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SHARKHUNTERS International
History of the German submarine U-20
                                                     
Conning tower emblems of U-20.  The Olympic Rings signify that one of the Skippers was from Naval Class 1936.

Much of this information, the data, the photos etc. comes directly from the veterans, the veterans' organizations and is the most accurate available anywhere..............much of this information is not even known elsewhere.
 

             No men lost   *

Commanders of U-20 include:

U-20 was initially attached to the U-Bootflottille Lohs and the 1st U-Bootflottille then based at Kiel.  In June 1940, she was transferred to the 21st U-Bootflottille based in Pillau as a Schulboot (school boat) until September 1942.  This was one of the six Type II-B boats that were decommissioned and disassembled then shipped by rivers and autobahn to the Rumanian coast.  U-20 and the other five were reconstructed and recommissioned into the 30th U-Bootflottille based out of Costanzia, Rumania to attack Soviet shipping on the Black Sea.

While with the 1st U-Bootflottille, U-20 had several patrols in the North Sea, particularly off Northeastern Scotland in October 1939 and also January 1940.  She laid mines off Yarmouth, England over the night of 21 November 1939.

U-20 was recommissioned in the 30th U-Bootflottille on the Black Sea and she had seven Feindfahrten (war patrols) in the Black Sea against Soviet shipping including minelaying off the Caucasus on 20 September 1943 and again on 27 February 1944.  She was with the 30th U-Bootflottille until the Red Army was closing in on their base.  This boat was sailed across the Black Sea and the crew scuttled her off the Turkish coast near Erekli.

                  SHIPS SUNK BY U-20 (Möhle commanding)

   * IONIAN and WILLOWPOOL ran onto mines laid by U-20 on 22 November 1939.

                  SHIPS SUNK BY U-20 (von Klot Heydenfeldt commanding)

FREDENBORG	PESTEL

                  SHIPS SUNK BY U-20 (Schöler commanding)

                  SHIPS SUNK BY U-20 (Grafen commanding)

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Many thanks to our friend and Sharkhunters Member since 1987 GEORG HÖGEL for all the conning tower emblems used in our monthly KTB Magazine and also here on the pages of our website.  GEORG was radioman aboard U-30, the first boat into combat, the first to sink a ship (the liner ATHENIA) and the first into an occupied French port.  When that Skipper (Lemp) took command of U-110, GEORG was one of the former crew to transfer to the new boat under Lemp.  After the war, he was Professor of Art at a major German university.