German submarine U-155 (1941)

German submarine U-155 was a Type IXC U-boat of the Nazi German Kriegsmarine built for service during World War II. Her keel was laid down on October 1, 1940 by AG Weser in Bremen as 'werk' 997. She was launched on May 12, 1941 and commissioned on August 23, with Kapitänleutnant Adolf Cornelius Piening in command. Piening was relieved in February 1944 (after being promoted to Korvettenkapitän), by Oberleutnant zur See Johannes Rudolph.

Leutnant zur See Ludwig von Friedeburg relieved Rudolph from August to November 1944, when Rudolph resumed command for another month. During these four months, U-155 had the youngest U-boat commander during the war since Von Friedeburg was only 20 years old. In December, Kptlt. Erwin Witte took over, and was relieved in April 1945 by Oblt. Friedrich Altmeier. Altmeier commanded the boat for one month before being ordered to surrender her.

Operational career
U-155 conducted 10 patrols, sinking 26 ships totalling, one warship of 13,785 tons and damaging one auxiliary warship of 6,736 GRT. She was a member of one wolfpack.

She sank the escort carrier HMS Avenger (D14) and the British troop transport ship Ettrick on November 15, 1942, she also damaged the requisitioned cargo ship USS Almack on the same day.

On May 4, 1945, the boat shot down a P-51 Mustang of No. 126 Squadron RAF.

1st patrol
U-155 left Kiel on her first patrol on February 7, 1942. Her route took her 'up' the North Sea, through the 'gap' between the Faroe and Shetland Islands and into the Atlantic. South of Cape Farewell in Greenland, she sank the Sama and the Adellen'' on the 22nd.

She then moved on to the US east coast, sinking the Arabutan about 81 mi off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on March 7. Tragedy struck on the 10th when the First Watch Officer (1WO) Oberleutnant zur See Gert Rentrop was washed overboard.

The boat docked at Lorient on the French Atlantic coast on March 27.

2nd patrol
Having left Lorient on April 24, 1942, U-155 steamed to the eastern Caribbean Sea and that portion of the Atlantic adjacent to it. She attacked the Brabant southwest of Grenada on May 14. The ship sank in eight minutes.

The U-boat sank another six ships; one of them, the Sylvan Arrow, was torpedoed on May 20, but did not go down until the 28th, following a salvage attempt.

The submarine returned to Lorient on June 14.

3rd patrol
U-155's third and most successful foray was conducted in similar waters to her second effort, beginning in Lorient on July 9. She sank the Barbacena with torpedoes east of Barbados, but others, such as the Piave, went to the bottom with the more economic deck gun. Another victim, the Cranford, met her end within three minutes. Part of her cargo was 6,600 tons of chrome ore. Two injured survivors were treated on U-155 before water, supplies and directions were handed over to their colleagues.

The submarine's skipper apologized for sinking one ship (the Empire Arnold on August 4), to the Chief Officer, who told him it was a bad business and wished it [the war] was over. Piening replied: "So do I".

Maschinengefreiter Konrad Garneier was lost overboard during an air attack on August 19.

In all, the boat sank ten ships, a total of 43,514 tons.

4th patrol
A spread of four torpedoes resulted in three hits, one aal (eel: U-boat slang for torpedo), damaged the USS Almaack, a US Navy-requisitioned cargo transport; two others sank HMS Avenger, an escort aircraft carrier and the Ettrick, a British troop transport on 15 November 1942 northwest of Gibraltar. Of 526 men on Avenger, there were 12 survivors. Etterick's master was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

The boat also sank the Serroskerk in mid-Atlantic. There were no survivors.

5th patrol
U-155's fifth sortie involved her move to the western Caribbean and southern Florida. She sank the Lysefjord west of Havana on April 2, 1943, and on April 3, sank the Gulfstate about 50 mi east northeast of Marathon Key, Florida.

On the return journey, she was attacked by an unknown aircraft on April 27 northwest of Cape Finisterre, Spain.

In 2013, some 70 years later, the oil tanker Gulfstate was once again a target, this time of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project, which hunts down potential sources of oil pollution from sunken vessels.

6th patrol
To try and counter the air threat, U-155 was grouped together with U-68, U-159, U-415 and U-634 in the Bay of Biscay. The little flotilla was attacked by four De Havilland Mosquitos on June 14 - three from No. 307 (Polish) Squadron RAF and one from No. 410 Squadron RCAF. One aircraft, hit in the port engine, was forced to break off its attack and return to base where it made a belly landing. Five men in the boat's crew were wounded, they were treated by U-68's doctor on the return to Lorient, which was reached on June 16.

7th and 8th patrols
Patrol number seven was as long as any of the others, to a point northeast of the Cape Verde Islands; but the boat did not find any targets.

The submarine's eighth outing took her toward the northeast coast of Brazil. While sinking the Siranger she took the third mate prisoner (he had been wounded and was operated-on by the boat's doctor). He was taken back to Lorient and was eventually transferred to the POW camp at Milag Nord near Bremen.

9th and 10th patrols
U-155's ninth patrol was, at 105 days, her longest, but like her seventh, was devoid of success. On June 23, 1944, Mosquitos of 248 Squadron attacked, killing Matrosenobergefreiter Karl Lohmeier and Mechanikerobergefreiter Friedrich Feller and wounding seven others.

Her tenth and final sally was the last by a U-boat from Lorient, which she left on September 9, 1944. By a circuitous route, she returned to Germany, docking at Flensburg on October 21.

Fate
On June 30, 1945, she was transferred from Wilhelmshaven to Loch Ryan, Scotland for Operation Deadlight on June 30, 1945 and sunk on December 21 the same year.

Post war
U-155 lies at a depth of 73 m. She was located and identified in 2001 by a team of divers led by nautical archaeologist Innes McCartney, revealing the wreck was lying upright on the sea bed and largely intact.

Her crew held their 25th reunion in 1995 with former Oberleutnant Johannes Rudolph and one of the Mosquito pilots who attacked the boat in June 1944 'on board'.