German submarine U-703 was a Type VIIC

German Type VII submarine

Type VII U-boats were the most common type of German World War II U-boat. The Type VII was based on earlier German submarine designs going back to the World War I Type UB III, designed through the Dutch dummy company Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw den Haag which was set up by Germany after...

 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...

 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 It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine.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...

 deployed during the Second World War against allied shipping in the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. She was a successful boat, which had a far longer service life than most other U-boats, primarily due to the restricted zone of operations in which she fought. Her main mission during the war was to target the Arctic Convoys which carried supplies to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 from Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. At this she was quite successful in her three years of raiding until her presumed demise in 1944.

U-703 was built at Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 in Northern Germany on the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

. She was completed in the autumn of 1941, and given to the experienced Kptlt. Heinz Bielfeld to command. He took her on her working-up period in which the boat was tested and the crew trained in the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

 and around the German held coastlines, before being dispatched to Narvik

Narvik

is the third largest city and municipality in Nordland county, Norway by population. Narvik is located on the shores of the Narvik Fjord . The municipality is part of the Ofoten traditional region of North Norway, inside the arctic circle...

 in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 for her first war patrol in April 1942.

War Patrols

Enjoying the improving Arctic weather, U-703 had an unsuccessful patrol in terms of victims, but the boat began to work better as a team, and the second patrol in May reaped dividends, with the sinking of the 6,000 ton American freighter SS Syros. This ship sank with eleven lives after a torpedo touched off her ammunition. The same patrol scored greater success during the disastrous end to Convoy PQ-17

Convoy PQ-17

PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied World War II convoy in the Arctic Ocean. In July 1942, the Arctic convoys suffered a significant defeat when Convoy PQ 17 lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships during a series of heavy enemy daylight attacks which lasted a week. On 27 June, the ships sailed...

 on the 5 May, when she managed to sink two lone cargo ships, one of them damaged by long range German bombers beforehand. Returning to port at Narvik, U-703 was cheered by her victory, but she struggled to make further impressions during the year, as her two further patrols yielded only one victim, the British destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

 , which was fatally crippled by a torpedo near Convoy PQ-18

Convoy PQ-18

Convoy PQ-18 was one of the Arctic convoys sent from Britain to aid the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany. The convoy departed Loch Ewe, Scotland on 2 September 1942 and arrived in Arkhangelsk on 21 September 1942....

 in September.

Following her lay-over in the winter as her home ports of Narvik, Trondheim

Trondheim

Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

, Hammerfest

Hammerfest

is a city and municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The municipality encompasses parts of three islands: Kvaløya, Sørøya, and Seiland. Hammerfest was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...

, Harstad

Harstad

is the second largest city and municipality by population, in Troms county, Norway – the city is also the third largest in North Norway. Thus Harstad is the natural centre for its district. Situated approximately north of the Arctic Circle, the city celebrated its 100th anniversary in...

 and Bergen were all frozen, U-703 returned to the offensive, again attacking allied convoys in the Arctic Sea. Her first two patrols, in January and April were short and barren, but on the next two in July and August 1943 under her new commander Joachim Brünner, she cruised in Soviet waters in the Barents Sea

Barents Sea

The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...

 and further east, catching a small Soviet armed trawler

Naval trawler

A naval trawler is a vessel built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes. Naval trawlers were widely used during the First and Second world wars. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust boats designed to work...

 on 1 August, and larger Soviet merchant ship the next day, sinking the SS Sergj Kirov near Istvestij Island. These patrols had shown the vulnerability of older U-boats to newer allied countermeasures and protection, forcing the submarines to divert themselves into backwaters of the Battle of the Atlantic in order to gain any victories.

The U-703 continued operating in the spring of 1944, but she was obviously less efficient and was given duties deploying weather balloons in the Arctic Sea to test weather conditions for reports to other shipping,. This was in part a result of terrible damage she received off Narvik during her first patrol of the season, when allied aircraft strafed her, killing three crew and wounding three more. Just a few days before she had claimed her only victim of the year, the SS Empire Tourist, which was sunk whilst part of Convoy RA-57.

Relegated to her new duties, U-703 suddenly disappeared around the 25 September 1944. She had left Narvik on her thirteenth war patrol on 14 September, in order to deploy a weather balloon in the Arctic. At the time a heavy gale was running, and it has been assumed that U-703 foundered due to heavy seas in the course of this difficult and highly technical operation. No trace of the boat and her 54 crew has ever been found.

Raiding career

Date	Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
2 May 1942	SS Syros	American	6,191	Sunk
5 July 1942		British	6,645	Sunk
5 July 1942		British	5,479	Sunk
20 September 1942		British	1,870	Damaged
30 July 1943	T-911 (Pennant No.65) [Formerly RT-76]http://www.uboatwaffe.net/ops/ships.cgi?boat=703;nr=5	Soviet naval trawler	500	Sunk
1 October 1943	SS Sergej Kirov	Soviet	4,146	Sunk
3 April 1944	SS Empire Tourist	British	7,062	Sunk