The Spreewald Incident

[Sailor Steve]

On January 31, 1942, Peter-Erich Cremer in U-333 Torpedoed and sank what he thought was the Norwegian freighter Elg. As the ship was sinking the radio operator sent out a distress call, claiming the ship was named Brittany. Actually it was the German blockade runner Spreewald, carrying Allied prisoners from ships sunk by the merchant raider Kormoran (later famous for the sinking of HMAS Sydney). After he was informed of his mistake by U-123, which was waiting for Spreewald with an injured crewman, and u-575, which was to escort the ship to France. The three u-boats proceeded to search for survivors. Before long they were joined by four other u-boats, a total of seven.

Eighty survivors out of 152 aboard were rescued. Cremer was court-martialled, but exonerated after all the evidence was examined.
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/1305.html

Did he lose 10 times the renown?:hmm:

[Raptor1]

Ouch, talk about friendly fire

[GoldenRivet]

I had a similar incident happen to my kaleun in the first release of the Grey wolves!

I was patrolling well into St. Georges Canal, lookign at a chart i would estimate my position to be BF24... within sight of land late at night.

I caught what appeared to be a group of three Hunt class Destroyers cruising slow - perhaps 5 knots in a westerly direction at medium range.

I targeted each ship, and missed the first two, but struck the third in the line.

The destroyer suffered catastrophic damage, but did not sink, it instead set very low in the water... almost up to decks awash and slowed to about one knot. the remaining two destroyers slowed to near a stop.

As i was playing without external camera as i often do... it wasn't until i got much closer to the stricken destroyer that i realized the three were flying the flag of the Fatherland!

Crap!

I never imagined in my wildest dreams that three German Destroyers would be patrolling within sight of English Soil so far inshore!

I left the area at maximum speed, and continued my patrol, i dont know if the destroyer ever sunk or not. I never got "credit" for the sinking, so i assume she either made it home, or i left sensor range before she sank!

Shwew!

it was from that moment onward that i made "flag verification" a integral part of plotting a solution on a target.

[meduza]

Thanks for sharing, Sailor Steve. I guess it's not very pleasant to attack (or to be attacked by) your own men.

GoldenRivet, I'm not surprised you attacked those DDs. Who would have expected friendly ships over there?!

[Sailor Steve]

That's exactly my point. I've run across several accounts of friendly/neutral sinkings, and in almost every case the kaleun involved was absolved of all (or most blame). Either the ship was where it wasn't supposed to be, or a neutral was checked and found to be carrying contraband, or in this case the friendly was disguised as an enemy in order to pass safely through them.

I've already changed my neutral renown loss to '0', so I don't gain but don't lose for sinking one accidentally. After reading this I'm thinking of changing my friendly renown loss to '-1' rather than '-10'. I don't play games sinking them all on purpose, so I see no reason not to make it more in line with what I've read.

[Vacillator]

Disguised as Norwegian, running blacked out to 'look the part'. You've got to sympathise with Cremer, I'd have been gutted.

[Laufen zum Ziel]

Thanks SS a great piece of sub history....

[Brag]

The north sea is treacherous in more than a few ways--Kaleuns beware!

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Vacillator

Disguised as Norwegian, running blacked out to 'look the part'. You've got to sympathise with Cremer, I'd have been gutted.

Not only that, but the Spreewald wasn't where it was supposed to be: Cremer had absolutely no reason to think it was anything but a Norwegian freighter. That's the main reason he was exonerated.

[Kapt Z]

I highly recommend Cremer's book "U-boat Commander". Aside from the Spreewald incident, he had some crazy escapes and managed to live through the war.

His boat was runover at periscope depth by a tanker off the US coast and he brought her all the way back to France in a constant state of near sinking.

His U-333 was rammed by a corvette while on the surface off Africa and they shot up the conning tower so bad several of the watch were killed and he was wounded more than 13 times, yet managed to escape.

He finished the war commanding Donitz's body guard.

[Steeltrap]

I've got Cremer's book, titled "U-333: the story of a u-boat ace" here in Australia.

I've used it as a reference for a few things, including comments on 'crash dive' etc.

He was defended by Doenitz's son-in-law (which probably didn't hurt his cause...). Spreewald failed to follow the correct procedure for a blockade runner and that was why Cremer was exonerated.

It's a sad chapter in what is, ultimately, a sad story in all (namely, the waste of lives and effort).

Cremer comes across as a decidedly humane person. He was interviewed for "The World at War" series, narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. The fact that he and the skipper of the corvette that rammed him exchanged Christmas cards/letters for the rest of their lives speaks volumes for the 'different' nature of the war at sea.

That tanker that rammed him did so by accident. The tanker was changing course by up to 90 degrees (!!) every half hour or so, and put its wheel hard over just as u-333 was preparing to attack it. Cremer rather wryly concludes it was probably the best result for all concerned: she was full of avgas - at that range, Cremer concluded, they would ALL have been blown to bits!! He also kept in touch with her skipper after the war, too (amazingly, that tanker survived the war unscathed - she was double-hulled, so going over the u-333 didn't breach her inner hull....the prop chewed up the conning tower rather well!!).

A great read. I recommend it to anyone.

[Myxale]

Doesn't really fit here, but on my third patrol, I engaged and sunk a big cargo a good beam off Britannia.

The weather was really poor and the ship was sailing darkened! -I was unsure about it-, but judging from the general course and the non-illuminated parts- it screamed tommy!

Turned out to be one of ours! I sunk around 5000 German tonnage!

It really does happen easily! Nevertheless this patrol was one of biggest success!