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Originally Posted by PhantomLord
Afaik no german u-boat commander ever was aboard a merchant. German Aux.-cruisers seized many ships but allied crews often had the time to destroy secret material. I don´t want to know how many bags with that stuff were marking the convoy routes...
Position of minefields were often captured via radio messages. The german B-Dienst (Beobachtungsdienst / naval intelligence) was very good in the first years.
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I agree, i don't believe that any u-boat "commander" was ever aboard a merchant, but there were episodes where they examined vessels:
July 13. 1942, the Barents sea, the PQ 17 disaster:
The dutch merchant "
Paulus Potter" is found abandoned by U 255 (Kaleun Reinhardt Reche, U-boat named "Der Fuchs"). Reche ordered some men aboard the abandoned vessel, and one of the men, the watch officer aboard "Der Fuchs", Hugo Deiring, found the secret codebooks together with a complete list containing the names of all ships sailing in convoy PQ 17.
Reche and his men concluded that "
Paulus Potter" had been hit by an air-dropped torpedo, + a towing attempt had been made by the other allied ships before they choose to abandon her. Reche also noticed that "Paulus Potter" was heavily armed, with AA-guns, machineguns and a stern-mounted deck gun. Reche ordered the crew to load the last torpedo he had available, and fired it into "
Paulus Potter". The merchant sank within 2 minutes after the impact.
Source:
Knudsen, Sven Aage: "Ubåtkrig (U-boat war), Danor 2006
Edit: Addition from uboat.net: http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1929.html