Black May - The Unlucky 40

"Black May" 1943 - called by some to be the Stalingrad of the U-Boat force, was one of the worst months of the entire war for U-Boat losses. Uboat.net provides most of the following information, and this is meant to be a general discussion thread, but I'll start off with some statistics below:

1 May: no recorded losses

2 May:

U-465 sunk by Australian aircraft in the Bay of Biscay

3 May: no recorded losses

4 May:

U-109 sunk by British aircraft south of Ireland
U-439 collided with...
U-659 west of Cape Ortegal

5 May:

U-638 sunk by depth charges from HMS Sunflower northeast of Newfoundland

6 May:

U-125 sunk by ramming from destroyer HMS Oribi and gunfire from HMS Snowflake east of Newfoundland
U-192 sunk by depth charges from HMS Loosestrife south of Cape Farewell (Greenland)
U-438 sunk by HMS Pelican east of Newfoundland
U-531 sunk by HMS Vidette east of Newfoundland
U-630 sunk also by HMS Vidette east of Newfoundland

7 May:

U-209 lost to unknown causes in the North Atlantic
U-447 sunk by British Aircraft west of Gibraltar

8 May:

U-663 sunk by Australian aircraft in the Bay of Biscay

9 May: no recorded losses

10 May: no recorded losses

11 May:

U-528 sunk by British aircraft south of Ireland

12 May:

U-89 sunk by British aircraft in the mid-Atlantic
U-186 sunk by HMS Hesperus north of the Azores
U-456 sank in a diving accident after being damaged by multiple British destroyers in the north Atlantic

13 May:

U-753 sunk by aircraft, HMS Drumheller, and HMS Lagan in the north Atlantic

14 May:

U-235 sunk in error by German torpedo boat T-17 in the Kattegat
U-237 destroyed in dockyard by US aircraft at Kiel
U-640 sunk by American aircraft near the Jan Mayen strait

15 May:

U-176 sunk by Cuban patrol boat CS-13 northeast of Havana harbor
U-266 sunk by British aircraft in the Bay of Biscay

16 May:

U-182 sunk by USS MacKenzie near the Madieras
U-463 sunk by British aircraft in the Bay of Biscay

17 May:

U-128 sunk by American aircraft, USS Moffett, and USS Jouett off the coast of Brazil
U-646 sunk by British aircraft southeast of Iceland
U-657 sunk by HMS Swale off Cape Farewell

18 May: no recorded losses

19 May:

U-273 sunk by British aircraft southwest of Iceland
U-954 sunk by HMS Jed and HMS Sennen in the North Atlantic

20 May:

U-258 sunk by British aircraft in the North Atlantic

21 May:

U-303 sunk by HMS Sickle south of Toulon
U-381 lost to unknown causes south of Greenland

22 May:

U-569 sunk by USS Bouge in the North Atlantic

23 May:

U-752 sunk by HMS Archer in the North Atlantic

24 May: no recorded losses

25 May:

U-414 sunk by HMS Vetch off northern coast of Algeri
U-467 sunk by American aircraft southeast of Iceland

26 May:

U-436 sunk by HMS Test and HMS Hyderabad west of Portugal

27 May: no recorded losses

28 May:

U-304 sunk by British aircraft south of Cape Farewell
U-755 sunk by British aircraft Northwest of Majorca

29 and 30 May: no recorded losses

31 May:

U-440 sunk by British aircraft in the North Atlantic
U-563 sunk by British and Australian aircraft in the Bay of Biscay



Total Crewmen Lost:
1,685

:rk::uboot:

 

Suppose its how you look at it...I tend to call it Brilliant May rather than black May..but I am of course very biased.

 

If you look at it from the perspective of Bletchley Park, it certainly is a successful month...

 

Funny you should say that, just reading Deighton Blood tears and folly and cross refferencing it with The right of the Line..RAF in ww2...and the Bletchley chapter in the first mentions your figures..and the reasons why...Good post mate.

 

Urqh, are you familiar (just out of curiosity) with the U-110 incident with HMS Bulldog?? Not to do with Black May of course but still having to do with Bletchley Park.

List of U-Boat Commanders that died that month:

Heinz Wolf
Hans-Georg Fischer
Helmut von Tippelskirch
Hans Stock
Oskar Staudinger
Ulrich Folkers
Werner Happe
Heinrich Heinsohn
Herbert Neckel
Werner Winkler
Heinrich Brodda
Friedrich Bothe
Heinrich Schmid
Dietrich Lohmann
Seigfried Hesemann
Max-Martin Teichert
Alfred Manhardt von Mannstein
Klaus Helmuth Becker
Karl Heinz Nägel
Reiner Dierksen
Ralf von Jessen
Asmus Nicolai Clausen
Leo Wolfbauer
Heinrich Wulff
Heinrich Gollnitz
Hermann Rossmann
Oda Loewe
Wilhelm von Massenhausen
Karl Franz Heine
Graf Wilhelm Heinrich von Puckler und Limpurg
Karl Ernest Schroeter
Walther Huth
Heinz Kummer
Gunther Siebicke
Heinz Koch
Walter Going
Werner Schwaff
Gustav Borchardt

 

Interesting that several of the boats sank due to "unknown causes". Losses due to combat can be correlated with allied information. But having that many get lost due to eqmt failure when not engaged in a battle?

