The collapsing Nazi government ordered all U-boats in German ports to make their way to their bases in Norway on May 2, 1945. Two days later, the recently commissioned U-3523 joined the mission as one of the most advanced boats in the fleet. But to reach their destination, the submarines had to pass through the bottleneck of the Skagerrak – the strait between Norway and Denmark – and the UK’s Royal Air Force was waiting for them. Several U-boats were sunk and U-3523 was destroyed in an air attack by a Liberator bomber.
U-3523 lay undiscovered on the seabed for over 70 years until it was recently located by surveyors from the Sea War Museum in Denmark. Studying the vessel will be of immense interest to professional and amateur historians alike, not least as a way of finally putting to rest the conspiracy theory that the boat was ferrying prominent Nazis to Argentina. But sadly, recovering U-3523 is not a realistic proposition. The main challenges with such wrecks lie in accurately identifying them, assessing their status as naval graves and protecting them for the future.
U-boat wrecks like these from the end of World War II are the hardest to match to historical records. The otherwise meticulous record keeping of the Kriegsmarine (Nazi navy) became progressively sparser, breaking down completely in the last few weeks of the war. But Allied records have helped determine that this newly discovered wreck is indeed U-3523. The sea where this U-boat was located was heavily targeted by the RAF because it knew newly-built boats would flee to Norway this way.
The detailed sonar scans of the wreck site show that it is without doubt a Type XXI U-boat, of which U-3523 was the only one lost in the Skagerrak and unaccounted for. These were new types of submarines that contained a number of innovations which had the potential to make them dangerous opponents. This was primarily due to enlarged batteries, coupled to a snorkel, which meant they could stay permanently underwater. Part of the RAF’s mission was to prevent any of these new vessels getting to sea to sink Allied ships, and it successfully prevented any Type XXI U-boats from doing so.
With the U-boat’s identity correctly established, we now know that it is the grave site of its crew of 58 German servicemen. As such, the wreck should either be left in peace or, more implausibly, recovered and the men buried on land. Germany lost over 800 submarines at sea during the two world wars and many have been found in recent years. It is hopelessly impractical to recover them all, so leaving them where they are is the only real option.
Under international law all naval wrecks are termed “sovereign immune”, which means they will always be the property of the German state despite lying in Danish waters. But Denmark has a duty to protect the wreck, especially if Germany asks it to do so.
Protection
Hundreds of wartime wreck sites such as U-3523 are under threat around the world from metal thieves and grave robbers. The British cruiser HMS Exeter, which was sunk in the Java Sea on May 1, 1942, has been entirely removed from the seabed for scrap. And wrecks from the 1916 Battle of Jutland that also lie partly in Danish waters have seen industrial levels of metal theft. These examples serve as a warning that organised criminals will target shipwrecks of any age for the metals they contain.
Germany and the UK are among a number of countries currently pioneering the use of satellite monitoring to detect suspicious activity on shipwrecks thought to be under threat. This kind of monitoring could be a cost-effective way to save underwater cultural heritage from criminal activity and its use is likely to become widespread in the next few years.
Recovery
The recovery cost is only a small fraction of the funds needed to preserve and display an iron object that has been immersed in the sea for many years. So bringing a wreck back to the surface should not be undertaken lightly. In nearly all cases of salvaged U-boats, the results have been financially ruinous. Lifting barges that can raise shipwrecks using large cranes cost tens of thousands of pounds a day to charter. Once recovered, the costs of conservation and presentation mount astronomically as the boat will rapidly start to rust.
The U-boat U-534 was also sunk by the RAF in 1945, close to where U-3523 now lies. Its crew all evacuated that boat, meaning that she was not a grave when recovered from the sea in 1993 by Danish businessman Karsten Ree, allegedly in the somewhat incredible belief that it carried Nazi treasure. At a reported cost of £3m, the operation is thought to have been unprofitable. The boat contained nothing special, just the usual mundane objects carried on a U-boat at war.
Similar problems were experienced by the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in the UK when it raised the Holland 1 submarine in 1982. In that case, the costs of long-term preservation proved much greater than anticipated after the initial rust-prevention treatment failed to stop the boat corroding. It had to be placed in a sealed tank full of alkali sodium carbonate solution for four years until the corrosive chloride ions had been removed, and was then transferred to a purpose-built exhibition building to protect it further.
