Previous Experience
The Kriegsmarine had acquired some knowledge of the area; Dönitz was an officer aboard UB-68 which had been sunk in the region in World War I.
U-boats had also served in the Spanish Civil War. The Republicans, with twelve submarines, opposed the Nationalists, who had none; so the presence of German U-boats was most welcome. The first two vessels, U-33 and U-34, under the codename Training Exercise Ursula, left Wilhelmshaven on 20 November 1936. Both submarines sailed down the English Channel and slipped into the Mediterannean on the night of 27 November. They were soon in action, U-34 fired a single torpedo at a Republican destroyer in the evening of 1 December. The projectile missed, impacting on rocks. The boat, under Leutnant zur See Harald Grosse, tried again on 5 and 8 December, with an equal lack of success. U-33 fared no better; her commander was frustrated by the absence of target identification or defensive movement of his intended victims. Only one vessel was sunk by the U-boats, the Republican submarine C-3, which was attacked by U-34 on 12 December.
Read more about this topic: Mediterranean U-boat Campaign (World War II)
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