German submarine U-123 was a Type IXBU-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II. After that conflict, she became the French submarine Blaison (Q165)[1] until she was decommissioned on 18 August 1959.
Type IXB submarines were slightly larger than the original Type IX submarines, later designated IXA. U-123 had a displacement of 1,051 tonnes (1,034 long tons) when at the surface and 1,178 tonnes (1,159 long tons) while submerged.[2] The U-boat had a total length of 76.50m (251ft), a pressure hull length of 58.75m (192ft 9in), a beam of 6.76m (22ft 2in), a height of 9.60m (31ft 6in), and a draught of 4.70m (15ft 5in). The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines producing a total of 4,400 metric horsepower (3,240kW; 4,340shp) for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1,000 metric horsepower (740kW; 990shp) for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two 1.92m (6ft)propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to 230 metres (750ft).[2]
The submarine had a maximum surface speed of 18.2 knots (33.7km/h; 20.9mph) and a maximum submerged speed of 7.3 knots (13.5km/h; 8.4mph).[2] When submerged, the boat could operate for 64 nautical miles (119km; 74mi) at 4 knots (7.4km/h; 4.6mph); when surfaced, she could travel 12,000 nautical miles (22,000km; 14,000mi) at 10 knots (19km/h; 12mph). U-123 was fitted with six 53.3cm (21in)torpedo tubes (four fitted at the bow and two at the stern), 22 torpedoes, one 10.5cm (4.13in) SK C/32 naval gun, 180 rounds, and a 3.7cm (1.5in) SK C/30 as well as a 2cm (0.79in) C/30 anti-aircraft gun. The boat had a complement of forty-eight.[2]
U-123's first patrol began with her departure from Kiel on 21 September 1940. Her route took her across the North Sea, through the gap between the Faroe and Shetland Islands and into the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland. She sank six ships in October, including Shekatika which was hit with no less than five torpedoes before she went to the bottom east southeast of Rockall. Nevertheless, her partial load of pit-props floated free before she went down.
The boat docked at Lorient in occupied France on 23 October.
Second patrol
U-123 returned to the same general area for her second patrol as for her first. She was also almost as successful, sending another five merchantmen to the bottom. The voyage was marred on 17 November 1940 when Mechanikergefreiter Fritz Pfeifer was lost overboard. After sinking the British convoy straggler, the ore-carrier SS Cree (torpedoed and sunk with the loss of all hands on 21 November) the boat was seriously damaged on 3 November by a collision with an unknown object ("probably a convoy vessel").
She returned to Lorient on 28 November.
Third patrol
Her score rose steadily, sinking another four ships. One, Grootekerk, was sunk after a nine-hour chase about 330nmi (610km; 380mi) west of Rockall. There were no survivors.
Fourth patrol
Venturing further west of Ireland on her fourth sortie, the boat sank one ship, Venezuela on 17 April 1941. This was another vessel which required five torpedoes to ensure her destruction. There were also no survivors.
Having set-out from Lorient on 10 April, she returned to the same port on 11 May.
Fifth patrol
Patrol number five was conducted in the Atlantic, but in the vicinity of the Azores and the Canary Islands. Her first victim this time out was Ganda, a 4,333 GRT neutral registered in Portugal. She went down on 20 June 1941. Following her sinking with torpedoes and gunfire, it was realised what her status was. On her return to Lorient, U-123's war diary (KTB) was altered on the order of U-boat headquarters (BdU).[3]
The U-boat sank four other ships between 27 June and 4 July, but was depth charged for 11 hours on 27 June and only escaped by diving to 199m (654ft). She was also unsuccessfully attacked by convoy escorts west of Portugal on 12 August, although she sustained moderate damage.
Sixth patrol
Despite criss-crossing the Atlantic, U-123 found the pickings rather thin, she did manage to damage the armed merchant cruiser (AMC) HMSAurania on 21 October 1941 and take one crewman prisoner. The ship had been travelling behind Convoy SL-89 with five other AMCs. The vessel was hit by two torpedoes but empty drums in the holds kept her afloat. A 25 degree list was reduced to 15 degrees; men had abandoned ship prematurely – hence the PoW. The ship continued her voyage, albeit at reduced speed.
