German submarine ''U-977'' was a World War II

Type VIIC Type VII U-boats were the most common type of German World War II U-boat. 703 boats were built by the end of the war. The lone surviving example, , is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial located in Laboe, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Conc ...

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

's ''

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

'' which escaped to Argentina after Germany's surrender. The submarine's voyage to Argentina led to legends,

apocryphal Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

stories and conspiracy theories that it and had transported escaping Nazi leaders (such as

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

) and/or Nazi gold to South America, that it had made a secret voyage to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

, and even that it sank the Brazilian cruiser ''Bahia'' as the last act of the

Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade ...

Design

German Type VIIC submarines were preceded by the shorter Type VIIB submarines. ''U-977'' was powered by two Germaniawerft F46 four-stroke, six-cylinder

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced induct ...

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s while surfaced and two

Brown, Boveri & Cie Brown, Boveri & Cie. (Brown, Boveri & Company; BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies. It was founded in Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. In 1 ...

GG UB 720/8 double-acting electric motors while submerged. She had two shafts and two

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

s. ''U-977'' had a complement of between 44 and 60 men.

FLAK gun

''U-977'' mounted a single 3.7 cm Flakzwilling M42U gun on the rare LM 43U mount. The LM 43U mount was the final design of mount used on U-boats and is only known to be installed on (, , , , and ). The 3.7 cm Flak M42U was the marine version of the 3.7 cm Flak, used by the

Type VII Type VII U-boats were the most common type of German World War II U-boat. 703 boats were built by the end of the war. The lone surviving example, , is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial located in Laboe, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Conc ...

and

Type IX The Type IX U-boat was designed by Nazi Germany's '' Kriegsmarine'' in 1935 and 1936 as a large ocean-going submarine for sustained operations far from the home support facilities. Type IX boats were briefly used for patrols off the eastern Un ...

U-boats. File:37 mm Flak M42 LM43U.png, The single 3.7 cm Flak M42U gun on the LM 43U mount.

Service history

''U-977'' was launched on 31 March 1943. She was used in training and made no war patrols during her first two years of service. On 2 May 1945 she was sent on her first war patrol, sailing from

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporation ...

, Norway, commanded by ''

Oberleutnant zur See ''Oberleutnant zur See'' (''OLt zS'' or ''OLZS'' in the German Navy, ''Oblt.z.S.'' in the ''Kriegsmarine'') is traditionally the highest rank of Lieutenant in the German Navy. It is grouped as OF-1 in NATO. The rank was introduced in the Imper ...

'' Heinz Schäffer (1921–1979). Schäffer's orders were to enter the British port of

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

and sink any shipping there. This would have been a very dangerous assignment for a Type VII boat. When Admiral Dönitz ordered all attack submarines to stand down on 5 May 1945, ''U-977'' was outbound north of Scotland.

Voyage to Argentina

''Oblt.z.S.'' Schäffer decided to sail to Argentina rather than surrender. During later interrogation, Schäffer said his main reason was a German propaganda broadcast by

Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

, which claimed that the Allies' Morgenthau Plan would turn Germany into a "goat pasture" and that all German men would be "enslaved and sterilized". Other factors were remembrances of the poor conditions and long delays that German POWs suffered through, in being repatriated at the end of World War I (see

Forced labor of Germans after World War II In the years following World War II, large numbers of German civilians and captured soldiers were forced into labor by the Allied forces. The topic of using Germans as forced labor for reparations was first broached at the Tehran conference i ...

), and the hope of better living conditions in Argentina, which had a large German community. Schäffer offered the married crewmen the option of going ashore in Europe. Sixteen chose to do so and were landed from dinghies on

Holsnøy Holsnøy is an island in Alver Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The island lies to the north/west of the mainland, between the islands of Radøy to the north and Askøy to the south. The highest point on the island is the tall Eldsfjel ...

island near

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

on 10 May . ''U-977'' then sailed to Argentina. Schäffer's version of the voyage states that from 10 May to 14 July 1945 she made a continuous submerged Schnorchel passage, "at 66 days the second longest in the war ic - Germany had surrendered(after 's 68 days)". The U.S. Navy (USN) interrogated the crew and issued a report on 19 September 1945. The report does not mention a 66-day submerged voyage, but states that ''U-977'' "made for the Iceland Passage on course 300° hat is, northwest by westdiving once on sighting a plane and once on sighting a ship; she was also DF'd many times late in May". (This could also mean traveling at snorkel depth and then diving on contact; possible translation errors during interrogations.) According to the Navy report, the submarine stopped in the Cape Verde Islands for a short break, then completed the trip traveling on the surface using one engine. Crossing the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

on 23 July, she arrived in

Mar del Plata Mar del Plata is a city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the seat of General Pueyrredón district. Mar del Plata is the second largest city in Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" is a s ...

, Argentina on 17 August after 99 days at sea from Bergen and a voyage of 14,157 km (7,644 nmi, 8,797 mi). These points agree with Schäffer's report that he stopped at Cape Verde Islands for a short break and crossed the equator on 23 or 24 July 1945. Schäffer said that, after the short Cape Verde break, they completed the rest of the trip to Mar del Plata alternately on the surface and submerged. After surrendering to the Argentine authorities, as had happened to the crew of ''U-530'', they were extradited to the US where they responded to the charge of having torpedoed the cruiser ''Bahia'', and then to the UK, where they faced accusations that they had landed Nazi leaders in Argentina before surrendering. Schäffer was released in 1947. ''U-977'' like ''U-530'' was seized by the US Navy, and sunk during naval firing exercises, in its case in 1946, when it was used as a target.Kittel & Graf, 2015. p.93.

In the arts

Schäffer later wrote a book: ''U-977 – 66 Tage unter Wasser'' ("U-977 – 66 Days Under Water"), the first postwar memoir by a former U-boat officer. It was published in 1952, and was translated into English under the title ''U-Boat 977''. A documentary fil
''U-977 - 66 Days Under Water''
directed by Nadine Poulain, Schäffer's granddaughter, was in the final stages of production in 2014.

References

Bibliography

* * * * Juan Salinas & Carlos De Nápoli (2002) ''Ultramar Sur: la última operación secreta del Tercer Reich'' ("South Overseas: the last secret operation of Third Reich") Grupo Editorial Norma * Kittel & Graf (2015) ''The History of U-Boot'' Edizione R.E.I. * Paterson, Lawrence (2009) ''Black Flag: The Surrender of Germany's U-Boat Forces on Land and at Sea'' Seaforth Publishing * * Schäffer, Heinz, Leonce Peillard ''Der U-Boot-Krieg'' 1999 (In German) * Schäffer, Heinz, ''U-Boat 977: The U-Boat That Escaped to Argentina'' 2005 (First published in Germany in 1952 as ''U-977 – 66 Tage unter Wasser'')

External links

"Books: Go In & Sink"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. 23 February 1953. Review of the book ''U-BOAT 977''. * * * ( Mark Felton Productions) {{DEFAULTSORT:U0977 Argentina in World War II German Type VIIC submarines U-boats commissioned in 1943 World War II submarines of Germany 1943 ships Ships sunk as targets Ships built in Hamburg Captured U-boats Maritime incidents in Argentina U-boats sunk in 1946 Maritime incidents in 1946