Originally Posted by StarLion45 :o OOOOOOOOh , that looks coold:lol: http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7...nnshot1ih5.jpg

In two years, the fleet sank dozens of ships and lost three of their number to enemy action. But in August 1944, Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany, leaving the three remaining vessels stranded.

With no base and unable to sail home - the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to them because of Turkish neutrality - their captains were ordered to scuttle the boats before rowing ashore and trying to make their way back to Germany. However, all three crews were caught and interned by the Turks.

Now the submarines' hulls have been discovered by a team led by Selçuk Kolay, a Turkish marine engineer, who will present his findings to a shipwreck conference in Plymouth this week.

Mr Kolay established the boats' positions through research in German archives, interviews with surviving sailors and by sonar studies of the seabed.

He has already completed successful dives to the wreckage of one vessel, U-20, two miles offshore in about 80ft of water. He believes he has discovered another, U-23, at twice that depth, three miles from the town of Agva, but bad weather forced him to suspend diving until the spring.

He thinks he is also close to pinpointing the third boat, U-19, thought to lie more than 1,000ft down, three miles from the Turkish city of Zonguldak.

It's one of the least well known stories of the war but one of the most interesting," said Mr Kolay.

"It is a quite incredible story. To get to the Black Sea these boats had to be taken across the land, and once they got there they had no way out."


All three U-boats had been operating against British shipping in the North Sea. U-23 gained notoriety for scoring one of Germany's earliest successes, sinking a British ship off the Shetland Islands days after war began. It was later commanded by Otto Kretschmer, known as "Silent Otto", the most successful U-boat ace.

In 1941, Germany invaded Russia and decided it needed a presence in the Black Sea to harass Soviet shipping there. Unable to use the Bosporus, the only shipping route into the Black Sea, the boats were dismantled at Kiel and taken by canal to the River Elbe, and upstream to Dresden.

Here, they were partly dismantled and taken by lorry to Ingolstadt, on the Danube, and then ferried downstream to the Black Sea and Constanta, where they were re-assembled.

When Romania switched sides the crews were ordered to scuttle out of sight of the Turks so the submarines' locations would remain a mystery. Mr Kolay was helped by a map drawn by Rudolf Arendt, 85, the former captain of the U-23, showing where his crew came ashore.

Mike Williams, secretary of the Nautical Archaeology Society, said: "This is a significant find because these U-boats were all scuttled, so they should be intact, like a sealed tube. They are unique survivors of the war."





Six submarines were taken almost 2,000 miles across Nazi-occupied Europe, by road and river, from Germany’s Baltic port at Kiel to Constanta, on Romania’s Black Sea coast

The epic odyssey, which lasted several months, saw them taken from their base at Kiel, by canal to the river Elbe, and upstream to Dresden

From here, they were partly dismantled and loaded onto lorries for a cross country trip to Ingolstadt, on the Danube, and then downstream to the Black Sea, where they were rebuilt

In a two year campaign, the fleet attacked more than 50 enemy vessels, sinking 46,500 tonnes of shipping

Otto Kretschmer, known as “Silent Otto”, commanded U-23, and became the most successful U-boat ace of the war

But, in August 1944, the remaining three vessels suddenly found themselves stranded in the Black Sea after Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany

Without a base to return to and unable to sail home, their captains were ordered to sink their U-boats at secret locations along the Turkish coast

Now, more than 60 years on, explorers have located the final resting place of a flotilla of three submarines, dubbed “Hitler’s lost fleet”

They have now been discovered by a team led by Turkish marine engineer, Selçuk Kolay, who established the positions of the ships through research in German naval archives, interviews with surviving members of the fleet, and by sonar studies of the seabed

Mr Kolay was also helped by a map drawn by Rudolf Arendt, who, in 1944 was the 21-year-old captain of U-23

He has already completed successful dives onto the wreckage of one of the vessels, U-20, and believes he has discovered the position of another, U-23

Originally Posted by mx could someone post few more pictures of a type XXI? i'm planning to start building revell's 1/144 model by the end of this month and i'm in need of some reference pictures :arrgh!: since now i've collected about 20 or 30 of those and will post them here later, but maybe you've got some i havent seen yet :yep: