German submarine U-124 (1940)

<th colspan="2" >Service record

U-124 after a patrol
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German submarine U-124 (nickname "Edelweissboot") 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.

She was sunk with all hands west of Portugal on 2 April 1943.

Service history

U-124 was laid down on 11 August 1939 at the DeSchiMAG AG Weser yard in Bremen as yard number 956. She was launched on 9 March 1940 and commissioned on 11 June, with Kapitänleutnant Georg-Wilhelm Schulz in command. The core of the crew came from Schulz's previous command, U-64, which had been sunk during the Norwegian campaign, the survivors had been rescued by Wehrmacht mountain troops and their badge, the Edelweiss, was painted on U-124's conning tower in appreciation. He was relieved on 8 September 1941 by Korvettenkapitän Johann Mohr, who remained in command until the boat's loss in 1943.

Design

Type IXB submarines were slightly larger than the original Type IX submarines, later designated IXA. U-124 had a displacement of when at the surface and while submerged.Template:Sfn The U-boat had a total length of , a pressure hull length of , a beam of , a height of , and a draught of . The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines producing a total of for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to .Template:Sfn

The submarine had a maximum surface speed of and a maximum submerged speed of .Template:Sfn When submerged, the boat could operate for at ; when surfaced, she could travel at . U-124 was fitted with six torpedo tubes (four fitted at the bow and two at the stern), 22 torpedoes, one SK C/32 naval gun, 180 rounds, and a SK C/30 as well as a C/30 anti-aircraft gun. The boat had a complement of forty-eight.Template:Sfn

Service history

U-124 conducted eleven war patrols, sinking 46 ships, totalling Template:GRT and sinking two warships, totaling . She also damaged four ships, totalling Template:GRT. She was a member of two wolfpacks.

First patrol

U-124Template:'s first patrol began with her departure from Wilhelmshaven on 19 August 1940. Her route took her across the North Sea and through the gap between the Faroe and Shetland Islands. She attacked three ships northwest of Scotland; Stakesby, Harpalyce and Firecrest, all on the 25th. To avoid retaliation from , the boat dived to . The Royal Navy dropped 12 depth charges. Striking rocks on the sea-bed, the boat lay there for an hour, the corvette lost contact, but the collision had damaged three of her torpedo tubes. As a result, she spent the rest of the patrol reporting on the weather.

The submarine docked at Lorient on the French Atlantic coast, on 16 September.

Second patrol

U-124Template:'s second foray was conducted further northwest of the Scottish mainland. Her first victim was Trevisa; sunk on 16 October 1940 west of Rockall. The next day, 17 October, the Royal Navy fired three torpedoes at her. All missed, and U-124 remained unaware of the attack.

U-124 went on to sink another four ships; Cubano, Sulaco (there was only one survivor) both on 20 October, Rutland on the 31st and the on 1 November. The latter ship's four survivors, on a raft when the U-boat came to investigate, played dead as they did not wish to be taken prisoner.

Third patrol

On her third sortie U-124 sank Empire Thunder north-northeast of Rockall on 6 January 1941.

Fourth patrol

On her fourth patrol the boat went to the Central Atlantic. U-124 refueled on 4 March in the neutral Spanish port of Las Palmas on the Canary Islands. On 6 March she rendezvoused with the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau under the command of Günther Lütjens. The ships operated loosely together in order to attack convoy SL 67. Escorting the convoy was the British battleship HMS Malaya. Lütjens wanted the U-boat to sink the Malaya so he could attack and sink the complete convoy. U-124 attacked north of the Cape Verde Islands during the night of 7/8 March and sank four ships: Nardana, Hindpool, Tielbank and Lahore. The Malaya escaped unharmed and the German battleships had to abort their attack.

She then destroyed another seven vessels southwest of Freetown, in Sierra Leone: on 30 March, Marlene on 4 April, Portadoc on 7 April, Tweed a day later, Aegeon on the 11th, St. Helena on the 12th and the on the 13th. 102 people died as a result of Umona's sinking. One account claims that after sinking her, U-124 surfaced and captured the liner's fourth officer from a lifeboat, and that he was never seen again.

Corinthic was first struck by a dud torpedo, but another functioned correctly and sank the ship.

During this patrol U-124 also rendezvoused with the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer in order to give her a Quartz spare part for her defective Seetakt radar.

