Type: VII-D
Built by: Germania Werft (Kiel)
Launched: 9 October 1941
Commissioned: 22 November 1941
Feldpost Nr: M41815
Sunk: 3 July 1942
Sunk by: HMS LeTIGRE (Armed yacht)
Location sunk: 120 miles off Nantucket
Position sunk: 41° 48'N x 66° 38'W (All hands lost - 48 men)

The only Skipper of U-215 was Kapitanleutnant (later Korvettenkapitan) Fritz HOckner. He was killed when the boat was lost. He had no previous commands.

U-215 was another of the rare minelaying adaptations of the Type VII-C but with an additional section added to the hull for the mines. She had only one war patrol and was lost on that patrol.

SHIPS SUNK BY U-215 UNDER HOCKNER
03.07.42 ALEXANDER MACOMB Amer stmr 7,191 GRT

ALEXANDER MACOMB was a new Liberty Ship, built in 1942. She was owned by the U.S. Maritime Commission and operated by the A. H. Bull & Co. She drew 28 feet 2 inches and was making 10'/2 knots under her cargo of 9,000 tons of military equipment including tanks, planes and explosives. Her Master was Carl M. Froisland and she was armed with one 4 inch and one 3 inch gun, four 20mm automatic guns and two .30 cal. machine guns.

This was her maiden voyage and she was part of Convoy BA.2 from New York bound for Archangel in the Soviet Union by way of Woods Hole MA and Halifax. The night brought heavy fog and the fear of collision, so she fell astern of the convoy.

Daylight brought some visibility, the Master kept a zigzag course in an attempt to rejoin the convoy but was spotted by U-215. The Liberty Ship had gotten into position at the rear of the convoy some miles astern, but she had seven ships and an escort in sight when the torpedo hit between #4 and #5 holds. That was where the explosives were stowed, and they ignited and engulfed the stem in flames.

The eight officers, thirty-three crew and twenty-five Armed Guards launched three lifeboats and one raft despite the fact that no one thought to secure the engines. One boat capsized and those occupants clung to wreckage. The ship sank by the stern at 0700.

After sinking U-215, the armed yacht HMS LeTIGER (FY243) rescued thirty-one men in the water and took them to Woods Hole while the Canadian corvette HMCS REGINA (K-234) picked up twenty-five more. Six Armed Guards and four crewmen were lost in the attack as were all 48 officers and men aboard U-215. U-215 had been discovered by John Fish and Andy Carr in the mid-1980's but was never dived before.

Here is the text of a piece sent by Peter Johnson:

"There has been a lot of discussion for several years in the technical diving community to put an expedition together to dive this wreck, but nothing has ever materialized due to the crazy logistics of the dive. It is 150 miles offshore, in deep water with crazy currents due to its location between George's and Grand Banks in an area called "the River" due to the ripping tide. Congrats to Richie Kohler for the first successful dive on U-215! Here is an account of the first dive to the wreck:

`The descent took six minutes. The hooks had grabbed and held in the aftermost part of the mine tubes. The boat lays listed to port, bow facing NW. The water is XXX feet deep on the starboard side due to a scour, and is = feet on the port where it is protected by the hull. The outer hull is gone and the last mine tube is ripped open, exposing the mine inside. The conning tower is stripped bare and the attack periscope has been ripped off. There is very little debris next to the wreck and there is quite a bit of torn netting here and there. I believe the wintergarten, guns etc. have all been dragged away over the years. The conning tower hatch is closed. I did not see the forward deck gun but I must say, I didn't look that way at all. Visibility was only 20 feet but easily stirred up. My dive went from the hook at the last mine tube up to the conning tower and back. We did Xx minute bottom time and left. Although I would have liked to do a XX minute dive, prudence dictates an extremely cautious diving profile this far from shore. As there are no other Type VII-D boats lost on this side of the Atlantic, I feel confident that U-215 has been found & identified.'

PAUL LAWTON (4628-1996) sent us this:

U-215 was a 252 foot long, 965 ton (1,080 ton submerged) steel hull German WW II era diesel/electric Type VII-D minelaying/attack U-Boat built by Germania Werft at Kiel Germany where her keel was laid on 15 November 1940. She was launched on 9 October 1941 and commissioned on 22 November 1941.

U-215 was a rare model, one of only six of her type constructed, from U-213 through U-218. She was armed with one stern and four bow 21 inch tubes for which she carried 14 torpedoes; five mine chutes aft of the conning tower carrying 15 anchored SMA mines; one 88mm deck gun on the foredeck and one 20mm anti-aircraftft gun on the wintergarten which was the raised gun deck immediately aft of the conning tower. She had a range of 1,800 nautical miles with a top speed of 16 knots surfaced of 7.3 knots submerged.

