German Type VII U-Boat
The Type VII was based on earlier German submarine designs going back to the World War I Type UB III and especially the cancelled Type UG. The type UG was designed through the Dutch dummy company NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw Den Haag (I.v.S) to circumvent the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles, and was built by foreign shipyards. The Finnish Vetehinen class and Spanish Type E-1 also provided some of the basis for the Type VII design. These designs led to the Type VII along with Type I, the latter being built in AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, Germany. The production of Type I was stopped after only two boats; the reasons for this are not certain. The design of the Type I was further used in the development of the Type VII and Type IX.
Type VII submarines were the most widely used U-boats of the war and were the most produced submarine class in history, with 703 built.
German Type VII U-Boat U-84
German submarine U-84 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was launched on 26 February 1941 and commissioned on 29 April 1941. She operated during the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War.
U-84 carried out eight patrols and accounted for six ships sunk and one ship damaged during World War II. U-84 was sunk while under the command of Horst Uphoff on 7 August 1943 in the North Atlantic, by a Mk 24 homing torpedo dropped on it by a US B-24 Liberator aircraft (VB-105/B-4 USN). All 46 crew members were killed.