Luftwaffe claims for British shipping in November 1940

[Andy Saunders]

Jochen

Although not so wildly over-claimed in terms of numbers of ships sunk, the Kriegsmarine on the night of 7/8 August 1940 claimed three vessels of CW9 Peewit sunk by the E-Boats of 1.S-Flottille when, in fact, it seems likely they had sunk only two. That said, a third vessel was sunk although the official explanation was that this was through collision whilst avoiding attack, although there is some contradictory evidence that might indicate it was torpedoed. Either way, the 1.S-Flottille claimed 17,000 BRT sunk whereas the actual tonnage of the three small vessels was 2,587.

I did not look for or include the Luftwaffe claims for shipping they had sunk during the later attacks on CW9 Peewit in my recent book "Convoy Peewit" but if you have them, Jochen, I'd be interested - especially if there was a large element of overclaiming. Of course, we know the actual losses of British shipping during attacks aimed against CW9 although, in fact, some of the merchant and RN vessels etc that were sunk or damaged were not officially part of CW9, anyway.