History Lovers Club

[Phil Perry]

[ATTACH]49123._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

WW 1 German submarine washed up on a beach at Hastings, Sussex England, in 1919.

 

 

The story of U-118

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Makes a change from a whale!

 

 

 

[old man emu]

Just watched a doco about the German submarine U-864 which was on a mission to transport jet engines and plans from Germany to Japan in 1945.

 

German submarine U-864 - Wikipedia

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

One of my favourite sub books is "U-boats Far From Home" about the larger "monsoon boats" which operated out of Penang and Singapore in cooperation with the Japanese. One captain was loved by his crew for somehow getting them all home at the end of the war, after sinking ships around the coast of Australia and NZ.

 

One Saturday night they crept into a harbour on the North Island and the whole crew came on deck to watch as the locals had a dance.

 

The poor bloody Germans had been years away from home and family, stuck in a hot, smelly, cramped U-boat. There, a couple of hundred metres away was beer, milk bars and family fun. Tough men shed a few tears and then quietly left without doing any damage.

 

 

[hihosland]

Had the type XXI submarines made it to active service earlier they could have essentially stopped the north Atlantic convoys, as it was the type never fired a shot in anger, at least not under German command. Several saw service with various allied forces after 1945 and contributed major design improvements replicated in modern diesel submarines today.

 

 

[facthunter]

The life expectancy of German U boat Commanders was rather short towards the end of the war . They were always treated as heroes at home. Not sure the British Merchant mariners shared the feeling. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

We tend to think that the only Axis submarines operating in Australian and New Zealand waters were Japanese, but a small number, such as the one that missed the dance party and beer, did do a lot of damage in these waters.

 

I think that their mission statement was to take weapons manufacturing information to Japanese hands, then do a normal offensive patrol in support of Japanese operations. The Japanese made use of the Dutch East Indies naval base at Surabaya in East Java.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...I think that their mission statement was to take weapons manufacturing information to Japanese hands, then do a normal offensive patrol in support of Japanese operations. The Japanese made use of the Dutch East Indies naval base at Surabaya in East Java.

Luckily for us, cooperation and trade between the Axis nations was very limited. Using specially-converted U-boats was the only reliable way to carry badly-needed war materiel and prototypes.

 

The Japanese adopted and even improved several German aircraft designs, but too late to make a difference.

 

The trade was not all one way. The Germans needed rubber, drugs and strategic metals.They applied to manufacture at least one Japanese aircraft design under licence, but were unsuccessful.

 

 

[facthunter]

The Japanese needed rubber and oil for them selves.. Nev