Military Career
Born in Posen, he joined the Reichsmarine in 1926. After training he spent many years on surface ships. He joined the U-Boat service on May 1, 1940. From October 1940 until January 1941 he joined U-38 as a trainee Captain with the experienced Heinrich Liebe.
On 11 February 1941, Merten commissioned U-68 and lead 5 successful patrols. He operated all over the world, patrolling in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Indian Ocean. U-68 was in the U-boat wolf pack Eisbär (Polar Bear Group), consisting of four submarines, U-68 (Merten), U-156 (Werner Hartenstein), U-172 (Carl Emmermann), U-504 (Hans-Georg Friedrich Poske) a fifth U-boat, U-159 (Helmut Witte) joined the group later, which in the course of a few weeks during September/October 1942, sank more than 100,000 GRT of shipping off South Africa.
On 22 September 1941 Merten torpedoed his first ship the 5,302 GRT British Steamer SS Silverbelle sailing in convoy SL-87 and on the 6 November 1942 he sunk his last ship the 8,034 GRT British Steamer SS City of Cairo. His total was 29 ships sunk at a tonnage of 170,151.
After this patrol Merten was appointed to the U-boat flotilla in Pillau, and this and other training appointments curtailed his operational career. Nevertheless, when the war ended he stood seventh in the table of U-Boat commanders in terms of tonnage sunk. After the war he made a new career (somewhat ironically) in shipbuilding, retiring in 1974.
Long after the sinking of the SS City of Cairo he was invited to a post-war reunion of survivors where one observed: "We couldn't have been sunk by a nicer man".
He died on 2 May 1993 in Waldshut.
Read more about this topic: Karl-Friedrich Merten
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