Seventh patrol
U-123 took part in the opening of Unternehmen Paukenschlag ("Operation Drumbeat"), also called the "Second Happy Time" in January 1942. She began by sinking the cargo ship Cyclops about 125nmi (232km; 144mi) southeast of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia on the 12th. Moving down the coast, she sank Norness, Coimbra, Octavian , Norvana, City of Atlanta and the Latvian Ciltvaira. She approached New York's Lower Bay on the evening of 14th Jan and viewed an illuminated New York City. She was also credited with sinking San Jose on 17 January, although this ship was actually lost in a collision.[4] The Malay was only damaged because Hardegen had under-estimated her size and chose to use the deck gun rather than a torpedo. In a reference to American unpreparedness, he commented after sinking Norvana: "These are some pretty buoys we are leaving for the Yankees in the harbor approaches as replacement for the lightships."
U-123 was attacked by an aircraft off New York City, but withdrew without any damage being sustained. She also had a lucky escape on 19 January when Kosmos II (headed by Captain Einar Gleditsch from Sandefjord Norway) tried to ram the boat off Oregon Inlet. At one point the ship was only 75m (82yd) away from the German submarine which had an inoperable diesel engine. The U-boat escaped when the recalcitrant power plant was restarted at the last minute and flares were fired at the larger vessel's bridge.
The Mount Aetna which picked up survivors from the Pan Norway
The Culebra and Pan Norway were also sunk off Bermuda. By now out of torpedoes and in the case of Pan Norway, the boat used the last of her deck gun ammunition and 37mm AA weapon to destroy the Norwegian vessel. The U-boat then encountered a Greek ship, the Mount Aetna, under a Swiss charter, which was directed to the survivors.[5]
Eighth patrol
The boat's second Paukenschlag mission was also successful – sinking Muskogee and Empire Steel on 22 and 23 March 1942 near Bermuda before moving closer to the US east coast.
She then attacked the USSAtik, a Q ship. This disguised merchantman was hit on the port side, the crew started to abandon ship on the starboard side. The U-boat moved closer, at which point Atik dropped her concealment and opened fire with all weapons. U-123 ran off, (one man died in the action), but she dived, returned and sank the American vessel with a torpedo. There were no survivors.
USS Carolyn, aka USS Atik AK-101
This was Captain Reinhard Hardegen's second patrol in charge and quoted from U123 K.T.B war patrol log the following:
Except for Holzer, no one was wounded and a low pressure test showed that the pressure hull was intact. We were incredibly lucky. Eight 20mm hits were counted on the bridge the next day. After we were out of range I went below deck and saw that the condition of F.z.See Holzer was hopeless. A 20mm round detonated in his right thigh, ripped open the flesh from the hip joint to the knee and partially removed it. One could not see if the bone had been shattered. The leg was only hanging on small flaps of skin. We bound off the leg. We could only wrap a towel around the big wound because we had not enough dressing material for such injuries. It was immediately clear that such an injury could not be treated even by a doctor under the circumstances aboard a U-boat. We were many days from the next neutral harbor, so I took the decision to make it as easy as possible for him and injected a substantial dose of morphine. Holzer acted bravely in an exemplary manner. For one hour he was conscious, without a single word of complaint.
F.z.See Holzer was buried at sea the following day.
The boat proceeded to sink or damage another eight ships; many of them resting on the sea bed in the shallow water with parts of their hulls above the surface. One such was Oklahoma which, although sent below in 40ft (12m) of water on 8 April, was re-floated, repaired and returned to service in December 1942. Another vessel, Gulfamerica was fatally struck about five miles from Jacksonville, Florida on 11 April. The ship had been on her maiden voyage from Philadelphia to Port Arthur, Texas, with 90,000 barrels (14,000m3) of fuel oil. Nineteen crewmen were killed in the attack.[6][7][8][9] She did not sink until 16 April.
Another victim was Alcoa Guide, engaged at the relatively close range of 400m (440yd) by the deck gun, (U-123 had run out of torpedoes), on 17 April.
The boat then returned to Lorient on 2 May and proceeded to steam to Bergen in Norway before carrying out a series of short journeys to Kristiansand, Aarhus, Kiel and Stettin.
Ninth patrol
For her ninth patrol, U-123 left Kiel on 5 December 1942 and returned to the Atlantic. She sank Baron Cochrane on the 29th after the ship had already been damaged by U-406 and missed by U-591. U-123 also damaged Empire Shackleton, a Catapult Armed Merchantman north of the Azores. (The wreck was sunk by U-435 on the same day).
The boat returned to Lorient on 6 February 1943.
