The U-boat that had destroyed ALBERNI with an acoustic torpedo was not identified at the time. In fact it was suspected that ALBERNI might have been mined, as seven anti-submarine craft hunted through the area the next day and found nothing. Post-war review of German records indicate she was the first victim, of several ships in the area of U-480 (OL Hans Jachim Forster - above and see text below) of the IX U-Flottille, operating out of Brest, France. Less than twenty-eight hours later Forster sank the RN Algerine's minesweeper LOYALTY in almost exactly the same location with nineteen killed. She and her flotilla had been sweeping the area for suspected mines, partly as a result of ALBERNI 'S still unverified sinking. LOYALTY had fouled her sweep with another Algernine's, dropped back to recover her gear in hazy weather and was catching up with Forster hit her in the stern with a GNAT. Fortunately that day the minesweeper took twenty minutes to sink, although her CO was lost. The lack of detection of the U-Boat may have been, at least in part, due to its all-over Alberich rubber coating, designed to absorb asdic sound waves.
Over the next two days U-480 sank two more merchantmen in the area. After sinking another, also in the Channel the following February, Forster and U-480 were in their turn sunk by the RN frigates DUCKWORTH and ROWLEY on 24 February 1945.*
The following information is provided by Klaus Schroeder for The Alberni Project:
U-480 was a type VII-C u-boat and was ordered by the Kriegsmarine on 10.April 1941. Its keel was laid down on 8.December 1942 at the Deutsche Werke AG shipyards in Kiel (yard nr. 311 to be exact)
It was launched on 14.August 1943 and comissioned on 6. October 1943 under command of Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Förster who stayed as its only commander until its sinking.
It was one of the u-boats that was upgraded with a snorkel which enabled it to run its diesel engines while staying submerged and therefore could stay below the surface longer than any other country's submarines of WWII.
Service of U-480 :
October 1943 to April 1944 - Crew training exercises with the boat
18.May to 19.May 1944 - Relocation from Kiel to Arendal in Norway
First active patrol : 30 days No successes
Depature : Arendal, Norway on 7.June 1944
Return : Brest, France on 7.July 1944
Second active patrol : 62 days
Departure : Brest, France on 3.August 1944
Arrival : Trondheim, Norway on 4.October 1944
4 enemy ships sunk
Third active patrol
Departure : Trondheim, Norway on 6. January 1945
It sunk an overall of 12.846 gross register tons of enemy merchant shipping space (2 ships) and 2 enemy warships with a total of 1.775 gross register tons.
This results out of the following :
21. August 1944 HMCS Alberni K 103 (925 tons)
22. August 1944 HMS Loyalty J 217 (850 tons) (Captain and 18 crewman lost)
23. August 1944 Fort Yale (British)(7.134 tons) (in convoy ETC-72) Crewmen : 67 / Crewman lost : 1
25. August 1944 Orminster (British)(5.712 tons) (in convoy FTM-74) Crewman : 62 / Crewman lost : 6
Overall : 14.621 GRT
U-480's previously assumed fate (up to 2001) was a false assumption. It was believed that U480 was sunk on 24.February 1945 in the English Channel south-east of Isles of Scilly in position 49.51.783N, 06.06.750W by depth charges from the British frigates HMS Duckworth and HMS Rowley.
It is now known that this u-boat was U-1208 and not U-480.
It is now believed that U-480 sunk between 29.January and 20.February in the minefield D2 in position 50°22'04"N/001°44'10"W. 48 dead (all hands lost). This is (for now) its official fate.
Its wreck was possibly located by diver but the identity could not be confirmed so far.
On 13 June, 1944 an air attack on U-480 was conducted by a Canadian Catalina (Sqdn 162/B pilot Laurance Sherman).
This plane had sunk U-980 2 days earlier and was now shot down by U-480.
Three of the eight airmen, including Sherman, died in the crash; five got into an inflatable raft. On the tenth day after the crash on June 22nd a Norwegian whaler rescued the lone survivor, J.E. Roberts, and turned him over to the Germans.
About Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Förster :
He was born on 20.February 1920 in Gross-Köris Teltow.
Hans-Joachim Förster joined the Kriegsmarine in October 1938. He rode on the destroyer Z-29 as third watch officer in 1941 and 1942 for 7 patrols, before he was attached in July 1942 to the U-boat force.
After the usual training he was for three patrols first watch officer on board of U-380 operating in the Mediterranean. He left U-380 in May 1943 and commissioned 5 months later the type VIIC U-boat U-480.
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*this was later confirmed to be incorrect. The submarine that was actually sunk was U1208. U480 was eventually sunk by a mine with the loss of all but one of her assigned crew.
FOR FUTHER INFORMATION GO HERE.
