[Kapitän]

Originally Posted by Kapitän

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

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Monday, 11 January 1943 - Stettin

Conducting tactical exercises and training with the 4th Training Flotilla (Freg.Kpt. Heinz FISCHER), Stettin and AGRU-Front, (Kvt.Kpt.-Ing. H. MÜLLER).

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Chinese Ambassador Wei Daoming and US Secretary of State Cordell Hull sign the Treaty for Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China, in Washington DC. Through this treaty, the Americans give up territorial claims in China and give up the American portion of the Boxer Protocol.

Soviet troops launch the Novorossiysk-Maikop Offensive Operation in the Caucasus region of southern Russia.

U 124 (Kptlt. Johann Mohr) 11.1. stalked freighter "Angle Indian" in EO 6616, course 300°, 10 knots. Double miss, torpedoes set too deep, observed before boat was forced to submerge by air patrol.

Convoy No. 2 (TM.1): U 511 (Kptlt. Fritz Schneewind) was forced by a Sunderland to submerge during the morning, and at 1609 by 2 Corvettes, so that she lagged behind. As the 2 remaining tankers proceeded at a speed of about 12 to 13 knots and the submarines would have caught up with them until the next day at the earliest, when they would have reached the area of regular air patrols, the attack on the convoy was broken off.

U 177 (IXD2; Kptlt. Robert Gysae) passed on her experiences to U 182 (IXD2; Kptlt. Asmus Nicolai Clausen) and handed over "Eisbär" order.

So far, because of bad weather, only U 662 (KrvKpt. Wolfgang Hermann) has refueled from U 117 (XB; Korvkpt. Hans-Werner Neumann). This rules out the possibility of detailing the remaining boats of former Group "Spitz" (U 123, 260, 440, 706, 662) and Group "Jaguar" to attack the expected northeast convoy (HX or SC) N.E. of Newfoundland.

General:
The setting-up of Group "Falke" was not successful, the "ONS" convoy was not contacted. The two unsuccessful operations prove the crying need for more submarines. The longer the patrol strip and the closer the boats, the greater the chance of contacting a convoy. Present lack of submarines prevents the setting-up of several patrols with sufficient boats. As long as reinforcements from home remain as weak as during the last few months, conditions will not improve. This once again emphasizes the great draw back of our naval warfare: the lack of all air reconnaissance. The effect of our submarine warfare would be very different if the submarines did not have to seek and find the enemy for themselves; they are totally unfitted for this task, for it requires large numbers of boats, it also causes long, wasteful, fruitless waiting.

U 648 (Ltnt.z.S.d.R. Peter-Arthur Stahl) conducts exercises with the AGRU-Front Hela.

RST
KorvKpt.& Cmdr. U 115

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

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Tuesday, 12 January 1943 - Stettin

Conducting tactical exercises and training with the 4th Training Flotilla (Freg.Kpt. Heinz FISCHER), Stettin and AGRU-Front, (Kvt.Kpt.-Ing. H. MÜLLER).

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The Russian BI-2 rocket-powered prototype aircraft takes its second flight at Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, reaching an altitude of 2,190 meters and reaching the speed of 675 kilometers per hour.

Our troops withdraw from the Caucasus region to the Kuban bridgehead, while the Soviets launch Operation Spark, an offensive to restore communication and over-land supply route to Leningrad.

U 160 (Kptlt. Georg Lassen) has replaced U 522 (Kptlt. Herbert Schneider) in Group "SEEHUND" and has been ordered to make for GG 10 (Capetown).

U 459 (KrvKpt. Georg von Wilamowitz-Möllendorf) reported that 2 destroyers were waiting in the rendezvous square FD 25 where she was to meet the Italian submarine J 28. Rendezvous was moved to FD 34.

Final Remarks on convoy TM.1:
The operation begun at 1600 on 3.1.1943 took the desired course. The Group "DELPHIN" patrol picked up the convoy on 8.1. 0116 hours after U 514 (Kptlt. Hans Jürgen Auffermann) sent her last shadower report. The convoy continues somewhat south of the Great Circle, without altering its mean course. The convoy escort, which consisted mainly of fairly old gun boats and Corvettes, was inexperienced and not very dogged. Despite excellent hydrophone and Asdic conditions with very calm weather and sea, it did not succeed in badly damaging a single boat, let alone sinking one. Surface location was not observed. On the whole the results can be described as very good and particularly satisfactory for Operational Control, who with great good fortune were justified in making their hard decisions on 4.1. to desert the fast convoy proceeding to America which had been contacted once in favor of a convoy which could not be picked up for over 100 hours. 15 tankers totaling about 141,000 GRT were sunk. No submarines were damaged.

U 648 (Ltnt.z.S.d.R. Peter-Arthur Stahl) conducts exercises with the AGRU-Front Hela.

RST
KorvKpt.& Cmdr. U 115