The Men - The Commander listing

Heinrich Timm

Korvettenkapitän (Crew 33)

Successes
9 ships sunk for a total of 53.782 GRT

Born	30 Apr, 1910	Bremen
Died	12 Apr, 1974	Axstedt near Bremen

Korvettenkapitän Heinrich Timm

Ranks

1 Jan, 1934	Fähnrich zur See
1 Sep, 1935	Oberfähnrich zur See
1 Jan, 1936	Leutnant zur See
1 Oct, 1937	Oberleutnant zur See
1 Feb, 1940	Kapitänleutnant
1 Jul, 1944	Korvettenkapitän

Decorations

10 Jan, 1940	Iron Cross 2nd Class
16 May, 1940	Iron Cross 1st Class
12 Feb, 1942	German Cross in Gold
17 Sep, 1944	Knights Cross
29 Sep, 1944	U-boat Front Clasp

U-boat Commands

U-251	20 Sep, 1941	-	1 Sep, 1943	8 patrols (150 days)
U-862	7 Oct, 1943	-	8 May, 1945	2 patrols (189 days)

Personal information

Heinrich Timm began his naval career in October 1933. He spent a few years on minesweepers (M-132 and M-110) before he became commander of M-7 in July 1939. With this vessel he won his first great success at Heligoland, when he located and attacked the British submarine HMS Starfish on 9 January, 1940 and caused so much damage after hours of steady attacks on the bottomed submarine that the British commander was forced to surface and scuttle. Timm rescued all the British sailors.

Timm won the Iron Cross for his actions in the Norwegian invasion the following May, but then opted to transfer to the U-boat force and follow his former colleagues from the now famous Crew 33, Lüth, Prien and Hardegen. Timm underwent commander training at Pillau, qualifying in August 1941, and the following month commissioned the brand new Type VIIC boat U-251.

Timm had a habit of playing classical music over the boat's loudspeakers. This grew wearisome for some of the men, but also resulted in a nickname, Tüte, which refers to the cone-shaped paper bag used for sweets which also resembled the old style gramophone horn. This was also used in the U-251 emblem, which had a Tüte with a torpedo in it.

After six months of training and trials in the Baltic he arrived in Norway in April 1942 and during the next year made nine patrols in the Arctic as part of the 11th flotilla. On 3 May, 1942 while stalking convoy PQ-15, he sank his first ship as U-boat commander when he torpedoed the SS Jutland of 6135 tons. In July 1942 Timm fought against the ill-fated convoy PQ-17, where he sank one ship. During the operations in the Arctic the crew learned to respect their commander as they found out he did not intend to pointlessly sacrifice the boat or his men for personal glory, always bringing his boat back undamaged while never avoiding combat.

U-251 and her crew were decommissioned temporarily when the boat returned to Germany in June 1943 for an extended refit. Since this experienced crew could not be left standing idle, they were ordered to proceed to Bremen after a short vacation where they were to commission the larger Type IXD2 boat U-862. This much larger boat then underwent training from October 1943 to May 1944 in the Baltic. She was to become one of the Monsun boats and attack Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean and the Far East. They finally left Kiel in late May 1944 and after a brief stop in Norway headed southwards. On the way south, on 5 July, Timm got word of his promotion to Korvettenkapitän. On 25 July, U-862 sank her first ship, the SS Robin Goodfellow.

On 20 August Timm managed to shoot down a Catalina aircraft H of 265 RAF squadron during its attack on the boat. When the boat reached Penang on 9 September, 1944 she had already sunk five ships.

Timm sank a total of seven ships in the Far East, the farthest distant being the Liberty ship SS Robert J. Walker, which he sank just off Sydney, Australia.

After the formal surrender in Europe on 4-5 May, the Germans remaining in the Far East were interned by the Japanese at Singapore, and U-862 was renamed I-502 (U-181 became I-501). Timm and his crew were in Singapore when the British forces arrived there on 12 September, 1945. The men returned to England in July 1946, where they were put into prisoner of war camps. Timm was one of the very last to be released, in April 1948.

After the war Fregattenkapitän Heinrich Timm served some years in the Bundesmarine. He was among other positions the first commander of the frigate Scharnhorst before he retired in 1966.

Patrol info

	U-boat	Departure		Arrival
1.	U-251	18 Apr, 1942	Kiel	19 Apr, 1942	Kristiansand		2 days
2.	U-251	20 Apr, 1942	Kristiansand	25 Apr, 1942	Kirkenes		6 days
3.	U-251	29 Apr, 1942	Kirkenes	7 May, 1942	Kirkenes	Patrol	9 days
4.	U-251	9 May, 1942	Kirkenes	12 May, 1942	Skjomenfjord		4 days
5.	U-251	15 May, 1942	Skjomenfjord	17 May, 1942	Trondheim		3 days
6.	U-251	23 May, 1942	Trondheim	29 May, 1942	Skjomenfjord		7 days
7.	U-251	7 Jun, 1942	Skjomenfjord	5 Jul, 1942	Harstad		29 days
8.	U-251	6 Jul, 1942	Harstad	15 Jul, 1942	Narvik	Patrol	10 days
9.	U-251	14 Aug, 1942	Narvik	14 Aug, 1942	Harstad		1 days
10.	U-251	15 Aug, 1942	Harstad	13 Sep, 1942	Neidenfjord	Patrol	30 days
11.	U-251	14 Sep, 1942	Neidenfjord	3 Oct, 1942	Trondheim	Patrol	20 days
12.	U-251	14 Feb, 1943	Trondheim	1 Mar, 1943	Narvik	Patrol	16 days
13.	U-251	18 Mar, 1943	Narvik	21 Apr, 1943	Narvik	Patrol	35 days
14.	U-251	8 May, 1943	Narvik	10 May, 1943	Hammerfest		3 days
15.	U-251	12 May, 1943	Hammerfest	29 May, 1943	Trondheim	Patrol	18 days
16.	U-251	13 Jun, 1943	Trondheim	24 Jun, 1943	Kiel	Patrol	12 days
17.	U-862	20 May, 1944	Kiel	26 May, 1944	Bergen		7 days
18.	U-862	27 May, 1944	Bergen	30 May, 1944	Narvik		4 days
19.	U-862	3 Jun, 1944	Narvik	9 Sep, 1944	Penang	Patrol	99 days
20.	U-862	5 Nov, 1944	Penang	7 Nov, 1944	Batavia		3 days
21.	U-862	18 Nov, 1944	Batavia	15 Feb, 1945	Batavia	Patrol	90 days
22.	U-862	18 Feb, 1945	Batavia	20 Feb, 1945	Singapur		3 days

Ships hit by Heinrich Timm

Date	Boat	Name of ship	Tons	Nat.		Convoy	Fate *
3 May, 1942	U-251	Jutland	6.153		br	PQ-15
10 Jul, 1942	U-251	El Capitan	5.255		pa	PQ-17

25 Jul, 1944	U-862	Robin Goodfellow	6.885		am
13 Aug, 1944	U-862	Radbury	3.614		br
16 Aug, 1944	U-862	Empire Lancer	7.037		br
18 Aug, 1944	U-862	Nairung	5.414		br
19 Aug, 1944	U-862	Wayfarer	5.068		br
24 Dec, 1944	U-862	Robert J. Walker	7.180		am

6 Feb, 1945	U-862	Peter Silvester	7.176		am
			53.782
* Unless otherwise noted the ships listed here were sunk.