December 20, 2004
Magazine Update
Happy Holidays Everyone!
We have just posted our first Photo Journal in the Magazine. The subject is the search for U-215. See exclusive images of the expedition. Keep your eye out in the new year for more exciting Photo Journals.
Posted by victoria at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2004
U-215 makes The Daily Show
Next to The Sea Hunters(of course)our favorite show here at Shipwreck Central has long been The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The brilliant writing and comic tone of the show not only entertains the audience but also informs us of important (if not hilarious) news headlines. Watch this clip where Jon Stewart reports on our find of U-215 off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Posted by victoria at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2004
July 9, 2004 - Jim Delgado's Archaeological Report
Jim Delgado's final report from the boat.
Trouble with Audio? Click "continue reading" for a transcript.
Good news. This morning’s dive was successful in reaching the wreck and positively identifying it as U-215. The U-215 lies in 273 ft of water now facing to the northwest and she’s rolled over or canted on to her port side. All the hatches that lead into the interior, the stuff that we could see are sealed. And it was an incredible moment for the team to realize as they passed over those hatches that the last person to see those would have been of course perhaps Capitan Fritz Hoeckner as he sealed them and gave the final order to dive, probably on July 3, 1942 as they made preparations to submerge off George’s Bank and attack the Alexander Macolm.
The submarine has been repeatedly hit by trawls or fishing gear. Much of its light superstructure ahs been stripped away revealing the inner pressure hull in which the crew would have worked and fought. The conning tower likewise has been stripped of its deck, its wintergarden, or the deck that would have surrounded its deck gun. The attack periscope is extended but its tip has been broken off. The main air induction valve is very clearly visible as is the stand for the UZ-0 or the torpedo-bearing transmitter.
The key in identifying this submarine as U-215 of course is the feature common only to 6 type VII D German U-boats and that are 5 tubes that stretch aft from the conning tower towards the stern from which mines would have been launched. All 5 of those tubes were observed. 4 of them are still sealed but the aftermost one number five, is open and the boys were able to drop inside and see the remains of one of the SMA type mines with it’s actuator horns still in place but breached and open to the sea… The mine like the tube that it lies in is now inert, and no longer poses a danger.
It’s an exciting moment. We have the first confirmed discovery of a World War II German U-boat in Canadian waters and now we’re making preparations to send our remotely operated vehicle down to dive on another wreck just two miles distant. A very large wreck, it appears to be broken in two pieces according to the sonar return. It lies at sixty-feet up off the seabed. When we anchored, our anchor snagged and came up with a bit of wreckage attached to it – a roll of steel wire and what looked to be steel reinforcing bar construction material… strong indicators that we are most probably hovering over the wreck of Alexander Macolm, the victim of U-215. If that’s the case, if our ROV dive can confirm it, we have the hunter and the hunted both sitting here in an undersea battlefield exactly where they fell on the morning of July 3, 1942.
The hunter, ironically as would often happened in the battle of the Atlantic, became the hunted, and joined its victim right in the waters here right off George’s Bank.
Posted by administrator at 01:13 PM | Comments (1)
Day Three - Enough gas for one last dive
Mike and Jim called in this afternoon. There was enough gas left in the tanks for one more dive.
I'll let them take it from here...
Posted by administrator at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2004
Later, Day Two - A Consolation Prize?
It's funny. We originally went searching for the Alexander Macomb, figuring that as a large ship she might be easier to find than U-215, but then we came back from our first trip and had found (we hoped) the U-215, and had seen no sign of the Macomb and it's cargo of Sherman tanks and airplanes.
Now we have lost the U-215, we may in fact have never had it, but it looks like we may have found the Macomb after all. Or maybe we haven't? Life is strange.
Posted by administrator at 02:36 AM | Comments (0)
Day Two - Finally we have news, bad news.
I don't want to spoil the audio clip we received from the boat, but things are not looking good. It seems ships sometimes just do not want to be found.
The currents, even at slack tide, are simply too strong at depth for our ROV. They range from 2-5 knots even at slack tide, a phenominal speed considering our ROV is only rated for 3 knots at best. Our dives have failed after lines and anchors have dragged and released. Well, just listen to Mike Fletcher tell it below.