Tenth patrol
U-123 sailed to the West African coast. She sank the Spanish-registered motor shipCastillo Montealegre on 8 April 1943 west of Conakry, French Guinea. As per maritime rules, the neutral ship had the Spanish flag painted in both sides. Commander Horst von Schroeter ordered the shooting of 3 torpedoes and she sunk in less than a minute. The submarine surfaced, the commander asked from the conning tower "What ship?" to the survivors. Although being confirmed he had just sunk a neutral ship, he left without giving any assistance to the 40 men adrift (five went down with the ship).
A few days later the Hill-classnaval trawlerHMSInkpen rescued 29 survivors from a boat. 11 on a separated raft died. The affair was hushed-up by the government of Franco; indeed, the survivors were ordered to shut-up. The career of Commander Horst von Schroeter was unaffected by this affair and after the war he even became a NATO commander.[10]
U-123 was also successful against a British submarine, HMSP-615100nmi (190km; 120mi) southwest of Freetown in Sierra Leone on 18 April. She sank Empire Bruce on the same day, also southwest of Sierra Leone. She sank three more ships off Monrovia on 29 April, 5 May and 9 May. This included the Holmbury, which was sunk on 5 May by two torpedoes and gunfire. The crew (minus 2 firemen who were killed by the first torpedo) survived, after sailing to the Liberian coast in the one remaining lifeboat. The captain, J B Lawson, was taken aboard U-123, where he was treated impeccably by Von Schroeter. Von Schroeter promised to send relevant photographs to Lawson a year after the war had ended – and did.[11]
Eleventh patrol
U-123 was depth charged off Cape Finisterre (northwest Spain), by Allied escort vessels on approximately 25 August 1943. She was also attacked by a British De Havilland ('Tse Tse') Mosquito of No. 618 Squadron RAF on 7 November 1943; this aircraft, piloted by Flying Officer A.J.L. Bonnett of the Royal Canadian Air Force, was armed with a 6-pounder (57mm) Molins gun and this was the first attack on a U-boat with one of these weapons. Bonnett fired eight rounds at U-123 and achieved several hits on the submarine's conning tower and hull.[12] The boat was rendered unable to dive by a 18-by-6.5-centimetre (7.1 by 2.6in) hole in the pressure hull. One crewman, Bootsmaat Günther Struve was killed and two others wounded.
Twelfth patrol
U-123's last patrol was her longest – 107 days, but after the incidents of the previous eleven, it was a bit of an anti-climax. She returned to Lorient unable to repeat her success, on 24 April 1944.
Loss and French service
The boat was taken out of service at Lorient on 17 June 1944, she was scuttled there on 19 August. She was raised by the French in 1945 after Germany's surrender, and became the French submarine Blaison (Q165).[1] She was decommissioned on 18 August 1959.
U-37, a U-boat very similar to U-123 at Lorient in 1940. Note the twin rudders
German submarine U-155 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine built for service during World War II. Her keel was laid down on 1 October 1940 by DeSchiMAG AG Weser in Bremen as yard number 997. She was launched on 12 May 1941 and commissioned on 23 August with Kapitänleutnant Adolf Piening in command. Piening was relieved in February 1944, by Oberleutnant zur See Johannes Rudolph.
German submarine U-47 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down on 25 February 1937 at Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel as yard number 582 and went into service on 17 December 1938 under the command of Günther Prien.
KorvettenkapitänReinhard Hardegen was a German U-boat commander during World War II. He was credited with the sinking of 25 ships, at a total of 136,661 tons. After the war, he spent a year and a half as a British prisoner-of-war before starting a successful oil trading business and serving as a member of Bremen's city council for over 32 years.
German submarine U-124 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She operated in the Atlantic as part of the 2nd U-boat flotilla, both west of Scotland and east of the eastern US coast. She was also present off northern South America.
German submarine U-201 was a Type VIIC U-boat of the Kriegsmarine in World War II.
German submarine U-95 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down on 16 September 1939 by Germaniawerft at Kiel as yard number 600 and commissioned on 31 August 1940. In seven patrols, she sank eight ships for a total of 28,415 gross register tons (GRT) and damaged four other vessels for a total of 27,916 GRT.
German submarine U-99 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down on 31 March 1939 at the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel as yard number 593. She was launched on 12 March 1940 under the command of Korvettenkapitän Otto Kretschmer and was assigned to the 7th U-boat Flotilla based in Kiel and later in St Nazaire.
German submarine U-43 was a Type IXA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The keel for U-43 was laid down in August 1938 at Bremen; she was launched in May 1939 and commissioned in August.
