aboard a full load of 39 torpedoes and her full load of fuel and provisions, U-1062 and her crew set out from Bergen with orders to sail to Penang, Malaysia to resupply the U-Boats of the “Monsun” Group which were working in concert with Japanese forces to fight Allied forces in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Heading to sea on January 3rd, 1944, U-1062’s patrol took her North of England than through the Central Atlantic and around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean, successfully terminating at Penang 108 days later on April 19th. Remaining in Port for the majority of the next three months conducting voyage repairs and offloading her supply of torpedoes, U-1062’s crew prepared their boat for its return voyage to Europe and finally stood out for sea on the 15th of July.

Steaming largely on the surface across the Indian Ocean, U-1062 rounded the Cape of Good Hope once again and made her way into the Atlantic Ocean, which by the time of her transit had become heavily trafficked by Allied anti-submarine hunter-killer groups. Managing to avoid enemy contact through her South Atlantic Transit, as U-1062 neared the Cape Verde Islands she was picked up by sonar crews aboard a pair of US Navy Destroyer Escorts operating as part of a hunter-killer group centered around the Escort Carrier USS Mission Bay (CVE-59). Realizing that she had been located by surface units, U-1062’s crew had little choice but to take their submarine deep and rig for silent running in the hopes of evading their pursuers, however accurate sonar echolocation led the crew aboard the USS Fessenden (DE-142) to the U-1062’s position where they began raining both depth charges into the deep. Aided by their accurate sonar readings, depth charge crews were able to set depth fuses for the U-1062’s running depth, resulting in several close-quarter detonations which ruptured the U-Boat’s pressure hull and sank her with all 55 of her crew at this location on September 30th, 1944.

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