Herbert Wohlfarth - Naval Career

Naval Career

Herbert Wohlfarth began his naval career in April 1933. After the usual training he spent more than a year on the cruiser Admiral Graf Spee. In May 1937 he joined the U-boat force, and like many of the later successful commanders received a solid pre-war training under Karl Dönitz. After some months as aide-de-camp in the 3rd U-boat Flotilla, in September 1938 he became watch officer on U-16.

On 19 October 1939 Oberleutnant zur See Wohlfarth took command of U-14. On his first three patrols he sank nine mostly smaller ships in Scottish and Norwegian waters. The fourth patrol with U-14 was for him, as for most other commanders during Operation Hartmut, supporting the invasion of Norway, without success.

On 15 June 1940 Wohlfarth commissioned U-137, also a Type IIB boat, referred to as Einbaum (dugout canoe). But these small boats were also very successful and other well-known commanders including Hardegen, Kretschmer and Lüth won their first successes in them.

Wohlfarth led U-137 on three patrols during the autumn of 1940. He sank six ships for a total of 19,557 gross register tons (GRT), mostly in the area south of the Hebrides. Especially notable was his torpedo hit on the 10,552-ton armed merchant cruiser HMS Cheshire, damaging the ship so badly that she had to spend six months in the shipyard for repairs.

On 15 December 1940 Kapitänleutnant Wohlfarth left U-137 and two months later commissioned the Type VIIC boat U-556. On his first patrol in the Atlantic with this new boat he sank six ships for a total of 29,552 GRT and damaged another of 4,986 GRT.

On 15 May 1941 he received the Knight's Cross while still on patrol. On 26 May, during the return voyage, and ten days before his 26th birthday, Wohlfahrt responded to a call for all U-boats in the Bay of Biscay to support the German battleship Bismarck's increasingly deteriorating position. The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, battlecruiser Renown and battleship King George V had a lucky escape during the night, unaware they had come within firing range of Wohlfarth's U-556, which had already fired off all its torpedoes. This was particularly galling for Wohlfahrt, as U-556 and Bismarck had exercised together in the Baltic. U-556 continued to shadow the British forces, reporting their position and guiding other U-boats to the area. Wohlfarth witnessed the night battles between Bismarck and British destroyers.