Unterseeboot 530
Encyclopedia
German submarine U-530 was a Type IXC/40
German Type IX submarine
The Type IX U-boat was designed by Germany in 1935 and 1936 as a large ocean-going submarine for sustained operations far from the home support facilities. Type IX boats were briefly used for patrols off the eastern United States in an attempt to disrupt the stream of troops and supplies bound for...
U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
of the German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
Navy (Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
) during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
U-530 was commissioned on 14 October 1942, and served with 4th U-boat Flotilla for training, then 10th U-boat Flotilla from 1 March 1943 to 30 September 1944, and 33rd U-boat Flotilla from 1 October 1944 to 8 May 1945. U-530 completed seven war patrols sinking two ships totalling and damaging one ship totalling . She surrendered in Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
on 10 July 1945.
Wartime service
On 22 May 1944 the U-530 left LorientLorient
Lorient, or L'Orient, is a commune and a seaport in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France.-History:At the beginning of the 17th century, merchants who were trading with India had established warehouses in Port-Louis...
, France for operations in the Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
area. On her outward voyage she was to rendezvous with the and supply the larger boat with a Naxos radar detector
Naxos radar detector
The FuG 350 Naxos radar warning receiver was a World War II German countermeasure to SHF band centimetric wavelength radar produced by a cavity magnetron...
, radar operator, and a German navigator to help the I-52 complete her journey.
The submarines rendezvoused on 23 June in mid-Atlantic, 850 mi (1,367.9 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
. U-530 then headed for Trinidad, finally returning to base after 133 days at sea. The Allies had been informed of the rendezvous and directed the escort carrier to the scene; her aircraft managed to sink the I-52 with an acoustic torpedo
Acoustic torpedo
An acoustic torpedo is a torpedo that aims itself by listening for characteristic sounds of its target or by searching for it using sonar. Acoustic torpedoes are usually designed for medium-range use, and often fired from a submarine....
.
Surrender
U-530 did not initially surrender at war's end, as ordered by Admiral DönitzKarl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander during World War II. He started his career in the German Navy during World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of , the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner...
, instead the crew headed for Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and ultimately surrendered on 10 July 1945 at Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...
.
Her captain, Oberleutnant Otto Wermuth, had decided to surrender at Mar del Plata. He did not explain why it had taken him more than two months to reach there, nor why the submarine had jettisoned its deck gun
Deck gun
A deck gun is a type of artillery cannon mounted on the deck of a ship or submarine.The deck gun was used as a defensive weapon against smaller boats or ships and in certain cases where torpedo use was limited. Typically a crew of three; gunner, loader, and layer, operated the gun, while others...
, or why the crew carried no identification, nor what had happened to the ship's log.
The unexpected arrival of the U-530 started many rumors. Brazilian Admiral Jorge Dodsworth Martins said he believed that the U-530 could have sunk the cruiser Bahia
Brazilian cruiser Bahia
Bahia was the lead ship of a two-vessel class of cruisers built for Brazil by Armstrong Whitworth in the United Kingdom. Six months after her commissioning , crewmen aboard Bahia, , , and mutinied, beginning the...
, while Brazilian Admiral Dudal Teixeira believed that the U-530 had come from Japan. An Argentine reporter claimed that he had seen a Buenos Aires provincial police report to the effect that a strange submarine had surfaced off the lower Argentine coast and had landed a high-ranking officer and a civilian who might have been Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and Eva Braun
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich, when she was 17 years old, while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later...
in disguise. was also accused of sinking the Bahia; an inquiry eventually found that she had been sunk due to a gunnery accident.
The Argentine Naval Ministry issued an official communique in which they stated that the U-530 was not responsible for the sinking of the Bahia; no Nazi leader or high military officers were aboard; and the U-530 had landed no one on the coast of Argentina before surrendering.
The crew of the U-530 were interned
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
, and then transferred to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for trials. She was sunk as a target on 28 November 1947 by a torpedo from .