Fifth patrol

U-124 drew a blank on her fifth sortie, failing to destroy a single target. She scoured the central Atlantic southwest of Gibraltar, but found nothing.

Sixth patrol

Her sixth patrol was successful. Mohr, (her new commander), rather ambitiously claimed two ships totaling 15,000 tons sunk and a third vessel of 8,000 tons damaged. The reality was rather different. Baltallin (1,303 GRT) on 20 September 1941 and Empire Moat (2,922 GRT) also on the 20th, were both lost from Convoy OG 74; they went down north northeast of the Azores.

In addition, Empire Stream was sunk on 25 September. Among the dead were two stowaways. A final effort on 26 September accounted for three more ships, also near the Azores: Petrel, Cortes, and Siremalm (there were no survivors from the latter vessel).

U-124 returned to Lorient on 1 October.

Seventh patrol

After almost a month in her base, U-124 started her seventh patrol on 30 October 1941. On 24 November, she was engaged by the Royal Navy which, with two consorts, had been searching for the Armed Merchant Raider Atlantis and her supply ship Python. Dunedin was hit by two torpedoes, despite being outside the theoretical range of the U-boat's projectiles and sank 17 minutes later. 419 men died; there were 67 survivors.

The submarine remained in the South Atlantic and sank the American Sagadahoc on 3 December. She was the fourth and last American ship to be sunk by the U-boat Arm prior to the U.S. entry into the war. Following a six-hour chase Mohr fired on Sagadahoc claiming her lights were not set correctly.

U-124 was shelled by the coastal battery at Fort Bedford, Georgetown on Ascension Island on 9 December; no damage was sustained.

Eighth patrol

A change of operational area saw the boat deploy to the Eastern United States seaboard following the success of Operation Drumbeat (Paukenschlag); leaving Lorient on 21 February 1942. Like the original 'drumbeaters', Mohr found the US defences easy to penetrate.

The boat scored her first victory before reaching her destination; sinking British Resource about north of Bermuda on 14 March.

She then sank seven ships and damaged two more – all in March. One of them, E. M. Clark, was hit in such a way that her whistle sounded continuously until the ship went down. Another, Esso Nashville, was hit by a torpedo which failed to detonate, but a subsequent torpedo broke the tanker's back. She was held together only by deck plates and piping. The bow and stern sections soon separated, and the bow soon sank. The stern was towed to Baltimore where it was fitted with a new fore-part and the ship returned to service in March 1943.

Two more ships were hit before U-124 returned to Lorient. It was her most successful patrol; 68,215 GRT of shipping was lost or incapacitated.

Ninth patrol

It was back to the mid-Atlantic for the boat's ninth patrol, as part of Wolfpack Hecht, beginning on 4 May 1942. Four ships from Convoy ON 92 were sunk on the 12th. U-124Template:'s next victim was the Free French corvette Mimosa which was sunk with heavy loss of life on 9 June. Many of the casualties came from St. Pierre et Miquelon. The impact of the sinking had a lasting effect in the community.

Two more ships were sunk before the boat returned to Lorient on 26 June.

Tenth patrol

Another change of operational zone, this time to the northern coastal area of South America. The submarine left Lorient on 25 November 1942. She sank Trewloras about east of Port of Spain, Trinidad on 28 December.

The boat was attacked by a US Catalina flying boat on 1 January 1943 east of Port of Spain. No damage was caused.

She sank four more ships; Broad Arrow, Birmingham City, Collingsworth and Minotaur, all on the ninth. CollingsworthTemplate:'s helmsman swung the ship to port so hard that one torpedo missed by about . Unfortunately this torpedo then hit Minotaur despite strenuous evasive action by her helmsman.

Eleventh patrol and loss

U-124 left Lorient for the last time on 27 March 1943. Heading southwest, she had hardly left the Bay of Biscay when she was attacked and sunk by two British warships, the Flower-class corvette and Black Swan-class sloop west of Porto in Portugal 2 April 1943. Both ships were escorting Convoy OS 45, from Liverpool to Freetown.

All 53 crew members died.

File:U37 Lorient 1940.jpg

U-37, a U-boat similar to U-124 at Lorient in 1940. Note the twin rudders.