John Davis is looking in to getting a bigger heavier ROV unit that we can send to the team, keeping them out for another couple of days.
I'm not normally a pessimist, but things are not looking good. We know it's down there, we're just 270 feet away, but we can't seem to get to her, and time is running out.
Posted by administrator at 02:06 AM | Comments (0)
July 07, 2004
End of Day One. No Contact from the Team
Blogging a dive remotely can be a frustrating thing when we can't reach our team. The Sea Hunters should have made their first ROV scout and dives today but we have not heard back, which doesn't bode well for finding the Alexander Macomb or the U-215.
In hindsight, maybe I should have ordered the message option on the satellite phone.
Posted by administrator at 02:04 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2004
The Sea Hunters have left the building.
The Sea Hunters left Halifax today and drove in a convoy down to Shelbourne, Nova Scotia, where they will board the Clearwater Seafoods vessel the "Ryan Atlantic II' and go searching for the U-215 and the Alexander Macomb.
The crew spent some time working on souping up the ROV, adding stronger engines in anticipation of strong currents out on George's Bank. They are hoping that the slack tides will give enough of an opportunity for the ROV to fight through the currents.
She may not be much to look, and you probably wouldn't want to smell her, but the Ryan Atlantic II, like all Clearwater Vessels, is fitted with state of the art navigation and mapping tools.
With enough room to accomodate our crew she's going to make a fine diving platform for us over the next few days.
Posted by administrator at 02:03 AM | Comments (1)
July 05, 2004
Pre-Production Meeting
John Davis, John Rosborough, Marc Pike, Mike Fletcher, Warren Fletcher, Jim Delgado, Darren Moss, Regan Braund, Paul Grantham met this morning in the Eco-Nova boardroom (along with line producer Susan MacDonald, and yours truly) to go over plans for the next dive. After the meeting it's time to pack up and hit the road.
Learn a little bit more about what's involved in planning the search for U-215, as hastily jotted down by your blogger.
(Mike Fletcher is leading the meeting and the mission.)
This is a search and find mission. Only six Type VII D's were ever built, and this is the last one to be found. Excited to launch shipwreckcentral.com with this dive.
To positively identify U-215, look for the five mine laying tubes behind the coning tower. The wreck lays on the Canadian side of the Hague line, the maritime border between US and Canada.
If found and identified, we'll have to contact the German government, as the site would be a war grave, and it must be treated with dignity and respect. 48 souls are entombed inside. (The rules of sea state that a war grave remains the sovereign territory of the vessels country of origin.)
"We went out to find the Liberty ship Alexander Macomb, but ended up finding what may well be the U-215. At this point we really don't know for sure, and that's the point of this mission."
Diving is difficult because of unpredictable currents. Vectors on the charts show tides going in all directions at speed of 5 knots, which makes the dive very difficult and problematic. The target sits in a bit of a depression at about 270 feet under water. Submarine is acting like a snow fence in the middle of a football field, with sand banks around it formed from tide.
"The Ryan Atlantic II" is a 140 foot boat from Clearwater Seafoods. It's a big iron ship to dive from. Percey Cox is captain of the vessel, a single screw old style dragger converted for deep water lobstering.
The ROV is on a 45 meter tether from a clump weight that we'll drop straight down from the boat. Think of it like a dog on a leash. The trick is to put the clump weight above the target to eliminate any chance of snagging. It has a colour front camera with tilt and zoom, and also a rear facing camera. Jim will direct ROV with Regan Braund from Canada Customs operating.
Richie Kohler will be meeting us in Shelbourne and diving as well. Paul will meet them at the decompression point with extra gas, (+sandwiches, magazines and a coffee?). Need to make two decompression stops on the way up. It's technical diving using a mixed gas of Oxygen, Nitrogen and Helium. We'll use two mixes - 80% oxygen and 36% oxygen. (The bottom gas mix is so thick it couldn't be breathed on surface.)
Jim Delgado points out that if it is the U-215, 24 SMA Mines are fused but not armed in the mine laying tubes. Explosives become unstable over time so extra care must be taken. jim also reminds us that if it is the U-215 that we'll be on top of a war grave, a very sobering thought.
