German submarine U-70 (1940)

German submarine U-70 was a Type VIIC submarine of the German Kriegsmarine during World War II.

The U-boat was laid down on 19 December 1939 at the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard at Kiel as Werk 604, launched on 12 October 1940, and commissioned on 23 November under the command of Kapitänleutnant Joachim Matz to serve with the 7th U-boat Flotilla from 23 November 1940 until she was sunk on 7 March 1941.

Service history
U-70's first and only patrol began on 20 February 1941. On 26 February she sank the 820	ton Swedish merchant ship Göteborg, south of Iceland.

U-70 joined GS U-47 (1938), GS U-99 (1940), and GS U-A in a wolfpack that attacked Convoy OB 293 south-east of Iceland on 7 March 1941. In her first attack at 04:45 U-70 damaged the 6,568 ton British tanker Athelbeach (later sunk by U-99), and the 6,423 ton British merchant vessel Delilian.

At 07:25 U-70 struck again and hit the 7,493 ton Dutch tanker Mijdrecht. However the Master spotted the periscope of U-70, rammed the submerged U-boat at 7 knots, damaging the conning tower and reported its position to the convoy escorts.

At 08.15 hours, the British corvette HMS Camellia (K31) sighted U-70, which promptly dived. Until 10:30 Camellia and her sister ship HMS Arbutus (K86) attacked five times with depth charges, then Arbutus made another four attacks. In total the two corvettes dropped 48 depth charges. Finally, at 12:44, U-70 was forced to the surface and was abandoned by her crew at 60.25°N, -14°W. Twenty-five survivors of her crew of forty-five, were picked up and taken prisoner.