| Born | 29 Mar 1910 | Dresden | |
| Died | 14 Apr 1992 | (82) |
|
Ranks
Decorations |
U-boat Commands
| U-boat | From | To | |
|---|---|---|---|
| U-231 | 14 Nov 1942 | 13 Jan 1944 | 3 patrols (125 days) |
When the damaged-beyond-repair U-231 was abandoned Wenzel, "apparently in a state of despondence attempted suicide by firing a revolved bullet to the mouth". Incredibly the bullet lodged harmlessly in the back of the throat. All 50 men from the boat escaped the wreck but 7 died of exposure before being rescued by Allied destroyers. The bullet was removed from Wenzel's throat by a doctor on the American escort carrier USS Block Island (Blair, 1998).
Wolfgang Wenzel, a former merchant marine officer, resumed that career after the war. He spent his POW time in Arizona and was released on May 17, 1946 (Rust, 2009).
Sources
Blair, C. (1998). Hitler’s U-boat War. The Hunted, 1942-1945.
Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II.
Rust, E. (2009) E-mail correspondence. Author of Naval Officers under Hitler.
Patrol info for Wolfgang Wenzel
| U-boat | Departure | Arrival | ||||||
| 1. | U-231 | 13 Apr 1943 | Kiel | 31 May 1943 | La Pallice | Patrol 1, | 49 days | |
| 2. | U-231 | 27 Jul 1943 | La Pallice | 29 Jul 1943 | La Pallice | 3 days | ||
| 3. | U-231 | 23 Sep 1943 | La Pallice | 24 Sep 1943 | Bordeaux | 2 days | ||
| 4. | U-231 | 27 Sep 1943 | Bordeaux | 22 Nov 1943 | La Pallice | Patrol 2, | 57 days | |
| 5. | U-231 | 26 Dec 1943 | La Pallice | 13 Jan 1944 | Sunk | Patrol 3, | 19 days | |
| 3 patrols, 125 days at sea | ||||||||
Ships hit by Wolfgang Wenzel
No entries found.
Buy this title at amazon.com See more sellers |
Books dealing with this subject include
|
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.