1945 - 1949: XVIIB Class
Three Type XVIIB boats were completed by Blohm & Voss of Hamburg between 1943 and 1944: U-1405, U-1406 and U-1407. A further three boats (U-1408 to U-1410) were under construction, but were not complete when the war ended.
All three completed Type XVIIB boats were scuttled by their crews at the end of the Second World War, U-1405 at Flensburg, and U-1406 and U-1407 at Cuxhaven, all in the British Zone of Occupation.U-1406 and U-1407 were scuttled on 7 May 1945 by Oberleutnant Gerhard Grumpelt even though a superior officer, Kapitän zur See Kurt Thoma, had prohibited such actions. Grumpelt was subsequently sentenced to 7 years imprisonment by a British military court.
At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 U-1406 was allocated to the US and U-1407 to Britain and both were soon salvaged. The uncompleted U-1408 and U-1410 were discovered by British forces at the Blohm & Voss yard in Hamburg.
The United States Navy did not repair and operate the U-1406 as it had with the two Type XXI submarines it had captured. She travelled to the US as deck cargo, having been stripped after being damaged by fire and twice flooded. Portsmouth Navy Yard estimated it would cost $1 million to put her into service, but plans to do so were rejected due to the perceived fire hazard and high cost of HTP and she was broken up in New York harbour sometime after 18 May, 1948.
The Royal Navy repaired the U-1407 and recommissioned her on 25 September 1945 as HMS Meteorite.
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