[Kapitän]

Originally Posted by Kapitän

Started new career in August 2019 to commemorate the beginning of WWII, 80 years before ...

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Friday, 02 October 1942 - On transit to Bremen, AG Weser, Deutsche Schiff und Maschinenbau

On transit from Paris to Bremen, where I will meet the newly assigned crew of U 115, which is undergoing final construction at the AG Weser, Bremen, Deutsche Schiff und Maschinenbau.

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The new 1. Admiralstabsoffizier operativ (A I op) 'Geleitzugs-Asto' (convoy staff officer), Kptlt. Adalbert ("Adi") Schnee, holds his first B.d.U. briefing in his new role:

Convoy action in the North Atlantic:

a) Anti-submarine conditions being as they are (large number of enemy destroyers and corvettes, surface radar sets) and our own developments not keeping apace, it is essential to have the necessary large number of U-boats onto the convoys, if effective action is to be taken, enemy anti-submarine forces split up and continuous shadowing maintained. The convoy routes are uncertain, the sea areas are so extensive that the few boats which are still all that are available, have to be disposed in lines of no depth at all, so that, the weather conditions being bad on average, it takes a very long time before remaining boats have come up to the convoy on the basis of a sighting report. This means:
First requirement:
Convoy operations lasting several days must be possible.

b) Experience of several convoys has shown that a successful action can only be fought as a rule in sea area outside the range of the enemy air force.
Second requirement:
Action in sea area without enemy air escort.

c) Both requirements combined show that the most important condition is: To pick up the convoy early on the side of the Atlantic from which it starts (i.e. ON and ONS convoys in AL, HX and SC convoys in BB and AJ, lower third).

d) The boats have so far been disposed to meet this requirement and they will continue to be so disposed. It has been found best to form U-boats leaving home ports and Western France at once into a disposition against ON convoys; after picking up a convoy they then proceed southwest, operating against it, and, after breaking off the operation (in the area of the Newfoundland Bank), the boats supply in about DC 90. This supply is necessary, because the boats' fuel stocks after the first operation would not permit a second operation. These refueled boats then form a patrol line northeast of the Newfoundland Bank, the distance off the Bank being determined by fog conditions, to pick up SC or HX convoys.

e) U-tankers alone have made this procedure, which has already been used several times, possible. In practice a few U-tankers mean the same as considerably more U-boats.

Mediterranean: The general situation in the Mediterranean has again made it necessary to send U-boats from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean to bring up the reduced numbers. Altogether 6 boats are to break through into the Mediterranean (U 438, U 660, U 605, U 89, U 593, U 458). They are to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar during the new moon period in October.

The British codebreaking establishment at Bletchley Park and the US Navy's codebreaking department (OP-20-G), agree to a relationship of "full collaboration".

The troopship Queen Mary collides with (and sinks) one of her escorts, the light cruiser HMS Curacoa, off the Irish coast with the loss of 239 lives.

RST
KvtKpt.& Cmdr. U 115

Started new career in August 2019 to commemorate the beginning of WWII, 80 years before ...

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Saturday, 03 October 1942 - On transit to Bremen, AG Weser, Deutsche Schiff und Maschinenbau

Traveling from Paris to Bremen, where I will meet the newly assigned crew of U 115, which is undergoing final construction at the AG Weser, Bremen, Deutsche Schiff und Maschinenbau.

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Group "Eisbär" intends to make the first attack early on 8 Oct., in accordance with operations order.

The first successful A4 test flight reaches the altitude of 84.5 kilometers (52.5 miles). The rocket is launched at Peenemünde, Germany.

During heavy fighting, the 6.Armee pushes the Soviet 62nd Army back to the Volga River at Stalingrad.

RST
KvtKpt.& Cmdr. U 115