Upon further reading on the subject the bow planes are at full dive but the stern planes are at full surface! One guy speculated that maybe the men in the rear of the boat were trying to get her up but that the weight of the possibly waterlogged front just pulled them down.
Allot of speculation at this point. It may in fact be fully air tight. They don't know, In the research I've found it say's that it looks as if the pressure hull was not breached to the divers visual inspection but its difficult to be certain.
But one can be certain that the rear of the boat is sealed. All the hatches are closed so no escape attempt was tried. And one can assume that anybody that was not in the effected compartment survived the initial attack. I don't even want to imagine what those minutes or hours were like for these young men.
Did they choose to stay as so to not get captured? Did they think they were too deep to try an escape? More questions than answer's on this one.
I wonder if it were possible with today's technology to see if all compartments are in fact water tight or if some are flooded. That would help in understanding this mystery.
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