mattmexico

This is a rough translation of the text published by the SPIEGEL magazine. I am not the author of the articel.

Matt


One of the most bizarre operations during WW II. 1942 six subs where send into the Black Sea. 1944 they where scuttled. Now a wreck searcher found them.

1942 gave the bystander a rare look along the Danube River. Subs laying on their sides lay on barges on the river being pulled carefully under bridges. As weird as a bobsled on the beach – a real Sub.

Very few people know about this operation when the six subs went from Kiel in 1942 to Konstanza until they where scuttled in 1944 in front of the Romanian coast. The 30th flotilla in the Black Sea sunk about two dozen ships, then the Romanian coast fell into Russian hands and the commanders got the order to scuttle the boats.

After the Russian evacuation of Odessa where 80,000 troops have been evacuated the German felt the need of being present in the Black Sea. The German land forces on their way to the Caucasus could be supplied that way too.

To get the ships fast into the Black Sea Hitler himself had a daring idea tells Rudolf Arendt the last commander of the 30th Flotilla. Hitler planned to sell Subs to the Turkish to get direct access to the Black Sea via the Mediterranean. It never came to the deal as not to loose neutrality of Turkey.

So six subs of the B II type who where training boats up to this moment from Pilau and Gotenhafen to get them on the way to cover 2500 km / 1500 miles through Europe, not unlike an odyssey. In Kiel the boats where gutted to reduce weight, then through the Nord Ost See channel to Hamburg, then onto the Elbe river up to Dresden.

At Dresden Uebigau where the Autobahn crossed the Elbe river the ready to dive torpedo slingers where taken off the water and where placed onto especially constructed heavy duty loader equipped with 32 full rubber tires. Over a specially constructed ramp they went onto the Autobahn to move at a pace of 8 km / 5 miles an hour over the totally evacuated and closed Autobahn over a distance of 300 km / 181 miles.

Upon arrival the steel giants on the west Danube side went per slippage back into the water onto barges where they had to navigate critical narrow areas and white water areas on the Danube river. When arriving in Vienna or Linz – Austria they came of the barges and back into the water where they moves part on their own power, part with tugs down the Danube river toward the Black Sea – obviously not submerged.

The whole operation was top secret even if the transport on the roads not very secret was. Gerd Ender who served on U 18 and moved with the sub all the way said nobody suspected such a thing. Who could guess it is a sub. The population suspected secret weapons.

U 24 was the first one to arrive on October 27th 1942 to go from Konstanza onto war patrol. Within the next 23 month the six subs U 9, U 18, U 19, U 20, U 23 and U 24 sunk according to official records 26 ships with 45,426 BRT. They where more needle picks against the Russian forces. For the German Navy the Black Sea operation was a side theatre.

The end of the 30th flotilla came with the great summer offensive action in 1944. A few days after the Russians crossed the Dnjestr river and came close to the Danube river Romania changed sides from axis to allied and declared war on Germany. Russian tanks arrived in Konstanza August 24th.


With that the German subs where trapped in the Black Sea. U 9 was hit by Russian fighter planes. The not ready to action boats U 18, U 24 escaped the port to be scuttled. U 20 and U 23 where intact, U 19 only slightly damaged. But without home port. Instead to rest in-between war patrols U 23 got the order to fire upon all ships located inside the harbor, so the commander fired 3 torpedoes onto the pier, then escaped onto the Black Sea says ex commander Arendt.


The myth of Hitler lost fleet. In order to escape the trap commander of U 23 of escaping submerged through the Bosporus and Dardanelle islands and onto the Mediterranean. Admiral Doenitz, chief of the German Navy said no. The last effort to save the boats was to sell them to Turkey who just broke relations with the German Third Reich upon pressure from the USA. The Turks where not interested and guessed they would get the boats eventually after the war was over since the only ports on the Black Sea not in Russian hands where Turkish.

Instead on the night of November 10th to 11th 1944 the last remaining subs where scuttled by their own crew not to far away from the Turkish coast. In small groups the crews tried to cross Turkey and to reach the Mediterranean but they got arrested soon. An arresting Turkish officer asked why the boats where scuttled as they would have paid a couple of million Turkish Lira for them.

In order to protect the scuttled boats the crew kept the location of where the boats where scuttled secret.

Wreck searchers in U-Boat fever. The Turkish engineer Seluk Kolay says he found them. On the International Shipwreck Conference in Plymouth on February 9th Kolay is planning to lift the secret. He told the London Daily Telegraph he did a number of dives on U 20. The wreck is located 3 km / 2 miles off shore the Turkish coast at a depth of 70 feet / 22 meters. He is sure he has found U 23 in twice as deep water but could not dive it yet because of bad weather but he is planning to dive it in spring. He believes as well that he has found the location of U 19 some 5 km / 3 miles off Zonguldak as well.

Only if the location and discovery of U 19 and U 23 is confirmed Kolay would have landed a sensation. To U 20, say Enders and Arendt, divers discovered the wreck and take photos but if he would have found U 23 then it would be something new. The survivors would not like to see the sub raised and displayed as a tourist attraction but that it be left where they sunk it.

__________________
N 20' 37.617'
W 87' 04.693'
www.andreaswmatthes.com