10056B capture paper

Located a very interesting and important document pertaining to the history and origins of M1900 Luger prototype serial number 10056B. The document is the top third portion of an 8-½-inches x 11-inches format paper. The ⅓ letter, folded many times was laminated sometime in the past to preserve it. The contents of the letter are as follows:

USS Vance (DE-387) was laid down on 30 April 1943 at Houston, Tex., by the Brown Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 16 July 1943; sponsored by Mrs. John W. Vance, mother of the late Lt. (jg) Vance; and commissioned on 1 November 1943, Lt. Comdr. E. A. Anderson, USCG, in command.

Coast Guard:

The Coast Guard's final military action in the North Atlantic occurred later in May when the Coast Guard-manned Durant and Vance accepted the surrender of the U-873.

Version 1. On 2 May 1945, Vance departed New York with her last Mediterranean-bound convoy. On the morning of 11 May -- four days after Germany had surrendered -- Vance sighted a light up ahead in the convoy and rang down full speed to investigate. Upon closing the light, the destroyer escort discovered a surfaced U-boat, U-873, which had been at sea for 50 days. While the submarine began to run, Vance hailed the erstwhile enemy in German by bullhorn, ordering the submariners to heave to. Vance placed a prize crew on board the captured U-boat who delivered the prize at Portsmouth, N.H., on the 16th.

Version 2. On the morning of 11 May 1945, four days after Germany had surrendered the Coast Guard-manned destroyer escorts USS Vance and USS Durant, underway off the Azores escorting their last convoy to the Mediterranean, sighted a light up ahead in the convoy. They closed to investigate. The Durant illuminated the target, which was the surfaced submarine U-873, a Type IX D2 U-boat, which had been at sea for 50 days. Vance, while screened by Durant, hailed the "erstwhile enemy" over her public address system, established her identity, and then ordered her to heave to. On board were seven officers and 52 enlisted men.

Vance placed a 21-man prize crew on board the captured U-boat and they delivered the prize at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 16 May 1945.

State Man on Prize Crew for Surrendered U-Boat.

Three others on U-Boat off Azores when U-873 gave up; Was brought to Portsmouth. Four Rhode Island Coast Guardsmen took part in the first Nazi submarine surrender to U. S. forces after VE-Day, when their crew on a destroyer escort accepted custody of the U-873, which gave up off the Azores on May 11.

Three Coastguard vessels were convoying ships to the Mediterranean when the U-873, a 1700-ton sub, surfaced and surrendered to Comdr. Christopher C. Knapp New London, Conn., in charge of the task group.

He (Kapitan-lieutenant Fritz Steinhoff) was removed to Massachusetts General Hospital where he died soon afterward. The young Nazi submarine commander broke his eyeglasses to obtain a jagged piece of glass which served as his instrument of self-destruction.

He was being held at the jail to await transportation to a prisoner of war camp.

Local newspaper statement: “Kapitan-Lieutenant Fritz Steinhoff, 25-year-old commander of the Nazi submarine U-873, which surrendered May 16 and was the second to be brought into Portsmouth, N. H., committed suicide in the Charles St. jail today by slashing his wrists.”

Regarding the “capture or registration” paper lacking the B in the serial number identification is not unusual as 1), in all identified 10000B series prototype Lugers the B stamping is (a complete line entry) below and centered under the frame serial number and may have not been associated with the serial number as recorded on May 16, 1945 by the acting Chief of Police William F. Maxwell ¹ and 2), there has been no identified redundant or overlapping commercial and B-suffix 10000 serial number Lugers identified to date and it has been stated by several Luger authors that; “The serial numbers of the earliest 9mm B prototypes (and other oddities) being taken from the production line, modified, and given B-suffix numbers. Most of the surviving numbers are in the range of 10023B – 10069B ².”

G. Sturgess comments: As to it (10056B) being on a U Boat in 1945, it must have been a private officer's weapon - even at the end of the war, officers of all services were free to use any personal side-arm they wished, and there is plenty of photographic evidence of this, with officers using non-issue weapons in all sorts of circumstances. What would be really interesting, but is now lost in time, is how the officer in question came into possession of the pistol - almost certainly it was sold off by DWM in a tool-room clear-out ca. 1912-13, and either came down through the officer's family or second hand through a dealer. Since it is a non military standard caliber, my conclusion would be on the first, and that it was handed down from his father as an heirloom, quite possibly having seen service in WWI also if it was a military/naval family or the first, and that it was handed down from his father as an heirloom, quite possibly having seen service in WWI also if it was a military/naval family.