- It's a longstanding mystery: How could
the German U-boat number 869 go down in deep water off the coast of New
Jersey when German archives recorded it sinking off the coast of Gibralter?
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- Three amateur scuba divers think they've
finally solved the mystery that stems from 1945, when the submarine was
sent on its first patrol from Germany to conduct military operations in
the New York approaches, according to an article in the New Jersey Star-Ledger.
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- The divers, John Chatterton, John Yurga
and Richard Kohler, have documented their findings in a report, which they've
sent to the U.S. Naval Historical Center in Washington, Germany's U-boat
Archives, and the International Submarine Document Center.
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- Chatterton and his team theorize that
the U-boat never received instructions to abort its mission to the United
States and go to the coast of Africa. Instead, the sub made its way to
the coast of New Jersey. There, the U-boat mistakenly blew itself up as
"the result of a circular run acoustic torpedo that the U-boat fired
upon a target that most likely never realized that it was being attacked.
The torpedo, unable to locate the intended target, eventually traveled
back around striking the U-869," Chatterton tells the newspaper.
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- The boat was first spotted in 260 feet
of water in the Atlantic Ocean 60 miles off the coast of Point Pleasant,
N.J., by a fisherman, and first explored by Chatterton in 1991. Its identity
was unknown for so long because its identifying tags were made of corrosive
metal that had lost its engraving after almost 50 years in salt water.
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- Eventually, Chatterton heard about another
diver who found identifying tags on another U-boat wreck in the motor room.
In U-869's motor room, Chatterton found what he was looking for.
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- "The tags were attached to wooden
boxes of spare parts to make sure they were returned to the proper U-boat
after they were calibrated in the workshop," Chatterton says.
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- The remains of many of her 56-man crew
were still aboard. Artifacts recovered from the shattered submarine --
including crockery marked with the eagle and Nazi swastika -- removed all
doubt of its nationality.
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- The divers took pains not to disturb
areas known to contain skeletal remains of her crew. "We didn't want
to ID the wreck at a cost to surviving family members," says Chatterton.
"Visiting a wreck is like going to a cemetery. It's okay to pay your
respects, but not to desecrate."
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- "I can't see a horde of divers descending
on it," he adds. "The depth will protect it. Penetrating a wreck
that deep is no easy task."
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