| Born | 24 Apr 1919 | Wuppertal-Vowinckel | |
| Died | 17 Jun 1990 | (71) |
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Ranks
Decorations
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U-boat Commands
Herbert Kühn joined the Kriegsmarine in 19X/39. He went through U-boat training from March 1941 to Nov 1941. After his training he was assigned as the Second Watch Officer (2WO) on the U-331 (Oblt. Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen), joining the boat in the Mediterranean in Nov 1941 (Busch & Röll, 1999).
His first patrol on the U-331 was to be one of the more famous patrols of the war. Sailing from Salamis, Greece on 12 Nov 1941 they patrolled north of Egypt and on Nov 25 struck gold: 3 British battleships of Force A outbound from Alexandria. The 28-year old Tiesenhausen hit Battleship HMS Barham with 3 torpedoes from short range (Rohwer, 1998). The mighty ship quickly rolled over and exploded. The boat escaped the British escorts and made port on 3 Dec. Oberfähnrich zur See Kühn would go out on two more patrols with the U-331 (Busch & Röll, 1997).
British Battleship HMS Barham (04) sunk by U-331 on 25 Nov 1941.
From April 1942 to Feb 1943 Herbert Kühn served as Watch Officer with the 29th Flotilla, then joining thje U-72 was its Second Watch Officer until May 1943 when he took the same role on U-81 (Oblt. Johann-Otto Krieg). From Aug to Nov 1943 he served as First Watch Officer (1WO) on the U-81. Kühn went out on 4 patrols with the U-81, spending 75 days at sea during the summer and fall of 1943 (Busch & Röll, 1997).
Kühn went through technical training with the 3. ULD training Division from Nov 1943 to Jan 1944 (Busch & Röll, 1999).
Oblt. Herbert Kühn commanded the veteran boat U-38 from Jan 1944 to 14 Apr 1944. At the time the boat was assigned to a training unit in the Baltic. Oblt. Herbert Kühn took command of the U-708 on 15 Apr 1944. He did not take the boat out on a combat patrol and scuttled her at Wilhelmshaven, Germany on 3 May 1945 (Busch & Röll, 1999).
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.
Ships hit by Herbert Kühn
No entries found.
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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