On March 13, 1944, the German submarine U-852 searched for prey in the Atlantic Ocean. Suddenly, the lookout reported seeing a freighter in front of him! The young and warlike Captain Eck was immediately excited!
The cargo ship was the U.S. Pereus with a displacement of 6,659 tons. Allied supplies are currently being transported to South America. The ship's 35 crew members never dreamed that their end would come...
Eck ordered his submarine to follow Pereus and wait until nightfall. This was because the Allied Air Force was very strong in the area, while his U-852 submarine had a large tonnage, was slow and prone to sinking.
After about two and a half hours, it was getting dark and the U-852 began looking for the best place to attack. At 19:40, Eck gave the order and two SW39 torpedoes were fired rapidly. One hit Persoto's Cargo Hold 2 and the other hit the rear of Cargo Hold 3 of the cargo ship. In the deafening sound of the explosion, "Pereus" burned.
Some of the crew of the cargo ship were killed on the spot, and the survivors jumped on the life raft to try to escape the collapsed "fire ship". However, they could not have imagined that the nightmare had only just begun, triggering a large-scale military search operation by the Alliance and putting you in great danger. So Eck made an astonishing decision that a German submarine commander had never made before – to clear the ocean of all traces of Pereus!
Submarine Sheriff Kurtitz and Chief Engineer Langtz strongly objected, citing the act as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, but Captain Eck completely ignored it in his own way.
At Eck's request, several crew members stood on the bridge armed with two machine guns and fired wildly at the wreckage of the freighter at sea. After some time, Ike lit a searchlight to check the situation. To his surprise, even with so many bullets wasted, the raft had not yet sunk.
At this point, Sheriff Hoffman suggested using the machine. Guns, some even recommend the use of deck guns. Ike refused because the submarine was too close to the freighter, less than 200 yards. However, Eck thought he might try to use a double-barreled 20mm anti-aircraft machine gun, but ultimately failed.
An enraged Eck ordered the submarine to rise. Within a distance of less than 30 meters, some crew members suddenly frantically threw grenades at the life raft. It is not known how many grenades were thrown by the gang. It's safe to say that it still doesn't work.
In the sudden attack, Eck did not order a direct attack on the drowning people, but the truth is that almost all of the survivors were killed under heavy fire.
Unconsciously, it was already 1:00 a.m. the next day, and the group tossed and turned, and before they knew it, it had been five hours. Suddenly, a strong sense of danger struck Eck's mind, abandoning "sabotage and sabotage" and ordering the submarine to leave the area at full speed at once. The submarine sailed south along the west coast of Africa to the Cape of Good Hope.
Two days after the incident, Eck telegraphed to headquarters the sinking of the Perius, but the telegram was intercepted by the Allies, putting the U-852 in their line of sight.
At this point, Ek did not realize the danger. He sank another cargo ship on the way, but after this attack, he had no idea of "destroying the body".
A powerful British anti-submarine force was soon ordered to search for U-852, but the search was ultimately unsuccessful. Just as the Allies believed that the evil U-852 had been on the run, Eck, who was at stake, began sending telegrams to the German submarine command. Location of U-852 - waters near the Gulf of Aden!
The RAF immediately dispatched Wellington bombers to the Gulf of Aden for an anti-submarine search. After a few days of hard work, they finally found the U-852 sailing on the water!
The Wellington bomber bowed its head and swooped down quickly with the sun on its back, dropping countless depth charges while firing wildly with machine guns. Six bombs accurately hit the U-852, and one of them destroyed the anti-aircraft gun of the second turret, killing the sailors operating the gun on the spot.
Ike ordered the submarine to carry out an emergency dive to avoid a second bombing by enemy aircraft, but unexpectedly, a large amount of sea water suddenly poured into the submarine's interior. To make matters worse, chlorine gas from the explosion of the airborne battery began to seep into the submarine's interior, and the U-852 had to resurface.
After surface, the submarine crew began to take control of the anti-aircraft guns, and the British bombers ruthlessly launched the next dive bomb. In the face of heavy enemy fire, the U-852 was completely paralyzed and began to sink backwards. Eck ordered the submarine to move at full speed, hoping to send it off to the Somali coast before enemy aircraft sank it.
In the afternoon, the badly damaged submarine U-852 finally ran aground off the coast of Somalia. Eck ordered the crew to abandon the ship and flee in an attempt to destroy the U-852. British bombers were still attacking at this time, inflicting heavy casualties on the crew trying to escape.
The next day, a British landing team stationed in Somalia with local forces found the submarine stranded and the surviving crew, including Captain Eck, had been captured.
On the abandoned U-852 submarine, the British found many valuable documents, including an almost complete log of the submarine's operations, clearly documenting the sinking of the U-852.
On November 30, 1945, 29-year-old Captain Eck of U-852 was sentenced to death for war crimes.
