Wentzel Ahbe

Wentzel Ahbe was a highly-decorated U-Boat captain in the Kriegsmarine, who had survived many a depth-charge battle during the Battle of the Atlantic. In March of 1945, he led U-1324 out of Kiel, Germany on one last mission: transport Lt. Col. Matsuda back to the Japanese base in Batavia (now Jakarta), in the South China Sea. Ahbe did pick one other passenger... SS Lt. Col. Spielberger, who was carrying an unknown cargo with him. For the most part, U-1324 was remarkably lucky: it ran into few enemy, as well as torpedoing an enemy tanker. But just as it was near Batavia, it ran into a U.S. Navy patrol group and went into silent running. They may have made it... if the group didn't use their active sonar. U-1324 was hit hard by the depth charges, and as a result was drove nose-first into the ocean floor. While the forward torpedo crew managed – at the sacrifice of their own lives – to seal the rest of the sub from their flooding compartment, there was no way they could escape their fate.Pokaż więcej