German submarine U-559

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German submarine U-559 was a Type VIIC U-boat built for the Nazi German Kriegsmarine for service during World War II.

Laid down on 1 February 1940 at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg as "Baunummer 535" ("Yard number 535"), she was launched on 8 January 1941 and commissioned on 27 February under Kapitänleutnant Hans Heidtmann.

She began her service career with the 1st U-boat Flotilla, undergoing training before being declared operational on 1 June 1941. She moved to the 29th U-boat Flotilla on 15 April 1942. She sank five ships but is perhaps best remembered for an incident during her sinking in the Mediterranean Sea in 1942, in which British sailors seized cryptographic material from U-559. This material was extremely valuable in breaking the U-boat Enigma cipher.

Operational career
U-559 was originally intended to serve as an Atlantic U-boat during the second Battle of the Atlantic against Allied convoys in the Western Approaches.

1st and 2nd patrols
Her first patrol took her from Kiel on 4 June 1941, across the North Sea and through the gap between Greenland and Iceland. She arrived at St. Nazaire in occupied France on 5 July.

Her second sortie met with success when she torpedoed and sank the Alva about 600 mi west of Ushant. She returned to her French base on 22 August 1941.

3rd patrol
For her third patrol, beginning on 20 September, she was assigned to the 'Goeben' group, which were the first U-boats to enter the Mediterranean in World War II through the heavily defended Strait of Gibraltar. She reached Salamis in Greece, after having first investigated the Libyan/Egyptian border.

4th patrol
On her fourth patrol, she torpedoed and sank the Australian sloop HMAS Parramatta (U44) off the Libyan coast; although most survivors were picked up by other ships, three men managed to reach dry land where they were rescued by advancing British troops.

5th, 6th and 7th patrols
On her fifth patrol, which began on 8 December 1941, the boat sank SS Shuntien (1934) on the 23rd. Shuntien carried 850 – 1,100 German and Italian prisoners of war. Between 800 and 1,000 people were killed, including at least 700 PoWs.

Her sixth and seventh patrols were both from Salamis to the area of the Libyan coast. They were without success.

8th and 9th patrols
Having moved to Pula in Croatia in March 1942, she then sortied on 18 May, and damaged the oiler Brambleleaf on 10 June.

Her ninth patrol, however, was without success.

Sinking
It was her own demise that made her most famous. At dawn on 30 October 1942, U-559 was spotted by a Royal Air Force Sunderland patrol aircraft from No. 47 Squadron 70 miles north of the Nile Delta. The destroyer HMS Hero (H99) was alerted by radio and steamed to intercept her, while the destroyers HMS HMS Petard (G56), HMS Pakenham (G06), HMS Dulverton (L63) and HMS Hurworth (L28) sailed from Port Said. U-559 detected Hero's approach and dived. The destroyer group hunted for the U-boat for 16 hours, constantly depth charging. After dark, U-559, with a cracked pressure hull, unable to maintain level trim and four of her crew dead from explosions and flooding, was forced to the surface. She was close to Petard, which immediately opened fire with her 20 mm Oerlikons.

The German crew hurriedly scrambled overboard without destroying their codebooks or Enigma machine and, crucially, having failed to open sea-water vents to properly scuttle the U-boat. Three British sailors, Lieutenant Anthony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown, then boarded the abandoned submarine. There are differing reports as to how the three British men boarded the U-boat. Some accounts say that they "swam naked" (such as that of Kahn), to U-559 but Sebag-Montefiore states that they either leapt from Petard or, in Brown's case, from a whaler, which was sinking, but slowly. They retrieved the U-boat's Enigma machine and the codebooks with all current settings for the U-boat Enigma key. Two German crew members, rescued from the sea, watched this material being loaded into Petard's whaler but were dissuaded from interfering by an armed guard. Grazier and Fasson were inside the boat, attempting to get out, when the U-boat foundered; both were drowned.

Aftermath
Grazier and Fasson were awarded the George Cross posthumously, Brown was awarded the George Medal. The Victoria Cross was considered but not awarded, for the ostensible reason that their bravery was not "in the face of the enemy". Another consideration may have been that a Victoria Cross would have drawn unwanted attention to the U-boat capture from German Intelligence. It was also discovered that Brown had lied about his age in order to enlist, and was only 16 years old, making him the youngest recipient of the George Medal. He was discharged and returned home to North Shields, only to die two years later attempting to rescue his younger sister from a house fire.

The Enigma material they retrieved was immensely valuable to the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, who had been unable to read U-boat Enigma for nine months. The captured material allowed them to read the cyphers for several weeks, and to break U-boat Enigma thereafter.

The recovery was one of several such events (e.g., the earlier sinking of U-110), that inspired the fictional account of the submarine capture in the 2000 film U-571.