Book of the Week
Struggle for the middle sea
The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940-1945
O'Hara, Vincent P.
Allied Warships
Check out our new extensive section on all the Allied Warships during WWII in all theatres of the war.Over 11.300 ships
Operation Regenbogen
On 30 April, 1945, in order to preserve the honour of the Kriegsmarine, Dönitz ordered that the entire fleet should be scuttled, only ships that would be needed for fishing, transport and mine clearance after the war should remain intact. He kept the hopeless military struggle on for a few more days both in order to rescue as many as possible from the Baltic states and also to ensure the Kriegsmarine commanders had enough time to prepare to scuttle their ships.
The code name Regenbogen was to signal the order to scuttle the ships. But at 1514 hours on May 4 Dönitz was forced to withdraw this order by condition of the Allied commanders. But the U-boat commanders in the Western Baltic believed this new surrender order to be against Dönitz will and scuttled their vessels anyway.
When things settled down 232 U-boats had been scuttled in the Western Baltic. Of these 231 U-boats 16 were not in commission (paid off) and 5 had not been launched.
Sorted by type
Type II |
Type VII - VIIC |
Type VIIC/41 |
Type IX |
Type XXI |
Type XXIII |
Walter |
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Location of Scuttled U-boats |
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