Type: IX-D1
Built by: AG Weser (Bremen)
Launched: 10 December 1941
Commissioned: 16 May 1942
Feldpost Nr.: M44013
Sunk: 22 August 1944
Sunk by: Mine
Location sunk: Gironde Estuary
Position sunk: 45° 00'N x 02° 00'W (all hands lost - 56 men)

Skippers of U-180 included Kapitanleutnant Werner Musenberg from 16 May 1942 until sometime in 1943; Oberleutnant Harald Lange from 1943 until November of 1943 when he went to take command of U-505; Oberleumant Rolf Riesen from November 1943 until the boat was lost on 22 August 1944. He was killed with his boat.

U-180 was a very unusual U-boat, being a Type IX-D1. Only two of these boats were ever made These boats were developed from the standard Type IX-C but they had a 25 foot section added from abaft the conning tower for stowage of additional torpedoes etc. to resupply the front boots in their combat area. Some of their battery capacity was also sacrificed to give them greater carrying abilities and so their underwater speed was diminished to only 7 knots top speed. When these two boats were first commissioned, they had six fast-running Mercedes diesels of 9,000 hp which gave them a respectable top speed surfaced of nearly 21 knots. However, ­these diesels gave them a lot of trouble and were replaced with two slow running M.A.N. diesels of 2,800 hp and the surface speed was reduced to not quite 16 knots. These two boats had greater bunker capacity and so, with their 203 tons of fuel, could make a radius of action of nearly 10,000 miles. Torpedo tubes were also cut out so they could carry more.

Like most of the big boats, U-180 was assigned to the 12th U-Bootflottille based at Bordeaux. France. This meant that the bunkers were about 12 miles up the Gironde River, making these boats too easy targets far air or mines.

U-180 undertook a long-range patrol off Capetown and in the Indian Ocean over April and May 1943. It was during this time they rendezvoused with a Japanese submarine (24 through 27 April) and they transferred Indian National leader Subhas Chandras Bose and Arab National leader Abid Hassan onto the I.J.N. boat along with goods and documents They took on a load of gold from the Japanese submarine.

Records indicate that U-180 was decommissioned in Bordeaux on 30 September 1943 however, U-180 departed that port 20 August 1944 bound for Japan and gives daily estimated positions until she was lost to a mine in the Bay of Biscay. Apparently this boat was being turned over to the I.J.N. but never got out of French waters.

SHIPS SUNK BY U-180 UNDER MUSENBERG
03.06.43	BORIS	Grk stmr	5,166 GRT
18.04.43	CORBIS	Brit stmr	8,132 GRT

Interesting facts

OTTO GEESE (45-1984) wrote to us and gave us this information about Bose. He was born 23 January 1897 in Kattak and he died in a plane crash 18 August 1945 in Taipei. He was president of the Indian Congress Party in 1938 and 1939 but because of his Nazi leanings, he was forced to resign. He fled in 1941, shortly before the start of the German-Russian war via Afghanistan to the USSR then to Germany. When he reached Japan, he proclaimed a Free Indian Government and he raised an army from the Indian prisoners in the Japanese POW camps. His troops were used by the Japanese in early 1944 in Burma, but since they were basically used as cannon fodder, they had little success.

YOYA KAWAMURA (1739-LIFE-1991) wrote this: Few records remain, as a whole lot of documents were burned at the end of the war. I know Japanese submarines carried gold to Germany partly to pay for the new weapons Japan wanted to get from Germany, and partly to finance the intelligence gathering operations in Europe I know exactly what happened when I-8 met U-180 on the Indian Ocean on 28 April 1943, about 400 nautical miles SSE of Madagascar Island

The seas were rough and the Japanese proposed that the U-boat should travel to the Japanese base at Sumatra Island, to carry out the exchange in calmer waters. But the German did not like the idea So rubber boats had to be used to exchange passengers and goods In the heaving seas There were large schools of sharks around and it was quite a scary operation Rifles were used to scare the sharks away but there was no success. It took an entire day to complete the exchange.

