, Hartenstein's home city, adopted the submarine within the then popular sponsorship programme (Patenschaftsprogramm), organising gifts and holidays for the crew.
The U-boat took part in five patrols, which included attacks on shipping in which she sank twenty merchantmen, damaged another three merchantmen, and damaged the American destroyer USS Blakeley.
Red Cross flag, the U-boat was attacked by an American aircraft and forced to dive, resulting in the shipwrecked survivors being cast back into the sea. The incident led to the Laconia Order, banning U-boats from attempting rescues, and later caused major embarrassment to the US during the Nuremberg trials
.
U-156 was attacked with depth charges by an American aircraft east of the island of Barbados on 8 March 1943. She sank with the loss of all hands.
Design
supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines producing a total of 4,400 metric horsepower (3,240 kW; 4,340 shp) for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1,000 metric horsepower (740 kW; 990 shp) for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two 1.92 m (6 ft) propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to 230 metres (750 ft).[1]
The submarine had a maximum surface speed of 18.3 knots (33.9 km/h; 21.1 mph) and a maximum submerged speed of 7.3 knots (13.5 km/h; 8.4 mph).
2 cm (0.79 in) C/30 anti-aircraft gun. The boat had a complement of forty-eight.[1]
Service history
Built at
Kptlt. Werner Hartenstein, the boat was assigned in September 1941 to the 4th U-boat Flotilla for training. She conducted her first patrol from that same month, during which her crew trained, and at the end of which she arrived at her operations base in Lorient, France, in December 1941. From that moment, she was assigned to the 2. Unterseebootsflottille
based at that port; from where all her operational patrols departed.
During the three patrols completed in 1942, U-156 sank 19 ships for a total of 97,489 gross register tons (GRT); in addition, three ships were damaged for a total of 18,811 GRT and one warship was damaged for a total of 1,190 tons.
Aruba attack
During its second patrol, U-156 participated in Operation Neuland, which intended to disrupt traffic in the Caribbean; and included an attack on the oil refinery at Aruba island, ordered by captain Hartenstein.
At the beginning of the attack on the Lago Oil and Transport CompanySan Nicolaas refinery, the deck gun exploded because the cap or tampion in the muzzle of the gun, which prevented water from entering the barrel, was not removed before firing. This accident saved what was at the time the world's largest refinery.
As a result of the accident, Matrosengefreiter (equivalent to
Able Seaman or Leading Seaman) Heinrich Bussinger was killed, and Gunnery Officer Dietrich von dem Borne lost his right leg in the explosion. He was taken below and the boat submerged and left the waters off the coast of Aruba. Von dem Borne was put ashore on the island of Martinique for medical treatment and survived the war. The stop at Martinique, at the time part of Vichy France
contributed to the worsening of diplomatic relations between the US and Vichy France.
U-156 (foreground) and U-507 picking up shipwrecked RMS Laconia crew and passengers
On 12 September 1942, U-156 hit the British troopship
Red Cross flag. A U.S. Army Air Corps bomber flying out of a secret South Atlantic airbase on Ascension Island attacked the U-boat. The U-boat abandoned the rescue effort and left the survivors to drift to Africa. Over half the survivors died. This incident led to German Admiral Karl Dönitz issuing the Laconia Order
on 17 September 1942, which forbade submarine commanders from rescuing survivors from torpedoed ships.
Fate
During her fifth patrol, in which she sank no shipping and made no attacks, U-156 was attacked twice. As a result of the second attack, on 8 March 1943, she was sunk approximately 280 nautical miles east of the island of
captained by Lieutenant E. Dryden.
The aircraft dropped four Mark 44 Torpex-filleddepth charges at 13:15 from an altitude of 75 feet (23 m) to 100 feet (30 m) which straddled the submarine. Two were observed to hit the water 10 feet (3.0 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m) starboard and just aft of U-156, lifting it and breaking it in two, followed by an explosion. At least eleven survivors were seen swimming in the water. Two rubber rafts and rations were dropped, and five men were seen to reach one of the rafts. USS Barney was dispatched from Trinidad to rescue the survivors, but without success; the search was abandoned on 12 March 1943.
U-156 is credited with the sinking of 19 ships, for a total of 97,489 GRT, further damaging three ships of 18,811 GRT and damaging one warship, USS Blakeley, of 1,190 tons.[3]
Busch, Rainer; Röll, Hans-Joachim (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II : a biographical dictionary. Translated by Brooks, Geoffrey. London, Annapolis, Md: Greenhill Books, Naval Institute Press.
Busch, Rainer; Röll, Hans-Joachim (1999). Deutsche U-Boot-Verluste von September 1939 bis Mai 1945 [German U-boat losses from September 1939 to May 1945]. Der U-Boot-Krieg (in German). Vol. IV. Hamburg, Berlin, Bonn: Mittler.
Röll, Hans-Joachim (2011). Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein: Mit U 156 auf Feindfahrt und der Fall "Laconia" (in German). Würzburg, Germany: Flechsig.
Nazi Germany