Posted by administrator at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2004
Homeland Security - circa 1942
Before July of 1942 the naval war in the Atlantic was not going in the Allies favour. German U-boats were sinking Allied ships at a rate that meant certain victory, and they were launching 15 new type VII C boats every month. Things were not looking good. Ships were going down at an alarming rate all up and down the eastern seaboard.
The public was generally unaware of the slaughter taking place off of their shores. It was far enough away from home that it was possible to think of the news as "something that wasn't happening here". The U.S. Navy spent much of the early part of the war chasing down erroneus sub sightings, reported by enthusiastic citizens doing their best to help, but relaying innacurate information and sightings. This was fueled in part by the wartime propoganda and public service notices warning of Jerry's dangerous presence in our midsts.
So while hysteria was high, the threat lay further offshore, not on the front doorstep. But Hitler had plans to change that.
The U-215 was a class VII D vessel, 6 were built for the sole purpose of being specialty mine layers. German U-boats had been able to penetrate American harbours, but the type VII D sub was specially built, one of only six made, to lay powerful mines. U-215 was sent across the Atlantic on a top-secret mission, a secret only learned of after the war had ended. On the fateful day of July 3, 1942 U-215 was on its way to lay mines in Boston Harbour, in the heartland of the industrial east. Should U-215 have completed its mission the U.S. public would have woken to the scene of ships blowing up inside their ports. The psychological impact on the population and the war effort could have been disasterous. But the U-215 never completed its first mission.
On the early morning of July 3, 1942, Kptlt. Fritz Hoeckner, Captain of the U-215 detected the telltale sounds of a convoy heading to Halifax. A large Liberty ship straggled the pack, and only one converted fishing trawler, Le Tiger, was hanging back trying to offer it protection. He decided to attack with a torpedo. "Loose Lips" did not sink the Alexander Macomb and its cargo of Sherman tanks, aircraft and industrial wire, - Kptlt. Fritz Hoeckner did.
David M. Kennedy wrote a wonderful piece in the Atlantic Monthly about the Victory at Sea. The Allies would eventually go on to win the war and inflict heavy losses to the U-boat fleet, and July 1942 was near the start of the turning point.
Imagine how different the war could have been had U-215 not decided to hunt the seemingly easy prey of the Alexander Macomb out in the open sea, and had instead carried on her mission to Boston, bringing the war to the heart of America.
Posted by administrator at 01:00 AM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2004
Alexander Macomb and U-215 Anniversary Today
July 3, 1942. It was 62 years ago today that the Alexander Macomb and the U-215 went down. The "Harry Tate's Navy" website has an account of the day, as told to the son of a crewman on HMT Le Tiger, the ship credited with the U-215 kill.
HMT Le Tiger
"While in convoy BA-2 from New York to Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 3rd July 1942, Liberty ship ss Alexander Macomb was attacked and sunk by U-215. Two escorts rescued the survivors. HMCS Regina recovered 25 men and HMT. Le Tiger found 31. It was while she was carrying out this mercy mission that the ASDIC operator detected positive responses from a submerged U-Boat and Le Tiger went to action stations sinking U-215, her commander K.K. Hoeckner and his crew of 47." - from Harry Tate's Navy
Also, Jimmy Brown wrote the following history of Le Tiger for the Lowestoft Journal, which he has allowed us reproduce here below.
CHAPTER ELEVEN (10LT)
HMS LE TIGER
But what happened to our trusty ship, HMS Le Tiger (correct spelling), after we left her in the hands of Belfast’s dockyard mateys in October 1945?
To begin at the beginning, Le Tiger was built by Cochrane of Selby in 1937 with a gross tonnage of 516 tons, slightly bigger than many of the new ships arriving in Grimsby in that year. Her first owner was Sir Alec Black of the Earl Steam Fishing Company, who liked to name his ships after famous racehorses and comic book characters. This might explain her unusual name. She reached an unprecedented speed of 14 knots on her trials and on her maiden voyage to the White Sea she fetched home a catch of 3,400 boxes of fish, 1,200 of them haddock. Trawlers changed owners frequently in those days, possibly because of some quirk in the tax laws of the time, and Le Tiger is shown as being owned by the Hellyer Steam Fishing company in August, 1938, but back with Sir Alec Black in December of the same year. She retained her original name and port number of GY 398 throughout these moves. She remained with Sir Alec Black until January 1940, when he sold her to the Admiralty.
