The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines plus two MWM RS34.5S six-cylinder four-stroke diesel engines for cruising, producing a total of 9,000 metric horsepower (6,620 kW; 8,880 shp) for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1,000 shaft horsepower (1,010 PS; 750 kW) for use while submerged.

[3] U-180 sailed from Kiel on 8 February 1943, with the leader of the Indian National Army Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his aide Abid Hasan aboard.

On 18 April U-180 sank the British 8,132 GRT tanker Corbis about 500 nautical miles (930 km; 580 mi) east southeast of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

[4] Nine days later, on 27 April, the boat made her rendezvous with the Imperial Japanese Navy I-29, just east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, Bose and Hassan boarded I-29 and two Japanese naval officers, both shipbuilding officers, Captains Emi Tetsushiro and Tomonaga Hideo, who were to study U-boat building techniques upon their arrival in Germany, boarded U-180.

The official verdict is "sunk by a mine",[6] however, some experts speculate that trouble with the schnorkel (the underwater breathing and engine operating device), may have been the cause.