German submarine U-30 was a Type VIIA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that served during World War II. She was ordered in April 1935 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which prevented the construction and commissioning of any U-boats for the German navy, and as part of the German naval rearmament program known as Plan Z. She sank the liner SS Athenia (1922) on 3 September 1939, under the command of Fritz-Julius Lemp. She was retired from front-line service in September 1940 after undertaking eight war patrols, having sunk 17 vessels and damaging two others. U-30 then served in a training role until the end of the war when she was scuttled. She was later raised and broken up for scrap in 1948.
German submarine U-172 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was first assigned to the 4th U-boat Flotilla for training and on 1 May 1942 was reassigned to the 10th flotilla, an operational long-range organization.
German submarine U-106 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II. She was laid down on 26 November 1939 at DeSchiMAG AG Weser in Bremen as yard number 969, launched on 17 June 1940 and commissioned on 24 September. She was armed with six torpedo tubes and a 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval gun. U-106 was assigned to the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on 24 September 1940, in which she would serve for nearly three years.
German submarine U-96 was a Type VIIC U-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II. It was made famous after the war in Lothar-Günther Buchheim's 1973 bestselling novel Das Boot and the 1981 Oscar-nominated film adaptation of the same name, both based on his experience on the submarine as a war correspondent in 1941.
German submarine U-66 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 20 March 1940 at the AG Weser yard at Bremen, launched on 10 October and commissioned on 2 January 1941 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Richard Zapp as part of the 2nd U-boat Flotilla.
German submarine U-68 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 20 April 1940 at the DeSchiMAG AG Weser yard at Bremen as yard number 987, launched on 22 October and commissioned on 1 January 1941 under the command of Korvettenkapitän Karl-Friedrich Merten as part of 2nd U-boat Flotilla.
German submarine U-103 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II. She was one of the most successful boats in the entire war, sinking 238,944 gross register tons (GRT) of Allied shipping in 11 patrols, in a career lasting more than four years.
German submarine U-515 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine built for service during World War II. She was commissioned on 21 February 1942 and sunk on 9 April 1944. U-515 completed seven operational patrols and sank 23 ships, badly damaged two ships which later sank, and damaged two additional ships.
German submarine U-65 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. Over the course of six war patrols between 9 April 1940 and 28 April 1941, she sank twelve ships and damaged three others for a total loss of 88,664 gross register tons (GRT).
German submarine U-108 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II. She was laid down at DeSchiMAG AG Weser in Bremen as yard number 971 on 27 December 1938, launched on 15 July 1940 and commissioned on 22 October under Korvettenkapitän Klaus Scholtz.
German submarine U-160 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine built for service during World War II. The keel for this boat was laid down on 21 November 1940 at the DeSchiMAG AG Weser yard in Bremen, Germany as yard number 1010. She was launched on 12 July 1941 and commissioned on 16 October under the command of Kapitänleutnant Georg Lassen.
German submarine U-436 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.
↑ "People Behind the Names: M". U.S. Navy Armed Guard Index. MICHAEL JAMES MONOHAN. Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2007. (1893–1942) Merchant seaman killed on the "S.S. Gulf America", when torpedoed by U-123, five miles off Jacksonville, in 1942.
↑ "DIED ON TANKER". Washington Daily News. 29 September 1942. Archived from the original on 12 February 2005. Retrieved 10 April 2020– via RootsWeb.com.
↑ "70 True Stories of the Second World War", Odhams Press, 1953
↑ Bird, Andrew D. (2003). A separate little war: the Banff Coastal Command Strike Wing versus the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, September 1944 to May 1945. London: Grub Street. p.11. ISBN1-904010-43-1. OCLC62087312.
Busch, Rainer; Röll, Hans-Joachim (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II: a biographical dictionary. Translated by Brooks, Geoffrey. London, Annapolis, Md: Greenhill Books, Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-55750-186-6.
Gröner, Erich; Jung, Dieter; Maass, Martin (1991). "U-boats and Mine Warfare Vessels". German Warships 1815–1945. Vol.2. Translated by Thomas, Keith; Magowan, Rachel. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN0-85177-593-4.
Sharpe, Peter (1998). U-Boat Fact File. Great Britain: Midland Publishing. ISBN1-85780-072-9.
Kemp, Paul (1997). U-Boats Destroyed, German submarine Losses in the World Wars. Arms and Armour. ISBN1-85409-515-3.
70 True Stories of the Second World War. Odhams Press. 1953.
External links
Helgason, Guðmundur. "The Type IXB boat U-123". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 3 April 2007.
"Blaison" (in French). Retrieved 10 September 2010.
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