Wreck of U-960

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

Unterseeboot 960 was a Type VIIC U-boat laid down at the Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg in March 1941 and commissioned into Kriegsmarine service in January 1942. After spending her six months of service with the 5th Training Flotilla, the U-960 and her crew reported to Narvik for their first war patrol against Soviet convoys in the Arctic Ocean which she commenced on August 1943.

After two patrols in the Arctic during which she claimed her first two official kills, the U-960 then performed a North Atlantic patrol on her way South for duty in the Mediterranean, claiming her third kill on an American Liberty Ship enroute in January 1944. With her third patrol cut short by engine problems and her fourth terminated after she was strafed and heavily damaged in the Bay of Biscay, the U-960 departed on her 5th patrol on April 27th, bound for a new homeport at Toulon in the Mediterranean and managed to pass through the heavily defended Straits of Gibraltar without incident and made for a reported convoy which had been attacked by the U-616 and was moving Eastward.

After plotting an intercept course to the convoy the U-960 remained in close contact with the U-616 until her fellow u-boat came under intense Allied attack. Moving to the aid of the U-616 the U-960 arrived onscene too late to prevent the loss of U-616 and the capture of her crew but nonetheless sighted the disbanding hunter-killer group of Destroyers and sent a spread of torpedoes at the ships. Betraying her own position and failing to score a hit, the U-960 was pounced on by the American Destroyers USS Niblack (DD-424) and USS Ludlow (DD-438) who were soon joined in their hunt for the deep and silent running U-960 by fellow Destroyers USS Woolsey (DD-437), USS Madison (DD-425) and USS Benson (DD-421) later in the afternoon of May 18th.

With the hunt lasting into the night, the U-960 chanced a resurfacing to recharge her batteries and have her crew effect damage control on the sub from US depth charges. While surfaced, the sub was picked up by the radar system aboard British anti-submarine patrol aircraft at 02:40hrs on May 19th, which quickly relayed the sub's position to the Destroyers Niblack and Ludlow. Racing to investigate, the Destroyers found the trail of bubbles left by the diving U-960 and quickly picked her up on their sonar’s as she dove for deep water. Unleashing several accurate strings of depth charges, the Destroyers forced the U-960 to the surface after her depth control machinery was damaged. Taken under fire from the Destroyers as she broke the surface, the U-960 was near-missed by several bombs dropped by circling British aircraft before she again submerged and made for deep water. The Destroyer Niblack quickly closed over the U-960 and laid ten more depth charges directly on top of her, which proved too much for the sub to handle.

Brought to the surface for the final time by an emergency ballast blow, the crew of the U-960 abandoned their rapidly sinking submarine as its hull was peppered with rounds from both Destroyers. Only 20 of her crew of 51 managed to get off the U-960 before she went down bow-first at this location on May 19th, 1944.


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