U-172. Avec Carl Emmermann dans les Caraïbes, au Cap et à Rio.

When the U-172, commanded by Carl Emmermann, leaves the port of Kiel on April 22, 1942, the second ostentation period of the German submarine weapon ends with the setting up of convoys by the Americans along their ribs.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the means of anti-submarine warfare, set up by the Allies, have increased considerably: development of the on-board radar, multiplication of escorts and airplanes, decryption of radio messages of submarines. As a result, the fighting conditions have seriously deteriorated on the German side ... However, in only four combat patrols, from May 1942 to September 1943, Carl Emmermann's U-172 will sink 26 ships and thus exceed the figure of 150,000 tons of Allied ships destroyed.
The U-172 is ranked 15th among the U-Bootes with the most results, an exceptional record at this time of the conflict. In the first place because this submarine will reach particularly distant sectors where success is still possible: the Caribbean for the first mission; Cape Town in South Africa for the second, where he participated in a surprise attack in an area where no U-boat had ventured until then; the center of the Atlantic for its third mission where two convoys are pursued in packs as far as the African coast; the coast of Brazil for the fourth, from where he will be the only one to come back on 7 U-Boote engaged ...
Then, because the commander is efficient and very much liked by his men: crew members welded around their leader who keeps them preciously with him from one mission to another. At the end of his 4th combat mission, Carl Emmermann is the 25th commander of the submarine weapon decorated with the Knight's Cross with oak leaves.
He accepted a position on land and became leader of the 6th flotilla in Saint-Nazaire in early November 1943. The U-172, which has already survived 12 attacks air or sea, leaves for his 6th and last patrol ...