With the pennant number of FY 243, HMS Le Tiger became an anti-submarine trawler employed on convoy escort duties in the Western Approaches to the UK until early 1942 when she sailed for America as one of 24 such ships loaned to the United State Navy to help combat the German U-boat menace off the American East Coast.
Le Tiger had her moment of glory on July 3rd 1942 when she sank U 215 while escorting Convoy BA-2 from New York to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Early in 1943 she sailed for Durban in South Africa and for the rest of the war she was employed escorting convoys round the Cape of Good Hope and onwards to Madagascar and Mombassa. I joined her at Durban in March 1945.
We sailed her home at the war’s end and after refitting in Belfast she finally returned to her homeport of Grimsby on Monday, July 29th, 1946 with a new fishing number, GY 312. Sir Alec Black had died in June 1942, and Le Tiger was now owned by Hellyer Brothers of Hull, although she continued to fish from Grimsby.
She passed to the Loyal Steam Fishing Company in November 1946, after a reminder of her glory days on Monday 9th September 1946 when her trawl exploded either a mine or a torpedo on the seabed. Her gear was completely destroyed by the explosion but there was no damage to the ship or her crew.
She kept her original name until July 1947, when she was renamed Regal. She left Grimsby for good when she passed to Hull owners in September 1948. These new owners changed her name yet again to Othello and gave her a new fishing number, H 581.
Le Tiger/Regal/Othello worked steadily from then on till she was sent to be broken up at Gwent in 1964. Her final claim to fame is that when she was scrapped she was the last coal-burning trawler to have sailed from the port of Hull.
Posted by administrator at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2004
First Dive Debriefing
Back in the warmth and safety of the Sea Hunters editing suite, Mike Fletcher got a chance to watch the footage they returned with, and reflect a bit.
To my unpracticed eye there is almost nothing in the video that can confirm that it's a wreck, never mind a U-boat, but Mike Fletcher's practiced eye sees something. We just don't know what it is yet.
I was surprised to hear Mike mention that it was possibly the worst diving conditions he had ever encountered, this is a man who has been diving for years all over the world, and in all sorts of conditions. What makes it a tough site is the strength of the currents and the unpredictability of the direction they are flowing in.
It's also deep, and with so many fishing nets snagged on top of the unidentified target it means that they can't dive with a helmet and full dive suit, since it's so much easier to get snagged up while wearing one, and the consequences of that are unthinkable. That means that they have to dive with scuba gear, with faces exposed to the bone chilling water.
Hearing of the conditions that they face when they search for lost wrecks like this makes me realize just how dangerous the job is, and fills me with respect and admiration for those who take it on.
Posted by administrator at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)
Ground Truth Video!
Mike and Warren Fletcher have returned to the surface and are optimistic that we have an interesting target, worthy of further examination on a future dive.
270 feet below the cold and turbulent Atlantic they saw and touched an object that they are certain is a sunken vessel. It was not possible to make a positive ID, that will have to come later, but taking the size and shape of the target, as well as what they witnessed with their eyes, they are fairly certain that we have found a submarine.
The question now is which one?
Could this video footage be the first ever of the long lost U-Boat U-215? The final resting place of 48 souls.
Posted by administrator at 02:04 AM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2004
Looking back at the U-21
While we wait for Mike and Warren to resurface, let's digress a bit.
It's a big event when a new U-boat is found. If it was easy to find and get to, it was discovered ages ago.
Back in 2002 the Sea Hunters team discovered the U-21 in the North Sea. This time, Clive Cussler had done the leg work in locating the area where the sub might be found. The U-21 entered the history books when her captain, Otto Hersing, torpedoed and sank the British light cruiser HMS Pathfinder on September 5th 1914, the first submarine casualty of World War I and it was the second time in maritime history a vessel had been sunk by a submarine.
To this day, if you mention the U-21 to Mike Fletcher, his face burns with memories of Jellyfish stings. Watch this scene with Mike, as he dives down to discover the wreck of the most feared U-Boat of early submarine warfare.
