Fate of U - 534

[Grom]

This is horrible, crazy , barbarian

http://www.merseyferries.co.uk/u534/index.aspx

[Ubåtskapten]

Cutting it up in parts... Noo :damn::damn:
Stupidly dumb thing to do.

I would rather have liked to see that they restored like the Wilhelm Bauer U-2540 in ONE piece, but that was evidently not to happen. :cry:

[Grom]

Go ahead and send them e-mail.

[Chock]

Although it is a shame that the boat has been cut up, and it does mean you can no longer walk from stem to stern inside her, I think you have to understand what a very poor state U-534 was in. I was fortunate enough to go on a tour of U-534 a few years ago when it was with the Birkenhead Historic Warships Collection, and very cool it was too, but it was apparent from the tour that structurally, this was a state of affairs which could not continue indefinitely, and it would have been massively expensive to try and restore the thing in one piece.

Although on photographs you may have seen, U-534 looked reasonably sound, the truth is that the conning tower was almost completely gone and much of what you see was a replacement fabication, the guns had disintegrated and the decking was almost all gone, revealing the machinery and workings normally covered by the deck plates, something which was only apparent when stood on what was left of her decks. To enter, you had to go through a torpedo loading hatch and although she was in pretty good shape inside, with lots to see, the interior had spent many years - before she was raised - flooded up to about halfway, thus, much of the flooring was gone and the superstructure below deck level was corroding away to dust, and this was all supported by a hull which was also on its way out, so keeping her in one piece without literally millions of pounds worth of remedial work was simply not an option, and probably the only way to stop the rot was to cut her open in order to stem the decay.

:D Chock

[Grom]

Although it is a shame that the boat has been cut up, and it does mean you can no longer walk from stem to stern inside her, I think you have to understand what a very poor state U-534 was in. I was fortunate enough to go on a tour of U-534 a few years ago when it was with the Birkenhead Historic Warships Collection, and very cool it was too, but it was apparent from the tour that structurally, this was a state of affairs which could not continue indefinitely, and it would have been massively expensive to try and restore the thing in one piece

And that why i did show You this. I have visited U -534 in Birkenhead Historic Warships on 5th of may 2005. It was unforgettable tour. The state as You described was same since sub was raised from sea bed, and it was will of her owner who have payed. The conning tower was made new, as submarine recieved almost direct hit by depth charge, and original tower was half destroyed. But some time ago musuem of Historic Wasrhips had to face closure. Why ? OMG, i cant believe it even now. The area was needed for parking places for nearby warehouses. This is good enough for dumb ignorant close down museum and cut one of 3 submarines on the world just because space for parkings is needed and then they have no idea what to with this dumb german sub. Then someone got better idea. Lets place her near to ferry termnal, but wee will have to pay fortune for logistic, unless we gonna cut her into three pieces.

[lesrae]

I'm near Birkenhead overnight tonight, for a meeting with Cammell Laird tomorrow morning. As the meeting starts late I'll go along and see what's happening to the boat, I can't work out from the net if she's broken up yet or not.

[Ducimus]

Considering it used to be laying on the seafloor where you couldnt see it at all, i dont see what the big deal is. Its not a intact and "working" boat like u505, its a salvaged wreck. That is a BIG difference.

From a historical standpoint, WW2 submarines that were in working order and had FAR greater historical significance then U534, have met their end at the scrappers torch. So i dont see what the big deal is over a salvgaed, rust deteriorted, wreck; and besides, her sister sub (u505), is very well intact, and very well preserved in a climate controlled undeground concrete shelter. The legacy of the type 9c uboat is well preserved.

[AVGWarhawk]

It really could be worse, like cutting her up to make frying pans. This is probably the best answer in keeping her around. She is really beyond formal restoration.

[Takao]

She's already been cut up. Found these photos on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/escapecrate/sets/72157604087237396/

IIRC, I read an article recently about U-534's "surgery" and it mentioned that she can just as easily be welded back together again.

It's good that they "saved" the boat, but I think it is horrible what's to become of her. It looks like some child's broken toy that has been discarded. The least the could have done was was line the sections up.

[lesrae]

Thanks Takao, the new location is only a short distance up the road so I'll go there.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=u534&sll=54.162434,-3.647461&sspn=9.386466,23.071289&ie=UTF8&ll=53.394462,-3.009138&spn=0.009328,0.022531&t=k&z=16

[lesrae]

So I visited this morning, braving the wind, rain and frezing cold :D

The site's still under construction so I only got to view about 1/3 of the boat, you can get really close to the stern and port side, up to about the back end of the fin.

I took some photos and have stuck them on a page, in case anyone wants a look. They're about 3000 x 2000 res and the whole page is about 11Mb: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/lesrae/u534/index.htm (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/lesrae/u534/index.htm)

I haven't had a chance to look too closely at the detail yet, but one thing I noticed was the vertical pipe at the fwd end of the mid section that was cut in half when they cut the boat up - it just struck me as a weird thing to see.

I'll definitely visit again (I'll be back up there on and off for the rest of the year while one of the ships I'm working on is in refit) so It'll be interesting to see what else they do with the site and I'll hopefully get some better quality pics as we're getting a new camera next month.

[AVGWarhawk]

She's already been cut up. Found these photos on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/escapecrate/sets/72157604087237396/

IIRC, I read an article recently about U-534's "surgery" and it mentioned that she can just as easily be welded back together again.

It's good that they "saved" the boat, but I think it is horrible what's to become of her. It looks like some child's broken toy that has been discarded. The least the could have done was was line the sections up.

It is quite amazing to see the cross sections like this between the bulkheads.