Service History
U-110's keel was laid down 1 February 1940 by AG Weser, of Bremen, Germany. She was commissioned 21 November 1940 with Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp in command.
Lemp commanded U-110 for her entire career. In an earlier command (U-30) he was responsible for the sinking of the passenger liner SS Athenia on the first day of the war. The circumstances were such that he was considered for court-martial. He continued, however, to be one of the most successful and rebellious commanders of his day.
U-110 conducted two patrols, sinking three ships totalling 10,149 tons and damaging two others totalling 8,675 tons. On 23 March 1941, her 105 millimetre deck gun exploded during firing, wounding three men. On 9 May 1941, she was captured and later sunk.
In 2007, the submarine's chronometer featured on the BBC programme Antiques Roadshow, from Alnwick Castle, in the possession of the grandson of the captain of the ship which captured her.
Read more about this topic: German Submarine U-110 (1940)
Famous quotes containing the words service and/or history:
“Night City was like a deranged experiment in Social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you’d break the fragile surface tension of the black market; either way, you were gone ... though heart or lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of some stranger with New Yen for the clinic tanks.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)