Nice pictures,she is an early Biber..is she there on permanent open display or do they take her inside in the winter season?,if not she will rot away in 10 years judging by her current state..
There was a Seehund found on the beach at Egmond(Netherlands) in 2002,it was just under the sand so they dug it up,the greatest thing is that the Captain Hans Wachsmuth survived the war and was interviewed about what happened.
He was welcomed by a British warship formation outside the shoreline.He dove to the bottom of the Northsea(at 30meters) and the British warships trew depth charges at him for 1,5 days..then suddenly the ships moved away but he thought he would be tricked,he waited for half an hour then he trimmed his boat to let her rise a bit and was again attacked by a massive depth charge attack so close by that everything fell from the racks,food and instruments..it went on and on and then suddenly the ships dissappeared..he sailed on for 1,5 days and suddenly he saw a mass of stone parralel to the Dutch coastline.They were deadly exhausted and tried to evade it but it was too late and the boat stranded near Egmond.
The torpedoes were still there,they were diffused in 2002.The boat itself is just a piece of rust but there are plans to restore her.
To give you an idea of their 'succes',they send out 18 boats on a particular mission,2returned.On another 'zehrsturung' mission they send out 10,none returned.They were stationed in Germany and Holland(IJmuiden).
Funny thing is 1000's of people ran over her anually on their way to the water to take a traditional new-years swim!
You can find the documentary here,its in Dutch and German but it has some great film material including the finding place and an interview with Hans Wachsmuth and alot of historical material..
http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/programm...ingen/5681778/
To me this is one of the most interesting and personal documentaries about midget submarines and their specific operations.The Seehund class suffered horrific losses,mainly to poor training and human error as well as other accidents and design flaws.Hans Wachsmuth claims that if you did everything right inside parameters there was little that could go wrong.
There is also a wiki about the type:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seehund
There is also one on display at the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum in Quincy, Massachusetts
http://www.hnsa.org/ships/seehund.htm