Follow
At 01.16 hours on 14th October 1939 U-47 fired a spread of three torpedoes at HMS Royal Oak and the British seaplane tender HMS Pegasus lying at anchor in the harbour of Scapa Flow, then turned around and fired a stern torpedo at 01.21 hours. U47 claimed a hit on the seaplane tender, misidentified as HMS Repulse , but one of the torpedoes apparently hit the starboard anchor chain of the battleship and both targets were undamaged.
At 01.23 hours, the U-boat fired a second spread of three torpedoes which hit HMS Royal Oak on the starboard side and caused a magazine to blow up. The battleship rolled over and sank in 19 minutes. 386 of the survivors, including the commander, were rescued by the drifter HMS Daisy II which had been alongside as tender.
Branded the ‘first great tragedy’ of the war, the sinking claimed the lives of 834 men, of the 1,234 crew were lost, including 135 boy sailors, not yet 18 years old, the largest ever such loss in a single Royal Navy action and 92 Royal Marines.
U-47, a type VII submarine, was laid down in Kiel on 27 February 1937, launched on 29 October 1938 and commissioned on 17 December 1938 under command of Günther Prien. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross First Class by Adolf Hitler. He commanded U-47 through 10 patrols, sinking 30 ships in the process.
The last radio message from U-47 was received on the morning of 7 March 1941 from the North Atlantic near the Rockall Banks. The sinking of U-47 has always been attributed to the British destroyer HMS Wolverine. What actually happened remains confusing, but accounts indicate that the destroyer kept up a sustained attack on an unknown U-boat resulting in its probable destruction. All that is definitely known is that U-47 failed to report back to headquarters after 7 March 1941.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
How did you like the post, leave a comment. I would appreciate hearing from you all. Best wishes from JC's Naval, Maritime and Military News