German submarine U-365

German submarine U-365 was a Type VIIC U-boat built for the German Kriegsmarine for service during World War II. She served exclusively against the Arctic Convoys from Britain to Murmansk and Archangelsk, principally targeting the Soviet forces which greeted the convoys in the Barents Sea.

The boat was built in Flensburg in 1942 and 1943, U-365 was a Type VIIC U-boat, with five torpedo tubes and a deck gun for smaller targets. She was captained by Kptlt. Heimar Wedemeyer, an efficient if slightly cautious officer, who worked his boat and crew up before being dispatched to the 9th Flotilla based at Bergen, Norway, from which she conducted her first three patrols.

War patrols
U-365's early operations were in support of clandestine operations in the North Sea and Arctic Ocean, in the course of which she saw no action against Allied shipping or positions. Not until her fifth patrol, following a shift in patrol zones to the frozen seas around Novaya Zemlya and transfer to the 13th U-boat Flotilla, that U-365 experienced success. In this region, on the 12 August, the boat spotted a small Soviet convoy and in rapid order sank a 5,000-ton freighter and the two 600-ton minesweepers intended to protect it.

However, due to the remoteness of the U-365's patrol zones, the cautiousness of her commander and the efficiency of Allied submarine defences by the autumn of 1944, Wedemeyer was unable to score another victory for his boat in the next two patrols, and was eventually replaced by Kptlt. Diether Todenhagen, who had previously served on the enormously successful GERMAN SUBMARINE U-48, and had a reputation as an aggressive submariner. This seemed deserved as on his first patrol, on the 6 December, he sank the tiny Soviet patrol ship BO-2 in the Barents Sea. This was followed five days later with a determined attack on an Allied convoy in which the British destroyer HMS Cassandra (R62) was seriously damaged. However in orchestrating the attack the U-boat's position was revealed, and just two days later two Fairey Swordfish aircraft from 813 Squadron flying from the escort carrier HMS Campania (D48) spotted the submarine and sank her near the Lofoten Islands with bombs. All 50 of the U-boat's crew perished in the wreck.