laststandonzombieisland

With accurate weather forecasts in Europe dependent on knowledge of frontal systems passing through the Arctic regions, Hitler’s Third Reich needed weather forecasts from the ice floes of Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Canada to win the war.

German submarine U-537 was a Type IXC/40 U-boat of the German Kriegsmarine built for service during World War II. It was a new boat and sailed from the occupied Norwegian port of Bergen on her inaugural patrol on Sept 30, 1943. On board was a 2200-pound modular weather station capable of beaming weather reports from Canada to Germany for six months. The device would send a 2-minute transmission 8 times per day on the 3940 kHz wavelength with the local temperature, air humidity, air pressure, and wind velocity and wind direction. Taking on one Dr. Kurt Sommermeyer– a meteorologist– and his faithful assistant Hildebrandt of the Siemens company (who manufactured the station) to set up the station, U-537 sailed to North America.
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After receiving much damage from a mid-Atlantic storm, the U-537 surfaced on October 22 on the coast of Labrador. Over the course of a day, the submarine’s crew assisted Dr. Sommermeyer and Hildebrandt with setting up WFL (Wetter-Funkgerät Land) weather station number 26. Of the 30 of these stations designed and built, WFL-26 was the only one set up in North America. On the next day, with the station, codenamed Kurt, beaming loud and clear, U-537 left a part of the Third Reich quietly behind on an isolated Canadian coastal bay. If found the station was marked as belonging to the “Canadian Meteor [sic] Service” and was extensively camouflaged as well.

The Wartime Service of Weather Station Kurt
Designed to operate for up to 180-days and send over 1500-transmissions, the signal from WFL-26, the station began to transmit erratically on November 8 and then ceased all transmissions to Germany on the 18th, after only 25 days of service. The dormant spy station remained undiscovered until it was finally found in 1977 by a Bryn Mawr College geomorphologist on a site survey, who promptly marked it as being a Canadian weather station. It was not until 1981 that, after a tip off from a Siemens company archivist in West Germany, that the station was properly identified. It was soon recovered by the Canadian Defense Forces and is today preserved in the Canadian War Museum on public exhibit.

The Fate of the U-537
On the cruise back to Europe, the U-537 was found and attacked unsuccessfully at least three times by Royal Canadian Air Force Catalina and Hudson bombers. She arrived in German occupied France on December 8. Her second patrol, lasting 131 days and took her to the Pacific Ocean, was also unlucky and she did not sink any allied ships. While on her third patrol, U-537 was sunk with all hands by the US Navy emGato/em-class submarine emUSS Flounder/em (SS-251).

The unlucky U-537 was commanded by emKapitänleutnant /emPeter Schrewe for her entire career and he remains aboard her until this day. The wreck of the U537 lies near Coordinates: 7°13′S 115°17′E.

Sources
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Douglas, Alec, emThe Nazi Weather Station in Labrador/em. Canadian Geographic, V.101, No.6 1982/li
Kissell, Joe, emWeather Station Kurt: Nazi weather forecasts from Canada/em, Interesting Thing of the Day, March 27, 2005/li
Thorne, R.G, emA Cherished Past: Newfoundland’s Front Row Seat to History/em. St. John’s, NL/Thorton Publishing Ltd. 2004/        War Patrols by German U-boat U-537/em – Boats – uboat.net. Retrieved Jan 2012/li
Weather station Kurt erected in Labrador in 1943/em, U-boat.net. Retrieved Jan 2012/li
Wetterfunk website (in german) http://home.arcor.de/wkhn/html/wetterfunk.html. Retrieved Jan 2012/li

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