Operation Deadlight - German U-Boat Fleet Surrender 1945 - Derry/Londonderry N.Ireland
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2014
- The Music is The Floo'ers o' the Forest (Flowers of the Forest) written as a lament for the Scots killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
Sung by Dick Gaughan.
Operation Deadlight
The Royal Navy's Operation Deadlight
was the executive action which led to the sinking of 116 German U-Boats off Northern Ireland and Donegal between 27 November 1945 and 12 February 1946.
Because the imminent onset of winter and its associated rough seas in the area to the north west of Loch Ryan and Lisahally would make the towing and sinking of the U-Boats a hazardous task, it was decided that the action should be initiated without delay. The formal order for Operation Deadlight, which was issued on 14 November, involved just 30 U-Boats from Lisahally. The Operation itself started on 25 November, but Phase 1 was concerned with the U-Boats from Loch Ryan.
Phase 2 started on 29 December 1945 and, despite the relatively small number of U-Boats from Lisahally (only 26% of the total sunk), it was a major exercise which involved more Royal Navy and other vessels than the number ofU-Boats themselves.
The surface fleet, which included 19 destroyers and frigates -
of which three belonged to the Polish Navy - and which was under the
overall command of Captain St.J A Micklethwait, DSO**, RN,
(Captain (D) 17th Flotilla) - was moored at Moville near the mouth of
Lough Foyle.
The arrangements were that each day during the operation,
small groups of U-Boats would be brought down river from Lisahally by
skeleton German crews, who would handover each U-boat to one of the surface vessels, disembark, and then be ferried back to Lisahally.
The aim was that the U-Boats should then be towed (unmanned) to a designated position 130 miles to the north west of Lough Foyle, where they would be sunk. The prime method was to be by the use of demolition charges, however if weather conditions allowed, three were to be sunk by torpedo from the submarine HMS Templar. If any of these methods of disposal failed, then the U-Boats were to be sunk by gunfire.
As expected, the weather was particularly bad in December 1945 and
January 1946, and the planned disposal arrangements did not work on the vast majority of occasions, especially as far as the plans for sinking the U-Boats with demolition charges were concerned. There were also major problems with the towing of the unmanned U-Boats by vessels which were not suited to such activity.
Comparison of the planned disposal arrangements for the 30 U-Boats from Lisahally with what actually happened shows the scale of disruption to the plans.
Not a single one of the U-Boats were sunk by demolition charges, and only one was sunk by torpedo. Of the remaining 29, three foundered under tow and 24 were sunk by gunfire before they ever reached the designated scuttling area.
The remaining two were sunk by gunfire in the scuttling area, as it was far too dangerous to follow the pre-planned demolition procedure.
Of the U-Boats from Lisahally sunk in Operation Deadlight, 28
were sunk between 29 December 1945 and 8 January 1946, and the remaining two, U-975 and U-3514, were sunk on 10 and 12 February 1946 respectively.
The 30 U-Boats concerned were:
U-244, U-278, U-294, U-363, U-516, U-541, U-668, U-764, U-802, U-825, U-861, U-874, U-875, U-883, U-901, U-930, U-975, U-1010, U-1022, U-1023, U-1109, U-1165, U-2336, U-2341, U-2351, U-2356, U-2502, U-2506, U-2511 and U-3514. - Krátké a kreslené filmy
My father's ship was torpedoed and sunk by the U87 in January 1942. He died aged 25.along with half the crew U87 was depth charged and sunk with all hands in March 1043. What a sad waste of young lives. Nothing glorious about it!!
Well said, so many kids dying on both sides.
Never trust British government .no surrender
@CA Babyboomer more propaganda
@CA Babyboomer I'm a so called baby boomer .I investigated not took the narrative as truth
@@malcolmcanning548 You're an absolute disgrace.
Thanks for posting this, nice sounds thanks Lee.
