Adresseavisen
Friday, 19th September 1986
(translated
into English from the original Norwegian by the author)
The Submarine Discovery at the
Viking
Bank By Knut Sivertsen, The Police Museum, Trondheim The
discovery of the submarine on the Viking Bank this summer conforms to a
number of discoveries made after the Second World War. Only in the North
Sea one expects 15 other wrecked submarines dating from the First and the
Second World War, but not every one has been positively identified. In
addition to the discovery of the German U 35 this summer, another
German submarine wreck has been examined. On
July 23, 1977, the oil company Elf Aquitaine Norge discovered a wreck on
the Øst-Friggfeltet. This wreck was identified as U 647, a German
submarine which went down on August 3, 1943. The wreck bears evidence of
being destroyed due to explosion of a mine, then the bow is partly blown
away and there is a hole caused by the explosion of a mine in the hull by
the engine room. German sources state only that the submarine disappeared
east of Shetland on August 3, 1943, with the loss of the entire crew. The
commanders name was Kapitänleutnant Hertin and the submarine belonged to
the 7th U.-Flotilla based in St. Nazaire in France. When
U 35 was found in July 1986, the Directorate of Oil received many
inquiries from all quarters, and for that reason there is cause to give an
account of the background of the submarine and the events about the
sinking in the fall of 1939. U
35 is a kind of submarine given the designation VII A. There were
built in all 10 submarines of this kind carrying the numbers from U 27
to U 36. U 27 to U 32 were built by AG Weser,
whilst the remaining were built by Germaniawerft in Kiel. After
this the series were improved to VII B and finally VII C, which became the
backbone of the German fleet of submarines. Concerning
U 35 the Germaniawerft got the commission to build it on
March 25, 1935, and the submarine was given number 558. On December 16,
1936 the submarine was launched under the command of Kapitänleutnant Werner
Lott, who moreover was in command until the sinking of the submarine. The
submarine was of a conventional oceangoing type, with a speed of 16 knots
above water, and 8 knots below water. The machinery consisted of 2 diesel
engines each yielding 1160 h.p. and 2 electro engines each yielding 375
h.p. for propulsion under water. The length was 64.5 meters and was
equipped with 4 torpedo tubes in the bow, and a tube on the stern. In all
there were 11 torpedoes on board. The remaining armament consisted of a
8,8 cm cannon on the deck up front and a 20 mm cannon on the deck behind.
The operation range was 4300 nautical miles above water and 90 nautical
miles below water. The crew consisted of a commander, a chief engineer and
2 attendants, 40 petty officers and crew. After
the submarine was launched it was incorporated into the Saltzwedel
U-Boat Flotilla until the beginning of November 1939, then it was
subjugated to the 2nd U-Boat Flotilla in Wilhelmshaven. During
the last month before the outbreak of the Second World War, the German
submarines started to go to sea, whilst British and German naval units
were positioned and awaited the situation. The
German plan was to try to paralyze shipping to and from England, and
during the first days of the war the first ship was sunk by Kapitänleutnant
Fritz-Julius Lemp on board the U 30, a sister ship of U-35. The ship sunk was the passenger vessel "Athenia",
which by mistake was taken for a transport of troops. (Lemp was court-martialed,
where he claimed that he was mistaken and that the ship was sunk by
misunderstanding. Lemp was acquitted.) After
this incident the war at sea was intensified, and on September 16 Kapitänleutnant
Johannes Habekost on board the U 31 attacked the first
British convoy. On September 17 Kapitänleutnant Otto Schuhart on
board the U 29 inflicted a great loss on the British Navy by
sinking the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous. On
the night before October 14 Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien on
board the U 47 managed to enter the British Naval Base in Scapa
Flow in the Orkneys, where he sank the pride of the British Navy, the
battleship HMS Royal Oak. During
the period from September to October 1939 the German Submarine forces
managed to sink cargo ships weighing a total of 350.000 tons gross weight.
Most sinking occurred in the waters southwest of England, outside France
and Spain, and also the Norwegian Sea. The
British Fleet struck back mercilessly and hard when they discovered the
German submarines, and the turn struck the U 35 on November 29,
1939. The submarine had been patrolling the sea between Iceland, Norway
and Shetland. On November 29, 1939 it was discovered by a group of British
destroyers and was promptly sunk with depth charges by the British
destroyers HMS Kingston, HMS Kashmir and HMS Icarus.
Kapitänleutnant Werner Lott and his crew
of 43 followed the submarine to the bottom. The same destiny came upon 8
other submarines from September to November 1939. Aircraft
from the English Coastal Command constituted a real threat to the
submarines, and jointly they sunk 663 submarines during the Second World
War. In addition the German submarine fleet lost an additional 492
submarines due to other causes. Only 15 submarines were intact of a total
of 1170 submarines. |
[Notes: U 35 was launched on 03 November 1936, not December 16th 1936. Its commander at commissioning was Klaus Ewerth; Werner Lott did not assume command of U-35 until 15 August 1937. The entire crew of U-35 - 43 men - survived to become prisoners of war. The wreck of U-35 is not a war grave]