World War II
This list contains the 10 most successful German U-boats during the Second World War based on total tonnage. Both commercial and military vessels (warships) are included but only sunk ships are included, not damaged ships.
| Boat | Type | Commissioned | Total tonnage |
Ships sunk |
Patrols | Fate | Captains |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U-48 | VIIB | 22 April 1939 | 307,935 | 52 | 12 | Scuttled, 3 May 1945 | Herbert Schultze Hans-Rudolf Rösing Heinrich Bleichrodt |
| U-99 | VIIB | 18 April 1940 | 244,658 | 38 | 8 | Scuttled, 17 March 1941 after depth charging by HMS Walker. | Otto Kretschmer |
| U-103 | IXB | 18 April 1940 | 237,596 | 45 | 11 | Decommissioned March 1944. Sunk by bombs in Kiel, 15 April 1945. | Viktor Schütze Werner Winter |
| U-124 | IXB | 11 June 1940 | 224,953 | 48 | 11 | Lost with all hands, 2 April 1943 after depth charging by HMS Stonecrop and HMS Black Swan. | Georg-Wilhelm Schulz Johann Mohr |
| U-123 | IXB | 30 May 1940 | 223,816 | 44 | 12 | Decommissioned June 1944. Scuttled in port, 19 August 1944. Refloated and taken into French service as Blaison. | Karl-Heinz Moehle Reinhard Hardegen Horst von Schroeter |
| U-107 | IXB | 8 October 1940 | 217,786 | 39 | 14 | Lost with all hands 18 August 1944 after depth charging by a Sunderland of 201 Squadron RAF. | Günter Hessler Harald Gelhaus Volker Simmermacher Karl-Heinz Fritz |
| U-37 | IX | 4 August 1938 | 202,528 | 55 | 11 | Scuttled, 8 May 1945 | Heinrich Schuch Werner Hartmann Victor Oehrn Asmus Nicolai Clausen Ulrich Folkers |
| U-66 | IXC | 20 March 1940 | 200,021 | 33 | 12 | Sunk 6 May 1944 by Wildcats and Avengers of USS Block Island, rammed by destroyer escort USS Buckley. | Richard Zapp Friedrich Markworth Paul Frerks Gerhard Seehausen |
| U-68 | IXC | 11 February 1941 | 197,998 | 33 | 10 | Sunk 10 April 1944, depth charges and rockets fired by Wildcats and Avengers of USS Guadalcanal. | Karl-Friedrich Merten Albert Lauzemis Ekkehard Scherraus Gerhard Seehausen Albert Lauzemis |
| U-47 | VIIB | 17 December 1938 | 191,919 | 31 | 10 | Missing with all hands, on or about 7 March 1941 while patrolling south of Iceland between 59 deg and 62 deg north. Depth charged by destroyers HMS Wolverine and HMS Verity after being located using Type 286 ASDIC newly fitted to both destroyers. | Günther Prien |
Read more about this topic: List Of Successful U-boats
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources, the whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)