At 0:19 you can see my Grandpa coming into the picture to salute, he was 6' 4'' tall and was a witness at the historic signing. He was also the last commander of the Royal Navy's last ever coal powered war ship, HMS Electo.
Es ist ein Tragödie das so viele Menschen ihr Leben auf beiden Seiten verloren haben. Mögen sie in Frieden ruhen!!!!
Krieg ist angenehm für diejenigen, die es nicht versucht haben
My Father Served in The Merchant Navy, he was in the North Atlantic Convoys, up to Murmansk in Russia. He never spoke much about it but he said, the fear of U Boats was never far from your mind.
@freebeerfordworkers My Dad said they were always made welcome by The Russians and that there were Women dock workers too. Apparently Murmansk was also heavily Bombed and on the approaches there were ships sunk all over the place. Those Royal Navy lads who were on Destroyer escort were worth their weight in Gold. We don`t know how lucky we are Today.
U-805 was ordered in April 1941 from DeSchiMAG Seebeckwerft in Geestemünde under the yard number 714. Her keel was laid down on 24 December 1942, and the U-boat was launched the following year sometime in October 1943. In February 1944 she was commissioned into service under the command of Kapitänleutnant Richard Bernardelli (Crew 32) in the 4th U-boat Flotilla. She spent the next year as a training boat with the flotilla, then was transferred to the 33rd U-boat Flotilla and deployed on her one and only war patrol in March 1945. At the end of the war U-805 was operating in the West Atlantic as part of the Seewolf group, when she received orders to make for an Allied port in order to surrender. The U-boat reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 14 May 1945, where the crew surrendered and handed the boat over to the US Navy.
And...?
These guys were sooooo lucky to survive. “28,000 German U-boat crew of the total 40,900 men recruited into the service lost their lives” - that’s over 70%!
Thank you for sharing. Having seen many films and documentaries about subs and U boats, it looked like absolute hell.
These German sailors have made in out of the war alive and can return home to see their families again. I'd imagine for the British sailors, this would have been one hell of a story to tell their children and grandchildren.
Bill Blinky Essentially u boats crew suffered a 90percent caullity rate,50000 put to sea do the math the u s and Germany thought the same merchant shipping was the pirmary Target the US was successful they were not
My dad was at Derry then off the Corvettes from Canada and went down to see the subs come in.He didn't mention the guitars.
Though they were the enemy watching this I cant begin to imagine what was going through their minds at this point. This is when you begin to realize as humans they were no different. There were elements of the war that cant be forgiven but time has taught us to move on and bless another generation will have to go through this
Unconsciousness put to beautiful music.
We must remember that the Irish Free State was not a participant in the fight against the fascists. Many of the deliberate actions of the Free State assisted the axis. This video was shot by Pathe near Lisahally county Londonderry where the surrender was received by the allied forces (royal navy and royal Canadian navy)
I heared from a few Wehrmacht soldiers that they hoped that ireland would fight against the Tommys someday. ^^
Ireland did NOT assist the Axis. It was officially neutral but gave huge assistance to the Allies. This ranged from weather forecasts, releasing Allied air ans sea men who ended up here and even returning Allied planes forced to land here.
Poor bastards? What history book have you been reading from? The German sailors who surrendered these U-boats were the luckiest men on planet earth. By 1945 being on a U-boat was CERTAIN death at the hands of an Allied B-24.
yeap, 10% survival rate I think
About 40,000 German submariners died.
You got that right Pinehorse! U-boat service had turned into suicide runs, You can see in the film the reactions of the German sailors. While not happy about surrendering you can see the relief in their faces and the way they stand. Just happy at the end of the war to be alive.
The Brits were just as happy...
Yes they were the lucky ones. Surely some of these boats could've been preserved as museum boats instead of destroying them.
