IIRC he started off as a flyer but was grounded due to a leg injury which left him "unfit" for combat duty.
He transferred to the KM and the u-boat service and somehow wherever he went after his grounding by the Luftwaffe, his medical history always reached his new superior officers too late for them to remove him from whatever assignment he'd just been given.
I think by the time it caught up with him as a u-boat man, he'd already proven himself as a commander so there was no question of him being transferred ashore because of it.
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