I have a round that my nephew gave me which he took off another one years ago.
A World War II German U-boat, sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic more than 72 years ago, has been discovered off the coast of North Carolina, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday.
The German sub, the
U-576, was found at the bottom of the Atlantic 30 miles off Cape
Hatteras and just 240 yards from an American merchant ship, the merchant
tanker Bluefields, which was part of a 24-ship U.S. convoy heading from
Virginia to Key West, Florida, on July 14, 1942.
"This is not just the
discovery of a single shipwreck," said Joe Hoyt, chief scientist of
NOAA's Office of Marine Sanctuaries expedition, which found the vessels.
"We have discovered an important battle site that is part of the Battle
of the Atlantic. These two ships rest only a few hundred yards apart
and together help us interpret and share their forgotten stories."
The story of U-576 was is the more tragic of the two wrecks.
Absolutely fascinating, I have followed the finding of other wrecks that have been found, Louisiana, and Texas for example. I hope more details are made available as they delve into the find in more depth.
ReplyDeleteWith no disrespect meant, Americans were so naive early on in WW II, there are so many U Boat Captains reports of the coastlines being so lit up that they could have picked and chosen targets as they please on land.
I have always had a great respect for those of the Canadian and American Merchant Marines, who faced the best of the best of the Kreigsmarine almost on their own and considering that 60% of U boat crews never came back, one can't say they (the U Boat crews) were cowards. Thanks for sharing this most interesting find.
Thanks, but I thought it was much higher than 60%? Just checked and found this.
DeleteOf the 1,155 U-boats Germany sent into combat, 725 had been sunk in the longest battle of the war. Lasting nearly six years, over 35,000 German sailors had put to sea, with 28,744 never returning – a death rate of 82 percent, the highest casualty rate of any armed forces of any conflict in the history of modern war. Yet in this appalling casualty rate, there was never any shortage of men to enlist in the U-boat service, and until the very last day, the men of the U-boat service stood ready to put to sea at a moments notice.
http://www.uboataces.com/boa-uboat-end.shtml
As Patton said, the Germans were the best soldiers or something like that.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the best army of WWII.
DeleteThe propaganda one always hears/reads about how the Germans were cruel and
ReplyDeletetortured the POW'S is not true according to my Uncles who were soldiers. A
college professor started on this and I told him what my uncles said: They said
nobody wanted to get captured by the Japanese but the Germans were okay.
& Nazi doesn't equate to German necessarily, as you could be a German soldier, but not a member of the Nazi party, in fact you could not belong to any party at all and be in the German Air Force.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected on the numbers of loss. I should have checked more than one source. From my Dad's account to me,(and he was highly decorated, he said "The German soldier were the toughest warriors ever." He went to his grave in 85 still despising the Japanese soldiers for their cruelty to civilians and POWs. I never doubted his word as fought against both Axis powers. He never mentioned the Italians with the exception of their food and wines.
ReplyDeleteHe never mentioned the Italians with the exception of their food and wines.
DeleteHEH! :)