@freebeerfordworkers Yes they had a perfectly preserved boat in Liverpool U534. Cost a hell of a lot of time and money to raise it and Transport it to Liverpool and what fo they do with it cut it up into 4 sections. Don't see why they can't raise one for Derry it would be great for the tourist industry there. The boats themselves are said to be in reasonable condition, and are not designated War Graves. So if someone wants to spend the time and money raising one I don't see a problem. They may have to get permission from the MOD though.
That lovely film Das Boot says much. I just can't believe we EVER went to war with Germany. Great music. What a terrible waste of life wars are. Just so unproductive of anything.
+Paul Roberts We can thank our law regarding the act of succession for the war with Germany. If it were not for that law Germany would have been ruled by Queen Victoria II. hard to imagine a war in those circumstances. having said that, a war with Russia with Germany and France as well as the Austro Hungarian Empire as allies would have been a definite possibility. But then again given the links between the Romanovs and the Saxe Coburg Gotha family maybe no revolution, no WWI and no WWII.
Wow
Sadly wars are as inevitable as thunderstorms which release pent up electricity charges in the atmosphere at intervals. Likewise when stress tensions and anger build up in societies these are released as violence, riots and wars etc., and then peace prevails for a time as stress is dispelled..having cleared the air so to speak.
Less of the we Paul, my ancestors never were involved in WW2, only people involved in the war can take blame for it
A bit pedantic J. O'Neil. The 'we' does not belong to you then and you can sit with the rest of the World who didn't. The 'we' in my post was specific to those nations that did. Any turnip can understand that (no not the vegetable). OK, when I consider the closeness of Germany and the UK today I have difficulty in imagining how the two nations went to war. My whole point was a reflection on the terrible waste of human life. I did not mean it as a political analysis, neither a serious treatise on who was actually involved, nor an appropriation of blame. Just a small offering about the tragedy of war and the contrast with today's nations.
The Brits must've been surprised at how many U-Boots popped up whose presence previously was unkown to them.
If Hitler and Donitz had the number of U-Boats at the beggining of the war like the had at the end, the Germans might well have won the battle of the Atlantic. In 1939 Germany only had 39 operational boats ((approx) as opposed to over 300 in 1945.
Seems like the deck gun all have been removed , an uboot fighting on the surface long gone. And yes ,what the video shows are the Lucky ones surviving , during ww2 the german submariners had a strenght of 39000 and about 29000 vanished at sea, not good odds. In the post-war time in the 1970 times my dad got a friend he meet via football where there was a german football team visiting our village , the man had done time in the subs through the hole war as an officer and his surname was Fleicher - told my dad stories about his time in the uboot and one action he told about was when his boat slipped through the small passage at Gibraltar into the Mediteraning waters and as he told our uboot had the wrong colour whit the Sandy sea bed under them - the uboot was repainted in a italien harbor , he survived and was internet by the u.s somewhere in the area of la spezia
How demoralising for these guys like many others to have to surrender. There are no winners in wars, only losers.
ps My father was torpedoed by the Japanese on the Hmas Canberra in 1942 but was rescued.
I'm pleased that your Dad was rescued. Hopefully he lived a full & productive life after the war.
My dads ship was escorted by the Canberra, he arrived safely, I thank you for him
..."There will be wars and rumors of wars.....such things will happen and the end is still to come"-Matthew 24:6 How sad is our human race that we never learn not to fight for temporary glory and riches.
Great thank you
John Cassidy q
I assume the Admiral boarding one of the boats to be Sir Max Horton,the man probably more responsible for the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic for the Allies than any other leader at the time
It seems to me an odd decision to scuttle the U-boats at war's end, instead of scrapping them and recovering several thousand tons of lead and tens of thousands of tons of steel.
Some of the lucky few who survived long enough to surrender. By the end of the war, U-boat service was virtually a death sentence.
With a submarine crew on patrol, it's either everyone comes back or no one does.
