U-boats to the black Sea

First of all, I thought about posting this to the propper Silent Hunter Forums first, but then saw they lack a general discussion topic to put the pictures. If there is a better place to post these, my apologies and please feel free to move the thread.

However, "Der Spiegel" brought a nice article about the Operation around the transportation of several U-boats from the german coasts to the black sea, covering a distance of 2500 km all together. The boats could not travel by sea because the Bosporus was blocked by neutral Turkey, a condition favored by the germans because it kept the russians in the black sea and kept the british out.

Highly interesting pics imho




Here the boats are "floated up". This boat and the one behind were the first going from Kiel harbor down to the black sea.


The heavy transports with the U-Boats reached a maximum speed of around 8km/h.




The boats were transported both on road and by rivers. Here one of the boat is unloaded into the Danube




Some boats were tugged, others were driven on their own


Emblem of U-18, showing a Torpedo shattering a soviet red star. The boat sankt itself in 1944 when the soviets overran the romanian sea ports.


U-19 in Konstanza (english name?)


Another boat that sank itself near the turkish coast. The crew was interned there for the rest of the war.

U-24's last Kaleun, Rudolf Arendt, back in Turkey near the place the boats were sunk.


Hope you like!


The article can be found here:
http://einestages.spiegel.de/externa...#featuredEntry

[Dowly]

Thanks for posting! Never seen those pics before!

[Torplexed]

Yes...very interesting pictures. I never realized they covered the subs with a giant tarp for transport, but I can see why with prying spies everywhere.

[nikimcbee]

That is one of my favorite theaters of operation

[Onkel Neal]

Very cool, Bewolf.

I will move this to the Sub & Naval Discussions: News, Books, Films, and Models forum, and leave a redirect here.

salute!
Neal

[Hitman]

Yes nice pics, I have them and also a few very interesting more -I never saw them elsewhere- in this book I brought from my trip to Austria some years ago: http://www.amazon.de/Deutsche-U-Boot.../dp/3813207617

I can only recommend the book, it's well written (Albeit only in german as far as I know) covers a unusual and poorly know stuff, and ships many interesting and never before published pictures

Originally Posted by Hitman

Yes nice pics, I have them and also a few very interesting more -I never saw them elsewhere- in this book I brought from my trip to Austria some years ago: http://www.amazon.de/Deutsche-U-Boot.../dp/3813207617

I can only recommend the book, it's well written (Albeit only in german as far as I know) covers a unusual and poorly know stuff, and ships many interesting and never before published pictures

Thanks for the tip, Hitman, I will keep that in mind for the next shopping spree!

And good, appears these pics were indeed a novelty here