The Early Years
By October 1939, Dönitz had decided to use three longer-range boats to intercept the first Allied convoys of the war. U-25, U-26 and U-53 were to rendezvous southwest of Ireland before attempting to force the Straits and attack the convoys in the Mediterranean. Things began to go wrong from the outset when U-25 was diverted to a convoy southwest of Lisbon. After an unsuccessful torpedo attack on a steamer on 31 October, Schultze, U-25's commander, surfaced and proceeded to sink his target with fire from his deck gun. This course of action caused a crack in a vital part of the submarine, obliging the boat to return to Germany.
U-53 ran low on fuel after shadowing a convoy in the Bay of Biscay and was also forced to return.
This only left U-26, which compelled by a combination of unsuitable weather, searchlights and British anti-submarine patrols, abandoned any attempt at laying mines before Gibraltar harbour. The boat sailed through the Straits while on the surface and claimed but a solitary ship sunk in the Mediterranean. This 'sinking' was not confirmed by post-war analysis.
U-26 headed back through the Straits, arriving in Wilhelshaven on 5 December 1939; the only U-boat to successfully enter and leave the Mediterrannean in World War II.
This mission was summed-up in the BdU Kriegstagebuch (KTB) War Diary thus:
It was a mistake to send U-25, U-26 and U-53 into the Mediterranean. U-25 had to return before she ever got there, U-53 did not get through and U-26 hardly encountered any shipping worth mentioning. This patrol shows all the disadvantages of a long outward passage.
Many attacks mentioned below were as the result of gun actions or ramming, particularly at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This was because the potential target was "unworthy or difficult torpedo target."
Read more about this topic: Mediterranean U-boat Campaign (World War II)
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“So much for Mrs. Hollis’ nine months of pain and 20 years of hope.”
—Alvah Bessie, Ranald MacDougall, and Lester Cole. Raoul Walsh. Nameless GI, Objective Burma, cutting dog tags off a dead GI (1945)