German submarine U-71 (1940)

German submarine U-71 was a type VII C submarine of the Nazi German Kriegsmarine during the Second World War.

Ordered	on 25 January 1939, her keel was laid down as Werk 618 on 21 December that year. She was launched on 31 October 1940 and commissioned on 14 December. She entered the 7th U-boat Flotilla as a training submarine (commissioning until 31 May 1941), then served as a front (operational) boat between 1 June 1941 and 31 May 1943. During that time she carried out ten war patrols, but had to return to port following damage after colliding with GS U-631 in the North Atlantic on 17 April 1943.

After that, she moved to the 24th U-boat Flotilla as a training submarine (1 June 1943 - 30 June 1944), then to the 22nd flotilla also as a training boat from 1 July 1944 until 1 February 1945. She was a member of 17 wolfpacks. She sank five ships and was scuttled on 2 May 1945 at Wilhelmshaven, six days before the German surrender.

1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th patrols
U-71's early history was fairly typical of many boats in the Ubootswaffe (U-boat arm); she began her operational life in Kiel, but soon moved to St. Nazaire in France, where despite being nearer to the main hunting grounds of the Atlantic, failed to take advantage of her more advanced location. This was between August 1941 and January 1942.

5th patrol
Her luck and that of her commander, Kapitanleutnant Walter Flachenberg, changed on her fifth foray, sinking a total of 38,894 tons of shipping in March and April, 1942. She returned to France, but this time to La Rochelle.

6th patrol
Flachenberg was unable to repeat his success on U-71's sixth and his last patrol, returning to St. Nazaire empty-handed.

7th, 8th and 9th patrols
Under a new skipper, Hardo Rodler von Roithberg, the boat could not reproduce the form of her fifth patrol, despite sortieing three times between July 1942 and February 1943.

10th patrol
By now the writing was on the wall for Germany's U-boats; U-71 was only one submarine that departed La Rochelle and after another unsuccessful voyage, steamed to Königsberg (on the Baltic coast), arriving in May 1943.