The Spanish U-Boat

De: John Peterson

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

The German Kriegsmarine commissioned more than 1100 U-boats over the course of the Second World War. Almost 800 of these boats were destroyed by the Allies during the war while more than 200 of the boats that remained were destroyed by their crews in the closing days of the conflict to prevent them from being captured by the enemy. This left a total of 156 U-boats that were eventually captured by the Allies. While some of the were divided up as war prizes between the UK, the USA and Russia, the vast majority were gathered together and destroyed during Operation Deadlight when they were towed out and sunk in the deep waters off the north west coast of Northern Ireland. Of the small number of U-boats that were saved from immediate destruction at the end of the war, most were destroyed shortly afterwards and within a few years of the end of the Second World War there were barely any U-boats left in the world. This is the story of one of those few remaining U-boats. It is the story of how she was built and launched, it is the story of her commander and crew and of her war patrols in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. This is the story of how she was nearly destroyed in an air attack but of how her crew managed to escape to the safety of neutral Spain where she was eventually resurrected to fight again though under a different flag. This is the story of U-573 and of how she became the very last operational U-boat of the Second World War, still in service almost quarter of a century after the end of the conflict.