Crews liked to paint unofficial emblems onto the conning towers of their boats. Despite orders from BdU that identification marks be painted out from the sides of U-boat conning towers, there seems to have been no real effort to stop this practice. It is likely that Donitz recognized that the emblems helped crews identify with their boats and was good for morale.

     Many of these emblems were inspired by actual events, when U-64 (Georg Wilhelm Schulz) was sunk off of Narvik Norway, most of the crew were rescued by German Alpine Troops. When the crew was appointed it's new U-boat (U-124) the crew invited some of the Alpine Troops to the ceremony where they painted the Edelweiss badge to the side of the tower.

     Otto Kretschmer (U-99) ordered that two 'Lucky Horseshoes' be fixed on the side of his boat after fishing them out of the Keil harbor when they were caught in his boats anchor chains.

     Of course we all know of Priens 'Snorting Bull' which became the emblem of the 7th Flotilla. From april 1941 onwards all boats assigned to the 7th Flotilla were requested to paint the 'Snorting Bull' on their conning towers. 

      KptLt Jost Metzler of U-69 recalled how he was requested to paint the emblem onto his boat on his arrival in St. Nazaire in Feb. 1941. His crewmen used the image of a laughing cow from a popular brand of French cheese as a guide. Unfortunatly it didn't look nothing like Priens symbol and ever after U-69 was known as the 'Laughing Cow' boat.

      Anyone else know the stories behind any of the other conning tower emblems?

      Information from the book; 7th U-Boat Flotilla, Angus Konstam and Jak Mallman Showell

 Hello!

I beleive I read that  one of the emblems used on U-295 was a painting of the "Bremen Town Musicians" . This was palced on the starboard side of the Tower because the city of Bremen sponsored the U-295.

This was common on many U-Booten.  The use of city crests was also used for this purpose.

Regards,

  Schulz survived the sinking of U-64 and did five patrols on U-124, on his fourth patrol on U-124 Schulz sank 11 ships for a total of 52,379 tons.  Johann Mohr took over command of U-124 and went done with her on 2 April 1943. But not before he sank 49 ships for a total of 226,949 tons of Allied shipping.

  Schulz left the boat in Sept of 1941 taking command of the 6th Flotilla in Danzig and then St Nazaire. Schulz survived the war and died in 1986.

  Pavel if you can find the book 'Grey Wolf, Grey Sea' by E.B.Gasaway it is an excellent book on the history of U-124. The author states it's based on official records and crew interviews. The forward to the book is by Donitz.   

Was this order from Bdu, the one to paint out the numbers, carried on the boats until 1939? Or was their another to cover the insignas? As far as I know the insignas were allowed because it brought an esprite to the service.

U-466 if memory serves me  was Korvett-Kapt. Thater's fathers insigna in WWI and meant to always let the sun shine in your heart. Cities sometimes adopted the crews or raised money for the U-boat and that boat showed it apprecation by using the cities crest. And some of the commanders used the crests of their home towns. 

A great book is Embleme Wappen Malings deutscher U-Boote 1939-1945 by Georg Hogel (U-30, U-110). He has two. The later publication 1999 has updates and more insignas, and is in English for those who don't read German.

 Hello All ,

Another source of U- Boot Emblems was the emblem used by the skipper's graduation class as a Commander. That is why you see some boats using the  Olympic  Rings. They graduated from Commander School in 1936.  

Regards,