 It consisted of 7 boats from the disbanded group "Schlieffen", plus 11 others from bases in France and Germany.All the reinforcements were commanded by new skippers; 6 from Norway were also new boats, while the 5 from France were experienced boats with new commanders.The "Siegfried" boats had fuel problems, so a re-fueling group was established north of the Azores, of 3 U-tankers and a flak boat as escort.