Unterseeboot 559

U-Boat Infobox
type=VIIC
fieldpost number=
yard number=
order date=
keel=February 1, 1940
launch=January 1, 1941
commission=February 27 1941
yard=Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
U-Boat Patrol
startdate=Start Date
enddate=End Date
assigned unit=Assigned Unit
U-Boat Patrol
startdate=June 4 1941
enddate=July 5 1941
assigned unit=1st FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=July 26 1941
enddate=August 22 1941
assigned unit=1st FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=September 20 1941
enddate=October 20, 1941
assigned unit=1st FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=November 24 1941
enddate=December 12 1941
assigned unit=23rd FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=February 16, 1942
enddate=February 26 1942
assigned unit=23rd FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=March 4 1942
enddate=March 21 1942
assigned unit=23rd FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=May 18 1942
enddate=June 22 1942
assigned unit=29th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=August 15 1942
enddate=September 21 1942
assigned unit=29th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=September 29 1942
enddate=October 30 1942
assigned unit=29th FlotillaU_Boat Command
startdate=February, 1941
enddate=October, 1942
name=Kptlt. Hans Heidtmann
U_Boat Sink
type=Type of Ship Sunk
total=Number of Ships Sunk
tonnage=Gross Registered Tonnage
U_Boat Sink
type=Commercial Vessels
total=4
tonnage=13,482
U_Boat Sink
type=Military Vessels
total=1
tonnage=1,060

"Unterseeboot 559" (or "U-559") was a Type VIIC U-boat (or German submarine) of the Kriegsmarine built in 1941 at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg. She was most famous for an incident during her sinking in the Mediterranean Sea in 1942, in which British sailors seized cryptographic material from "U-559" without the German crew's knowledge. This material was extremely valuable in breaking the U-boat Enigma cipher.

War patrols

"U-559" was originally intended to serve as an Atlantic U-boat during the Second Battle of the Atlantic. On her first two war patrols in the summer of 1941, she operated out of the U-boat base at St. Nazaire against Allied convoys in the Western Approaches. During these patrols, she sank one freighter, the SS "Aguila", but was generally unlucky. For her third patrol, beginning 26 September, she was assigned to the Goeben group, which were the first U-boats to enter the Mediterranean during World War II.

In the Mediterranean, she operated from Salamis in occupied Greece, making six patrols against Allied shipping on the coasts of Libya and Egypt. During these patrols she torpedoed five Allied freighters and an Australian frigate, HMAS "Parramatta", without ever being seriously threatened herself.

The sinking of "U-559"

It was her own demise that made her most famous. On the night of 30 October 1942, a British destroyer, HMS "Petard", caught "U-559" sneaking up on a convoy off the coast of Egypt. "Petard", joined by HMS "Pakenham", HMS "Dulverton" and HMS "Hurworth" attacked "U-559", dropping depth charges which cracked her pressure hull. With four of her crew dead from the explosions and flooding, "U-559" was forced to the surface.

Convinced that their boat was sinking, the German crew scrambled overboard in panic, and neglected to destroy their codebooks or Enigma machine. The Germans were collected by British ships, and hastily hustled below decks, so they could not see what was to follow. Three British sailors, Able Seaman Colin Grazier, Lieutenant Francis Anthony Blair Fasson, and NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown, then swam naked to the abandoned submarine which was slowly sinking. They retrieved the boat's Enigma machine and the code books with all current settings for the U-boat Enigma key. Grazier and Fasson were inside the boat, searching for more cipher and intelligence material, when the boat foundered. Both were drowned.

Grazier and Fasson were awarded the George Cross posthumously, and Brown was awarded the George Medal. The Victoria Cross was considered but not awarded, for the ostensible reason that their bravery was not "in the face of the enemy". Another consideration may have been that a Victoria Cross would have drawn unwanted attention to the U-boat capture from German Intelligence.

This Enigma material they retrieved was immensely valuable to the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, who had been unable to read U-boat Enigma for nine months. The captured material allowed them to read U-boat Enigma for several weeks, and to break U-boat Enigma thereafter.

The recovery was one of several such events that inspired the fictional account of the submarine capture in the film "U-571".

There is a sequel to the sinking of the "U-559". Lt. Cmdr. Peter Keeble, in his war autobiography, "Ordeal by Water", describes a dive made on a U-boat in the Mediterranean not far from Port Said in 230 feet of water. He was informed that it was the "U-307", and that it was thought to have on board a top secret infra red sighting device. However, the "U-307" never operated in those waters. Since HMS "Petard" had taken an accurate fix on her last resting place, the wreck was easily located for the dive. Prior to the dive, Keeble was informed exactly where in the control room the secret device was located. In fact, a mock-up of the control room was made so that he could practice locating the device in the dark. That the Allies would have known exactly where a secret device would be located on a U-Boat in general is unlikely; however Brown, the third person to enter the sinking "U-559", would have seen the location of the radar device. Keeble was almost certainly fed "misinformation" to maintain secrecy, and in actuality he likely dived on "U-559". The secret device was successfully recovered, but not before two corpses were encountered: the one jammed in the ladder, making it necessary for Keeble to dissect it with his diver's knife. The other's finger ring tapped his helmet several times during his attempt to free the device, and he was obliged to push it away. He assumed the corpses were German seamen, but they most likely were the corpses of Fasson and Grazier [Keeble, Peter; "Ordeal by Water" Longmans, Green and Co. London. 1957 Chapter 8 "Top Secret Dive"] since there were no German casualties during the action that sunk "U-559".

Raiding career

ee also

* List of U-boats

References

* Sharpe, Peter, "U-Boat Fact File", Midland Publishing, Great Britain: 1998. ISBN 1-85780-072-9.
* Kahn, David; "Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boats Codes, 1939-1943'; (1991)
* Keeble, Peter; "Ordeal by Water" Longmans, Green and Co. London. 1957 Chapter 8 "Top Secret Dive"

External links

* [http://www.uboat.net/boats/u559.htm U-boat.net webpage for "U-559"]
* [http://www.ellsbury.com/ultrafassongrazier.htm Memorial page for Fasson and Grazier] {reference only}
* [http://classicdivebooks.customer.netspace.net.au/oeclassics-a-keeble.htm]