how could the U 234 transport one Me 262?

[aurelien wolff]

I wonder because it seem like theyr was some misinterpretation (my source state that he transported just drawing not pieces and where would you store the part for one aircraft?

[oldhoweboy]

U 234, under Kapitänleutnant Johann-Heinrich Fehler , left Kiel on 24.03.1945. The boat moved to snorkeling exercises in the Oslofjord, Horten. There, the boat was rammed and damaged by U 1301 during the exercises on 31.03.1945. It got a new screw during the repair. In addition, the conversion of 6 starboard and port mine shafts to load and luggage compartments took place. In the converted mine shafts specially built transport containers were used. In total, there were 6 containers in the fore and aft, plus 6 vertical containers in the mine shafts on the sides. In each of the 4 holds, 8 horizontal cargo containers and 4 cargo containers came to the upper deck, 2 to port and 2 to starboard.


U 234, under Kapitänleutnant Johann-Heinrich Fehler , ran out of Kristiansand on 16.04.1945. The boat was to carry a transport to Japan, but capitulated at the end of the war, in an American warship and ran, after 31 days, on 17.05.1945 in Portsmouth. On board were: anti-tank weapons, a disassembled Me 262 and associated design plans, turbine parts, 560 kg of uranium oxide , 100 Leica cameras and optical lenses. Also on board: the Oberst (Lw) Freiherr von Sandorn, as air defense specialist, Lieutenant of the plane Menzel, as radar specialist, Leutnant (Ing.) Kling and Kapitänleutnant (Ing.) Schlicke as a high-frequency specialists. From Messerschmitt: the engineers Ruf and Bringewald as aircraft construction specialists. Kapitänleutnant Bulla as naval attache / Japan and the General der Flieger Kessler as detachment of Air Force Attaché / Japan. Marine Supreme Court Judge Nieschling was scheduled to serve as naval judge for the conviction of spy concern in Japan. In addition, the Japanese naval officers were still on board, the ship's legionary specialist Tomanaga, a specialist in submarine construction, and Colonel Shosi, a specialist in aircraft construction. They committed suicide during the surrender.

Chronicle 16.04.1945 - 17.05.1945:

Does this help
Rgds
Nobby

[Atrevida]

This misunderstanding arose most recently from the statement to that effect by former Oberfunkmeister Wolfgang Hirschfeld, senior communications NCO of U-234, in his book "Feindfahrten" (Neff Verlag, Vienna, 1983) as later translated into English and published in 1996. An earlier source for the misunderstanding occurs in the biographical account of the commander's career "The Warring Seas" by A.V.Sellwood (White Horse Publishers, 1955) in which Kptlt Fehler told Sellwood that there had been "an Me 262 in its component parts" in the holds of U-234. See "Hirschfeld", Frontline reprint 2011, p.243, footnote 45.

The boat had approximately 260 metric tonnes of cargo on board, but the abridged US Unloading Manifest lists only 95 tonnes. Absent from this document for example were 24 tonnes of mercury, 39 drums and 70 wooden barrels of heavy water, and 80 cases of uranium powder, as to the presence of which it was considered undesirable to inform the world at the time and ever since.

After seventy-four years, in spite of automatic declassification rules therefore, a good quantity of the documents relating to U-234 at the time of her unloading have still not been released. Accordingly the confusion arose regarding the "Me 262 in its component parts": Fehler might possibly have said there was "a component part of an Me 262" aboard the boat, incorrectly translated by A V Sellwood as the whole aircraft. It was suggested to me some time ago that a part of the Lotfe Bomber Me 262 A-2/U2 (Works Number 110484) which flew ten times before not being heard of again at Rechlin after 7 January 1945 might have been included in the cargo.