U-77 conducted 11 patrols, sinking 15 ships totalling and 1,050 tons, damaging two others, totalling . She also damaged two warships totalling 2,880 tons and caused two ship of to be declared a total loss. She was a member of six
wolfpacks.
First patrol U-77 departed
Kiel on 29 May 1941. Her route took in the
gap between
Iceland and the
Faroe Islands. She sank the
Tresillian on 13 June southeast of
Cape Race (
Newfoundland ). Using her
deck gun, she fired 87 rounds, scoring 60-65 hits; but it needed a
torpedo to administer the coup de grâce. She then sank the
Arakaka, a weather ship, on the 22nd, east of
St. Johns. There were no survivors. It was a similar story with the
Anna Bulgaris south of
Cape Farewell, (Greenland).
U-77 docked in
St. Nazaire in occupied France on 7 July.
Second and third patrols The boat's second foray began with her departure from St. Nazaire on 2 August 1941, but despite covering large tracts of the Atlantic, she returned to the French base on 10 September empty-handed. For her third sortie,
U-77 once more found the cupboard bare west of Ireland and the
Bay of Biscay. Nothing.
Fourth patrol U-77s next patrol was divided into two. Part one was into the
Mediterranean. Leaving St. Nazaire on 10 December 1941, she slipped past the heavily defended
Strait of Gibraltar and entered
Messina in northeast Sicily on the 19th. On the way, she sank from
Cape Trafalgar [before the Gibraltar experience], on the 15th. Part two involved the boat's attack on the British destroyer off
Tobruk on 12 January 1942. The warship's stern was blown off, but she was towed to
Alexandria for temporary repairs before more permanent restoration was carried out in
Bombay. The ship returned to service in January 1944. The submarine docked at
Salamis in Greece on 14 January.
Fifth patrol Late on 1 April 1942,
U-77 was attacked by a
Fairey Swordfish of
No. 815 Squadron FAA, north-by-northeast of
Sidi Barrani. The damage inflicted meant the boat was unable to dive. She returned to Salamis on the third.
Sixth patrol Having moved to
La Spezia in northwest Italy in April,
U-77 departed the port for the initial portion of a two-part patrol on 6 June 1942. She sank the destroyer north of
Sollum on the 12th. This was during Operation
Vigorous, [a supply convoy to
Malta]. The U-boat was unsuccessfully attacked by , a British T-class submarine, off what today is the Israeli coast on 4 July. (Note: there is some confusion over this incident as the U-boat's own page on 'uboat.net' also puts her further west on that day and does not mention an attack).
U-77 finished the patrol in Salamis on 9 July.
Seventh and eighth patrols Departing Salamis on 16 July 1942, her only victory was the Greek sailing ship
Vassilliki, which she sank with 10 rounds from the deck gun east of
Cyprus on the 22nd. In late August, the boat briefly moved to
Pola (or Pula) in Croatia at the 'top' of the
Adriatic, from where she sortied on 12 October 1942 before steaming to La Spezia once more on 1 November.
Ninth patrol U-77 torpedoed the sloop on 12 November 1942 but was attacked by the corvettes and the following day northeast of
Algiers. The slightly damaged U-boat returned to La Spezia on 5 December.
Tenth patrol U-77 sank two more ships - the
Empire Banner and the
Empire Webster, both on 7 February 1943 west of Algiers. She had departed La Spezia on 26 January and returned there on 10 February.
11th patrol and loss . In the foreground, the graves of two of members of the submarine crew. In 1983, all the German soldiers and sailors buried in Spain from the WWI and WWII were exhumed from their graves and buried in this cemetery. The corpses of the
U-77 were taken from the
cemetery of Alicante to their final resting place in Cuacos. The boat departed La Spezia for the last time on 3 March 1943. On 28 March,
U-77 was attacked by two British
Lockheed Hudsons,
V of
No. 48 and
L of
No. 233 Squadron RAF, based in
Gibraltar, which dropped
depth charges, and heavily damaged U-77. At 01:15 the following day, 29 March, Hartmann ordered his crew off the boat, and scuttled it in position east of Cartagena/Cape de Palos. Of the 47 crew members, nine survived the night and were picked up by Spanish fishing boats.
Wolfpacks U-77 took part in six
wolfpacks, namely: •
West (6 – 20 June 1941) • Grönland (10 – 23 August 1941) • Kurfürst (23 August – 2 September 1941) •
Seewolf (2 – 7 September 1941) • Reissewolf (21 – 31 October 1941) • Störtebecker (15 November – 2 December 1941) ==Summary of raiding history==