I was once shown photos of this operation. Japan offered to Germany about two tons of pure (99.4%) gold, blueprints of the aircraft carrier AKAGI, plans for the midget submarines. one Type 89 air torpedo etc Germany offered to Japan a sample of the shaped charge (anti-tank explosive), blueprints of a U-boat (either U-511 or U-1224), two tons of quinine etc. The Japanese offered coffee and cigarettes, but the Germans did not accept this, saying that they had plenty of those on board. Sacks of potatoes however, were gratefully accepted.

At 2,918 tons the B-Type I.J N. sub was quite larger than the 1,610 ton U-boat. Big boats have their own demerits; more demerits perhaps than merits. But to a layman a big boat must have looked more powerful and technically advanced. It is said that Mr. Bose and his servant Hassan were quite favorably impressed by the stately appearance of I-8; a military machine built by a fellow Asian nation. Mr Chandraas Bose was carrying six large trunks, which some believed carried many precious stones which he would use to finance the army that he would create and lead. The Indian National Army that he organized with Indians living overseas and Indian prisoners of war who had been members of the British Army and fought side by side with the Japanese all over the Pacific Theater of the war. They were very useful for the operation of captured Allied equipment. A contingent of Indian soldiers was attached to the Japanese force on Guadalcanal, manning captured British AA guns. When Japan surrendered, Bose tried to escape to the Soviet Union, which was sympathetic to the cause of independent India. But the plane on which he was traveling crashed while taking off from an airfield on Taiwan. There was a rumor that someone had made off with the precious stones that were in the possession of Mr. Bose at the time of the crash. Thus the myth of Bose's treasure was born.

OTTO DIETZ (209-+-1986) was a great guy, and he served aboard U-180 before going to U-505 (by way of the Russian Front; but that's another story. He told us this. He volunteered in 1938 for the U-Bootwaffe and took basic training October 1938 until April 1939, then he went to Medical School in Wilhelmshaven. He spent five more months there but the Admiral for Nordsee was at his station and he said that he really wanted to see action, so one month later OTTO was posted aboard the CAMEROON as a Pharmacist's Mate.

CAMEROON was a floating dockyard, a U-boat tender and they had a sick bay aboard, and so they took him into the crew. After the Norway action of April 1940, CAMEROON was made to look like an English merchant ship to lure victims near enough they could attack them. They even made a movie about this effort entitled `Kampeschemvader Lutzaw' and they were all movie stars.

Norway -- being in Norway was like being on permanent vacation. He got there in August 1940 and described the place as - all wine, women and song. While there, he volunteered for submarine duty. He said that this showed the mentality of the times -- for a young man to actually ask to be sent on dangerous duty was like nothing. He was first sent to Hothenthausen for submarine training and from there to Bremen where he was assigned to U-180. He arrived about three months before she was finished and so he knew her inside and out. There were normally 84 men aboard and you had to know your boat perfectly. She was a long-range single hunter; that is to say that she was not part of a wolf-pack.

The first mission was on January 1943 and they were not allowed to make any port or attack any shipping. This was a secret mission to put Bose and Hassan onto the Japanese submarine. Bose thought Germany could not win the war. He confided to OTTO that Germany had too many enemies -- and this was in early of 1943.

These two boats were equipped with the six fast-running Mercedes diesels from the S-boats and they were wonderful, but they took a lot of fuel to run and they were to difficult and costly to maintain so they put into the shipyards at Stetin for these diesels to be replaced with the standard M.A.N. diesels. While there, OTTO got into big trouble. He got very drunk, missed his duty call and was sent to a military jail and then to the Russian Front. It was a blessing in a way, because U-180 was sunk on her next patrol and OTTO would have been aboard. Instead, a Russian sniper put a round into his chest and sent him back to the hospital in Germany where he recovered and then was assigned to the hospital as a medic. It was there that Harald Lange, formerly of U-180, was visiting a nurse on his way to take command of U-505 and spotted his former shipmate OTTO and took him along.