Sinking of the Dupetit-Thouars

On the evening of 7 August 1918 in the Atlantic, several hundred miles west of Brest, the German submarine U-62, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Ernst Hashagen, torpedoed the French armoured cruiser Dupetit-Thouars. The ship sank in less than an hour. According to most studies 13 sailors were killed, according to some French sources about ten.

Dupetit-Thouars was a Gueydon-class cruiser, built at the turn of the century in the arsenal at Toulon. She displaced about 9,500 tons and had a crew of several hundred. In 1918 she belonged to the French Atlantic division and escorted convoys (PL) sailing from America to France. According to uboat.net she had left New York on 24 July as ocean escort of convoy HB 7. The convoy, numbering 24 ships according to some studies, was already approaching the French coast.

The cruiser’s commander, Capitaine de frégate Paqué, did not see the submarine or its periscope. The first torpedo struck the port side below the forward bridge, the second a few seconds later below the after bridge. The explosions killed three men. The list was moderate at first, so the officers judged that the ship was lost but would not sink at once. They took her out of the convoy’s track, sent out a distress call and stopped the engines so that the crew could leave the ship in an orderly way. About 50 minutes after she was hit the list suddenly increased and the cruiser capsized. Ten sailors who were still trying to lower the last raft were killed then.

The survivors spent the night on rafts and in boats. According to French sources they were picked up only in the afternoon of the next day by American destroyers, among them the Brest-based USS Tucker, whose crew received a commendation for it from the French maritime prefect. The same day U-62 also sank a Norwegian steamer. Hashagen was one of the most successful German submarine commanders. Yet the submarines, now operating off the American coast as well, could not stop the transport of American troops to Europe.