My Grandfather in Law was in M.A.E.E. at Helenburgh in 1945 working on anti U Boat measures. He was sent to Loch Ryan when the U Boats came in there from Loch Eribol, we have a U Boat Penant and an leather Kreigsmarine jacket. Not sure if he traded or 'souvenired' them. Sadly, I can't establish which boat they were from.
I am struck be the interaction between the two opposing sides . Very civil which is how it should be . The Germans viewed the Western nations differently than they did the Russians which were viewed as subhuman. In some newsreel films you can see the hatred the Russians felt for captured Germans towards the end of the war.
Look at what they did to Berlin and the civilian population of east Germany as they rolled through! Stalin was as bad as Hitler and Mussolini.
It was different with the German and British navies than with many land troops. There was still honor and seafaring tradition there, and so war and resentment ended immediately as soon as one side surrendered to the other. Navy soldiers have always been treated with mutual respect.
The Russians hate everyone.
I wonder how many surrendered with their enigma machine intact?
Great music, but kind of distracting from the topic.
I kayak along here some of the houses are still standing in 2023
First class
Such sad music!
4:45 like they well know each other from a long time..
Fucking war
If there was no Hitler I thinks things would of been different. When you meet people face to face you wonder how you could be enemies.. I think a group of people both poor and Rich should rule there land and not have one person be in charge..
God the song of irish lilt and all these poor boys so brave 18 ,19 both sides at war for nothing , my friend was in the merchant navy in the hiegnt of the cold war , he was in a Russian harbour for a few weeks , he got shore leave travelled a round locally , he was dressed in a Wrangler jacket jeans adidas top and trainers , he spent a week with a Russian girl and gave her it all , sorry he said they all said why do you hate us , will there be NUCLEAR war ?he said he told them no one hates you and no war , he said im the lad from stoke working on a ship having new experiences , we hate no one no where its all political stuff
HiWetcam thanks , he chilled out hes died couple of years ago , but no offence ,just brought back memories , plus some people give you a great moral compass , his was of humble but strong , understanding of the less fortunate and weak , thats why he fought in WW2, funny in 1949 , he was demobbed , and worked till 70 , in the PIT , 30 years on the face , rest on the lifts as a old man , my mate said to me how would a single handed soldier take on a platoon of Germans, get your Grandad pissed and tell him theyve nicked the BEER IN THE NEXT TRENCH! Lol hey id love that singers name thow and the song , cheers
Delroy , it's a scots song and artist and your story sounds like a Soviet honey trap
Onore ai marinai tedeschi
Gli inglesi avranno detto bei vascelli e equipaggi formidabili!
Why didn.t they save at least 1 for historic reason?
I know there are 2 left as museum and 1 is salvaged.
I quess there was a lott of hate after the war
A sad day
Not for Britain and the Allies it wasn't
You would never know that Derry was the HQ's for the Battle of the Atlantic because the History books don't teach it and the British don't talk about it. Oh and I live in Derry.
Indeed, Derry/ Londonderry was the second most heavily defended city in The UK after London.
Sorry but Liverpool was the HQ for Western approaches in the battle of the Atlantic not Derry.
I'm not educated on the subjected enough to understand what's happening. Did they surrender at sea and change flags for going into port? I don't understand the difference in the uniforms. I can't understand the context.
The submarines are German and they are surrendering to the British Navy in Northern Ireland. The submarines are then taken over by the Royal Navy and the White Ensign then flown on the submarine in place of the flag of the Nazi Reich. The untidy looking sailors are the U Boat crews and the ones in smarter cleaner uniform British Royal Navy.
where did there deck guns go
\
They were probably removed before coming into Derry. Notice that the Sub's have British flags so have already surrendered. The boats were only stored in Derry after the war. I know that because I live in Derry .
I often wonder what goes through their minds there family the future of Germany now look at Germany now let’s hope there no more wars.
Surrender? The most of them drove to spain or argentina.
Are you for real? Wtf is with this soundtrack?