Wolfpacks

U-124 took part in two wolfpacks, namely:

• Süd (22 July – 5 August 1941)
• Hecht (8 May – 18 June 1942)

Summary of raiding history

Date	Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
25 August 1940	Firecrest	Template:Flagcountry	5,394	Sunk
25 August 1940	Harpalyce	Template:Flagcountry	5,169	Sunk
25 August 1940		Template:Flagcountry	3,900	Damaged
16 October 1940	Trevisa	Template:Flagcountry	1,813	Sunk
20 October 1940	Cubano	Template:Flagcountry	5,810	Sunk
20 October 1940	Sulaco	Template:Flagcountry	5,389	Sunk
31 October 1940	Rutland	Template:Flagcountry	1,437	Sunk
1 November 1940		Template:Flagcountry	5,612	Sunk
6 January 1941	Empire Thunder	Template:Flagcountry	5,965	Sunk
8 March 1941	Hindpool	Template:Flagcountry	4,897	Sunk
8 March 1941	Lahore	Template:Flagcountry	5,304	Sunk
8 March 1941	Nardana	Template:Flagcountry	7,974	Sunk
8 March 1941	Tielbank	Template:Flagcountry	5,984	Sunk
30 March 1941		Template:Flagcountry	3,767	Sunk
4 April 1941	Marlene	Template:Flagcountry	6,507	Sunk
7 April 1941	Portadoc	Template:Flagcountry	1,746	Sunk
8 April 1941	Tweed	Template:Flagcountry	2,697	Sunk
11 April 1941	Aegeon	Template:Flagcountry	5,285	Sunk
12 April 1941	St. Helena	Template:Flagcountry	4,313	Sunk
13 April 1941		Template:Flagcountry	4,823	Sunk
20 September 1941	Baltallin	Template:Flagcountry	1,303	Sunk
20 September 1941	Empire Moat	Template:Flagcountry	2,922	Sunk
25 September 1941	Empire Stream	Template:Flagcountry	2,922	Sunk
26 September 1941	Cortes	Template:Flagcountry	1,374	Sunk
26 September 1941	Petrel	Template:Flagcountry	1,354	Sunk
26 September 1941	Siremalm	Template:Flagcountry	2,468	Sunk
26 November 1941		Template:Navy/core	4,850	Sunk
3 December 1941	Sagadahoc	Template:Flagcountry	6,275	Sunk
14 March 1942	British Resource	Template:Flagcountry	7,209	Sunk
17 March 1942	Acme	Template:Flagcountry	6,878	Damaged
17 March 1942	Ceiba	Template:Flagcountry	1,698	Sunk
18 March 1942	E. M. Clark	Template:Flagcountry	9,647	Sunk
18 March 1942	Kassandra Louloudis	Template:Flagcountry	5,106	Sunk
19 March 1942		Template:Flagcountry	5,939	Sunk
19 March 1942	W. E. Hutton	Template:Flagcountry	7,076	Sunk
21 March 1942	Atlantic Sun	Template:Flagcountry	11,355	Damaged
21 March 1942	Esso Nashville	Template:Flagcountry	7,934	Damaged
23 March 1942	Naeco	Template:Flagcountry	5,373	Sunk
12 May 1942	Cristales	Template:Flagcountry	5,389	Sunk
12 May 1942		Template:Flagcountry	7,065	Sunk
12 May 1942	Llandover	Template:Flagcountry	4,959	Sunk
12 May 1942	Mount Parnes	Template:Flagcountry	4,371	Sunk
9 June 1942	FFL Mimosa	Template:Navy/core	925	Sunk
12 June 1942	Dartford	Template:Flagcountry	4,093	Sunk
18 June 1942	Seattle Spirit	Template:Flagcountry	5,627	Sunk
28 December 1942	Treworlas	Template:Flagcountry	4,692	Sunk
9 January 1943	Birmingham City	Template:Flagcountry	6,194	Sunk
9 January 1943	Broad Arrow	Template:Flagcountry	7,718	Sunk
9 January 1943	Collingsworth	Template:Flagcountry	5,101	Sunk
9 January 1943	Minotaur	Template:Flagcountry	4,554	Sunk
2 April 1943	Gogra	Template:Flagcountry	5,190	Sunk
2 April 1943	Katha	Template:Flagcountry	4,357	Sunk