Kara Sea U-boat campaign


The Kara Sea U-boat campaign was a submarine operation in the Arctic waters of the Kara Sea during World War II. Originally intended as Operation Wonderland-II after Unternehmen Wunderland was protracted after the official end of the operations until 1944.

Background

was a coordinated raid of the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer and U-boats in the Kara Sea occurred in 1942, resulting in a limited German success. A follow-up similar operation code-named Unternehmen Wunderland II was planned for 1 August 1943 with involvement of the Lützow but her participation was cancelled. Despite the official end of Wunderland II for 4 October 1943, operations in Kara Sea resumed the following year until 4 October 1944.

II

Since August 1943 U-255 operated near Novaya Zemlya as a refuelling station for a BV 138. The BV 138 searched for Kara Sea convoys to be attacked by Lützow and the Wiking Gruppe.
The German operations in the Kara Sea had no effect on Soviet industrial production and the Soviet shipping was only disrupted for a short time. The German operations managed to divert Soviet forces from the operations close Norway.

Footnotes