Adolf Hitler's 'lost fleet' found in Black Sea (U-Boats had been carried 2,000 miles overland)

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | February 3, 2008 | Jasper Copping

[Stoat]

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

By Jasper Copping
 

Last Updated: 2:36am GMT 03/02/2008

 

 

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

• 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.

  	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.

  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."

  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."

[2111USMC]

Jeez. I count 18 guys standing on the upper deck in that one photo.

Talk about cramped! I get claustrophobic just thinking about it.

[Doohickey]

Well...at least they didn't leave one in the middle of Oklahoma!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Here's the U-505 being transported to Chicago. Imagine the havoc she could have played on Great Lakes shipping.

[jazusamo]

Great article, thanks for posting!

[Getsmart64]

Excellent post!! Quite interesting!!

[jtill]

Fascinating. Seems the German Navy had an answer for every question.

[mad_as_he$$]

Thank goodness Hitler was distracted by some of these rather insignificant efforts. If they had gotten another 100 Me-262’s in the air with pilots the outcome of the War in Europe may well have taken a different turn. Likewise the bombers he never built that could of taken GB out of the fight.

[bvw]

The most advanced engineering and advancements in the U-boats was of Dutch design, as I recollect from my reading.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

The enemy of the African Queen...cool. I can’t believe it’s still in operation.

[Marysecretary]

My uncle’s ship (he was first mate) went down sometime in 1941, I believe, off the shores of Scotland. Germans did that. Grrrrr. He was such a big handsome Viking of a man. My mother kept hoping but nothing ever came to pass. She thinks the captain was a Nazi sympathizer but nobody ever could prove that. She was always heartbroken about his loss.

[Stoat]

I’m terribly sorry to hear of your loss. The suffering of WW2 touched millions of families, including my own, and no sane person would want to repeat the events of those times.

I do sincerely hope it’s understood that the people who are responding to this thead, as well as myself, are interested in these subjects purely due to the technical and historical aspects of it, not because there is any admiration for Nazism or it’s goals. I would wager that many posters to this thread either had personal involvement in WW2 or had family or friends who were killed or harmed in some way due to that war, and if any of them had an opportunity they would have sunk all of these U-boats themselves without batting an eye.

It’s because of the innumerable sacrifices made during that war, such as that of your dear Uncle, that we are now able to chat on the internet in English and we are not required to salute the swastika or grovel before the Rising Sun.

It’s because of your Uncle and millions like him that all of this is possible, and he and his fellow soldiers, seamen and airmen are all in our everlasting debt.

[4woodenboats]

Fascinating story!

[Marysecretary]

Of course I understand. Please don’t worry about that. My uncle wasn’t in the military. He was on a cargo ship. The nazis didn’t care who they killed. I’m trying to find the article my mother had about him when the ship had to stay in NY harbor because the germans had invaded Norway and they couldn’t go back. I’d like to know the name of the ship and find out where he really did go down. He came to visit us at that time since we lived in Central New York and I have pictures of this tall, strong, handsome Norwegian. He used to sing, play guitar, and write songs. I wish I could have gotten to know him better.

[Stoat]

My uncle wasn’t in the military. He was on a cargo ship. The nazis didn’t care who they killed.  I’m trying to find the article my mother had about him when the ship had to stay in NY harbor because the germans had invaded Norway and they couldn’t go back. I’d like to know the name of the ship and find out where he really did go down. He came to visit us at that time since we lived in Central New York and I have pictures of this tall, strong, handsome Norwegian. He used to sing, play guitar, and write songs. I wish I could have gotten to know him better.

Fortunately, Free Republic is teeming with friendly people who are spectacularly knowledgeable about most anything pertaining to WW2 and I'm guessing that someone here may be able to direct you to the most promising places to progress with your research.  Perhaps there's a Merchant Seaman's association in the New York area that might also be able to point you in the best direction for finding more information as well.

[Marysecretary]

Thank you. I appreciate the advice. If anyone on here has any clue as to how I could find this out, I’d be very grateful. I know he was here in 1941 and I think he died shortly after.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks Stoat, I’ve sent her a private reply, perhaps if we’re lucky we can help.

[snippy_about_it]

Here’s a few to get you started, the history and a good link. If you freepmail me some details in response to my freepmail to you we can look a little deeper perhaps.

Here is some excellent information on Norwegian Merchant shipping during WWII. I know know how they came to NY, very interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortraship

Here is a link to Norwegian Merchant Marines, kept by a daughter of a Merchant Marine from WWII.

http://www.warsailors.com/oddswar/frameoddlinks.html

[Marysecretary]

Thanks. I put this on my favorites. I found another picture taken at the same time and my mother was pregnant, so that means I was (a big baby) less than a year old (my sister was born six days before I was a year old). So I’m thinking it probably was in April or May when he was here, in 1940, when she was born.

[Sardasht]

Terrific story, I had not been aware ...... I am wondering the fate of the on-board Enigmas .....