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Rupert Lonsdale
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The capture of HMS Seal
The capture of HMS Seal
The German Navy took HMS Seal to Kiel in Germany where they repaired the vessel. In the spring of 1941 they commissioned the submarine into the Kreigsmarine and used it during practice operations in Kiel Bay. There were, however, problems with the submarine’s engine. In 1943 the German Navy stripped HMS Seal of all its equipment and left the vessel’s hull lying derelict in Kiel’s naval dockyard. Later in the war an Allied air raid hit and sunk the submarine whilst it lay in the harbour.
After their capture the Germans took the crew of HMS Seal to Frederickshaven, a small port on the east coast of Denmark, where they ate a meal of ersatz coffee, bread and cold macaroni soup. A German naval captain transported the submariners to Kiel naval barracks where he interrogated them. Engine Room Artificer John Murray describes the questioning he received.
‘They would ask all sorts of innocent questions about my childhood and home life, purely to gain my confidence and get me talking and then slip in a question about where Seal had been and how many submarines we had lost’.
The crew of HMS Seal being fed by their German captors in Denmark (RNSM)
To find out about the separation of the crew, select Next
