U-Boat, Cheap, As-is, Where-is
Some 80 years ago today, the Kriegsmarine delivered a scratch-and-dent high-mileage Type IXC U-boat, in an example of East-West Axis solidarity against the Allies, to the custody of the Imperial Japanese Navy at Kure. The former U-511 thus became the Emperor’s new (to him) Ro-500 on 16 September 1943.
Photos were dutifully snapped of the warm exchange, with the outgoing U-511’s crew mingling with that of the oncoming Ro-500.
The amount paid for on U-511 is up for debate, with Combined Fleet noting:
Axis propaganda asserted U-511 was a “gift” from Hitler to Emperor Hirohito. Actually, the Germans treated U-511 as a partial payment for Japanese supplies (raw rubber and torpedoes in particular) already delivered by surface blockade runners. The Japanese and Germans always dealt on a strictly hard currency (or gold) basis.
The short version of U-511’s background was that she was built by Deutsche Werft AG, laid down on 20 October 1939, and commissioned on 8 December 1941– ironically, the day of the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor as recorded in Tokyo.
The boat conducted four combat patrols, all with 10. Flottille, first under Kptlt. Friedrich Steinhoff and then under Kptlt. Fritz Schneewind, the latter a recipient of the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold, which ranked between the EK1 and below the Ritterkreuz.
She was notable for trialing the deck-mounted Wurfkörper 42 rocket system in the Baltic in May 1942, one of the first experiments in submerged rocket/missile launching.
Underwater launch of a 300mm Wurfkörper 42 Spreng from Type XIC U-Boat U-511 during trials in the Summer of 1942. The reason U-511 was chosen was due to the fact that her skipper at the time, Kptlt. Friedrich Steinhoff, was the brother of scientist Dr. Ernest A. Steinhoff, the latter “Paperclipped” to the U.S. Army after the war. Doc Steinhoof passed at Alamogordo, New Mexico after a long career in rocket development for the Air Force. A park on Holloman AFB is named after him.
Her war record included a patrol in the Caribbean under Steinhoff in the late summer of 1942, which tallied with sinking two large tankers and damaging a third. Schneewind would take over for her second (unsuccessful) patrol, her third (which netted a 5,000-ton British freighter), and her fourth, the trip to Japan via the Indian Ocean, sinking a pair of 7,000-ton American Liberty ships along the way.
On her trip to Kure, U-511 carried a number of East-bound dignitaries including Ernst Woermann, the German ambassador to Japanese-puppet Chūka Minkoku China; VADM Naokuni Nomura, the Japanese naval attaché in Berlin who hadn’t been to sea since her commanded the aircraft carrier Kaga a decade prior; and assorted German scientists and engineers. Among the cargo was a set of Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet blueprints later used by Mitsubishi to develop the J8MI Shusui (“Sword Stroke”) rocket-powered interceptor.
Anyway, once the transfer was affected on 16 September 1943, the Germans remained around to train the new owners for six weeks until leaving for Japanese-occupied Singapore aboard the Italian freighter Osorno in November, later making their way to Penang to fill in as replacement crews for Gruppe Monsun U-boats on the Indian Ocean/Pacific beat.
For instance, former U-511 skipper Schneewind took command of U-183 (another Type IXC, painted in Japanese colors) at Singapore and completed four patrols in her, sinking a British merchantman and damaging two others. He came across USS Besugo (SS-321) on 23 April 1945, with the American Balao-class boat sending U-183, Schneewind, and all but one of his crew, to the bottom of the Java Sea.
Fritz Schneewind, the image on the right while he was on U-183
As for U-511/Ro-500’s service with the Combined Fleet, it was non-spectacular. She was used primarily for testing and training purposes, typically as an ASW OPFOR to simulate U.S. submarines for subchaser/kaibokan crews.
In August 1945, she made a brief (daylong) sortie to attack the Soviets in Sakhalin waters before returning to port.
Surrendered to the Allies post VJ-Day, the interesting boat was scuttled by the U.S. Navy off Kanmuri Jima, Wakasa Bay alongside I-121 and RO-68. The trio was located in 2008 by a team at 290 feet.