Hitler's Lost Fleet Found

[Annelie]

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... con_type=1

Hitler's lost submarines found in Black Sea

Jasper Copping

Tuesday, February 05, 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 3,200 kilometers overland from Germany to attack Russian shipping during World War II, but were scuttled as the fighting neared its end.

Now, more than 60 years on, explorers have located the flotilla of three submarines off the coast of Turkey.

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 by the Turks.

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

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

He has made dives to the wreckage of one vessel, U-20, just over 3km offshore in about 25 meters of water. He believes he has discovered another, U-23, at twice that depth, 5km 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.

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.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH