Qualla: German submarine U-764

German submarine U-764: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eight wolfpacks - Eisenhart, Schill, Weddigen, Hinein, Igel, Hai, Preussen, Dragoner. The pack names sound like an inventory of forgotten Wagnerian heroes. U-764 ran with all of them between November 1943 and May 1944, six months that covered the climactic phase of the Battle of the Atlantic, the loss of Donitz's son, the breaking of the U-boat fleet. In eight patrols she sank one merchant ship and two warships - a creditable record by 1944 standards, when most German submarines were dying without firing a shot. She surrendered in May 1945 at Loch Eriboll and was sent to the bottom of the Atlantic as a Royal Navy gunnery target in February 1946.

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German submarine U-764: Wilhelmshaven, 1941

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Kriegsmarinewerft yard at Wilhelmshaven laid down U-764's keel on 1 February 1941 as yard number 147 - just three weeks after the United States passed Lend-Lease, the legislation that would arm Britain for the rest of the war. She took two years and three months to build. By ...

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German submarine U-764: Eight Wolfpacks

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After training with the 8th Flotilla, U-764 transferred to the 9th Flotilla at Brest in occupied France on 1 November 1943. She joined wolfpack Eisenhart 3 within days, then Schill 3, then Weddigen - named after Otto Weddigen, the WWI U-boat ace who sank three British cruisers in...

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German submarine U-764: Brest to Bergen

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 1 October 1944, with the Normandy invasion three months old and the Allied armies sweeping toward the German border, U-764 transferred from Brest to the 11th Flotilla at Bergen, Norway. The French Atlantic bases were collapsing; St Nazaire and Lorient were already cut off, the...

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German submarine U-764: Loch Eriboll

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 14 May 1945 U-764 hauled into Loch Eriboll on the north coast of Scotland - the principal Royal Navy reception point for surrendering U-boats - and gave herself up. The loch is a long, narrow Scottish sea-fjord, sheltered, deep enough for any submarine, and within practical re...

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German submarine U-764: Sunk as a Target

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

She did not die in the wholesale way most Deadlight boats died - towed out, sunk by gunfire or by foundering. She was used as a target ship - a deliberate gunnery and torpedo exercise, the Royal Navy practicing on a real submarine hull to refine its sub-killing tactics for the fu...

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