German submarine U-47 (1938)

Unterseeboot 47 ("U-47") was a German type VII B U-Boat (submarine). She was laid down on February 25 1937 at Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel and went into service on December 17 1938. [ [http://ubootwaffe.net/ops/boat.cgi?boat=47 U-Boat Operations ] ]

ervice history

"U-47" carried out ten combat patrols and spent a total of 238 days at sea. She sank 30 enemy merchant ships (164,953 tons) and damaged eight more. She did lose a crewman, Heinrich Mantyk, who went overboard on September 5 1940.

"U-47" went missing on March 7 1941 and was once thought to have been sunk by the British destroyer HMS "Wolverine" west of Ireland, but it turned out that the ship attacked there was actually the "U-A", part of the Foreign U-Boats corps. To date, there is no official record of what happened to the "U-47" or her 45 crewmen, though a variety of possibilities exist, including mines, a mechanical failure, a victim of her own torpedoes, or possibly a later attack that did not confirm any kills, by the corvette team of HMS "Camellia" and HMS "Arbutus".

inking of HMS "Royal Oak"

"U-47" became famous when, on October 14 1939, under the command of Günther Prien, she managed to enter the base of the British home fleet at Scapa Flow through a hole in the defence line, and sank the battleship HMS "Royal Oak", which was in Scapa Flow in a largely unprepared state, although World War II had recently begun.

U-47's first two salvos did nothing more than sever an anchor chain. After reloading the bow tubes the last salvo of three torpedoes struck the "Royal Oak" causing severe flooding. Taking on a list of 15 degrees, her open portholes were submerged worsening the flooding and increasing the list to 45 degrees; she sank within 15 minutes with the loss of over 800 men.

Many years later, in September 2002, one of the unexploded torpedoes that the "U-47" had fired off-course during the attack on HMS "Royal Oak" rose to the surface from its resting place at the bottom. The unexploded torpedo, minus its warhead, gradually drifted towards the shore, where it was spotted by a crewman aboard the Norwegian tanker "Petrotrym". A Royal Navy tugboat intercepted the torpedo, and after identifying it as belonging to the "U-47" 63 years earlier, EOD personnel detonated it a mile from shore.

Raiding career

"U-47" had a crew of 47 officers and men during her fated North Atlantic patrol in the spring of 1941, all of whom are presumed dead.

References

External links

* [http://www.u47.org u47.org]
* [http://ubootwaffe.net/ops/boat.cgi?boat=47 U-Boat Operations]