Named after the
griffin, the boat was
laid down at the
Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven (Navy Yard) on 5 October 1925
launched on 15 July 1926 and
commissioned on 15 July 1927.
Second World War Greif was used in the
North Sea mining operations that began on 3 September 1939. Together with three
destroyers and her sisters and ,
Greif was tasked with anti-shipping patrols in the
Kattegat and
Skaggerak from 3 to 5 October that captured four ships. During the
Invasion of Norway in April 1940, the boat was assigned to Group 4 under
Kapitän zur See (Captain)
Friedrich Rieve on the light cruiser . Unlike the rest of the group, she was tasked to
capture the undefended port of Arendal to capture a
telegraph cable to
England.
Greif was loaded with 90 soldiers from the
163rd Infantry Division and carried the flotilla commander to oversee the operation. After its successful conclusion, she was ordered to rejoin the main force at
Kristiansand. The group departed
Wesermünde on the morning of 8 April and arrived off Kristiansand and Arendal the following morning, delayed by heavy fog. The torpedo boat entered Arendal harbor around 08:30 and offloaded her troops peacefully, not noticing the
2.-class torpedo boat which was anchored with her bow towards the land. The boat's
captain,
Løytnant (
Lieutenant) Thore Holthe, was out of contact with his superiors and lacked orders to attack any intruders and did nothing to attract attention because he would have to cast off and turn around in order to fire his torpedoes.
Greif did not notice the Norwegian boat and left shortly after 09:00 arriving at Kristiansand around 11:40. Rieve was under orders to return to
Kiel, Germany, as soon as possible, so
Karlsruhe sailed at 18:00, escorted by
Greif, her sister , and the torpedo boat . At 18:58, one torpedo from the British submarine struck the cruiser amidships, knocking out all power, steering and the pumps.
Luchs evaded the other nine torpedoes and followed them to their origin and began depth charging the submarine for the next several hours, joined by the other two torpedo boats.
Truant was damaged, but survived their attacks. Rieve ordered his crew aboard the torpedo boats and sent
Seeadler and
Luchs ahead while he remained with
Greif to finish off
Karlsruhe with a pair of torpedoes. After the
heavy cruiser had been crippled by a British submarine off the Danish coast on 11 April,
Seeadler,
Greif and
Luchs, among other ships, arrived the following morning to render assistance. On 18 April,
Greif and her sisters ,
Seeadler, and the torpedo boat escorted
minelayers as they laid anti-submarine
minefields in the Kattegat. From 21 to 23 June,
Greif was one of the escorts for the badly damaged
battleship from Norway to Kiel. The 5th Flotilla, consisting of
Greif, her sisters
Falke, , and the torpedo boats , , , and escorted minelayers as they laid a minefield in the southwestern North Sea on 14–15 August. The flotilla escorted other minelaying missions in the same area on 31 August – 2 September and 6–7 September. Reinforced by
Wolf, the flotilla made an unsuccessful
sortie off the
Isle of Wight on 8–9 October. They made a second, more successful, sortie on 11–12 October, sinking two
Free French submarine chasers and two British
trawlers. The 5th Flotilla was transferred to
St. Nazaire later that month and its ships laid a minefield off
Dover on 3–4 December and another one in the Channel on 21–22 December.
1941–1944 Greif was refitted in
Rotterdam,
Netherlands, from April to May 1941. She was transferred afterwards to the Skagerrak where she was on convoy escort duties. The boat was again refitted from December 1941 to December 1942 and spent the next several months
working up. On 11 March 1943,
Greif and
Jaguar were among the escorts for the battleships and
Scharnhorst as they moved from Trondheim, Norway, to
Bogen Bay, and continued onward to
Altafjord with
Lützow and the
light cruiser from 22 to 24 March.
Greif,
Jaguar, and the destroyer screened
Nürnberg from
Harstad to Trondheim and then to Kiel between 27 April and 3 May. On 3–7 May,
Greif,
Möwe, and
Jaguar escorted minelayers in the North Sea as they laid new minefields. From 4 to 6 June,
Greif,
Möwe,
Kondor,
Falke and the torpedo boat laid two minefields in the
English Channel. Later that month the ships returned to the Bay of Biscay to help escort
U-boats through the Bay and continue to do so into early August.
Greif,
Kondor and the torpedo boats , , and laid a minefield in the English Channel on 29–30 September. The 4th and 5th Torpedo Boat Flotillas, consisting
Greif,
Möwe,
Kondor,
Jaguar,
T27 and the torpedo boat laid minefields of 180 mines, off
Le Havre and
Fécamp, France, on 21 and 22 March 1944. On 17–19 April, the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, including
Greif,
Möwe and
Kondor sailed from
Brest, France, to
Cherbourg as distant cover for a convoy. A few days later, the flotilla laid a minefield on the night of 21/22 April. The following night the torpedo boats engaged British
motor torpedo boats near
Cape Barfleur and sank one of them. On the nights of 26/27 and 27/28 April, they laid 108 mines each night near Cherbourg. On 30 April and 1 May, the flotilla laid 260 mines in three minefields. Three weeks later, the flotilla was ordered to transfer from Cherbourg to Le Havre and departed on the night of 23/24 May.
Greif,
Möwe,
Falke,
Kondor and
Jaguar were attacked by Allied aircraft early the next day and
Greif was struck by two bombs that set her forward
boiler room on fire and caused her to take on water forward. With both boiler rooms subsequently flooded, she was unmaneuverable and accidentally collided with
Falke. The latter was only slightly damaged, but
Greifs bow was badly bent which caused problems for
Möwe when she began to tow her sister. Around 06:00
Greif lost all power and sank at 06:32. ==Notes==