The music is depressing.
War was a football 🏈 game to those guys!
I think not. Read some history or try some fiction e.g. The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monserrat. So many men died horrible deaths.
So many countries to defeat one country, clearly Germany was a formidable opponent ! If Mussolini had just stayed out of the war, instead of sapping German strength, Mussolini was a heavy burden for Germany to carry.
After coming so close to total victory, it Must have been a bitter pill to swallow, always keep one eye on your friends not just your enemies.
one country you say, there were several countries in the Axis powers
I'm amazed that people still write shit like this tbh, I thought people would know better by now
Those countries couldn’t pull 5heir own weight Germany had to step in.
You are amazed by your own shit!
If Londonderry was part of the republic, the battle of the Atlantic would have been lost.
+RUDI UK
You do realise that half of Lough Foyle ( were this film was shot ) is in County Donegal.
RUDI UK What an irrelevant opinion on this video about the Germans Surrendering their u boats because the war was over! Absolutely nothing to do with the brits winning in the battle in the Atlantic (which did not go well for them). And I have to laugh as you talk up the Brits in ‘Londonderry’ all the while the Germans were trading fruit and meat down the river foyle under their noses... talk about incompetence!
Yet another self sanctifying Brit rewriting history to suit themselves and the irony here is that I doubt ‘Londonderry’ (as you call it) would ever be part of the republic somehow. I’m not sure the indigenous Irish people of the land would like to be reminded of the fact that their City was ransacked and rewritten by the British into the history books either should it ever be repatriated!
Rudi; You are misinformed. The RAF had Shorts Sunderland aircraft based in Derry. They had permission to fly directly from their bases across the Republic directly to their area of operations. This shortened their flying time allowing them more time on station.
Zinedine Kilbane the Battle of the Atlantic did go well for the British, they won it! And Derry was a very important base in the war and was a key strategic location into the Atlantic!
@@tonymccormack3980 I'm afraid that you are the one that's very badly informed. Londonderry was NEVER a base for the RAF. That was a land base for HMS Sea Eagle. There was a small airfield across the river opposite Derry's City Walls, but not suitable for Coastal Command Aircraft. If you check your history properly, the "permission" you refer to was a secret agreement reached between The Prime Ministers of GB and Eire to use Lough Erne for both Sunderlands and Catalinas manned by the RAF and the USAAF. Being the westernmost base closest to the North Atlantic, a narrow air corridor was agreed to facilitate the Allied air forces through Belleek (a border town In NI) and two miles of the Irish Republic to the Atlantic. Prior to that agreement, all Allied air forces had no option but to fly north to open sea, then turn west to get to the Atlantic area. There were three major airfields on the north coast: Eglinton, Limavady and Ballykelly - all Coastal Command but with mostly USAAF fighters aircraft. The two bases on Lough Erne were Castle Archdale (RAF) and Killadeas (USAAF0 with St Angelo (land base airfield), Enniskillen.
In his rather crude fashion, what Rudi was trying to say was, that had Londonderry been part of the RoI, The chances of the UK gaining free access to the Foyle would have caused many a headache, especially as the IRA were intent on causing general disruption, and German U-Boats would have been able to freely access both sides of the Foyle. For this reason, and especially during the Blitz, NI had more troops in the Province than on the British Mainland! In fact, NI had more Allied airfields than Wales, which was twice its size!
What’s the wailing song about? I thought it was about the surrender of nazi u boats.
german u boats*
Dreadful, droning rendition of Flowers of the Forest. Best left to pipers.
(Best left out altogether)
Tripulantes de u boat los saludo su sacrificio fue la esperanza de Alemania
THE BEST SOLDIERS OF WW2..SURRENDER TO THE WORST SOLDIERS OF WW2..THIS IS THE GREATEST IRONY..
Same as ww1 never defeated.......if I was German navy , I would be pissed off. Those submariners were excellent. Many many died.