German submarine ''U-590'' was a Type VIIC

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'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 It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic.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 ...

'' during

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. She carried out five patrols, was a member of six wolfpacks, sank one ship of and damaged one other of . The boat was sunk by

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive hydraulic shock. Most depth charges use h ...

s from a US aircraft on 9 July 1943.

Design

German Type VIIC submarines were preceded by the shorter Type VIIB submarines. ''U-590'' had a displacement of when at the surface and while submerged. She had a total length of , a pressure hull length of , a beam of , a height of , and a draught of . The submarine 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 indu ...

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-cal ...

s producing a total of for use while surfaced, 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 19 ...

GG UB 720/8 double-acting electric motors producing a total of for use 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. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to . The submarine had a maximum surface speed of and a maximum submerged speed of . When submerged, the boat could operate for at ; when surfaced, she could travel at . ''U-590'' was fitted with five

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s (four fitted at the bow and one at the stern), fourteen

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, ...

es, one SK C/35 naval gun, 220 rounds, and a C/30 anti-aircraft gun. The boat had a complement of between forty-four and sixty.

Service history

The submarine was

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on 31 October 1940 at

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Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

as yard number 566, launched on 6 August 1941 and commissioned on 2 October under the command of Heinrich Müller-Edzards. She served with the

6th U-boat Flotilla The 6th U-boat Flotilla ( German ''6. Unterseebootsflottille''), also known as Hundius Flotilla, was a front-line unit of Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' before and during World War II. Formed on 1 October 1938 in Kiel under the command of '' ...

from 2 October 1941 for training and stayed with that organization for operations from 1 April 1942 until her loss.

First and second patrols

''U-590''s first patrol was from

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on 4 April 1942. She headed for the Atlantic Ocean via the gap separating the Faroe and

Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...

. The boat arrived in

St. Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Oce ...

(from where she would be based for the rest of her career), in occupied France on the 17th. Her second sortie was to mid-Atlantic but was relatively uneventful.

Third patrol

''U-590'' left St. Nazaire on 11 August 1942 for what was, at 106 days, her longest patrol. By the 28th she had still not left the

Bay of Biscay The Bay of Biscay (), known in Spain as the Gulf of Biscay ( es, Golfo de Vizcaya, eu, Bizkaiko Golkoa), and in France and some border regions as the Gulf of Gascony (french: Golfe de Gascogne, oc, Golf de Gasconha, br, Pleg-mor Gwaskogn), ...

. The boat headed west on 1 September. She steamed south, so that on 14 September she was off

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the ...

. She reached the most southerly point of the patrol (off

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

and

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), on 9 October. The return journey saw her southeast of the Cape Verde Islands on 1 November. She returned to St. Nazaire without any success on 24 November.

Fourth patrol

The boat had left St. Nazaire on 31 January 1943, but it was not until 11 March that she encountered and damaged the ''Jamaica Producer''. Although believed sunk, the ship managed to reach port; she was repaired and returned to service in May 1943. This ship survived the war. Eleven days later (21 March), a crew member broke an arm in mid-Atlantic.

Fifth patrol and loss

The submarine sank the ''Pelotaslóide'' near the mouth of the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

in Brazil on 4 July 1943. The ship had been waiting for tugs before entering Salinas. ''U-590'' was sunk by depth charges, in position , dropped from a US

PBY Catalina The Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In Canadian service it was known as the Canso. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served w ...

amphibian from VP-94 on 9 July 1943 near the Amazon Estuary. Forty-five men died with ''U-590''; there were no survivors.

Wolfpacks

''U-590'' took part in six wolfpacks, namely: * Hecht (8 May – 18 June 1942) * Blücher (14 – 20 August 1942) * Iltis (6 – 23 September 1942) * Neuland (8 – 13 March 1943) * Dränger (14 – 20 March 1943) * Seewolf (21 – 30 March 1943)

Summary of raiding history

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:U0590 German Type VIIC submarines U-boats commissioned in 1941 U-boats sunk in 1943 U-boats sunk by US aircraft U-boats sunk by depth charges 1941 ships Ships built in Hamburg Ships lost with all hands World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean World War II submarines of Germany Maritime incidents in July 1943