Wreck of U-616

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

Unterseeboot 616 was a Type VIIC U-boat laid down at the Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg in May 1941 and commissioned into Kriegsmarine service in April 1942. After spending her first year of service with the 8th Training Flotilla, the U-616 and her crew reported to Kiel for their first war patrol, which they commenced on February 6th, 1943.

Finding no luck for three War Patrols in the Atlantic, the U-616 shifted her operations to the Mediterranean Sea where she was based at Toulon in Vichy France beginning in August. Claiming her first two kills on her fifth War Patrol, the U-616 notched an American Destroyer and British Landing Craft to her record before her luck again went dry on her 6th, 7th and 8th patrols, the last two of which were considerably shortened by mechanical defects aboard ship.

Departing on her 9th War Patrol on April 30th, 1944 the U-616 and her crew made for the convoy routes off Algeria intent on disrupting Allied shipping supporting both operations in Italy and massing for an upcoming invasion of France. Finding the waters both heavily traveled by merchant and warships, the U-616 quickly began shadowing an Eastbound convoy GUS-39 which was under heavy escort. Waiting until the early morning horus of May 14th before making her first attack, the U-616 torpedoed and damaged two ships in the convoy at 0230hrs and 0305hrs before she was chased away by escort ships and was unable to complete her attack. Departing the area and hunting for new targets
along the coast, the U-616 was running submerged one day later when she was picked up by sonar operators aboard the Destroyer USS Ellyson (DD-454), which quickly moved in to attack the submerged U-boat.

Through the skill and cunning of her Captain Oblt. Siegfried Koitschka, the U-616 managed to avoid the concentrated attacks of seven American Destroyers and a slew of British Anti-submarine aircraft for three straight days before the battering of depth charge attacks and close quarter explosions proved too much for the U-616 to endure. Forced to the surface to effect emergency repairs on leaking hatches shortly before midnight on May 16th, the U-616's crew manned their battle stations and briefly engaged in a surface firefight with the crews aboard the USS Macomb (DD-458) before her damage control parties had repaired enough damage to allow her to resubmerge. Attempting once again to elude her attackers in the deep the U-616 was quickly echolocated by the Destroyers Ellyson and USS Hambleton (DD-455) and depth charged without mercy until her hull began to give out, threatening to sink the ship. Oblt Koitschka gave the order to surface the ship and sent men to arm the scuttling charges as the U-616 broke the surface. Taken under immediate fire by the US Destroyers, the crew made no attempt to fight back and instead took to life rafts as the U-616 was rocked by several internal explosions and quickly sank at this location just before dawn on May 17th, 1944. All 57 of her crew survived her loss and spent the rest of the war in POW camps.

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