Posted by administrator at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
A Promising Target?
After 36 hours of sidescanning near the Hague line on George's Bank, the Sea Hunters team has identified an extremely promising target. They were led to explore this target based on the following promising multi-beam bathymetrics "backscatter" image. Does that look like a sub to you? Click the image for a larger view.
As of this writing Mike and Warren Fletcher are now preparing to dive in two-hundred and seventy feet of cold Atlantic water to perform a ground-truth. The depth reads from 260 to 270 feet and the currents are strong and unpredictable. There will only be enough time and gas for a drop down to the bottom, a quick look around, and then right back up.
Posted by administrator at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2004
The Sea Hunters Depart on the Arvor
At 0700 this morning the Sea Hunters boarded the vessel "Arvor" out of Gloucester Mass., and headed out to sea. The Captain/owner of our initial search vessel "Arvor" is Capt. Mark Sheldon. Here is Sea Hunter sidescan specialist Vince Capone at her helm.
This initial mission's goals are to sidescan 12 targets selected by Sea Hunter producer John Davis. Here is how John explained how he identified these targets, in his own words.
"There were two sources used to develop targets for the U-215 search."
"The first was the multi-beam bathymetrics created by the East Coast Canadian Scallop sector. They have a large fishery on George's Bank and they spent millions of dollars searching and recording the bottom to look for new scallop beds. I got permission to search their Multibeam "Backscatter" data to look for anomalies that could represent shipwrecks."
"The Second information source was "Hook ups" That had been recorded over the years by the Yellow Tail Flounder fleet out of S. West Nova Scotia."
"This combined information provided 12 potential targets."
The Sea Hunters have their work cut out for them. Two noteworthy ships lie in the area they'll be sidescanning, the long lost "U-215" and the liberty ship "Macomb". The final stories of the two ships are intertwined. The Macomb was been sunk by U-215's torpedo, and the U-215 failed to escape the depth charges dropped from the convoy escort vessle "Le Tiger'. The hunter became the hunted.
Is this the final resting place of the U-215 and the Alexander Macomb? Are they out there?
Posted by administrator at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2004
The Search Begins for U-215 and Alexander Macomb
In July of 1942 the German U-Boat 215, Commanded by Kptlt. Fritz Hoeckner, was on a secret mission to North America. U-215 was a very rare class of u-boat, a type VIID.
In total there were only six of this type of vessel built. The uniqueness of this design was in the addition of a thirty-two ft. compartment between the control room and the galley that housed five vertical mine tubes. Each tube held five SMA (magnetic influence) mines. The addition of these mine tubes allowed the U-Boat Command to assign dual purpose missions to these boats, that of mining enemy harbors and anchorages and the traditional attack role of torpedoing enemy shipping. Kptlt. Hoeckner’s secret mission was to mine the entrance of Boston Harbor and create havoc as convoys started their long journey across the Atlantic. He would never accomplish his task. The torpedo he sent into the hull of the Liberty Ship USS “Alexander Macomb” would seal his fate and the fate of his crew long before he reached his destination.
The “Alexander Macomb” was built in Baltimore Maryland. She was launched on May 6th. 1942. On July 3rd. 1942 she was lagging behind her convoy in dense fog. She was 6 miles back when U-215 fired her torpedoes. 30 men of her 60-man crew were killed or wounded in the blast. She sank minutes after the secondary explosions in her cargo hold opened her hull to the waters of the cold North Atlantic.
Minutes after the torpedoes hit the “Macomb” the convoy escort vessel “Le Tiger” took up the chase for the U-boat. Using ASDEC (a primitive form of sonar) they located the sub as she ran for deeper water. Dropping depth charges at close intervals the “Le Tiger” first slowed her target then, the pings from the ASDEC indicated that the target had come to a complete stop on the bottom. Oil and debris on the surface indicated a kill. The “Le Tiger” then went to the Aid of the “Macon” Survivors.
Using targets provided by fishermen and multi-beam charting done by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography the “Sea Hunters” will search for and dive these wrecks, confirming the kill of the U-215, and telling the story of the loss of the “Macomb” and the Nazi plans to mine Boston Harbor.
Posted by administrator at 08:02 AM | Comments (0)
