Fritz-Julius Lemp

Fritz-Julius Lemp was a German U-boat commander who served in the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War. In September 1939, while commanding U-30, he torpedoed the passenger liner Athenia , the first British ship sunk in the war, in an attack that German authorities subsequently tried to conceal.

Lemp later commanded U-110. On 9 May 1941 the submarine was forced to the surface while attacking convoy OB 318, and British sailors boarded it and recovered an Enigma machine and code material. Lemp died during the capture.

David Boyle’s Operation Primrose places Fritz-Julius Lemp at the centre of the capture of U-110 in May 1941. Lemp commanded the U-boat when British forces forced it to the surface and boarded it, recovering an Enigma machine and code material of exceptional intelligence value. Boyle uses the episode to connect the fate of one submarine and its commander with the larger struggle to read German naval signals, the Battle of the Atlantic and the Royal Navy’s effort to turn fleeting opportunities at sea into strategic intelligence.