Posted on 07/27/2012 8:01:04 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
An important piece of history from the Second World War may be sitting in a river in Labrador.
Searchers believe they've found a German U-boat buried in the sand on the bottom of the Churchill River. The discovery has yet to be authenticated.
Two years ago, searchers scoured the bottom of the Churchill River with side-scanning sonar. They were looking for three men lost over Muskrat Falls.
When they reviewed the footage from that search, they made an unexpected discovery.
"We were looking for something completely different, not a submarine, not a U-boat — I mean, no one would ever believe that was possible," Brian Corbin told CBC News.
"It was a great feeling when we found it."
At first glance, it can be hard to spot the submarine on the sonar image of the riverbed. When you put it next to a drawing of the boat, some of the features become a lot clearer.
The length is about 30 metres, or "exactly what our side-scan sonar shows," Corbin said.
"So we're pretty sure it is, and we've filed this with receiverships and wrecks, and I think they're confirming that it is possibly a U-boat."
It's unclear how the sub may have ended up that far inland, more than 100 kilometres from the ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
Note the last bit on the linked page, a reference to a second U-boat carrying another weather station to the same area. Supposedly sunk far out at sea.
Assuming the story is true and the crew scuttled their boat, what happened to them? How do Germans who likely don’t even speak english blend in and avoid capture? You would think someone from the crew would have said or written something over the years.
I pretty much have to agree with you. The more recent stuff with his name on them appears to have been written by a rotating committee of "ghost" or assistant writers. I won't buy anything of his that has a second author listed along with him.
I will say, though, I'm still very partial to most of his earlier work, particularly "Night Probe" and "Sahara". In fact, I even liked the movie version of "Sahara", although it left out most of the best stuff from the book ...
No.
“49th Parallel”
Raymond Massey and Leslie Howard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/49th_Parallel_%28film%29
The poor dog. I’ve heard that labs will eat anything, but a submarine?
Thanks! I’ll be looking for that one!
Goose Bay air base is near Happy Valley (seen in the flyover) and was originally built for B-25s used to hunt U-boats in the North Atlantic.
And just think of what mines could do in such a river.
I read "Iron Coffins" years ago, and I'm pretty sure the author mined the Chesapeake Bay on one mission.
I'd bet mining Canadian ports in the early days of WW II was a priority item.
Thirty meters is waaaaay small for a Uboat. Even a Type IIA coastal Uboat was over 40 meters. The standard boat, Type VIIC, was 67 meters.
http://www.uboat.net/types/iia.htm
http://www.uboat.net/types/viic.htm
So, either they are seeing only part of the Uboat, or it was a midget. The biggest of the German midgets, the Seehund, was only 17 meters, though. So it is still a mystery.
I read all the Dirk Pitt novels up to where he started collaborating with his son. I started one, but got diverted and never went back to it. Read a couple of the Kurt Austins but they didn’t really grab me, either. Recently I read “Golden Buddha” but found that it was impossible to keep track of the characters.
On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying his new Isaac Bell series. Although set in a different time frame, it seems to capture the flavor of the early adventures better than any of the others I’ve read.
My personal favorite has always been Night Probe, and Cussler once told me it was his favorite plot of the ones he’d written to that point. He also told me that he wanted to actually use the name James Bond, but some miscommunication led him to believe that he couldn’t. Turned out that the literary rights to the character name are held separately from the film rights, and it could have been worked out.
Pinging... Thought you might be interested.
More recently CFB Goose Bay was a welcome albeit unexpected stop by 7 trans-Atlantic flights who's US destinations were closed on 09/11/2011. Like almost all of the other 09/11 flights that were diverted to Canada on both coasts, the crew and passengers were warmly treated by both officials and residents during a very trying and unnerving time of indefinite hold. Kudos are owed to these cold but warm Canadians!
> If the mystery find is proven to be a submarine wreck, the
> German government does not favour bringing it to the
> surface.
> “That would be against our tradition and our naval
> customs,” Juergens said. “You know, zombies and scheisse.”
One of Our Submarines - Thomas Dolby
One of our submarines is missing tonight
Seems she ran aground on manoeuvres
One of our submarines
A hungry heart
To regulate their breathing
One more night
the Winter Boys are freezing in their spam time
The Baltic moon
Along the northern seaboard
And down below
The Winter Boys are waiting for the storm
Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
Shallow water - channel and tide
And I can trace my history
Down one generation to my home
In one of our submarines
One of our submarines
The red light flicker, sonar weak
Air valves hissing open
Half her pressure blown away
Flounder in the ocean
See the Winter Boys
Drinking heavy water from a stone
Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
Shallow water - channel and tide
Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
Tired illusion drown in the night
And I can trace my history
Down one generation to my home
In one of our submarines
One of our submarines
One of our submarines
One of our submarines is missing tonight
Seems she ran aground on manoeuveres
One of our submarines
i liked the movie SAHARA too. we may be the only two. it’s just plan fun. i agree with your best picks too.
i think there was a POW escape plan to reach the coast and meet a u-boat. i believe otto kresthmer, a POW and an ardent nazi was involved.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks JerseyanExile. |
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