Werner Lott -U Boat commander.

Captain(Korvettenkapitän)Werner Lott was commander of U-35 from 15 August 1937 until 29 November 1939.He sank 4 ships and damaged one.

You often hear about war crimes committed by the German armed forces, but there were also acts of decency.

Around 15.40  on 3 Oct, 1939, the Greek freighter Diamantis, although the ship was neutral it was carrying strategic cargo to Britain and was therefore considered a “legitimate target” for the German Navy. It was therefore torpedoed by U-35 and sank 40 miles west of the Scilly Islands, . Because the lifeboats were not suited for use in the bad weather, Capt Lott decided to take all crew members aboard and landed them the next day at Dingle, Co Kerry.Ireland.

Lott’s role in the war would be very limited.On 29 November 1939  the U-35 was scuttled by its crew in the North Sea,after a depth charge attack from the British destroyers Kingston, Icarus, and Kashmir. Lord Louis Mountbatten was the commander of the British squadron.

Lott and his crew were taken as prisoners of war.While imprisoned at the Tower of London. He complained about the accommodations, and demanded to talk to the officer in charge. But it was Lord  Mountbatten who visited him instead,  Mountbatten arranged for the Admiralty to allow Lott and his second-in-command to dine at Scott’s restaurant on the condition they would  not attempt to escape. Lott agreed to the demand and kept his promise, he was returned to the Tower later that evening.

A few days later, he and his fellow officers were moved to the Grizedale P.O.W. camp.

Later, the entire crew was moved to P.O.W. camps in Canada.

The fact that the U35 was scuttled in the early stages of WWII and because the crew was taken as POW’s the entire crew survived the war.

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Sources

https://uboat.net/men/commanders/754.html

http://www.u-35.com/english.htm

Close Encounter with U-Boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

U-1206—Ach Scheiße

First of all, I want to apologize for the rude title but I thought it to be the most appropriate.

War is a driving force behind innovation. From superglue to the internet, military technology has led to the invention of many products that have been proven useful—in both warfare and civilian life. However, sometimes military technology backfires, creating more problems than it solves, which the German submarine U-1206 discovered in 1945.

During WW2, German submarines were leading the way in underwater waste management. Rather than keeping their waste on board the submarine in septic tanks, German engineers devised a method for waste to be discharged directly into the water.

On April 6, 1945,  the U-1206 departed from the port city of Kristiansand, in Nazi-occupied Norway, and began its first combat patrol. Assigned to the waters of the North Atlantic, its mission was to seek out and destroy British and American ships on the high seas.

For the 50-man crew aboard submarines like the U-1206, life wasn’t just extremely dangerous, it was also very unpleasant: Quarters were cramped, and the bathrooms were no exception. There were only two heads (toilets), and because one of the heads was right next to the galley, the space was often used to store food. When it was, the toilet was unavailable, meaning the entire crew had to share the remaining toilet.

The U-1206 had a new and improved plumbing system. Unlike many subs in the fleet, it had high-pressure toilets that could be used at greater depths than the standard heads could. But the new system was very difficult to operate. The toilets came with complicated instruction manuals, and a few members of the crew had to be trained so that they could serve as toilet-flushing “specialists.”

A specialist on each submarine received training on proper toilet operating procedures. There was an exact order of opening and closing valves to ensure the system flowed in the correct direction.

Now meet U-1206 and its proud 27-year-old captain, Karl-Adolf Schlitt (rhymes with sh…). On April 14, 1945, Schlitt and his submarine were eight days into their first combat patrol of the war. The submarine lurked 200 feet beneath the surface of the North Sea when Schlitt decided that he could figure the toilet out himself.

However, Schlitt was not properly trained as a toilet specialist. After calling an engineer to help, the engineer turned a wrong valve and accidentally unleashed a torrent of sewage and seawater back into the sub, and reacted to produce chlorine gas, a toxic chemical that threatened to poison the whole crew. With no other options, Schlitt ordered the submarine to rise to the surface so they could attempt to flush the chlorine gas out of the boat.

Upon surfacing, they were almost immediately spotted by British planes, who unleashed aerial attacks on the boat, sufficiently damaging the submarine so it was no longer able to dive underwater. Schlitt ordered the crew to abandon the ship and scuttled the U-1206 while the crew tried to make it to the Scottish shore in emergency lifeboats. Three crew members, Hans Berkhauer, Karl Koren, and Emil Kupper, were killed.

Schlitt and the remaining members survived the war, which ended only a few weeks later when the Germans officially surrendered on May 7, 1945. To this day, the U-1206 remains full of water at the bottom of the North Sea.

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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