[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Something BIG is happening right now in the Middle East, Israel ready to attack Iran

AMERICA ON FIRE: Riots & Chaos as Trump Quadruples ICE Raids!

THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE UNITED STATES (Emergency Banking Act)

In France, young women are starting to buy pet pigs to avoid being harassed by Muslim men

Elderly Veteran kills 3 Home Invaders

Number One Longevity Food

Inflation Highest In Democrat States, Lowest In Republican Deep South

TikToker admits to being paid $150 a day to protest Trump’s deportation policies in LA

A GREAT update on the Trump fraud case ($454.2 million judgment) at the appellate court.

Mexican Senate President Revives Territorial Claims Amid Los Angeles Civil Unrest

Rooftop Korean' issues chilling threat about LA's future 30 years after Rodney King riots

Bystanders jump in front of ICE vehicles with arrested migrants inside

Israeli companies struggling to find customers amid Gaza genocide:

Farmers are being pressured to sell their land to this. Not good!

Palantir EXPOSED: The New Deep State

Military Overview: Ukrainian Fronts Crumble Under Multi-Axis Assault

ICE prepares full assault on five Democrat cities as LA goes into lockdown amid immigration riots

Invisible Missile Triggers MILITARY PANIC! (This is the Russian Zircon)

Mass arrests as defiant immigration protesters ignore lockdown orders in LA

Visit California: It's America's Future

FBI Director Kash Patel sues MSNBC columnist Frank Figliuzzi

The Ukraine war did not "bleed out" Russia. It bled US taxpayers

America Is Full. Time To Close The Door.

Golden Dome Idiocy

Israeli Media: Trump Told Netanyahu To Permanently End War in Gaza

21 days left till BASEL III is implemented. VIDEO EXPLANATION

China’s bottom half holds twice the wealth of America’s.

China’s extreme weather is leaving devastation across multiple provinces

Salton Sea is emitting foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas

Will Treasury Secretary Bessent's Past (Soros) Come Back To Haunt Him Today?


History
See other History Articles

Title: Adolf Hitler's 'lost fleet' found in Black Sea
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai ... r103.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox
Published: Feb 4, 2008
Author: Jasper Copping
Post Date: 2008-02-04 15:15:43 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 122
Comments: 2

Adolf Hitler's 'lost fleet' found in Black Sea


By Jasper Copping
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 04/02/2008

The final resting place of three German U-boats, nicknamed "Hitler's lost fleet", has been found at the bottom of the Black Sea.

  • In pictures: Hitler's lost U-boats

    The submarines had been carried 2,000 miles overland from Germany to attack Russian shipping during the Second World War, but were scuttled as the war neared its end. Now, more than 60 years on, explorers have located the flotilla of three submarines off the coast of Turkey.
    German U-boats
    On the road: One of the U-boats being taken to Ingolstadt

    The vessels, including one once commanded by Germany's most successful U-boat ace, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines, taken by road and river across Nazi-occupied Europe, from Germany's Baltic port at Kiel to Constanta, the Romanian Black Sea port.

    In two years, the fleet sank dozens of ships and lost three of their number to enemy action. But in August 1944, Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany, leaving the three remaining vessels stranded.

    With no base and unable to sail home - the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to them because of Turkish neutrality - their captains were ordered to scuttle the boats before rowing ashore and trying to make their way back to Germany. However, all three crews were caught and interned by the Turks.

    Now the submarines' hulls have been discovered by a team led by Selçuk Kolay, a Turkish marine engineer, who will present his findings to a shipwreck conference in Plymouth this week.

    advertisement

    Mr Kolay established the boats' positions through research in German archives, interviews with surviving sailors and by sonar studies of the seabed.

    He has already completed successful dives to the wreckage of one vessel, U-20, two miles offshore in about 80ft of water. He believes he has discovered another, U-23, at twice that depth, three miles from the town of Agva, but bad weather forced him to suspend diving until the spring.

    He thinks he is also close to pinpointing the third boat, U-19, thought to lie more than 1,000ft down, three miles from the Turkish city of Zonguldak.

    "It's one of the least well known stories of the war but one of the most interesting," said Mr Kolay.

    "It is a quite incredible story. To get to the Black Sea these boats had to be taken across the land, and once they got there they had no way out."
    Graphic: U-boat route

    All three U-boats had been operating against British shipping in the North Sea. U-23 gained notoriety for scoring one of Germany's earliest successes, sinking a British ship off the Shetland Islands days after war began. It was later commanded by Otto Kretschmer, known as "Silent Otto", the most successful U-boat ace.

    In 1941, Germany invaded Russia and decided it needed a presence in the Black Sea to harass Soviet shipping there. Unable to use the Bosporus, the only shipping route into the Black Sea, the boats were dismantled at Kiel and taken by canal to the River Elbe, and upstream to Dresden.

    Here, they were partly dismantled and taken by lorry to Ingolstadt, on the Danube, and then ferried downstream to the Black Sea and Constanta, where they were re-assembled.

    When Romania switched sides the crews were ordered to scuttle out of sight of the Turks so the submarines' locations would remain a mystery. Mr Kolay was helped by a map drawn by Rudolf Arendt, 85, the former captain of the U-23, showing where his crew came ashore.

    Mike Williams, secretary of the Nautical Archaeology Society, said: "This is a significant find because these U-boats were all scuttled, so they should be intact, like a sealed tube. They are unique survivors of the war."

(2 images)

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: robin (#0)

But in August 1944, Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany

And so the war was lost.


I've already said too much.

MUDDOG  posted on  2008-02-04   17:16:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: MUDDOG (#1)

I don't think so ;p but this fleet of U-boats sure was.

Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! The Revolution will not be televised!
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.-T Jefferson

robin  posted on  2008-02-04   17:22:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]