>German submarine Type VIIC >Ordered on May 2nd 1945 to sail from Norway and enter the port of Southampton and sink any shipping there >An extremely dangerous mission for a Type VIIC to do alone >The war was almost lost >Submarine broke all official contact on May 5th 1945, the day of Germany's surrender by Karl Dönitz >According to the captain, the sub spent 66-days submerged (a record), and appeared in the coast of Argentina on July 14th 1945 to surrender to Allied authorities there >US Navy briefed the captain and the crews >Answers between the captain's story and the crew contradicted each other >No explanation on why their trip took so long >Witnesses claim having seen them on Southern Argentina unloading cargo and officers almost a month before >The personal identifications of the crew were missing, all uniforms had their name tags removed
Theories claim the mission was either: >unload Nazi gold and other loot off the coast of Southern Argentina for post-war use >unload passengers which were major officers of the Reich (some claim even Hitler and Eva Braun) >Sail to Antarctica to unload supplies or people on the Nazi territory of New Swabia >Deliver Germany's last uranium reserves to Japan >Simply surrender in Argentina because it had a large German population and better living conditions than Europe
if I had a chance to either live in Argentina or ruined Germany under Allied, or god forbid, soviet occupation, I'd pick former everytime.
Jordan Perry
I would say they simply wanted to surrender in a safe place, but their trip took really too much time (less than 6 km/h for the U-977).
Josiah Hughes
Imagine how much it would suck to get killed during the final weeks of a war. I can easily imagine that the captain and crew simply decided to go chill in neutral territory until peace was declared instead of risking their lives for a soon-to-be-extinct regime.
Jayden Cooper
Cruising for 66 days underwater is a pretty good way to get yourself killed though, risking getting the shit depth charged out of you and not able to respond to hails
Colton Williams
I think that German submarines had snorkels by this point in time. It was an innovation that was introduced late in the war.
Andrew Hall
i doubt Allies were on their guard in May 1945 since Germany was days from defeat and convoy attacks stopped a while ago
Adam Watson
That's not the issue, it's why I didn't bring up everyone dying from no oxygen, I wonder how many times they ruptured their ear drums from the vacuum effect over a 66 day cruise?
Gavin Morgan
So why not going straight to Argentina? Why did it take so long?
Caleb Myers
You can only go 6 knots with a schnorkel deployed, or else it gets torn off
David Rivera
I don't think you're supposed to leave it up continuously. You run submerged for a bit, then when you start to get low on air, you slow down, put up the snorkel and travel slow for a while. Then when you're finished recharging, you retract the snorkel, descend to a lower depth, and then speed up for another submerged run.
Adrian Reyes
Submerged it's only going around 8 knots at flank speed
Oliver Reed
But there was no reason to be submerged since there was more or less no threat, that's the problem, it doesn't make sense. Besides, 6 knots is way faster than what they did, even if we assume that they did the entire trip submerged...
Liam Morris
They wanted to go to Argentina man, that's it, they probably assumed they wouldn't be interned and could just live there until the whole Germany being war ravaged thing blew over. Getting intercepted on the way by American or British warships would mean definite repatriation
Ryan Anderson
>Getting intercepted on the way by American or British warships would mean definite repatriation So that's why they spent months roaming in the atlantic when they could have done it in few days?
>North Sea to Argentina >12,779 kms >at 8 knots max They were only around 20 days late, which you put down to can't navigate properly without surfacing
Jonathan Edwards
8 knots is about 3 times faster than what they did, and 8 knots is the submerged speed...
Aaron Wood
14.83 kms to cover 12,779 kms (Norway to Argentina) is about 35 days user, 44 if we take snorkel speed as the standard, still dosen't account for the extra days
Bentley Turner
They spent 99 days. It's a BIT long.
Joseph Wright
Maybe the guy who thought they came from Monsun Force was right all along
Landon Williams
>So, what was the mission of these submarines? Why do you think we never found Die Glocke?
Ethan Anderson
Because it was made up by a Polish "historian" with absolutely no sources besides a claimed journal that has never ever been produced to the general public?
Luke Collins
to find the antarctic aliens
Aaron Young
>more or less no threat >allied ASW in 45 AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Brody Thomas
>It's just some hedgeho- SH3 really does stop being fun in 1944
Ryan Foster
>not being so good at the game that you can still fuck destroyers like nobody's business smdh senpai
Joshua Sanders
It's more the tedium of doing so >Ooh a destroyer is chasing me, better use those nearly useless aft tubes I never use otherwise I can't move torps from the front to either
Mason Garcia
>66 days submerged How horrifying
Juan Lewis
>after the end of the war AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Especially when you know that it takes 44 days to make it to Argentina from Norway in submersion, and when the 66 days passage is supposed to be from Norway to Cape Verde, less than half the distance, the rest of the trip has been made in surface. They really took their time, while the only reason for a submarine to go slow or stop is when it's in fighting situation near the enemy... but they saw only one plane and one boat. Even the allies find this journey suspicious.
Aaron Hall
Martin Bormann was actually on the submarine
Michael Phillips
I decided to lurk more related to that issue after watching that, found this
U-168 is not believed to have made any defence in the action, thus the Germans were sunk likely without realizing they were under attack until the torpedoes hit. The Kriegsmarine was convinced that the sinking of U-168 was the result of "loose talk" due to the crew who brought their Indonesian girlfriends aboard for a goodbye party.
Brayden Moore
What's scary is that these fuckers only detonated on contact and the detonation triggered the rest of the hogs to explode you basically have 0 chance of surviving that
