Country Nazi Germany Type Wolfpack | Branch Kriegsmarine Size 10 submarines | |
Active 25 October - 16 November 1943 Notable
commanders Peter-Erich Cremer
Heinz Franke
Karl-Heinz Marbach | ||
Schill was a wolfpack of German U-boats that operated during the battle of the Atlantic in World War II.
Contents
Service history
Following the resumption of the assault on the Atlantic convoy routes in the Autumn of 1943, U-boat Control (Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote) (BdU) switched the focus of the campaign in October to the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic routes. To this end it established the wolfpack Schill off the coast of Portugal, to intercept convoys sailing to and from Gibraltar, Mediterranean and South Atlantic.
Schill comprised ten U-boats, and commenced operations on 25 October. Its first action was against home-bound convoy SL 138/MKS 28. During this assault the freighter Hallfried was sunk by U-262 on 29 October; however U-306 was sunk by convoy escorts Whitehall and Geranium on 31 October. Following this attack, Schill remained on patrol, but had no further successes. On 9 November, U-707 was caught and sunk by Allied aircraft, a B-17 of 220 Squadron.
On 16 November Schill was reinforced and re-organized into three groups. The first, Schill 1, of eight U-boats, was the southernmost rake, running in a line to the west of Lisbon. The second, Schill 2, of nine U-boats, was aligned west of Cape Finisterre in Spain, while the third, Schill 3, of nine U-boats, was 150 nautical miles (280 km) north of this, roughly along the 45 parallel.
On 18 November U-boats of Schill 1 opened the attack on convoy SL 139/MKS 30; over the next three days the boats of all three Schill groups were involved with three U-boats destroyed. On 18 November U-211 was sunk by a Wellington, and on the 19th U-536 by Nene and Snowberry. On the 21st U-538, en route from the North Atlantic to join Schill was caught and sunk by escorts Foley and Crane. Two aircraft were shot down on 20 November; a Liberator by U-648 and a Sunderland by U-618, but no ships were sunk from the convoy.
With the end of the convoy battle on 22 November the Schill groups were disbanded; a number returned to base, while a cadre remained to form a new patrol line, code-named Weddigen.
U-boats involved
(25 October-16 November 1943)
Schill