U-Boats & Battleships

ORP Sokol N97 Polish submarine and its crew in Gibraltar, presumably sometime during 1944, with the men holding a captured German flag and a “Jolly Roger” pirate flag. The ORP Sokol U-class submarine was built and launched by the British Royal Navy in 1940 as HMS Urchin, but was immediately …

Heavy cruiser Lützow (aka pocket battleship) with a snapped off stern in Kiel harbor sometime after April 13th, 1940. Commissioned by the Weimar government, Lützow was completed in 1933 as the leading ship of the heavy cruiser class “Deutschland”. It was renamed Lützow in January 1940. Damage was caused by …

Flower class corvette HMCS Timmins navigates in rough waters during North Atlantic Patrols, 1941. HMCS Timmins was a small warship (corvettes are usually the smallest vessels to be rated as warships) which served for the Royal Canadian Navy during the Battle of the Atlantic, between 1942 and 1945. She was …

German U-Boat commander pictured while looking down the hatch of his submarine. Further details about the photograph are unknown. Book suggestions ⤵️ 📖 Wolf: U-Boat Commanders in World War II (Jordan Vause, 1997) 📖 U-Boat War (Lothar Gunther Buchheim, 1986)

View from the Us Coast Guard Cutter Spencer (WPG-36), as it is sinking the German U-Boat U-175 with depth charges on April 17th, 1943. Out of a crew of 54 men, 13 were killed and 41 were taken prisoners. Book suggestions ⤵️ 📖 Iron Coffins: A Personal Account of the …

SS Kurtulus was a Turkish cargo ship (built in 1883) which was used for humanitarian relief during World War Two, carrying food to Greece during the Axis occupation. A total of 6.735 tons of food aid are said to have been delivered by the ship to the famine-struck Greeks. SS …

USS Nevada (BB-36) battleship firing its 14″/45 guns towards shore during the Utah Beach landings on June 6th, 1944. The “unsinkable” USS Nevada BB-36 was the lead ship of the two Nevada class battleships. It was launched in 1914 and served in both World Wars. Among other feats, it survivied …

Crew of German U-550 U-Boat abandon ship and await rescue on the deck. April 16th, 1944. The German submarine torpedoed and sunk the massive Pan Pennsylvania tanker, which was trailing behind its convoy south of Nantucket Island. Expecting a counterattack from the US convoy CU 21, captain Klaus Hanert decided, …

Periscope view from a German U-Boat as it hit and sunk an enemy vessel with a torpedo, 1942. Other details are unknown. Book suggestions ⤵️ 📖 Iron Coffins: A Personal Account of the German U-boat Battles of World War II (Herbert A. Werner, 1968) . 📖 U-Boat War (Lothar Gunther …

German U-boat with crew posing beside a frozen deck gun in the Polar Sea, probably the Arctic Circle, sometime in 1942. Book suggestion ⤵️ 📖 U-Boat War (Lothar Gunther Buchheim, 1986)