 

syscom3,

The boats listed as missing to unknown causes were probably non-combat accidents (in which case there were no survivors to recount what exactly happened to the boat) or to mining.

Russo,

I believe May 1945 was pretty bad also, but most of those "losses" were boats that were captured by the Allies. Although the only U-Boat to be sunk by Artillery was sunk in '45 though, off the coast of Konigsberg by Russian artillery fire.

 

Urqh, are you familiar (just out of curiosity) with the U-110 incident with HMS Bulldog??

Yes mate, I think we did a thread on it a few years ago too...I sort of remember a news item a year or two ago..I think...about one of the seamen having a statue erected to honour the incident in the Midlands in UK but cannot find it at mo.l

 

(Just revisited this 'old' thread )

If you've seen the old PBS Nova documentary on Bletchley Park breaking the Enigma machine, it mentions the capture of the U-110 and its codebooks in great detail. Not sure why Cpt. Lemp didn't destroy the codes, I do know he died in the attack but he didn't even give the order apparently to soak the "red books" in water... quite an interesting story. Probably the biggest Bletchley break before the introduction of the Lorenz machine.

 

This one caught my eye:
"U-456 sank in a diving accident after being damaged by multiple British destroyers in the north Atlantic"
How do they know it was a diving accident?

 

It says that after being spotted by a torpedo plane which took off from a destroyer, the boat took severe damage on the surface from a torpedo but failed to sink. It dove below the surface and almost certainly sank due to the damage.

 

That doesn't sound like an accident to me. That's loss due to combat damage. Of course I can't think of any planes of any type that could take off from a DD in WWII. Torpedo planes were pretty much restricted to carriers and land bases. So a number of oddities in that report.

 

Oops, didn't mean the bit about the planes launched from destroyers, that was a mistake. To alleviate the confusion, here's the official report (turns out the aircraft was a Liberator... definitely NOT destroyer launched! xD)

Almost certainly sank in an diving accident on 12 May, 1943 in the North Atlantic, in position 46.39N, 26.54W, while facing the British destroyer HMS Opportune after being badly damaged by a Fido homing torpedo from a British Liberator aircraft (Sqdn 86/B). 49 dead (all hands lost). (FDS/NHB, October 1989) (FROM UBOAT.net)

 

I'd still consider that a combat loss. A hit from a Fido can hardly improve soundness of the boat and diving while being attacked or even threatened by a DD isn't exactly a peaceful activity either. Indeed a leak from the torpedo hit during a crash dive would seem just as if not more likely to me than an "accident".

I also wonder about some of the "noncombat" losses. How often were they the result of undiagnosed or unknown combat damage? I remember my dad saying that they had depth charged a few uboats (maybe). They were with convoys so they droped a few on the contact and proceeded on. No waiting for oil, debris, or bubles. Or even the uboat itself to surface with damage.

 

Coincidentally, the 1st U-Boat sunk by aircraft alone in WWII, was the victim of HMS Warspite's catapult aircraft, at the 2nd Battle of Narvik. The aircraft, a float equipped Swordfish dropped a bomb on U-64, hiding in Herjangsfjord - the only instance where a U-Boat was sunk by BB aircraft.

 

This thread got me thinking. I am aware of the trends in U-boat activity from U boat.net, great and vast amount of U Boat information there, and of Allied shipping to the UK and Europe but cannot recall ever hearing about a troop transport being hit or sunk which surely would involve large losses of lives.

Since troops were sent to North Africa rather early, before the tide of the U-boat war shifted, and even after it would seem the built up to D-Day would still have resulted in some casualties on transports. Am I just ill informed or what did happen in this regard?

A hi school girl friend of mine had a father who was paralyzed by a sniper bullet in Italy and brought home on a hospital ship but said he worried about what would happen if a torpedo hit them. He knew hospital ships were supposed to be off limits but it did not give him much security at the time.

Gaines

 

I can think of a case in which the troop ship Leopoldville (a very large ship, originally Belgian), carrying troops of the US 66th Infantry Division, was hit by U - 486 off the coast of Cherbourg on Christmas Eve, 1944. The master, 55 crewmen and 763 soldiers died in the attack and the ship was sunk. Total death toll was 819. Pretty devastating attack.

 

One of the Torch transports was also sunk I believe.

 

Torch losses of troop ships (from Wikipedia):

Dutch Troop Ship Nieuw Zeeland torpedoed 11 November by U-380. 256 aboard, 15 fatalities.
HMS Viceroy of India torpedoed northwest of Oran by U-407, also 11 November. 454 aboard, 4 fatalities.
USS Edward Rutledge torpedoed by U-130, 12 November. 15 fatalities.
USS Hugh L. Scott torpedoed by U-130, 12 November. 119 aboard, 59 fatalities.
USS Tasker H. Bliss torpedoed by U-130, 12 November. 235 aboard, 31 fatalities.

Five troop ships in total, three of them sunk on the same day by the same U-boat.