She departed Kiel on her first - and last - operational patrol under command of Kapitanleutnant Fritz Hockner, with 47 officers and crewmen on 9 June 1942. Born in Berlin-Schoneberg on 22 December 1912, Fritz Hockner entered as an officer-cadet in the Seaman Branch of the Kriegsmarine (WW II era German Navy) with the Class of 1933. He served as I.W.O. aboard the fleet escort F-7 of the 12a' Minesweeping Flotilla between October 1939 and October 1940. He was promoted to a Commander assigned to the 5th Minesweeping Flotilla where he served until March of 1941, when he entered basic U-Boat training, followed by U-Boat Commanders training. Serving with the 24a' and then with the V U-Boat Flotillas Kapitanleutnant Hockner took command of U-215 on 22 November 1941.

In the early morning hours of 3 July 1942, Convoy BA.2, comprised of 33 merchant ships escorted by eight warships, was steaming north off the outer coast of Cape Cod on its way from New York via Woods Hole, MA to Halifax, Nova Scotia ultimately destined for Archangel, Soviet Union. The 422 foot long 7,176 ton American Liberty Ship ALEXANDER MACOMB under command of Captain Carl Monsen Froisland and carrying a 9,000 ton cargo of Curtis P-40 WARHAWK fighter planes, Sherman M4 tanks, and explosives had lagged approximately two miles behind the main body of the convoy due to heavy fog, approximately 135 miles due east of Nauset Beach, Cape Cod.

At approximately 0630, Hockner spotted the ALEXANDER MACOMB as she struggled at 101/2 knots to regain her position in the convoy. Despite the fact that U-21 S was carrying a full cargo of mines, Hockner decided to attack the freighter. One torpedo struck between the #4 and #5 holds causing the explosive cargo in her #5 hold to detonate, setting the aft section of the ship ablaze.

The crew abandoned ship while she was still under way, causing at least one lifeboat to capsize upon launch. The MACOMB sank by the stern at approximately 0700 several miles north of where she had been torpedoed.

Within half an hour of the attack, the submerged U-215 was located on sonar and came under depth charge attack by the 516 ton Free French manned, British armed ASW trawler HMS LeTIGRE (FV 243) assisted by the escort HMS VETERAN & the Canadian corvette HMCS REGINA (K-234). U-215 momentarily surfaced after the second pass by LeTIGRE then rolled over and sank with the loss of all of her 48 officers and crew somewhere between 41° 40'N x 66° 52'W and 41° 48'N x 66° 35'W.

Of the 41 man crew of ALEXANDER MACOMB and 25 Armed Guards, LeTIGRE rescued 31 men and the REGINA rescued 25 survivors. Four of the crewmen and 6 of the Armed Guards were killed in the attack.

The wreck of U-215 was located on side-scan sonar by a salvage team searching for the wreck of ALEXANDER MACOMB in 1987. John Fish and Arnold Can of American Underwater Search & Survey located the wrecks of both vessels for a team interested in the possible salvage of the P-40 fighters, though the complete degradation of the wreck left little hope for the recovery of anything of value. Subsequent surveys of the Canadian side of Georges Bank by the Geological Survey of Canada employing multibeam side-scan sonar again provided targeting information on a number of wreck sites of interest.

Divers Mike and Warren Fletcher (a father and son team) and Richie Kohler descended on the wreck of the long-lost U-215. Grappling into her aft mine compartment, they found her to be lying in approximately 45 fathoms (approximately 270 feet of water) and pointing NW with a list to her port side. Her outer hydrodynamic hull plating mostly gone and draped in dragger nets, her conning tower showed evidence of dragger damage with her attack periscope broken off and her 20mm flak gun missing.

Her hatches were found to be in the closed position, indicating that her officers and crewmen probably suffocated within the pressure hull after realizing that their efforts to re-surface after the damage inflicted by the initial depth charge were futile.

The wreck of U-215 is believed to be located at approximately 41° 39'N x 66° 32'W. The wreck of ALEXANDER MA COMB was located just a few miles to the north of U-215. Being located more than 130 miles offshore, the extremely challenging wreck of U-215 is possibly the most remote North Atlantic shipwreck ever to have been located and dived on any type of SCUBA equipment. The Fletchers and Kohler were diving using `tri-mix' (three different) gas mixture employing open circuit SCUBA equipment allowing for reduced nitrogen build up in their blood and tissues, deeper dive profiles and shorter decompression stops.