German submarine U-507

German submarine U-507 was a Type IXC U-boat of the Nazi German Kriegsmarine built for service in the Second World War and the Battle of the Atlantic. She was mainly notable for two patrols she conducted during the "Second Happy Time" in mid-1942, during the first of which she caused havoc in the Gulf of Mexico amongst unprotected American shipping, and then in the second she attacked ships along the coast of Brazil, in an inexplicable and shocking attack on a neutral nation's shipping in its own waters which almost single-handedly provoked the Brazilian declaration of war on Germany.

The U-boat was built during 1941 by the Deutsche Werft shipyards in Hamburg, and commissioned on 8 October 1941, with Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht in command. Schacht commanded the boat for its entire lifespan, receiving the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 9 January 1943 in recognition of his successful patrols in the preceding year. He never wore his award however, as he was killed with his entire crew when the boat was sunk four days later.

1st patrol
Once the U-507 had completed her working up period of six months following her commissioning, she departed German waters and entered the Atlantic Ocean for her first patrol; an uneventful and simple cruise to Lorient in occupied France, which was to be her permanent home port for the remainder of her life.

2nd patrol
The second patrol was more eventful, as the boat rounded Florida at the end of April 1942, taking full advantage of the lit-up settlements on the shoreline to pick and choose her targets amongst the unescorted shipping which bottlenecked between Cuba and the Floridan peninsula. Here she sank four large cargo ships in three days before following the coastline along Western Florida and Alabama, where in three more days she sank four more large unprotected ships, making full use of the failure of the local authorities to enforce either convoy regulations or the blackout. On 6 May she sank the SS Alcoa Puritan (1941) about 45 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. On the 12 May she sank the 10,000 ton SS Virginia in the mouth of the Mississippi, killing 26 sailors in an audacious attack which shocked the American authorities. Swinging south, she sank a Honduran freighter as she cruised out of the Caribbean Sea, leaving a shaken seaboard behind her. On this cruise alone she had sunk nine ships totalling 45,000 tons.

3rd patrol
Her third patrol was even more controversial, as a fruitless passage across the Atlantic brought her to the Brazilian coast in mid-August 1942. There she searched for Allied shipping hugging the coastline in Brazilian territorial waters heading for North America. Here she again saw unescorted ships and a lit coastline, and Schacht made the inexplicable decision to attack without first ascertaining the nationalities of her targets. The first was the SS Baependy on 16 August, which was torpedoed and sunk with 270 civilian lives. A few hours later the SS Araraquara was sunk, killing 131 people, followed by the SS Annibal Benevolo, on which 150 civilians drowned. The next day the slaughter continued, the SS Itagiba sunk within sight of the city of Vitória, killing 36, and the SS Arara similarly sunk with 20 deaths as she picked up the survivors of the Itagiba. Two days after this, the tiny sailing vessel Jacyra was sunk, and a Swedish ship was torpedoed three days after that. In just one week, U-507 had sunk seven ships of 18,000 tons and killed over 600 people, all of them neutral civilians.

The political ramifications of what Schacht and his crew had done off the Brazilian coast were enormous. Brazil went from a neutral favourable to Germany to an enraged opponent in the space of 48 hours, declaring war on Germany and supplying a Brazilian Expeditionary Force to the war in Europe and a squadron of ships to the Atlantic. More importantly, Brazilian Air Force bases were made available to American naval air squadrons, thus denying the U-boats their previous advantage of hiding in Brazilian coastal waters, and giving the Allies air cover across most of the Southern Atlantic, making the job of the U-boats significantly harder. In addition, Germany's standing amongst neutral nations, particularly the formerly pro-German dictatorships of South America, was in tatters, never to recover.

The third patrol of U-507, was also highly significant, as after two months ineffective cruising between the West African and Brazilian coasts of the South Atlantic, U-507 received a radio call from GS U-156 (1941) on 15 September reporting that she had sunk a ship carrying 1,500 Italian prisoners of war. This ship was the RMS Laconia (1921), and U-507 made all haste to aid in the rescue operation, collecting a large number of survivors on board and towing several lifeboats, until attacks by American aircraft on the rescuing submarines forced her to dive and escape. She returned to Germany with her human cargo, and there received the orders which were the end result of the Laconia incident, which consisted of a total ban on aiding shipwreck survivors, except ships' officers who were to be captured for information purposes.

4th patrol
On her fourth and final patrol she put this information to full use, as she sank three British ships off the Northern Brazilian coast, and captured the masters of all the ships, J.Stewart, F.H. Fenn and D. MacCullum. These victories had taken her into 1943 with a reputation for success, confirmed when her captain was informed of his Knight's Cross award. Sadly for him, the crew and the captives, just four days later the U-507 was spotted by an American Navy PBY Catalina aircraft of VP-83 flying from a newly available Brazilian base, which dropped several depth charges on the boat. The site of the attack was 330 miles from shore at Cape Saint Roque in Brazil, and there were no survivors, the 56 dead including Schacht, the captives, and the boat's new captain Heinz Radau, who was conducting an observation and familiarization patrol.