The expensive process of raising more sunken submarines will add little to our knowledge of life at sea during World War II. But each time a U-boat is found, it places one more jigsaw piece in its correct place, giving us a clearer picture of the history of the U-boat wars. This is the true purpose of archaeology.
With the U-boat's identity correctly established, we now know that it is the grave site of its crew of 58 German servicemen. As such, the wreck should either be left in peace or, more implausibly, recovered and the men buried on land.
The U-boat was eventually found at a depth of over 70m (230ft). The team worked closely with U-boat expert and marine archaeologist Tomas Termote to identify the wreck which "remains in amazing condition".
Britain's blockade across the North Sea and the English Channel cut the flow of war supplies, food, and fuel to Germany during World War I. Germany retaliated by using its submarines to destroy neutral ships that were supplying the Allies.
At the start of the war, depth charges were the only weapon that can be used to damage submerged U-boats. However, by the late of 1942, convoy ships had equipped ahead-throwing anti- submarine weapons like hedgehogs and later improved weapons like squids.
The damage inflicted by U-boats during World War I was powerful. Their ability to submerge and to surprise enemies led to massive casualties: Germany and Austria-Hungary sank almost 5,000 merchant ships during World War I, killing approximately 15,000 Allied sailors.
In 1942, German U-Boats were waging a costly hidden war in the Gulf of Mexico, only a few miles off the coast of Louisiana. Lost among the histories of major World War Two battles with Nazi Germany are a series of attacks on American ships along the Gulf coast of Louisiana and other southern states.
The Lusitania was carrying a cargo of rifle ammunition and shells (together about 173 tons), and the Germans, who had circulated warnings that the ship would be sunk, felt themselves fully justified in attacking a vessel that was furthering the war aims of their enemy.
But by early 1917, Germany was on the verge of losing the war. And so it declared on Jan.31 that its submarines had the right to sink any ship in the war zone encircling the United Kingdom, without warning. Between this announcement and the U.S. declaration of war on April 6, Germany sank 10 U.S. merchant ships.
The Sussex Pledge was a statement by the Germans that they would not sink passenger ships without warning during World War I. The significance was that the Germans were limiting their use of submarine warfare during World War I, which kept the United States a neutral country.
The last U-boat captain has died at 105. The last surviving German U-boat captain, who terrorized the Atlantic off North Carolina's Outer Banks early in World War II, has died at age 105. Reinhard Hardegen, who once described his exploits to the Observer decades after the war, died June 9, the Washington Post reported.
The U.S. Navy did use them, only we don't call them U-boats, which is actually a shortened form of Unterseeboot. We call them submarines and we didn't use a numbering system on them like the Kriegsmarine and Imperial Japanese Navy did.
By grouping merchant ships in convoys and escorting them with warships, Allied countermeasures began to blunt the U-boats, although the German submarines succeeded in destroying more than 10 million tons of cargo by the time World War I ended.
In short, a U-boat can be defined as a German submarine. These submarines were developed by the Germans to fight the British during the world wars. Generally, a U-Boat was over 200 feet long, could remain underwater for nearly 2 hours, and hold more than 10 torpedoes and over 30 men.
The U-boats could go faster and farther, and they could carry almost twice as many weapons as the newest U.S. submarines. They also could submerge four times faster. The U.S. Navy's subs possessed advantages only in maximum depth and an extra half knot submerged.
In 1954, U-505 was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. It is now one of four German World War II U-boats that survive as museum ships, and one of just two Type IXCs still in existence, along with U-534.
The Germans lost 783 U-boats and approximately 30,000 sailors, three quarters of Germany's 40,000-man submarine force. For a closer examination of the operational and strategic evolution of this transoceanic struggle, see the essay Battle of the Atlantic: An Overview.
The boats in question, U-2505, U-3004, and U-3506, all XXI type U-boats, were found in the remains of Elbe II — a U-boat bunker off the River Elbe in Hamburg which was constructed by the Nazis during the early years of the war.
The U-111, the last World War I-era German submarine to be discovered in U.S. waters, was sunk off the coast of Virginia in 1922 by the U.S. Navy, sinking to the seabed at what was thought to be a depth of 1,600 feet. Strangely, Petkovic discovered it in waters only 400 feet deep.
Introduction: My name is Velia Krajcik, I am a handsome, clean, lucky, gleaming, magnificent, proud, glorious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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