C
Caledonia
Guest
I am planning a Dio featuring the 1/350 Dragon Scharnhorst later in 2015, and would like to include a U-Boat, the one I have chosen is the 1/350 AFV Club Type VIIB.
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709 Type VII U-boats of all variants were built during the war, more than any other submarine type built by any other nation. 24 of these were the Type VII B, which was the mount of several of the early war U-boat “aces” like Gunther Prien U-47, Schepke'sU-100 and Otto Kretschmer U-99
It is Otto Kretschmer in U-99 I will be doing to remind people that he was one of the more humane U-Boat Commanders. The sinking of the Scharnhorst and the Royal Navy's failure to rescue the crew was a blight on an otherwise proud service-perhaps memories of the Hood were still raw.
One of Germany’s greatest aces in the first 18 months of the war, Kretschmer had scored numerous successes – sinking more tonnage (almost 250,000 tons) than any other submariner in the war. On the other hand, after attacking lone unescorted ships; Kretschmer was often solicitous to the welfare of the survivors: He was known to frequently hand bottles of spirits and blankets into lifeboats, and to give them the compass bearings to the nearest land.
Trailing a convoy while submerged in 1940, Kretschmer was using his periscope when he spotted a lone man on a raft adrift far out in the Atlantic, using his shirt on an oar as a sail. He later spent half a day combing his trail to locate and pick up this castaway. This man was later transferred into a lifeboat from another ship the U-Boat ace torpedoed near Ireland.
Kretschmer’s career as a U-Boat commander ended on March 17th 1941 in a wild melee when a submarine wolf pack attacked Convoy HX112. The escort group for the convoy acquitted themselves superbly – sinking both U-100 (commanded by another of the great U-Boat aces Joachim Schepke) and Kretchmer’s U-99. Kretchmer’s boat was forced to the surface; where the crew abandoned her. The RN destroyer HMS Walker was nearby and put rescue nets in the water. Kretchmer shepherded his men to safety, making sure that all those who had made it off the sinking submarine could swim to the British destroyer and climb up the nets to safety. But by the time the last of his men was rescued and his turn had come to climb up the nets; the chill of the North Atlantic had sapped Kretschmer’s own strength and he could scarcely hold on. Seeing his predicament, a Royal Navy seaman climbed down the nets and pulled him out of the ocean.
U-99 had a brief 'encounter' with Scharnhorst, when Scharnhorst's aircraft mistook U-99 for a British Submarine and bombed it, forcing the U-Boat to return to port.
I know the dates are wrong, U-99 sunk in 1941, where as the Dragon Scharnhorst kit depicts it in 1943, but that's modelling licence for you. Derek
View attachment 96073
View attachment 96074
709 Type VII U-boats of all variants were built during the war, more than any other submarine type built by any other nation. 24 of these were the Type VII B, which was the mount of several of the early war U-boat “aces” like Gunther Prien U-47, Schepke'sU-100 and Otto Kretschmer U-99
It is Otto Kretschmer in U-99 I will be doing to remind people that he was one of the more humane U-Boat Commanders. The sinking of the Scharnhorst and the Royal Navy's failure to rescue the crew was a blight on an otherwise proud service-perhaps memories of the Hood were still raw.
One of Germany’s greatest aces in the first 18 months of the war, Kretschmer had scored numerous successes – sinking more tonnage (almost 250,000 tons) than any other submariner in the war. On the other hand, after attacking lone unescorted ships; Kretschmer was often solicitous to the welfare of the survivors: He was known to frequently hand bottles of spirits and blankets into lifeboats, and to give them the compass bearings to the nearest land.
Trailing a convoy while submerged in 1940, Kretschmer was using his periscope when he spotted a lone man on a raft adrift far out in the Atlantic, using his shirt on an oar as a sail. He later spent half a day combing his trail to locate and pick up this castaway. This man was later transferred into a lifeboat from another ship the U-Boat ace torpedoed near Ireland.
Kretschmer’s career as a U-Boat commander ended on March 17th 1941 in a wild melee when a submarine wolf pack attacked Convoy HX112. The escort group for the convoy acquitted themselves superbly – sinking both U-100 (commanded by another of the great U-Boat aces Joachim Schepke) and Kretchmer’s U-99. Kretchmer’s boat was forced to the surface; where the crew abandoned her. The RN destroyer HMS Walker was nearby and put rescue nets in the water. Kretchmer shepherded his men to safety, making sure that all those who had made it off the sinking submarine could swim to the British destroyer and climb up the nets to safety. But by the time the last of his men was rescued and his turn had come to climb up the nets; the chill of the North Atlantic had sapped Kretschmer’s own strength and he could scarcely hold on. Seeing his predicament, a Royal Navy seaman climbed down the nets and pulled him out of the ocean.
U-99 had a brief 'encounter' with Scharnhorst, when Scharnhorst's aircraft mistook U-99 for a British Submarine and bombed it, forcing the U-Boat to return to port.
I know the dates are wrong, U-99 sunk in 1941, where as the Dragon Scharnhorst kit depicts it in 1943, but that's modelling licence for you. Derek
