Flotilla Admiral Otto Kretschmer (1 May 1912 – 5 August
1998) was a German U-boat commander of the Second World War, and was the most
successful Ace of the Deep. From September 1939 until being captured in March
1941, he sank 47 ships for a total of 274,333 tons. For this he received the
Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, among other commendations. He earned
the nickname "Silent Otto" both for his successful use of the
"silent running" capability of the U-boats as well as for his
reluctance to make radio broadcasts during patrols.
The German invasion of Poland found Kretschmer still in
command of U-23, and he was soon sent into action along with the rest of the
Kriegsmarine's U-Boat fleet. His first war patrols ranged across the North Sea
and around the British coast. Kretschmer's first success came in Moray Firth
where he attacked and sunk the Danish 10,517 ton tanker Danmark on January 12,
1940 using torpedoes. The British admiralty at that time thought that the
tanker had struck a mine as they did not locate any U-boat in the area. A month
later on 18 February, Kretschmer sank the 1,300 ton British fleet destroyer HMS
Daring off the Pentland Firth while she was escorting convoy HN-12 from Norway.
U-Boat crews almost always avoided deliberately engaging enemy destroyers, so
the Daring's destruction was rightly seen as a very skillful attack by both
Kretschmer and the U-23.
In April 1940, after eight patrols, Kretschmer left the U-23
and was transferred to the newly-completed Type VII B U-99, and in a sense
started his legacy. After two months' training and shakedown maneuvers in
German waters, U-99 went into action in June 1940. During the first four
patrols of the U-99, Kretschmer started attacking convoys at night on the
surface, taking down merchant ships with highly accurate shots, using only one
torpedo per target ship in order to save ammunition, and the quote "One
torpedo ... one ship" is attributed to Kretschmer from around this time.
Kretschmer's tactics were widely copied throughout the U-Boat force, although
they achieved mixed results in practice.
His most successful patrol occurred in November-December
1940. During that patrol, Kretschmer and U-99 sank three British armed merchant
cruisers, HMS Laurentic (18,724 tons), HMS Patroclus (11,314 tons) and HMS
Forfar (16,402 tons). Laurentic and Patroclus were sunk on the night of 3–4
November after they responded to distress calls from the 5,376 ton British
freighter Casanare, which U-99 had mortally wounded about 250 miles west of
Ireland. Forfar was sunk a month later on 2 December while steaming to join up
with and escort outbound convoy OB-251. Put together, the three AMCs totalled
over 46,000 gross tons. These three successes earned Kretschmer the number-one
spot on the Aces list, and was never surpassed. Klaus Bargsten served aboard
U-99 under Kretschmer, before being promoted to captain himself and becoming
the sole survivor of U-521 on 2 June 1942. Siegfried von Forstner was another
of Kretschmer's student officers aboard U-99 who later received the Knight's
Cross of the Iron Cross for sinking 15 ships as commanding officer of U-402.
Kretschmer was also meticulous in his conduct towards the
crews of torpedoed ships. When attacking lone merchant ships in the days before
wolfpack tactics began in earnest, he had been known to hand down bottles of
spirits and blankets into lifeboats and give them the course to the nearest
land. On one patrol in September 1940, Kretschmer had also retrieved a survivor
of another torpedo attack who was alone in the Atlantic on a small raft and
took him aboard, transferring him later to a lifeboat after his next successful
attack.
On his last patrol in March 1941, he sank 10 more ships, but
these were to be Kretschmer's last victims. On 17 March 1941, during a
counterattack by British escorts of Convoy HX-112, U-99 was disabled after
repeated depth charge attacks by the British destroyers HMS Walker and HMS
Vanoc. Kretschmer surfaced and, under fire from the British vessels, scuttled
his boat. Three of his men were lost, but Kretschmer and the remainder of
U-99's crew were captured by the British. The same day saw the British escorts
scored another success against the Kriegsmarine: another noted U-Boat skipper,
Joachim Schepke, was killed aboard U-100 when that boat was rammed and sunk in
heavy fog by Vanoc.
Kretschmer's usual standards of conduct were evident during
the sinking of his boat; he signaled HMS Walker asking for rescue for his men,
took pains to ensure as many left the submarine as possible, and assisted some
of his crew towards the rescue nets hung from the British destroyer.
Kretschmer's strength was evidently failing in the cold water and his own
rescue was at the hands of a British sailor who climbed down the nets and
plucked him from the water.