U-960

Type	VIIC
Laid down	20 Mar 1942	Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
Commissioned	28 Jan 1943	Oblt. Günther Heinrich
Commander	01.43 - 05.44	Oblt. Günther Heinrich
Career	5 patrols	01.43 - 07.43 5th Flotilla (Kiel) training 08.43 - 05.44 3rd Flotilla (La Rochelle)
Successes	3 ships sunk for a total of 10,267 tons 1 ship for 2,487 tons damaged
Fate	Sunk on 19 May, 1944 by American destroyers USS Niblack DD424 and USS Ludlow DD438, in the Mediterranean northwest of Algier in position 37.20N,01.35E. 31 dead, 20 survivors

On May 17, Only 5 hours after U-616 had been sunk east of Cartagene, Spain, U-960 attacked the US destroyer USS Ellyson off Oran, the destroyer then had survivors from U-616 on board, but missed and another Swamp operation began which eventually caught and sank U-960 on May 19. A Swamp operation is a method of ASW in which every available aircraft and/or destroyer in the contact area hurries to the submarines location. Intense searching and patrolling are employed. All possible roots of escape are cut off and suffocation methods are used to keep the submarine down with a large barrage of depth charges, etc. Eventually the submarine must come up to charge its batteries and refresh the air supply within the compartments. The submarines chances are almost nill to escape this tactic. Operating out of Oran in a anitsubmarine hunting group were Benson (DD-421), Ludlow (DD-438), and Niblack (DD-424), and Woolsey (DD-437) in mid-May. A report of torpedo tracks from a newcomer to the Mediterranean, U-960, brought DesDiv 25 to the area between Oran and Cartagena early on the 17th to commence a two-day search and destroy mission. During the night of 18 and 19 May, the four destroyers split themselves into two search groups and began searching a possible submarine track 10 miles to each side of it. About an hour and 40 minutes into the mid-watch, the four warships received word that a plane had spotted the submarine some 10 miles ahead of Niblack and Ludlow. Those two ships charged to the attack; and, by the time Woolsey arrived on the scene with Benson and Madison (DD-425), the two destroyers had succeeded in forcing the U-boat to surface after delivering 11 depth charge attacks over the space of four hours. Immediately, all five destroyers opened fire on the submarine while a British Wellington bomber shifted through the melee at low altitude to drop depth bombs near U-960. The German ship suffered a number of 5-inch hits before submerging again. Niblack went in for the kill with more depth charges. That attack evidently rung the death knell for U-960 for she immediately resurfaced, and her crew scrambled off just as she made her final plunge at about 0715 on the 19th. The destroyers picked up the U-boat's captain and 21 of her crew. Once again, the sub killer, USS Woolsey, lent a hand to down another German submarine.