German submarine U-703

U-Boat Infobox
type=VIIC
fieldpost number=
yard number=
order date=
keel=August 9, 1940
launch=July 16, 1941
commission=October 16, 1941
yard=Stülcken Sohn, Hamburg
bU-Boat Patrol
startdate=Start Date
enddate=End Date
assigned unit=Assigned Unit
U-Boat Patrol
startdate=April 26, 1942
enddate=May 7, 1942
assigned unit=6th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=May 16, 1942
enddate=May 30, 1942
assigned unit=6th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=June 29, 1942
enddate=July 15, 1942
assigned unit=11th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=August 8, 1942
enddate=September 11, 1942
assigned unit=11th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=September 14, 1942
enddate=September 26, 1942
assigned unit=11th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=January 1, 1943
enddate=February 14, 1943
assigned unit=11th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=March 7, 1943
enddate=April 5, 1943
assigned unit=11th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=July 19, 1943
enddate=August 3, 1943
assigned unit=13th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=August 17, 1943
enddate=September 9, 1943
assigned unit=13th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=February 29, 1944
enddate=March 8, 1944
assigned unit=13th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=April 9, 1944
enddate=April 29, 1944
assigned unit=13th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=August 21, 1944
enddate=September 10, 1944
assigned unit=13th FlotillaU-Boat Patrol
startdate=September 14, 1944
enddate=September, 1944
assigned unit=13th FlotillaU_Boat Command
startdate=October, 1941
enddate=July, 1943
name=Kptlt. Heinz Bielfeld
U_Boat Command
startdate=July, 1943
enddate=September, 1944
name=Kptlt. Joachim Brümmer
U_Boat Sink
type=Type of Ship Sunk
total=Number of Ships Sunk
tonnage=Gross Registered Tonnage
U_Boat Sink
type=Commercial Vessels
total=5
tonnage=29,532
U_Boat Sink
type=Military Vessels
total=1
tonnage=500

U-703 was a German submarine deployed during the Second World War against allied shipping in the Arctic Ocean. She was a successful boat, which had a far longer service life than most other U-boats, primarily due to the restricted zone of operations in which she fought. Her main mission during the war was to target the Arctic Convoys which carried supplies to the Soviet Union from Britain. At this she was quite successful in her three years of raiding until her presumed demise in 1944.

A German Type VII submarine, "U-703" was built at Hamburg in Northern Germany on the North Sea. She was completed in the autumn of 1941, and given to the experienced Kptlt. Heinz Bielfeld to command. He took her on her working-up period in which the boat was tested and the crew trained in the Baltic Sea and around the German held coastlines, before being dispatched to Narvik in Norway for her first war patrol in April 1942.

War Patrols

Enjoying the improving Arctic weather, "U-703" had an unsuccessful patrol in terms of victims, but the boat began to work better as a team, and the second patrol in May reaped dividends, with the sinking of the 6,000 ton American freighter SS "Syros". This ship sank with eleven lives after a torpedo touched off her ammunition [ [http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1708.html uboat.net - Allied Ships hit by U-boats - Syros (Steam merchant) ] ] . The same patrol scored greater success during the disastrous end to Convoy PQ-17 on the 5 May, when she managed to sink two lone cargo ships, one of them damaged by long range German bombers beforehand. Returning to port at Narvik, "U-703" was cheered by her victory, but she struggled to make further impressions during the year, as her two further patrols yielded only one victim, the British destroyer HMS "Somali", which was fatally crippled by a torpedo near Convoy PQ-18 in September.

Following her lay-over in the winter as her home ports of Narvik, Trondheim, Hammerfest, Harstad and Bergen were all frozen, "U-703" returned to the offensive, again attacking allied convoys in the Arctic Sea. Her first two patrols, in January and April were short and barren, but on the next two in July and August 1943 under her new commander Joachim Brünner, she cruised in Soviet waters in the Barents Sea and further east, catching a small Soviet armed trawler on the first [ Which has never been successfully named by historians.] , and larger Soviet merchant ship on the second in August, sinking the SS "Sergj Kirov" near Istvestij Island [ [http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/3093.html uboat.net - Allied Ships hit by U-boats - Sergej Kirov (Steam merchant) ] ] . These patrols had shown the vulnerability to older U-boats to newer allied countermeasures and protection, forcing the submarines to divert themselves into backwaters of the Second Battle of the Atlantic in order to gain any victories.

The "U-703" continued operating in the spring of 1944, but she was obviously less efficient and was given duties deploying weather balloons in the Arctic Sea to test weather conditions for reports to other shipping,. This was in part a result of terrible damage she received off Narvik during her first patrol of the season, when allied aircraft strafed her, killing three crew and wounding three more. Just a few days before she had claimed her only victim of the year, the SS "Empire Tourist", which was sunk whilst part of Convoy RA-57.

Relegated to her new duties, "U-703" suddenly disappeared around the 25 September 1944. She had left Narvik on her thirteenth war patrol on the 14 September, in order to deploy a weather balloon in the Arctic. At the time a heavy gale was running, and it has been assumed that "U-703" foundered due to heavy seas in the course of this difficult and highly technical operation. No trace of the boat and her 54 crew has ever been found since.

Raiding career

References

* Sharpe, Peter, "U-Boat Fact File", Midland Publishing, Great Britain: 1998. ISBN 1-85780-072-9.
* [http://www.uboat.net/boats/u703.htm U-boat.net webpage for "U-703"]

See Also: List of U-boats