Fritz-Julius Lemp
Kapitänleutnant (Crew 31)
| Successes 19 ships sunk for a total of 96,314 GRT 1 auxiliary warship sunk for a total of 325 GRT 3 ships damaged for a total of 14,317 GRT 1 warship damaged for a total of 31,100 tons |
| Born | 19 Feb 1913 | Tsingtau, China | |
| Died | 9 May 1941 | (28) | Northern Atlantic |
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Ranks
Decorations
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U-boat Commands
| U-boat | From | To | |
| U-28 | 28 Oct 1938 | Nov, 1938 | No war patrols |
| U-30 | Nov, 1938 | Sep, 1940 | 8 patrols (189 days) |
| U-110 | 21 Nov 1940 | 9 May 1941 (+) | 2 patrols (46 days) |
Personal information
Kptlt. Fritz-Julius Lemp was the central figure of one of the most controversial incidents of the entire Battle of the Atlantic when, as commander of U-30, he spotted a large blacked-out ship zig-zagging at high speed on 3 September, 1939. Lemp took an educated guess that this vessel was an armed merchant cruiser (an AMC, a converted liner fitted with deck guns to protect merchants) as passenger liners were not supposed to be zig-zagging like this one did, and he managed to hit it with two torpedoes, sinking the ship. The vessel turned out to be the passenger liner Athenia; 112 of her passengers died in the sinking.
Lemp achieved great success with U-30, sinking 17 ships and damaging one. This was the first U-boat to make use of the French bases in July 1940, and on 14 August, 1940 Lemp, age 26, was the seventh U-boat commander to be awarded the Knights Cross.
After these successes, Lemp was disappointed with his first patrol on the new U-110. On his second patrol the boat was captured east of Cape Farewell in position 60N, 33W by the British HMS Bulldog and HMS Broadway, and Lemp was killed in action.
Patrol info for Fritz-Julius Lemp
| U-boat | Departure | Arrival | ||||||
| 1. | U-30 | 22 Aug 1939 | Wilhelmshaven | 27 Sep 1939 | Wilhelmshaven | Patrol 1, | 37 days | |
| 2. | U-30 | 9 Dec 1939 | Wilhelmshaven | 14 Dec 1939 | Wilhelmshaven | Patrol 2, | 6 days | |
| 3. | U-30 | 23 Dec 1939 | Wilhelmshaven | 17 Jan 1940 | Wilhelmshaven | Patrol 3, | 26 days | |
| 4. | U-30 | 11 Mar 1940 | Wilhelmshaven | 30 Mar 1940 | Wilhelmshaven | Patrol 4, | 20 days | |
| 5. | U-30 | 3 Apr 1940 | Wilhelmshaven | 4 May 1940 | Wilhelmshaven | Patrol 5, | 32 days | |
| 6. | U-30 | 8 Jun 1940 | Wilhelmshaven | 7 Jul 1940 | Lorient | Patrol 6, | 30 days | |
| 7. | U-30 | 13 Jul 1940 | Lorient | 24 Jul 1940 | Lorient | Patrol 7, | 12 days | |
| 8. | U-30 | 5 Aug 1940 | Lorient | 30 Aug 1940 | Kiel | Patrol 8, | 26 days | |
| 9. | U-110 | 9 Mar 1941 | Kiel | 29 Mar 1941 | Lorient | Patrol 9, | 21 days | |
| 10. | U-110 | 15 Apr 1941 | Lorient | 9 May 1941 | Sunk | Patrol 10, | 25 days | |
| 10 patrols, 235 days at sea | ||||||||
Ships hit by Fritz-Julius Lemp
About ranks and decorations
Ranks shown in italics are our database inserts based on the rank dates of his crew comrades. The officers of each crew would normally have progressed through the lower ranks at the same rate.