U-Boats in the Pacific

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Wildcat

Major
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Apr 11, 2005
South East Queensland
Can anyone tell me what U-boats operated in the Pacific in WWII. I recently read that an RAAF Beaufort attacked a submarine with a swastika painted on its conning tower in Saint George's Channel which is between New Britain and New Ireland. Although only scoring near misses with its bombs, it was claimed damaged due to the fact it didn't submerge which enabled several strafing runs to be made silencing it deck guns.
Was this a U-boat or did the crew simply mis-identify a Japanese symbol to be a German swastika?
 
Wildcat, I think the only U-Boat that ever "officially" operated in Pacific waters was the U-862, but that was in late '44 and was pretty much a one-time deal.

I can double-check that, but I'm pretty sure. I do know that it was part of the Indian Ocean (Monsun) operations, based out of Penang/Jakarta in concert with the Imperial Japanese Navy.
 
Here's a link to U-862 uboat.net - Boats - U-862 at uboat.net and gives some basic info.

A better link would be German U-Boat attacks off the Australian Coast, and has a great timeline of U-862's Ops.

Two notable events, one was that U-862 was attacked by a British Catalina on 20 August 1944, it being shot down by the submarine in the process and the other is that it wreaked havoc in Australian waters during the winter of 1944/1945.

Otherwise, I couldn't seem to find anything closer to the info you were looking for, Wildcat...sorry
 
Appreciate the help guys. GrauGeist, I was aware of U-862 but wasn't sure if there were other U-boats kicking around Australia/the Pacific at this time. It seems it was simply a case of mistaken identity.
Again thanks for the help.
 
hey guys there were at least 6 U-booten in the Pacific, a couple of things to mention and of importance.

shipping agents right and left-military hierarchy for the Germans as well as the Japanese.

shipping of precious commodities hardware and soft-goods to Japan - A/C parts, new designs, etc.

U-boot Milch Cows to aid other U-boots on long journeys with necessary fuel and food/arms...... one of the biggest and longest journeys of these U-boots was to supply the Auxillary Cruisers that were sailing and sinking Allied shipping in the Pacific in the early 1940's
 
German subs operated a good deal in the Indian Ocean, and reached and operated from Malaya (Penang) and ports in Dutch East Indies. U-862 definitely operated technically in the Pacific, going east of the east coast of Australia to near NZ. For some other operations by U-boats, it depends where exactly you draw the boundary between Indian and Pacific.

Three U-boats were sunk in the Java Sea: U-168 by the Dutch sub Zwaardfisch Oct 1944, U-537 by USS Bashaw in Nov 1944 and U-183 by USS Besugo in April 1945. On some maps the Java Sea is part of the Indian Ocean. Others consider the boundary to be the main Indonesian islands themselves, so Java Sea, to the north of the islands, is part of the Pacific.

German cruisers and merchant raiders operated in the broad Pacific in WWI, and some in WWII (the merchant raider Michel was sunk by USS Tarpon near Japan in Oct 1943 on a dual raiding/blockade running cargo mission). No U-boats operated there in WWI though. Only a relative few even went far into the Atlantic in that war, a few off US east coast for example. The great majority of U-boat combat ops in WWI were North Sea, Channel, Irish Sea, Western Approachs ie. pretty near the British Isles, or in the Med. or on the way there.

Joe
 
Did the U-Boats operate from Japanese held ports in the Pacific, or were they only on specific missions? What I mean is, were they based in the Pacific or merely on specific missions to japan?
 
Any listings of U-boats delivering secret weapons or information to the IJN? Maybe I read something, or saw something in a movie, but something comes to mind of German U-boats delivering weapons or secret info pertaining to a A-bomb, or jet info to Japan? Any truth to this?
 

I remember hearing something about this, also, but I believe they were plans for the Me-262, which is where the Japanese got their own Nakajima Kikka.
 
I read somewhere that a german "cargo sub" delivered a bunch ( 800?) of MG 151/20's to Japan, and those where used in the firts batch of Ki-61 Hein. Any truth to that? Another tale is that a me-109e was also delivered the same way, and test flown by Japan to comparison against it own fighters...
 

U-234 was on a journey to Japan when the war ended, her cargo included "three crated Messerschmidt aircraft (two Me-262 jet fighters, ME-163 rocket-propelled fighter), Henschel HS-293 glider-bomb, extra Junkers jet engines, 10 canisters of uranium oxide, a ton of diplomatic mail, and over 3 tons of technical drawings, plus other technology, torpedo, fuses, armour piercing shells, etc. Passengers were 9 high technical officers, one general, and civilian scientists. Destination: Japan. Two returning Japanese Navy Lt. Commanders, one air and one submarine, were returning, having observed Nazi technology and techniques." I know that seems like a lot of material for a u-boat boat this boat was originally a mine laying "u-flak" boat capable of holding several tons of supplies and mines. Given the small crew I'd say food stores wouldn't take anymore space then for a full crew.

While at sea u-234 learned of surrender, but continued for some time, until finally surrendering. The Americans knew of her journey but not of her cargo. The 2 Japanese men committed suicide before surrender.
Some of that uranium oxide was sent to Los Alamos, guess it made it to Japan anyway.

Also U-boats operated from Singapore, and Java. Generally large type IX or IXD-2 submarines.

U-234: Hitler's Last U-Boat (U234)
 
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