German submarine U-303

U-Boat Infobox
type=VIIC
fieldpost number=
yard number=
order date=
keel=June 14, 1941
launch=May 16, 1942
commission=July 7, 1942
yard=Flenderwerft, Lübeck
U-Boat Patrol
startdate=Start Date
enddate=End Date
assigned unit=Assigned Unit
U-Boat Patrol
startdate=December 31, 1942
enddate=March 8, 1943
assigned unit=8th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=April 1, 1943
enddate=April 15, 1943
assigned unit=7th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=May 21, 1943
enddate=May 21, 1943
assigned unit=29th FlotillaU_Boat Command
startdate=July, 1942
enddate=May, 1943
name=Kptlt. Karl-Franz Heine
U_Boat Sink
type=Type of Ship Sunk
total=Number of Ships Sunk
tonnage=Gross Registered Tonnage
U_Boat Sink
type=Commercial Vessels
total=1
tonnage=4,959
U_Boat Sink
type=Military Vessels
total=None
tonnage=0

Unterseeboot 303 (usually abbreviated to U-303) was a German U-boat built during World War II. She saw service in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and sank one frighter of 5,000 tons in her three short and uneventful war patrols. Built in 1941 and 1942 at Lübeck, "U-303" was a VIIC type submarine, capable of lengthy ocean patrols and of operating in distant environments.

War Patrols

She departed Kiel under her captain Kptlt Karl-Franz Heine on New Year's Day 1942 and moved to Lorient after a two an a half month cruise. The spring of 1943 was the turning point for the Second Battle of the Atlantic, and targets were getting harder and harder to come by for German units, and "U-303" was no exception, managing to sink only one ship, the 5,000 ton American cargo ship SS "Expositor". Her second patrol was uneventful and very brief, simply a fourteen day passage between Lorient and La Spezia in Italy, where she was to join a new flotilla operating in the Mediterranean.

From La Spezia she moved to Toulon in occupied France, from where she was to operate against British shipping aiding in operations following the evacuation of Tunisia. On her first attempt to do this, on the 21 May 1943 she exited Toulon harbour on the surface and ran straight into the British submarine HMS "Sickle", which torpedoed the U-boat before escaping. "U-303" began to settle and list, and Heine ordered an immediate evacuation into life rafts which eventually carried the surviving crew to the French coast ten miles away. Ten sailors were less lucky, having been killed in the torpedo impact, and went down with their boat.

Raiding career

References

* Sharpe, Peter, "U-Boat Fact File", Midland Publishing, Great Britain: 1998. ISBN 1-85780-072-9.
* [http://www.uboat.net/boats/u303.htm U-boat.net webpage for "U-303"]

See Also: List of U-boats