Name UA (ex Batiray) Laid down 1937 Fate Scuttled, 3 May 1945 Construction started 1937 Length 87 m Beam 6.8 m | Ordered 1936 Commissioned 1939 Status Sunk Launched 28 August 1938 Draft 4.12 m | |
Builder Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft | ||
U-A was the official call-sign of one of fourteen U-boats that made up the Foreign U-boats of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. Built at Kiel as one of four submarines of the Ay class for Turkey, the Batiray as she was to have been named, was not handed over to the Turkish Navy but seized by Germany and commissioned into the Kriegsmarine in 1939. Two sister-ships the Saldiray and Atilay had been delivered in June 1939. One boat, Yildiray, was built slowly in a Turkish shipyard. The design was a modification of the Type IX to fit Turkish requirements. Two of Turkish U-boats served in the Turkish Navy until 1957, but Atilay was lost in a training exercise off Canakkale.
Service
U-A was commissioned on 30 April 1939 under the initial command of Hans Cohausz, and later Hans Eckerman. She was supposed to be used as a minelayer by the Turkish, but the Germans used her like a type IX U-boat.
U-A was attacked on 8 March 1941 by the destroyer HMS Wolverine, but survived. During her service, she sank seven Allied ships, including the British 13,950-ton armed merchant cruiser HMS Andania. Only nine ships in total were destroyed by the Foreign U-boat corps, U-A destroying seven of those while damaging another three.
She was decommissioned and scuttled on 3 May 1945, as the war was drawing to a close.