Qualla: German submarine U-155 (1941)

German submarine U-155 (1941): Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart, CC BY-SA 2.5. Five hundred and sixteen Allied seamen died in a single salvo on 15 November 1942. They were aboard HMS Avenger, a British escort carrier returning from Operation Torch, when U-155 fired a spread of four torpedoes north-west of Gibraltar. One damaged a US Navy transport. Two more sank the troop transport Ettrick. The fourth found Avenger's magazine. Of 526 men aboard, twelve survived. The submarine that delivered this blow was on her fourth war patrol, commanded by a man named Adolf Piening who once apologised to a torpedoed ship's chief officer for the business of sinking him. The ship's officer told Piening it was a bad business and he wished the war was over. Piening replied: "So do I."

Image: File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart | CC BY-SA 2.5

German submarine U-155 (1941): The Long-Range Hunter

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart, CC BY-SA 2.5. U-155 was a Type IXC - the U-boat designed to operate not in the choke point of the North Atlantic but in the open ocean, the Caribbean, the South Atlantic, and the coastline of South America. She displaced 1,120 tonnes on the surface, stretched 76.76 metres bow to stern, and cou...

Image: File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart | CC BY-SA 2.5

German submarine U-155 (1941): The Caribbean Massacre

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart, CC BY-SA 2.5. Her third patrol, in the summer of 1942, was U-155's most lethal. She sank ten ships totalling 43,514 GRT - tankers, cargo vessels, and a Brazilian liner called Piave, which she put down with the deck gun to save torpedoes. Off Cape Hatteras she killed Cranford in three minutes. ...

Image: File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart | CC BY-SA 2.5

German submarine U-155 (1941): The Hunters Become Hunted

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart, CC BY-SA 2.5. By the summer of 1943 the war had turned. U-155's sixth patrol was bracketed with two other boats in the Bay of Biscay for mutual defence - four de Havilland Mosquito aircraft attacked on 14 June, three of them from No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron. Five crewmen were wounded...

Image: File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart | CC BY-SA 2.5

German submarine U-155 (1941): The Last Boat from Lorient

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart, CC BY-SA 2.5. On 9 September 1944, U-155 left Lorient for the last time - the last U-boat ever to sail from that famous base before the Allied advance closed the bunkers. She returned to Germany by a circuitous route, docking at Flensburg on 21 October. There she sat out the rest of the war. H...

Image: File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart | CC BY-SA 2.5

German submarine U-155 (1941): Reunion Below

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart, CC BY-SA 2.5. In 2001 a team of divers led by the marine archaeologist Innes McCartney located her wreck off Malin Head, lying upright on the seabed at 73 metres, largely intact - a steel cathedral of dials and bunks and brass valves preserved in the cold dark. Six years earlier, in 1995, her ...

Image: File:U-505chicago.jpg: Jeremy Atherton derivative work: Georgfotoart | CC BY-SA 2.5