The WORST U-Boat of WW2

U-352, a Type VIIC U-Boat was arguably the worst U-Boat during the Second World War. Today it is one of the most popular diving spots off of America's East Coast.

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#worldwar2 #wwii #ww2 #uboat #submarine #history #u352

[HiddenHistoryYT]

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[TheObso]

Hellmut Rathke sounds like the kind of over-zealous but easily thwarted stereotypical Nazi villain you'd see in a 1950's pulp comic book.

[mattduke]

Right off the coast of Morehead City! Our NC aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores has a mock up of this wreck in the big tank. If you ever get the chance to come to Morehead City/ Atlantic Beach, NC, I highly recommend visiting the aquarium. Also... Olympus Dive Center in Morehead has a deck gun from U-352, as well as other artifacts.

[markfryer]

There were several things going against U-352, a Commander with a itchy throat for an Iron Cross, who lacked U-Boat experience and an adversary who had been freshly blooded from the U-Boats Second Happy Time which was rapidly ending. The US Coastguard was itching to avenge the shipping sunk earlier in the year. The run ins with the patrol aircraft should have been a warning that the Americans were now fully aware of the dangers of U-Boats lurking along their Eastern Seaboard. The U-Boat Captain should have exercised caution and taken his boat to the bottom to wait for night time when he would have a greater advantage because at that time the extra patrol craft were not yet fitted with radar. Once the U-Boat was sunk, the Americans should have separated the Officers from the Other Ranks in order to start to break down their command over them. Divide and Conquer is said for a reason.
Mark from Melbourne Australia

[lestie]

There were many u_boats that were sunk on their 1st trip out, many were sunk by water mines, as they came out of their ports .
Many were sunk in air raids, and never got to fire a shot .

[zenmen]

Had Admiral King, USN, not hated the British, and listened to a Royal Navy whose experience was paid for in blood, the waters off the east coast of America would not have been lit up like a Christmas tree, convoys and escorts would have been organised, ready, and trained - and a lot of good me, good ships, and vital war supplies could have been saved.

[williamashbless]

Nicely done. Your delivery is good and your storytelling is engaging.

Despite the millions of tons sunk by U-boats during the war, the U-boats were not able to overcome Allied anti submarine countermeasures and paid a stiff price in lives and boats lost.
Some three quarters of all U-boat crews lost their lives during the war.
The only thing that kept them viable was a shifting of their patrols to areas that hadn’t caught up to providing proper convoy escort ships, training and latest anti submarine tech.
I would make the argument that Germany lost the war in March of 1941. Bold statement?

In ten days of that month, the top three most celebrated U-boat commanders were lost to allied countermeasures. It came as such a shock to Nazi propagandists that they hid the news from the German people and released details at spaced intervals to soften the blow to national spirit.

The U-boat service made an all out assault on the Atlantic convoys in Winter/Spring of 1943 and had some significant victories against overwhelmed convoy escorts.
By May of ‘43 that same all out assault on Atlantic shipping resulted in the loss of 43 U-boats. This loss shattered the core of the U-boat service and Germany’s only hope became the new type XXI diesel electric boats. Ultimately, they never made it into service other than a few boats that made it to the trails phase.

[jgamer]

Imagine being so ineffectual in the war that your only legacy is how mediocre you were plus how you died

[wasserdagger]

For history buffs out there, let me recommend a really good book on the U-boat war that took place off the southern and eastern coasts of the continental U.S. in early part of WWII:
Operation Drumbeat: the dramatic true story of Germany's first U-boat attacks along the American coast in World War II, by Michael Gannon.

[nooodles]

This is a fantastic video! Great information and put together really well to make it entertaining.

[petebenson]

Some of the first US sport divers to find Rathke's boat (other than Skin Diver Magazine divers who reported this), were total idiots. They had shark bang sticks, and were blowing up flounder on the sandy bottom near U352, a bottom strewn with armed 88mm shells which had spilled out of the boat's gunlocker on the bridge. Also, sometimes Uboats stored two warshot torpedoes under the deckplates forward of the bridge/sail, obviously these unqualified divers didn't realize the dangers on and around this sunken UBoat. I read about this idiocy in Skin Diver magazine, which also gave a bit of U352's history. The fish she fired at the Coast Guard cutter hit the shallow bottom, detonating, and fully alerting the cutter of U352's presence and direction the fish was fired from, according to the article. Some of the crew, one whose skeleton and skull was still in the bridge which had been punctured by shellfire, the skull having been taken by one of these yahoo ignorant divers, and it disintegrated at he attempted to take it to the surface, most disrectful of a war-grave site. As a subsailor, reading the article made me angry. And yes, Rathke was a tactical idiot, unfit for command.

[dutchhoke]

Rather good look at u-boat history, operation, and countermeasures.
Good knowing some U -boats missed.

[bertcopeland]

I got to dive on the U352 on one of my trips to NC. The Olympic dive shop in Morehead city has the deck gun and many artifacts from the boat. I was told by the owner of the shop that he had the survivng crew come back for the captains birthday one year. This is a dive you really want to make when you visit the graveyard of the Atlantic.

[thsealord]

Sounds like the U-boat commander had a 'benefactor' somewhere, hence his rise to U-boat command despite lacking proper experience, and the Iron Cross 2 awarded for his very unremarkable first voyage.

[killahurtz]

Good stuff. i like stories like this that go on in detail about the more obscure happenings of the war.

[IrobertHD]

honestly: i dont think commander rathke and crew had no valuable intel anyways.

[shaunlevins]

this pasts summer I was able to visit and tour the last surviving Type VII and Type XXI U-Boats, as well as the Valentin Submarine Bunker, in Germany.

[dysfunctional_vet]

i have a friend who's great grandfather survived world war 2. she is young, and like a lost sister whom i cherish.
when you watch these histories, keep in mind people died. they had dreams and hopes just like yours.
i had a commander like this guy in iraq except he was far more inept. i'm grateful so many of the sailors on this ill fated ship survived.

[dlaw]

The video mentions that ICARUS was ordered to take the U-boat survivors to Charleston, SC. In fact, they took the U-boat survivors to the CG base at Atlantic Beach - Morehead City NC. A study of LT Jester, commanding USCGC ICARUS, would seem to indicate that he and the U-boat commander, Rathke, had a lot in common when it came to interacting with their perspective crews.

[johnavast]

Fantastic video! I have subscribed and look forward to more