U-580
Kuhlmann's First War-boat

U-580, in a photo probably taken just after her launching on May 28, 1941. Image courtesy the PAST Foundation and the D-Day Museum, New Orleans.

After serving a brief period in command of U-7, an obsolete submarine assigned to  training duties, Hans-Günther Kuhlmann was ordered to Hamburg where he took command of the new, Type VIIC U-boat U-580. The Type VIIC was the most numerous of all submarine types built by any nation, with 568 examples put in Kriegsmarine service by the war's end. The Type VII was excellently suited to the type of submarine warfare developed and practiced by the Germans, although it was small compared to the submarines of other nations and did not have the range for extended operations like the larger Type IX boats.

Commissioning of U-580, July 24, 1941. In the front row of crew members (left) stand the boat's watch officers. Image courtesy the PAST Foundation and the D-Day Museum, New Orleans.

Officers of U-580 and their wives, 1941. Left to right: Leutnant Schmidt, Gertrude and Hans-Günther Kuhlmann, Engineering Officer Erwin Klein, and Ursula and Hans Traun. Behind them is camouflage netting used to hide the boat and dock facilities from enemy aircraft. Image courtesy the PAST Foundation and the D-Day Museum, New Orleans.
 

The bow of U-580 cuts through the Baltic during training exercises, Fall 1941. Even in a moderate sea, the main deck of a U-boat would be swept with tons of water every few seconds, making working on deck extremely dangerous. Despite using safety lines, many U-boat crewmen were lost at sea after being swept overboard. Image courtesy the PAST Foundation and the D-Day Museum, New Orleans.

Kuhlmann (l.) and other officers of U-580 with a snowman, late fall 1941. Image courtesy the PAST Foundation and the D-Day Museum, New Orleans. U-580 was assigned to the 5th Training Flotilla at Kiel, where she underwent the usual routine of working-up exercises to prepare the boat and crew for combat duty. Near the end of her course, on November 11, 1941, U-580 collided with a target ship, Angelburg, in the Baltic Sea. The submarine sank, taking twelve crew members with her. Kuhlmann was assigned almost immediately to a new, larger Type IXC boat being completed at Bremen, and virtually the entire surviving crew of U-580 went with him. Their new boat: U-166.

A listing of the crew of U-580 at the time of the boat's fatal collision with a target ship during training. Crosses in the right-hand column marked the twelve men who died in the accident. Almost all the rest were transferred en masse to Kuhlmann's new boat, U-166. Image courtesy the PAST Foundation and the D-Day Museum, New Orleans.

Additional data from: Uboat.net