Not all these boats scuttled. My Dad was serving on the Irex a Fleet Boat, he has told me his sub being assigned to take over U Boats after the war had ended. They would board the U boats in the Ocean and make sure there were no booby traps and that the self destruct mines hadn’t been activated.
He always though Germans were ‘dirty animals’ after this seeing they way they lived on the boats. No refrigeration for their food and no bath rooms, they would defecate and urinate in the bilge of the boat. He said the stench was the worse he ever experienced. He got a beautiful set of Zeiss binoculars off a boat.
He is 91 and still reads about the Patriots and politics every day.