HMS Ark Royal @ Discovery channel

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by danasan

When I read here about HMS Ark Royal, I thought about HMS Ark Royal (91).

I than remembered that I knew Mr. G. Zierk, who served on U 81 when the AR was torpedoed at Gibraltar. He lived not so far away from Flensburg at the Gelting Bay. He told me about it from first hand experience.

Well, nothing else than what we can read about the sinking. Except maybe, that they almost stranded on the North African coast, because they had turned of their machines while they were searched by the DDs. The tides made them drifting towards the coast. It took hours to escape.

He was later transferred to U 370, which he helped to scuttle in May 1945 in the Gelting Bay. It can be said that he scuttled U 370 in front of the door of his house. After picking personal equipment and rifles, he and his comrades went to his house to wait for the end and what would happen next. He passed away a couple of years ago as a well known engineer. He left a bunch of U boat photos, which his widow still keeps. I arranged to get a few ones. Like this:

As a side note: his Captain on U 81, the later Admiral Friedrich Guggenberger, went for a walk, while being in hospital, into a near forest and never came back. That was in 1988. His body was not found until 1990. Strange thing IMHO

That's very interesting