Service History
None of the six operational Type XXIIIs — U-2321, U-2322, U-2324, U-2326, U-2329 and U-2336 — were sunk by the Allies ships but they sank or damaged five ships for a total of 14,601 tons.
The first war patrol of a Type XXIII began late in the war when U-2324 sailed from Kiel on 18 January 1945. Although she was to survive the war, she sank no enemy vessels. The first Type XXIII to achieve combat success was U-2322, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Fridtjof Heckel. Sailing from a Norwegian base on 6 February 1945, she encountered a convoy off Berwick, Northumberland, and sank the coaster Egholm on 25 February. U-2321, operating from the same base, sank the coaster Gasray on 5 April 1945 off St Abbs Head. U-2336, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Emil Klusmeier, later sank the last Allied ships lost in the European war on 7 May 1945, when he torpedoed and sank the freighters Sneland and SS Avondale Park off the Isle of May inside the Firth of Forth.
The Sneland and the Avondale Park were sunk around 23:03, less than an hour before the official German surrender, and the Avondale Park was the last merchant ship to be sunk by a U-boat. At the time it was felt that Kapitänleutnant Klusmeier, who was on his first patrol, had deliberately ignored Donitz’s ceasefire order, however Klusmeier claimed that he had never received the order.
Read more about this topic: German Type XXIII Submarine
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