Step inside Hitler's U-boats to witness the nightmarish reality of life on board
Hitler’s U-boats were a feared component of his naval strategy during the Second World War. But what was life aboard these weaponised submersibles actually like?
Slipping unseen beneath the Atlantic, German U-boats were a terrifying development in the naval battles of the Second World War. They threatened Britain’s supply lines and seemed to offer Nazi Germany a way to starve the island nation into submission.
Britain – heavily dependent on imported food, fuel and raw materials – was particularly vulnerable to attacks on its merchant shipping. German naval planners believed that cutting these lifelines could force Britain out of the war without the need for a costly invasion.
As such, German propaganda cultivated an image of U-boats packed full of elite sailors waging a high-tech, daring campaign beneath the surface of the sea. Successful commanders were celebrated at home, and early victories against poorly protected Allied convoys helped create the perception of the U-boat as a uniquely deadly naval weapon.
The reality was very different.
As historian Roger Moorhouse explains on the HistoryExtra podcast, life aboard a U-boat was overwhelmingly and relentlessly degrading. Far from being glamorous, the experience was often “thoroughly, thoroughly horrible”.
What were U-boats?
U-boat is a shortened form of the German word 'unterseeboot', meaning “undersea boat”. Although submarines were used by several nations during the First World War, Germany had employed them with particular effectiveness, sinking thousands of Allied ships.
When war broke out once more in Europe, Germany’s experience had prepared them. The backbone of their fleet was the Type VII U-boat, which Moorhouse describes as “an updated version of the U-boats used at the end of the First World War” and, by later standards, “a pretty primitive weapon”.
These boats were not true submarines in the modern sense. “It was meant to spend most of its time on the surface,” Moorhouse says. “It’s basically a submersible rather than a submarine.” They could dive to attack or evade danger, but only for limited periods. “It can’t spend more than probably about twenty-four hours underwater,” he says, before batteries needed recharging.
It was this limitation that defined U-boat warfare. On the surface, boats were faster and more comfortable, but dangerously exposed to aircraft. When submerged, they were slow, blind and vulnerable to depth charges. From the outset, U-boat crews lived with the knowledge that their survival depended on technology that was already being overtaken by Allied detection methods such as radar, sonar and improved air patrols.
Claustrophobia at sea
If the tactical constraints were severe, the physical environment was much worse. “In terms of interior size, I usually describe a Type VII as being about the size of two underground train carriages,” Moorhouse says. Engines, fuel tanks, batteries, torpedoes, food stores, bunks and a crew of around fifty men were all crammed within that narrow space. Every cubic inch was used for something specific.
“There was only one place in a Type VII where two grown men could pass each other without awkwardly shuffling,” he explains. Privacy was non-existent, and senior officers lived under the same conditions as the rest of the crew.
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A typical patrol lasted around eight weeks, though some extended far longer. During that time, sailors slept in shared bunks on a rota system. There was no escape from the endless noise, and no opportunity to be alone for any moment.
“The stress placed on U-boat crews was extreme, particularly because of the claustrophobia. They couldn’t leave the vessel. They couldn’t get fresh air.”
Hunger and disease
U-boats carried all the food they would require for an entire patrol, loaded wherever space could be found. “There was a lot of fresh food initially,” Moorhouse explains, “but that ran out after about two weeks.” After that, crews survived on tinned rations that were monotonous and nutritionally poor.
Fresh water was rationed so tightly that washing was almost impossible. “At most, you might wash your face with fresh water.” Each sailor was issued with a single change of underwear for the entire patrol, and damp clothing rarely dried in the cold, humid air.
The health consequences were stark.
“They all developed skin conditions,” Moorhouse explains.
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Scabies was a common condition, as was a painful infection known as ‘red dog’, which left raw, inflamed patches across the body. Scurvy – which had been the bane of pirates centuries before – returned once vitamin-rich food ran out.
As Moorhouse says, “the health of the crew was horrific.”
On top of that, veterans spoke of the ‘U-boat stink’: a nauseating mix of diesel fumes from leaking engines, mould from permanent damp, unwashed bodies, bad breath caused by scurvy, and vomit from chronic seasickness. “When you combine all of that,” Moorhouse says, “it was a deeply unpleasant existence.”
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Sleeplessness and fear
To reduce the risk of air attack, boats often remained submerged during daylight hours and surfaced only at night. This imposed an artificial rhythm on life aboard, with watches and meals detached from normal patterns of day and night, producing chronic sleep deprivation that wore men down physically and psychologically.
In the early years of the war, when U-boats enjoyed notable successes, crews could at least believe that the suffering served a purpose. Even then, the risks were extreme. Moorhouse notes that the average statistical lifespan of a U-boat crew was between seven and nine patrols.
By 1943, when Allied radar, sonar and air power had turned the Atlantic into a killing ground, that figure declined. “It dropped to between two and three patrols,” Moorhouse says. By late 1944, “it hovered around a single patrol”. Men sailing at that stage knew they were, statistically, embarking on a mission that would take them to their death.
The toll of combat stress
German naval doctors did attempt to study the psychological impact of U-boat service, but their findings were unwelcome. Moorhouse notes that “senior officers did not want to hear about it”, while sailors themselves resisted discussion because psychological suffering was interpreted as weakness in Nazi Germany’s military culture.
“One commander, Heinrich Blücher, suffered a nervous breakdown on patrol in 1943 and had to be removed from service. The most extreme case was a U-boat commander named Pittesch, who committed suicide during a depth-charge attack.”
In all, around 75 per cent of men who served in the U-boat arm were killed during the war, making their casualty rates one of the highest of any branch of Germany’s armed forces.
“The stress placed on U-boat crews was extreme,” Moorhouse concludes. Their stories, he says, remain “one of the untold stories of the war.”
Roger Moorhouse was speaking to Spencer Mizen on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
James Osborne is a digital content producer at HistoryExtra