Siegfried von Forstner

Korvettenkapitän Siegfried Freiherr von Forstner (19 September 1910 – 13 October 1943) was a German U-boat commander during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. He and his entire crew of U-402 were killed in action on 13 October 1943.

Von Forstner was the son of an aristocratic Prussian family whose men had served for generations as Army and Navy officers. His younger brother Wolfgang Friedrich (*1916) was also a U-boat commander, and two other brothers (Ernst Richard and Hans Dietrich) were Army officers. Wolfgang was the only brother to survive World War II. Their great-grandfather and grandfather had been army officers, and their father was a general, Ernst Freiherr von Forstner (1869–1950), who had won the Pour le Mérite with cluster as a regimental commander during World War I. Their uncle George Gunther von Forstner had commanded U-1 and U-28 during World War I, and another uncle of the Imperial Navy had died in that conflict.

Siegfried von Forster joined the Kriegsmarine in 1930 and served four years on the German cruiser Nürnberg following training as an artillery technical officer. Many of his year group were already at sea in submarines when he entered U-boat school in 1940. Von Forstner received training as a student commander aboard U-99 under his Naval School classmate Otto Kretschmer. After a 5-month tour in U-59, von Forstner assumed command of U-402. Von Forstner carried out eight combat patrols in U-402 sinking 14 merchantmen and one warship and damaging three other ships.

Von Forstner married in Hamburg in December, 1940, while waiting to take command of U-402. His wife Annamaria made distinctive red pom-poms for the crew of U-402 to wear on their uniform hats. The Baron and Baroness saved their home in Hamburg from burning during August, 1943, air-raids by staying on the roof and extinguishing incendiary bombs.

No ships were sunk during the first U-402 patrol from 26 October 1941 to 9 December 1941. On the second patrol von Forstner damaged the 12000-ton troopship Llangibby Castle off the Bay of Biscay on 16 January 1942 but the damaged troopship was able to make repairs in the Azores.

Von Forstner then made two patrols off the Atlantic coast of the United States. He sank a 4800-ton ship en route and then sank the 5300-ton Russian tanker Ashkabad and the 1000-ton converted yacht USS Cythera off Cape Hatteras on 2 May 1942. On the next patrol, U-402 was depth charged by patrol bombers off Cape Hatteras in mid-July and suffered a battery explosion.

Von Forstner received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for torpedoing twelve ships from convoy SC 107 and convoy SC 118. Baron von Forstner sank two ships during a submerged daylight attack on convoy SC 129 before U-402 was depth charged and damaged by the corvette Gentian.

Following departure for her last patrol on 4 September 1943, U-402 shot down an attacking RAF 172 Squadron Vickers Wellington bomber over the Bay of Biscay, The submarine also provided flak protection for U-377 when the latter was attacked by a B-24 Liberator bomber during the battle of Convoy ON 202. A U-boat believed by the Allied Anti-Submarine Assessment Committee to be U-402 was sunk with all hands on 13 October 1943 by a Mark 24 FIDO Torpedo dropped by Grumman TBF Avenger aircraft from USS Card.

Ships attacked

As commander of U-402 Siegfried von Forstner is credited with the sinking of 14 ships for a total of 70,434 gross register tons (GRT), further damaging three ships of 28,682 GRT and sinking one auxiliary warship of 602 GRT.

Date	Ship	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
16 May 1941	Llangibby Castle	United Kingdom	11,951	Damaged
13 April 1942	Empire Progress	United Kingdom	5,249	Sunk
30 April 1942	Ashkhabad	Soviet Union	5,284	Sunk
2 May 1942	USS Cythera	United States Navy	602	Sunk
2 November 1942	Dalcroy	United Kingdom	4,558	Sunk
2 November 1942	Empire Antelope	United Kingdom	4,945	Sunk
2 November 1942	Empire Leopard	United Kingdom	5,676	Sunk
2 November 1942	Empire Sunrise	United Kingdom	7,459	Damaged
2 November 1942	Rinos	Greece	4,649	Sunk
7 February 1943	Afrika	United Kingdom	8,597	Sunk
7 February 1943	Daghild	Norway	9,272	Damaged
7 February 1943	USS Henry R. Mallory	United States Navy	6,063	Sunk
7 February 1943	Kalliopi	Greece	4,695	Sunk
7 February 1943	Robert E. Hopkins	United Kingdom	6,625	Sunk
7 February 1943	Toward	United Kingdom	1,571	Sunk
8 February 1943	Newton Ash	United Kingdom	1,571	Sunk
11 May 1943	Antigone	United Kingdom	4,545	Sunk
11 May 1943	Grado	Norway	3,082	Sunk

Awards

• Wehrmacht Long Service Award 4th Class (2 October 1936)
• Sudetenland Medal (20 December 1938)
• Iron Cross (1939)
  • 2nd Class (18 February 1942)
  • 1st Class (7 August 1942)
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 9 February 1943 as Kapitänleutnant and commander of U-402