Gordon Williamson

Friedrich Linden

At the nearby Marinemuseum at Wilhelmshaven, they have a "Seehund" mini-saub on display. During our visit they also have an original U-Boat Badge with Diamonds on display, along with the original owners award Knights Cross with Oakleaves and the documents for both.

Engine room

The interior is much more pleasant than on the Type VII and Type IX boats. Much more spacious, with a lot of wood panelling etc.

The periscope. At the periscope in this shot is Horst Bredow , director of the U-Boot Archiv who was with us during our visit. There is a taped sound effects track playing on board to give visitors a feel for the sounds on board a U-Boat in action. Highly amusing to hear a real veteran U-Boat officer like Horst telling us what a lot of cack the effects were. Visitors ended up listening in to him and ignoring the sound effects.

This is where the diving planes operators sat in the control room or "Zentral"

Another survivor worth a visit is U-2540, a Type XXI at Bremerhaven. She was raised after the war, commissioned as the "Wilhelm Bauer" with a remodelled conning tower. After she was taken out of service she was put back as near as possible to wartime spec and became a museum ship. A lot of the interior machinery however, is still the more modern postwar stuff. There are also quite a few original artefacts onboard ( KM visor caps etc).

The U-Boat Geschwader. Only 1 and 3 were ever issued. 2nd Geschwader is relatively scarce.

Variants exist with or without dots after the numerals, and some with UBOOT or UBOOTS Geschwader

U-Boat Training Group. Two versions, one with UBOOT and one with UBOOTS

U-Boat Flotilla. Two versions, as one word and split.

U-Boat Training Centre and U-Boat Command. U-Boat Command was only used for a very short period and is very rare.

The only other named ribbons were the Techel and the Sch?hrer . Only five of this class were made but only two were named the others just numbered.

Sister ship of the Hai was the Hecht, another recovered Type XXIII. Ribbon again existed in Gothic and Latin, the Gothic being very rare.

Thanks to Thomas Huss for the photos of the actual subs.

The Hai was a recovered Type XXIII wartime boat. Again, the early ribbons are in Gothic scrip and the later ones in Latin script.

Again, the Gothic ribbons are very rare, the Latin script very scarce.

Following on from the Imperial and Kriegsmarine ribbons posted earlier, here are some of those from the Bundesmarine. Some of these ribbons are even rarer than the WW2 types.

First, the Wilhelm Bauer, a recovered Type XXI wartime U-Boat which was modified and put back into service.

The earlier ribbons were still made in the Gothic style as used in WW2.

A variant of the first ribbon exists with the full wording Unterseeboot Wilhelm Bauer rather than just U-Boot. A variant of the second type exists with a dot between U and Boot rather than a hyphen thus U.Boot rather than U-Boot.

Both types were made in either wire weave or cellulose thread weave.

The gothic version is very rare as is the type with the dot between U and Boot.

Reverse

Assmann

Reverse

Wernstein

Ricard,

DK in cloth were not awarded, only in metal. Cloth versions had to be privately purchased. You can often find them with price tickets still attached.

KM versions in cloth are rarer than Army or Luftwaffe and probably on a par with Panzer examples.

Don,

I've had several original Schott badges and one thing they all had in common was that the reverse face wasn't smooth but was covered in fine scratch lines. I'm guessing this was from the brass stamping being held against a linishing belt to smooth off the rough edges.

Every original I have seen has been like this.

The reverse of the one you show looks smooth but it isn't a terribly clear shot.

Love that photo ! Not so easy to find Imprial Feldgendarmerie pics.

Knowing absolutely zip about Imperial Army Uniforms, is there any way to tell from the photo which of the States this young Leutnant with sore head and freshly awarded EK2 is from ?

I agree, lovely example. It's one piece of KM headgear I haven't found yet !.

Strange to think that such a large, cumbersome piece of headgear would be used on U-Boats, but it most certainly was.

Magnificent jacket !

What got me was the gorgets that two of them are wearing. Came with a pile of Polizei related photos. Is that a Bicorn hat the guy with the Gorget is wearing ?