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Born	19 May 1915		Kiel
Died	16 Sep 2001	(86)

Oblt. Heinz Walkerling

Ranks 5 Apr 1935 Offiziersanwärter 1 Jul 1936 Fähnrich zur See 1 Jan 1938 Oberfähnrich zur See 1 Apr 1934 Leutnant zur See 1 Oct 1939 Oberleutnant zur See 1 Jun 1942 Kapitänleutnant Decorations   Iron Cross 2nd Class

Heinz Walkerling joined the Kriegsmarine in 1935. He served on the minelayer Hansestadt Danzig from Aug 1939 to March 1940, then on the destroyer Z 8 Bruno Heinemann until Oct 1940.

He went through U-boat training from Oct 1940 to March 1941. In March he became the First Watch Officer (1WO) on the U-431 (Kptlt. Wilhelm Dommes). With this boat he served on two war patrols, 63 days at sea, during which they sank one small ship.

From Nov to Dec 1941 Walkerling went through U-boat Commander training with the 24th Flotilla and then his U-boat familiarization (Baubelehrung) until Jan 1942 (Busch & Röll, 1999).

On 28 Jan 1942 Kptlt. Heinz Walkerling commissioned the brand new type VIIC boat U-91 at Lübeck, Germany. He then began his training in the Baltic (Busch & Röll, 1999).

Walkering took the U-91 out for its first patrol from Kiel, Germany on 15 Aug 1942 and headed into the North Atlantic (Busch & Röll, 1997). During this patrol he attack several convoys and sank two ships, including the Canadian destroyer HMCS Ottawa (H 60) (Rohwer, 1998). He arrived at Brest, his new base, on 6 Oct 1942.

The Canadian destroyer HMCS Ottawa (H 60) sunk by U-91 (Walkerling) on 14 Sept 1942.

After two more patrols with the U-91 Heinz Walkerling left the boat having sunk 5 ships for over 27,000 tons and spending 156 days at sea. From April 1943 to Sept 1944 he served with the 9th, 24th and 19th U-boat Flotillas. He served with the Torpedo School at Mürwik from Sept 1944 until the end of the war (Busch & Röll, 1999).

Kptlt. Heinz Walkerling died on 16 Sep 2001 according to his son.

Sources

Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II.
Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1997). Der U-Bootkrieg 1939-1945 (Band 2).
Rohwer, J. (1998). Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two.

About ranks and decorations
Ranks shown in italics are our database inserts based on the rank dates of his crew comrades. The officers of each crew would normally have progressed through the lower ranks at the same rate.

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